Friday, September 30, 2011

Exclusive Guitar Video




Lucky you! You are watching an exclusive video found only on a few shared sites like my blog, Facebook, and any other forms of sharing. Share this video to pieces if you wish. ;) This is a bonus video.

I'm just jamming out Canon Rock in my bedroom - very comfortable and just having fun. I do this sort of thing often. Did you know that Canon Rock was the reason I started playing the guitar? I always wanted to learn this song, and as I get better at it I'm fulfilling my dream.

How did I get these crazy video effects? Well, I downloaded these free video backgrounds and then used Chroma Keyer inside Sony Vegas to key out certain colors. I used what would work best for the effect. For instance, I keyed out all solid white for the flames. I placed my video on top of the flames.

I'm jamming through POD Farm. It's software that emulates my amps and effects inside my computer. My recording program is Reaper. This was one live recorded take. I'm playing on my Ibanez RG350DX - everything stock.

You can learn Canon Rock in my new lesson series.

- Brandon

Tuesday, September 27, 2011

Second day on new job

Looks like I'll be taking computer-based learning (CBL) tests for a little bit at Walmart. That's what I did today.

Monday, September 26, 2011

First day on new job

If you've been following, you will know I got a new job at Walmart as a cashier.

Yeah, so it went well. Today was just orientation: listening, answering and asking questions, tutorials, and watching videos. Tomorrow I will finish this up and go into the meat of my training. Possibly start training as a cashier in which I will observe someone. Wish me luck!

Brandon

Wednesday, September 21, 2011

New Fan Email

Are you a fan? Email me anytime at the new and official fan email: thefireball100@yahoo.com



Thanks.
Brandon Burch



Tuesday, September 20, 2011

20 Years. New Job. Futuristic Shred Metal.

20 Years.
Today marks my 20th birthday. Never before and never again will the numbers of the date and age match. Turning 10 was a special thing for me as well. It was that year that I became a "2-digit man." I guess you could say I am at a bridge between adolescence and adulthood. haha. I know, I know - age doesn't dictate maturity.

New Job.
I received a really good birthday present this year. I got a new job! And it's local! No more driving back and forth 60 miles round trip. This is will save gas money immensely. Living one mile from work will be awesome. Oh - the job - yes. It's at Walmart. I will mainly be a cashier. The schedule is randomly generated by a computer, so every week will be different. Good thing is that I'll be getting more money than my previous job. This will really help in more ways that one. This job will be a great place to start. No, it's not computers, but it's a start. I got my foot in the door. I needed another job. The fact that's it's so close to my house is gonna be the plus. My new job starts next week and I'm a little nervous. However, I am very thankful to God for His mighty works in my life. I know He's got a plan and something else to teach me. I always learn something new everywhere I go.

Futuristic Shred Metal.
Are you into shred metal guitar? Even instrumental? How about adding a bit of futuristic flavor to it? Does it taste good? Want the whole dish? If yes, sit down to dinner. I have here a man by the name of Paul Wardingham. He produces the very genre I speak of. I guess you can call it Futuristic Instrumental Shred Metal. You can check out his website and listen to his song "Ghost in the Machine" from his 'Assimilate Regenerate' album and see if you like it. I bought this album and I am loving it! Paul is currently working on another album called 'The Human Affliction.' He has become one of my guitar heroes as of late. I love listening and headbanging to his stuff. I wait in anticipation for his next album.




- Brandon B.

Friday, September 16, 2011

Odd time signatures

I'm finally starting to grasp odd time signatures and odd feels. I watched a Meshuggah lesson today on YouTube and it helped me. No, I don't listen to that band, but I do like the style and since they use a lot of odd feels and odd time signatures, I wanted to learn something like that.

I created a riff over a 4/4 drum track that has an odd feel to it. I think I am grasping 7/8 time after watching a sequel to that first lesson. It's really cool. I love it! It's awesome to play something different. I was getting sick of just 4/4 time: 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4. I can do 3/4 as well, but it's just not as weird as 7/8. Maybe I'll work on 9/8 after I get 7/8 down. I just wanna compose some stuff that's different from what I've been doing all of my life. Yeah, I played piano before guitar, since I was 8, so I'm ready for a change.

But hey, 4/4 time is not bad. If you mix 4/4 in with 7/8, that could be interesting. And even keeping 4/4 time all way through, except put an odd feel into parts of the song makes for an even more interesting song. Course, I guess it depends on your preference.

Thursday, September 15, 2011

AHHH!! I can't breathe!

We ran out of coffee creamer this morning. I was going to go to the store to get some. I had had my coffee, but my mom hadn't. I thought of a quick and easy way to temporarily dispel morning breath. We have 100% peppermint oil in the cabinet that we got from the Natural Food Store. It only takes one drop to work. I unscrewed the cap, placed my thumb over the opening, turned the bottle upside down and right side up, and placed my thumb on my tongue. Ahh...that will do nicely. In just a couple of seconds I will feel so refreshed. The people at the store will never know I had not yet brushed my teeth. I started to feel the peppermint spread through my mouth. It intensified. Beyond what I had experienced before. I had gotten a little too much! What?! But how? It didn't seem like that much on my thumb! 

