Between Feelings

Another post in English for I feel this needs to be international.

First I need to tell you, we had great weather in Germany recently, so naturally we are all pumped by the first real week of spring weather – personally I get that funny smell of sun and fresh air, the need to be outside, the desire for every ray of sun. Now: today the new edition of Time Magazine arrived, as always on thursdays. And as always, the most interesting question is: What have they put on the cover this time. The fancy robot like thing from a couple of weeks back was cool. Today it was not cool by a thousand miles, it was actually shocking, desperate and was pushing all my buttons for feeling pain, hope- and helplessness and the urge to do something about it. Take a look: HERE! .

Only rarely has a single picture moved me quite like this one has. The next thing I did after flipping a few pages was go to some Red Cross website and donate my share to rebuild Japan. This is a first for me, and I attribute it to Time’s cover. It drives home the pain of so many in Japan, the last number I heard was 9k people dead, and sadly, this is a running count.

Now, call me a hypocrite, Haiti must have been about as bad. Africa suffers even without earthquakes. But this is quite a picture. Please comment and share your opinion.

Now a more joyful topic for a change, man needs contrasts and has to compensate things. Here’s my way of doing this: Rock’n'Roll music.This is a product of the past few days watching tutorials and experimenting a bit. A few words on technique:

• Any lick can be played in any key, naturally, but I would advise an easy C-F-G progression or any derivative of it, since only in C can you really use glissandos.
• The minor thirds in some lick that are played briefly before the propper third for a major chord have to be struck lightly with the third finger. Try aiming for the little rounded corner of the black key and let the finger slide down on, in C maj., E. Do not pull the minor third from way up on the black key – not fast enough.
• The glissando up is best executed with the nails of the 2nd and 3rd finger. Down you can use the nail of your thumb. Try an almost 90° angle vertically between key and nail. Try not to use your skin – that hurts.

Enjoy and comment on that too, if you want to tell me off or compliment or anything;).