Keith Music Featured in Video Game…

I’ve been hired to work on the music and sound effects for an indie game called Labyrinthica: The Quest of Lima. Here’s a sample of a level. Cool! You can play a demo of the game at www.pompipompi.net.

Freakin’ Blue Shield, $*#%! health insurance!

Switched to Blue Shield after the hell known as Anthem/Blue Cross. It’s more affordable, better benefits, but do my problems end…????

HELL NO!

I’ve had a moderately crappy year as far as health goes, multiple colds, death in the family, assorted other life drainers. But all things considered I’ll concede the glass is half full right now. Anyway, went to my plan doctor a few times, routine office visits that cost me $30 copay. I get the claims from Blue Shield in the mail.

First visit billed $117, routine office, amount allowed = $65.18, Keith pays $30.

Second visit billed $117, routine office, amount allowed = $65.18, Keith pays $65.18.

Two virtually identical visits…so why am I paying $35.18 more for the second one?

I call Blue Shield, they tell me to talk to my doc about what medical codes were used in processing the visit. I call my doc, the phone lady tells me to call billing. I call billing, phone tag, then she tells me to call my insurance because both were billed as office visits.

I call Blue Shield again, the woman tells me to call the doctor about the medical codes. Through gritted teeth I tell her I called the doctor and they told me to call BLUE SHIELD. She says it’s illegal for her to tell me what medical codes were for these visits, so no discussion until I get those codes.

I call the doc back the next day…codes were mostly the same for both visits, though the higher priced visit has the code 780.50, sleep apnea. I wasn’t there for sleep apnea! But the phone lady tells me I don’t have to be there for sleep apnea to get the code, maybe something similar. Sigh.

Scream at the wall after hanging up.

Call back Blue Shield, get a much more helpful woman. One of the PRIMARY CODES (there’s more than one????) on that expensive visit triggered a mental health thing, which isn’t included as part of the routine office visit…it goes on the deductible.

And if you’re confused by any of this GOOD–welcome to my world!

So a routine office visit suddenly stops being routine when the doc labels me a mental health visitor. But he still charges me a normal office visit…BS sees what he coded me and decides my visit should go toward my deductible.

A simple code doubled the cost of my visit. No extra work, no extra labs or medicines. A simple difference in doctor/patient discussion doubles the cost.

The BS woman said I could call my doctor and ask to resubmit the claim with the codes reversed, so the mental health one would be secondary and the visit would be adjusted to $30. Tempting, though I’m probably making less than minimum wage, going through all this work to save thirty five bucks.

Health insurance = lawyers = used car salesman. Wait…I’d rather have the car salesman by my side in a Braveheart-styled battle.

Lugaru = Ninja Rabbits!

Doing a bit of networking with the game design community around SF, I met a cool dude who’s part of Wolfire Games. They’ve developed a following with this nifty fighting game called Lugaru where you take on this rabbit with a bunch of kung-fu moves and bust out revenge on your enemies. I suck at it, but I gotta admit I dig making this rabbit do flips & kicks. So I make the plug–check it out!

Over Caffeinated Teacher + Students From Hell =

Hey, I’m thankful I’ve been able to pay a mortgage talking about guitar/being an overpaid babysitter, depending on the student. But for those of you who think my job is easy let me give you a hint of the downside…*

1. Freshly pubescent kids who haven’t realized the power of their (lack of) personal hygiene. We’re talking kidlets who don’t wear deodorant and–I’m guessing–wear the same socks with the same shoes for weeks at a time. I teach in a tiny room with no ventilation, for Hell’s sake! The combo of ripe feet and room temperature onions is a test of my breath-holding abilities!

2. Students going to continuation schools tend to have attitude problems. Disclaimer; NOT all of them are like this, as many of them are plenty cool and simply can’t deal with the life with the soap opera from hell that is high school. But if I were to run the stats there would be a slim majority of dips**** who don’t like being told what to do, which runs in direct contrast to a guitar lesson, where my job is basically to tell them what to play.

3. Kids I suspect were either dropped on their head, that same head slammed in a door or excreted their brain cells watching Mtv reality shows. These are the ones where every answer is “uh”, “I don’t know,” or “I don’t care.” That last one makes me crazy because if you don’t care about what you want to learn how am I supposed to care what I teach you???

But I try…

4. The kid who bragged every week about his Dad owning a gas station mini-mart. I mean, props to the Dad for running a business, but the kid’s arrogance would have you think his Dad was Brad Pitt or something.

5. Punks who refuse to practice anything other than their insipid punk songs** then tell me they want to try out for jazz band a month before the auditions and need to learn how to read music.

As Detective John Kimble would say, “Stop whining!” The Xbox is calling…

*All in good fun. And none of these are current students…I’m not about to insult the ones putting food on my table–duh!

