This is something I have been waiting for a long long time. I was thinking about this project around 3 years ago and imagining its benefits. I’m a musician, I want to form a blues band and compose music. But, there’s no blues keyboard player around! Why not looking online for that player and perhaps compose and improvise together online.
YouTube™ has just released their Collaborative Online Orchestra Project. At the moment, it seems that it’s only classical music oriented. Are they going to expand the music style? is any startup ready to work on something like that? Being part of an eBluesBand would make me more than happy .
I would see it this way:
Start a new project that has only one instrument: The Metronome
As a guitarist, I decide on the scale and start improvising.
I’d publish it online and wait for contributions.
A vocalist, keyboardist, bassist or drummer can pickup my project and perform on it.
I get notified that someone has a contribution that is pending moderation. As soon as I approve, he/she becomes a part of my band.
And so on, until I decide that the track is complete.
Sell it on iTunes? or publish it for free?
This is really an amazing project to work on. If you are a serious developer, you love music and willing to invest some time to work on this project, let me know! We can come up with something together.
Gary Moore is an Irish blues guitarist and singer. As I’ve already mentioned in my older posts, Gary has always been my guitar idol since my very early guitar experience. His guitar tone is unique and warm. I never watched him live yet, but I will definitely do. I guess it’s still very early for him to quit the blues world. What really makes this guitarist amazing is his bendings! they’re just perfect. His music is very easy to assimilate due to the pattern he always follows but in the same time, you cannot expect the next note.
My favorite tunes for Gary Moore are “Still Got The Blues”, “Parisienne Walkways (watch my video)” and “Story of the Blues”.
2- Louis Armstrong
Louis Armstrong, a cornet, trumpet player and singer, is the king of Jazz Ballads. When I listen to Louis, I can think of a bottle of wine, a cheminee or an old cosy house in the mountain . Louis’ topics are all based on optimistic romance unlike the blues musicians. His music is very joyful and goes straight to the heart. One funny thing about Louis is that he had always claimed to be born on the USA Independence day (July 4, 1900), but in fact, he was born on July 4, 1901 and he was recorded as an illegitimate black child. Louis died on July 6, 1971.
My favorite tunes for Louis Armstrong are “What a Wonderful World” and “A Kiss to Build a Dream on”.
Parisienne Walkways, the first tune I’ve ever listened to by Gary Moore, is still by far one of my favorite Classical Blues Ballads tunes! Before you listen to my improvisation, I assure you that no one can ever imitate this giant genius guitarist Gary Moore… He is by far the best guitarist I’ve ever listened to! His feelings are true, not artificial like Steve Vai, Van Halen etc… He does make you cry!
Guitar: Ibanez JS1000 BTB (Also known as my Tiya)
Amp: Roland Cube 30
I composed a song when I was 18 years old, and I would like to share it with you and take your opinion! It’s an Oriental Progressive Metal instrumental, it’s kinda symphonic because there exist 17 instruments. The recording of this piece was done on my old desktop pc; I looked everywhere by that time for Sound Fonts and found interesting ones. I did not know enough about DXi and VXTi (Virtual Instruments) by that time but I managed very well with sound fonts.
This song is called “Sahara’s Fate”. Why Sahara’s Fate? well, there are no lyrics, but you will see how this piece expressed my story or my version of the very well known myth “Noah’s Arc”. The hero in this song is Dramata who is a beast sent by God to clean up the earth! By that time, God was angry because of the human behavior. Dramata was the flood that covered the whole Sahara! Only one man and woman stood outside the gate, they had the honor to establish a new life style. This is in brief the theme of this song, you might want to read the lyrics of this song which were never sang! I think this song expressed my story musically much better. In the end, I’m not anymore into this kind of music but I’m still so much interested in Mythology which cannot really be expressed with my current style of music (Jazz/Blues). I cannot deny that this is the piece of music that took time the most (around 3 months) and it’s still one of my favorite compositions. You will notice that I did not record any guitar with this piece because I couldn’t afford paying for a studio, even though, I had a chance to record in a professional studio but after few sessions things started to get messed up because time was not that year a friend of mine and my manager/friend Bash. Anyway… enough talking! Listen to Sahara’s Fate and give me your opinion:
Two years ago, I was a big fan of Joe Satriani and I used to play a lot of tunes for that great musician. I uploaded this amazing song “Until We Say Goodbye”. The guitar sound was really bad, I used my old Fender Stratocaster (That was before I bought the Ibanez JS1000 BTB Satriani Signature) and I sampled the backing track using Cakewalk sonar 4.
I’ve been playing guitar for almost 8 years and playing the blues for 4 years! I decided this year to make a big shift and started composing Trance music. I’m not sure it’s 100% trance but you’ll hear what I came out with. It’s a mix inspired by Vivaldi’s Four Seasons album which is one of my favorite classical albums.
