Hi strangers! This internet space is meant to be a place to share with
you some of my interests and provide
(un)useful information and media for amateur musicians and guitar
'aficionados'.
Let's start with the inevitable
Frequently Asked Questions:
1. Hyper-what?
The first use of the nickname dates back to the early
internet years (some time around mid 90's). I was looking for a
nickname to open an e-mail account (does anybody use excite mail
anymore?) and the word 'hyperborean' came to my mind, I'd
probably must read it from a Nietzsche writing and wondered what kind
of people was he talking about. It turned out he was talking
about those citizens in Greek mythology who lived beyond the North wind
Boreas. The intentional misspelling is due to the fact
that the nick was already taken so I suffixed that part of my real
name. A
few other nicknames were used in my promiscuous internet history, none
of
them made the cut when I registered to YouTube (which sufficiently
proves my lack of originality for nicknames).
2. When
did
you start playing guitar?
Fifteen years was I when I laid
my hands on a guitar, a classical one.
My first riff ever was the one from 'Smoke on the Water' (ain't
that
unusual?): Monodic
version with left thumb playing the notes on the 6th string.
It was clear that I needed some teaching if I
wanted to
move on
from that onto something more elaborated.
By the time I was struggling with the F chord my
father
suggested to me to take some private lessons from a classical guitarist
who had been giving him some tuition (he didn't have
enough motivation to keep going).
That's when I started to take this instrument really
seriously.
Watching this fantastic guitarist playing at
close
distance gave me all
the motivation needed to learn. After a few lessons in the span of a
year I started learning on my own and it's been thus ever since then.
Another epiphany from these days was the discover
of
'La Gran Jota' by Francisco Tárrega played by Narciso Yepes, the
cd is now worn out but my amazement by the purity of execution of this
piece still not.
3. What
kind of guitars do you have?
I've had two classical guitars
before the current one, they were
basically a pair of 'tennis raquets'. Very good to build left hand
strength but not very fulfilling in the sound aspect. The actual one is
a classical guitar by Antonio
Picado built in 1996 and
manufactured in Barcelona. It has a nice balanced sound and it's very
easy to play. I've done all the classical guitar pieces with that.
As for the acoustic guitars I've had a Fender (can't remember
the
model) and the one that I play now that is a Yamaha CPX5. I'd like to
get me a Guild or Taylor in the future.
The 12-string's that I've owned are an Ovation copy by Stagg
(yep,
those cheap manufacturers!) which had an astoundingly resonant sound
(the best I've heard) but was very difficult to play because of some
serious factory failures (beware with e-shopping).
The next one I tried was an Alvarez AD60S-12 which was pretty
good but,
again (you got to love e-shopping), it had a defect on the neck
that caused fret buzz and it only disappeared when it was played with
an horrendously high action (not the best option for a 12-string).
The final acquisition -at a local store this time- was the
Fender
DG14S-12.
It's a nice guitar with
lovely sound, now in need of some tweaking. It's the hardest thing to
get the perfect
12-string!
Oh, and I almost forget the Squier Strat electric
guitar, a long companion that has now been replaced by another more
sophisticated axe.
4. How do you
record your videos?
The digital camera that I use is a Canon
Ixus 60, I got it in 2006 and it's been used in all the videos
since then.
For the audio recording I've used several kind of pc mics, the most
remarkable to date the Logitech USB Desktop. Some videos are just being recorded with the internal
mic of the camera.
All in all, not very professional solutions if you want
to have a good quality recording. Again, I need an upgrade.
The software
that I use is : Cool
Edit Pro for audio mixing and Virtualdub for video
editing.
5. How much
do you practice?
I used to practice a lot in
my two first
years (6- 8 hours a day). Now
it's very random and I don't follow any practice routine,
some days I play for hours or just minutes and other times I don't play
for long undetermined periods of time.
6.
I can't find this tab/score, can you
send
it to me?
If you can't find it in the tab
section of this site I really
can't
help you. Many of the pieces I choose to play aren't (yet) published.
In the case of music that has already been published (Dyens'
pieces and
others) I can only address you to the sites where you can legally
get them (See links section).
Not really sure if I'm entitled to share tabs even if they're
only
arrangements of mine. With regard to this let me point out that, once
again, there's no lucrative profit involved.
7.
Listening out the tunes, how-to.
It's basically a matter of
training your ear. The first steps:
Rewind,
listen to the
phrase again, search
the notes on your guitar.
Get the bass note first and it will probably tell you what kind of
chord is that (unless it's an inversion, those sick inverted chords!).
You'll probably want your
guitar to be in pitch at standard tuning in the first place. Don't rush
yourself, keep adding notes till you get the sound of that chord
in the record.
Well, I recognize it can be frustrating when you start. Get a
chord
dictionary and learn different new chords so you can build up a
chord
background, that way you could easily recognize many of them in the
future. Visual help if you can find it is of course
valuable. I remember getting quite upset whenever the camera
moved away from the fretboard in any of the live performances of my
favorite bands. From a guitar apprentice's point of view there's little
interest in watching a thirty-second close-up of Steve
Howe 's face when he's playing 'Clap'.
If you are stubborn enough with your ear training (it takes a
while),
you'll get a lot better and faster at picking out the melodies and
harmonies of the tunes by
yourself. With YouTube and other digital tools (allowing you to reduce
tempo while preserving pitch, fast access to the bit, etc) current
generations have things a
lot
easier!
8.
What
are your musical preferences?
There are plenty musical genres
that I like with or without the
involvement of guitar, from jazz to classical music including
progressive-experimental rock, soundtracks and many more.
I'm not a classical music purist so I tend to skip some of
the
most conventional stuff. My ears get easily tired when exposed over and
over again to the standard classical guitar repertoire (Asturias,
Recuerdos, Choros, etc), this is not a problem of the pieces per se but
of the terrible abuse inflicted by tradition.
I love Bach in any form. It reminds me of the tragedy and joy
of life
and the possibility of transcendence.
9.
Have
you ever played live?
Nope, I have never
considered to make a living of it
either. I
think the YouTube/Internet space is the best scenario for me to share
my
hobby and get internet users interested in the music and artists that I
choose to play.
10. Teaching guitar,
starting tips and other stuff.
Some people ask me sometimes if I could teach them to play guitar, it's
very flattering but I have never considered that possibility
either. Actually, I wouldn't know where to start, my only method when I
started playing classical guitar was going directly to the pieces
that I liked most. I do still own several classical guitar methods
(Aguado, Sor, Pujol) but without any strict academy training my
approach to those was only tangential (as an eager apprentice I didn't
have the required patience to go through all those studies). And that's
maybe why my classical guitar technique is a bit unorthodox and full of
bad habits!
My piece of advice to guitar beginners would be starting off with
classical guitar and learning the basics of sol-fa. It will open up a
huge range of highly rewarding possibilities to you.
Of course you can go deeper afterwards and try to learn harmony,
scales, modes and all that academy stuff. This is something I should
have to apply to myself one day!
yperboreal's
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