**I grew up listening to The Ramones and The Clash, know what I’m saying? Ah man…now I’m stealing mid-90s rap lingo…

How *I* broke the guitar shred/speed barrier…

Oh, my God…oh, my God–OH, MY GOD! I think I had one of the biggest technique breakthroughs of my life on the guitar. It only took me a little over 23 years to get!

Ya see, I’ve got some shred chops, but I’m not really a shredder. I’m a lefty playing right-handed guitar, so I’ve developed monster legato technique, a la Vai/Satriani/Johnson/etc. Hammer ons and pull-offs, I can make my fret hand blur a bit if I’m warmed up. But my right hand…freakin’ retarded. No wait…that’s offensive. Because my right hand is even worse than that.

I’ve grown up watching cats like Paul Gilbert and Frank Gambale (damn Chopbuilder video…) pick everything with the same speed I can legato. Makes me crazy because I can handle steady alternate picking at slow speed and I have decent tremolo technique and I let my wrist flail at full speed. Unleashed I can speed pick up and down a string at 160-200 bpm. But crossing strings…heck no! As famous guitar teacher Troy Stetina says, I have speed but poor rhythmic control.

And Troy is the dude who helped me with my breakthrough. After years of procrastinating I finally picked up his book Speed Mechanics for Lead Guitar. I go through the first few pages of left hand legato development…cool riffs, I’m blazing in minutes because I’ve long developed those chops. Then I get to the first right-hand technique riff, alternate picking up and down several frets of a single string. He tells you to start at 80 bpm, go up two clicks and play, go down a click and play, and so on, the goal getting to at least 133 before continuing.

My wrist gets too tense at 106-108.

I can jump up to 145 and wail, but most of my tunes are in the 100-120 range. Trying to play in that range sounds like I’m having a seizure, notes sloppy, my wrist gripping tighter as it tries to pick faster. Why won’t it freakin’ relax??? How long do I have to suffer with this same riff until I reach 133?

Been practicing this pattern for a few weeks, almost a month, I think. Then tonight I suddenly have this breakthrough and cruise from 108 to 133, two clicks at a time, no problem. Dayyaammmm!

How? Why did it take 23 years to get it?

The past few days I would practice until I hit my breaking point, then I’d spend extra time in this zone of getting it but really not. I had this “chiropractor moment”. See, when I had a back doctor he’d find this regular knotted muscle in my back and apply pressure with his fingertip until the muscle relaxed, which would happen in about twenty seconds. It also reminds me of my singing lessons, being able to blend the transition between chest and falsetto voices.

I worked on the Stetina riff at my breaking point (108), sometimes backing off to 106. All of a sudden the tension in my wrist melted away, bridging the gap between controlled slow picking and the relaxed motion I have at full speed. BOING! It’s like I just got it.

Even though it took me 23 years to get.

Of course, I gotta see if I can recreate this comfort zone over the coming weeks, But I’m excited…on the verge of busting out Paul Gilbert shred solos!*

*Well, I’d rather write a good tune first, but I like the Neal Schon method of writing a catchy, melodic solo, occasionally breaking the shred barrier because he CAN!

RIP Tatiana, SF Zoo blew it…

I could do plenty of ranting about how a couple thugs just got paid a million dollars by the SF Zoo for teasing this beautiful tiger a few years back, provoking it, thereby getting it killed.

Then again, I’m not a fan of zoos and animals trapped in small cages for my amusement, so maybe I should rant about the SF Zoo for bringing Tatiana there in the first place.

Nah, I’m just going to post a pic of this beautiful creature in memorial. She definitely got the short end of the stick.

Court Upholds Prop 8; Endless Chest-thumping Continues..

I already did a bunch of ranting on Prop 8–the sleazy ads I was getting in the mail supporting it, actually. Don’t know what to say that hasn’t already been said continuously for the past 24 hours. Religious people suck, the judges suck, gay mafia’s forcing us to think in ways we don’t want to, marriage is about having kids and since gays can’t biologically…blah, blah.

Blah.

Blah.

Then there was the woman I heard calling into a radio show. She’s black*, talked about how deep cultural shifts like acceptance of gay marriage take time. True. But then she goes into how “gays” (gotta love those generalizations) need to take their time and not force people to accept them. Just like blacks didn’t get full equality until long after the country was founded, people need time to get used to gays in society.

Then the host (KGO’s Gene Burns) asked if she would have quietly waited for her civil rights in the 1950s and split her argument into itty-bitty pieces.

Burns’ analysis of Prop 8 being upheld was compelling. He said it made sense that the judges would uphold the votes of the majority, but by upholding the marriages of 18,000 gay couples before Prop 8 they made clear they weren’t coming down against the notion of gay marriage in general. His opinion was that California should get out of the marriage business (if marriage is a religious term that would be a violation of the separation of church and state anyway) and issue blanket civil union licenses to any couple.

Gay couples, hetero couples, they get the same legally binding contract that offers equal protections across the board. Then if there’s a church willing to perform a marriage ceremony (and there are plenty who will happily do gay weddings) they get to wear the tux, the dress, throw rice, etc.