I want to thank Joanna for recording “The Revolution Begins” voice. It’s so smooth . Not to forget Nick, Fady and DJ Chris (Thanks guys for the tips).
Download this song and write comments please… I’m not sure I’ll be composing some other trance songs unless you like this one . I see the blues and jazz a much more mature style of music in terms of expressing feelings and it’s not geometrical at all.
Let’s thank Mr. George W. Johnson for recording the 1st blues song ever. It was recorded in 1896! “The Laughing Song”. Well, you can imagine the recording quality by that time, it was quite noisy…
Have you ever wondered why most people find the Jazz tunes kinda weird or dissonant? Have you ever been listening to a jazz tune and felt like the player is improvising out of tune or scale? Actually, nop! they’re not dissonant, it’s just how your ears percept them. Since you were born, you’ve been listening to some kind of simple music (classics, rock, oriental…) where the artists focus on a limited set of harmonies (1-3-5). Let’s get to the point directly!
What are the 1-3-5? Let’s say we’re playing a C major scale (Do) which contains these notes: C D E F G A B C. The 1-3-5 would be C E and G and they form the C Major chord! But why the hell 99% of the chord we hear nowadays are built over the 1-3-5? didn’t we miss the 2nd (aka 9th = 7+2), the 4th (aka 11th = 7+4), the 6th (aka 13th = 7+6) and the 7th note which is the most used harmony in jazz! So my friends, it’s a matter of perception. Your ears are not used, yet, to those harmonies because you have not been hearing them enough on radio stations. Jazz has no limits. Jazz artists focus a lot on these unused harmonies and once you get used to them, you’ll notice how void the other styles of music are! Get your guitar or piano and play: 1-3-5-7 (aka C E G B) and you’ll get the C major 7th! Kinda cool… isn’t it? Same thing for minor and dominant chords! I hope you find this post useful in case you’ve ever wondered “what is jazz?“.
I’ve been looking for Norman Brown guitar books and transcriptions, but I couldn’t find anything! Anyway, I’m presenting you My Favorite Jazz Lick ever I transcribed from the Third World song (Better Days Ahead album):
I am Elie El Khoury, from Lebanon (Byblos), Woopra co-founder & CIO, Web & Software Developer, Designer, Guitarist, Mac user and the worst blogger on earth! more...
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This song is called “Sahara’s Fate”. Why Sahara’s Fate? well, there are no lyrics, but you will see how this piece expressed my story or my version of the very well known myth “Noah’s Arc”. The hero in this song is Dramata who is a beast sent by God to clean up the earth! By that time, God was angry because of the human behavior. Dramata was the flood that covered the whole Sahara! Only one man and woman stood outside the gate, they had the honor to establish a new life style. This is in brief the theme of this song, you might want to read the lyrics of this song which were never sang! I think this song expressed my story musically much better. In the end, I’m not anymore into this kind of music but I’m still so much interested in Mythology which cannot really be expressed with my current style of music (Jazz/Blues). I cannot deny that this is the piece of music that took time the most (around 3 months) and it’s still one of my favorite compositions. You will notice that I did not record any guitar with this piece because I couldn’t afford paying for a studio, even though, I had a chance to record in a professional studio but after few sessions things started to get messed up because time was not that year a friend of mine and my manager/friend Bash. Anyway… enough talking! Listen to Sahara’s Fate and give me your opinion:
Two years ago, I was a big fan of Joe Satriani and I used to play a lot of tunes for that great musician. I uploaded this amazing song “Until We Say Goodbye”. The guitar sound was really bad, I used my old Fender Stratocaster (That was before I bought the Ibanez JS1000 BTB Satriani Signature) and I sampled the backing track using Cakewalk sonar 4.
I want to thank Joanna for recording “The Revolution Begins” voice. It’s so smooth 
. Not to forget Nick, Fady and DJ Chris (Thanks guys for the tips).
Let’s say we’re playing a C major scale (Do) which contains these notes: C D E F G A B C. The 1-3-5 would be C E and G and they form the C Major chord! But why the hell 99% of the chord we hear nowadays are built over the 1-3-5? didn’t we miss the 2nd (aka 9th = 7+2), the 4th (aka 11th = 7+4), the 6th (aka 13th = 7+6) and the 7th note which is the most used harmony in jazz! So my friends, it’s a matter of perception. Your ears are not used, yet, to those harmonies because you have not been hearing them enough on radio stations. Jazz has no limits. Jazz artists focus a lot on these unused harmonies and once you get used to them, you’ll notice how void the other styles of music are! Get your guitar or piano and play: 1-3-5-7 (aka C E G B) and you’ll get the C major 7th! Kinda cool… isn’t it? Same thing for minor and dominant chords! I hope you find this post useful in case you’ve ever wondered “what is jazz?“.
I am Elie El Khoury, from Lebanon (Byblos), Woopra co-founder & CIO, Web & Software Developer, Designer, Guitarist, Mac user and the worst blogger on earth! 