I leaned over the kitchen sink breathing through my mouth, and then my nose - but it wasn't any different. Every time I breathed, an overwhelming dose of peppermint filled my mouth and throat. I felt nauseous. I waited for 30 long seconds until finally I could at least breath normally. I downed some water, only to feel worse. 

I just waited. My mom came into the kitchen. I told her what had happened. She reminded me to be careful with that stuff, and also informed me the store wasn't open anyway. It was 5:30 in the morning. One half hour until they open. Oh gosh.

Fortunately, I did not get sick, but it took 20 minutes until that strong taste left the back of my mouth. Even now - after almost an hour after it happened - I can still taste it a little.

Lesson learned: Don't use too much peppermint oil! And don't assume the store is open either.


--Brandon

Saturday, September 10, 2011

Temporary job for a day

I had the opportunity to work as a temp at a computer repair shop yesterday. I worked a full shift. (9 a.m. to 6 p.m.) It was really cool. I'll try to tell the story from beginning to end.

I arrived at the computer repair shop 20 minutes early. I was really nervous. I had tried the door a few times but had been locked. I was just sitting in my car looking inside. I could see that there was a sales floor and back doors - most likely lead to where I would be working. I just sat there forever it seemed. I was praying and hoping today would be awesome. Of course it would be. Finally someone came to unlock the door. I went in and introduced myself as Brandon Burch. He simply said OK. I thought to myself, well he doesn't know who I am. So I quickly told him that I was to be working as a temporary today.

After parking in the back and going in the back door, I was led into the back room where all the workbenches were. I was introduced to the head-technician. He showed me around and gave me a run down of everything they did throughout the day. Basically, all day I installed updates on computers that have been restarted from scratch (as they called it "freshing" computers). It was fun just being around the computers. There was one time during the day, when we installed dual monitors for the computers in the back office. That was pretty fun. They also were recycling old school computers, ya know, the really heavy ones. I loaded about 20 into the back of a van.

By this time it was 5:00 PM. The director called me into the owner's office where they would interview me before leaving for the day at 6:00. They asked me about my resume, my interests, how I liked it today, and I just talking to me they found out my personalities. There were glad that I have good communication skills and wasn't afraid to talk to people. It was then I referred to my YouTube channel where I give guitar lessons. It was cool because the owner expressed interest in what I did and how I got my guitar sound through the computer. I explained the interface and POD Farm through USB connection, and said it sounded pretty good. They said they would like to consider me for a position, but they had no current openings. They mentioned that Rance had said that I would make a good employee, I was eager to do whatever he told me to do, and was willing to learn the business. I just need some experience to help me along. I was very surprised to hear that he said school is not really going to teach you anything that you will need to know for the business.

You learn basically everything here at work. He told me about one employee - how he had gone to school for computer repair. He got a degree and when he got out and came to work, he didn't really know anything about the business. It was just all textbook and theory stuff. I was kind of shocked because everybody is talking about how important is to go to college. But this actually proved my dad right: you really learn everything at work - on-the-job training. Granted, it might be hard to get a job because I don't have a bachelor's degree, but there's really no sense in wasting money going to college if I can get a good job with a two year degree. There are some people there on the job that are still paying off a student loan. I say, if you can make it with a two year degree: go for it!

The owner told the director that I just need somebody to give me a chance. Even though they could not pay me for future times, I could work as an intern if I wished. If I ever felt like working there as an intern I would just call up and a they could find a time to use me; and just to get some experience to put on a resume. Heck, I got some experience this day and got paid to boot! I really think I made a good impression on these people and I think they enjoyed my company. This is what I'd strived for very much so. The only thing I would change is all the cursing I heard all day long. I know this is just the world but it was bothersome nonetheless. I just turned on the Christian radio station as I traveled home. LOL.

It was so cool to talk with computer gurus. These guys were the pros and I could ask them questions and get instant answers. I found out that my hard drive in my laptop is defective because it had clicked one time before. That explains why my computer is slow. It has gotten slower and slower throughout the months. My computer is slowly dying. That is why I'm backing up my files again today. When my birthday rolls around on September 20, I'm going to use that money to buy a new hard drive for my computer. This is going to cost me around $70. I can't wait to spend this kind of money because it's gonna be well worth it. My computer is really ticking me off with its slowness! It so hard to record audio for my songs and produce videos. It's so hard to do multi-tasking. It has a 2.1 processor and 4 GB of ram. There's no way in this world it should be as sluggish as it is. I have wiped the computer twice already and it still messes up. So is very obvious that it has something physically wrong with it.

Something else that I learned from the computer gurus is multiple virus scanning programs installed on your computer actually do fight with each other. You need to have one virus scanning program. This is contrary to something I had heard from a student at school.

All in all, this day was so awesome! I thank God for the opportunity I had in working there.


-Brandon

Friday, September 2, 2011

Finally found this song!

After years of wondering...I finally found this song! I had heard this many times at the beginning of basketball games. :) Hallelujah! Just as I remembered too.