Of course, you can do all that in your backyard. Or in my case, the common area, since I’m in condoville.

Seems to me the real solution (instead of endless proposition votes and appeals) is for the state to get out of the marriage business and issue “one size fits all” civil unions where hetero or gay couples can enter into contracts that offer ALL the legal benefits of marriage. Then the religious institutions can decide whether they want to bless that union as a marriage, though it doesn’t matter either way….except those against it will be happy their precious definition of marriage hasn’t been taken from them.

Then the wedding industry in California EXPLODES! More parties, more event planning, the bakery needs to make more wedding cakes, friends gotta spend more on wedding gifts for all these receptions, etc.

*Excuse me, African-American, because no matter how much we want to be seen as unique snowflakes it’s somehow easier to label yourself as part of a larger group. For data purposes!

Old People Can’t Play Guitar???

I had this student a few months back, gray-haired, nice guy, says he really wants to learn the blues. Seriously wants the blues! Doesn’t know anything about the instrument, but I’m getting this sense that he doesn’t want to learn the basics; no chords, no picking exercises. The blues, dammit! I make the call to skip my usual gameplan and start him off with a barebones shuffle in A.

And watch him STRUGGLE!

He keeps criticizing his playing, saying how awful it must sound. I offer my usual response that only the teacher is allowed to criticize the student’s playing. He seems motivated to keep trying, so I back him off the blues for a moment by giving him that picking exercise mentioned above.

Then he talks about wanting to learn slide. Now.

I make a feeble attempt to draw the line. “It’s a bit too advanced.” I say. But he’s got such a strong interest I explain the basics of how to hold it then end the lesson.

Next couple weeks, more struggle, more review. I think I tried to sneak in a few major chords, but he kept wanting to review the shuffle.

Then I see him at the music store where I teach. He’s looking for instructional videos on slide technique so he can get some extra guidance. “Hot Cross Buns” would be a challenge to this dude, but I steer him towards the Fretboard Roadmaps book on slide that has some great information. This time I explain how he’s not ready for this book and trying to take on material without ANY grasp on the basics will create a high probability of frustration, thus a high probability of getting turned off to playing altogether. He insists on getting the book anyway.

I also install lighter gauge strings on his acoustic to hopefully ease the amount of pressure he needs to play.

We look at the slide book in our following lesson. It has some great slide riffs and tunes in it, but it pretty much demands a basic understanding of the blues, which you know, uh, this guy doesn’t have! I find the easiest, shortest piece in the book and he can’t even make the slide work to play the first measure. I tell him to keep working on the picking exercises and try the first few measures of the piece for a handful of minutes each day instead of trying to do the whole thing, getting pissed, and smashing the guitar into firewood.

Aspiring bluesman comes in the next week to tell me this will be his final lesson. He doesn’t want to put in the time it takes to get proficient–more time than he’d ever care to invest. Plus he wants time to exercise each day, keep up with his tango lessons, etc. He already logged countless years into the tabla when he was younger and doesn’t want to suffer that again.

Sigh…

I get students like this occasionally. They know everything, what they want, how they’re going to get it. I’m almost more an observer in their lessons than a participant. My advice is ignored in favor of their own. Yet when they give up I can’t help feeling like I failed to ignite their passion in the instrument. What could I have done differently to keep this dude as a student and further keep my bills paid?

Made him work on ONLY that first blues song for a month?

Require him to learn basic chords first?

He REALLY wanted to learn this Howlin’ Wolf song in his first lesson…Killing Floor Blues, I think. Crazy fingerpicking blues! Damn, he’s killing ME!

Reminds me of this jerk I had to suffer through years back. Serious OCD with his hobbies. Practiced yo-yo eight hours a day until he won the national championships, he told me–and proceeded to fling his yo in my face. He’d been practicing guitar several hours a day for his first six months, knew an amazing amount of material in a short time. Could even play Clapton’s “Tears in Heaven” note-for-note. But it was all technical knowledge, so I tried to teach him how to make music with a scale.

Along with the store’s staff, we nicknamed him “I know!”

The scale goes like, “I know!” he’d interrupt.

Try this technique–”I know!”

“I know.”

“I KNOW!”

To this day I still have no idea why he wanted lessons if he knew everything.

Anyway, Aspiring Bluesman was a nice guy and a bit frustrating because I feel like there was no proper lesson plan to take with him. If I make him to the basics he quits in boredom. If I do my best to give him the info he wants he quits in frustration.

Can’t keep them all, I guess.

World of Warcraft + Keith’s Music = ???

Building my chops, making a little music for a WoW trailer I found. Blizzard’s footage, my music…free promo for everyone!

Call of Duty + Keith’s Music = ???

Had the craving to go techno-orchestral this week, so I composed a little music to a Call of Duty: World at War commercial, the new map with the crazy zombies. It’s cool! Call Activision and tell them to hire me!