I am proud to announce the final release of my Java application for cell phones, Guitar Trainer !

It took me quite some time to complete the mobiletutor.org Web site on which it is hosted, but everything is now online and open for business.

Feel free to try out the free demo (that includes unlimited usage of the built-in instrument tuner!), or even purchase the full version.

This small application for mobile devices is an educational tool for musicians to help deepen their knowledge of the fretboard of their instrument. Here's a quick recap of the features :

• Learn the location of notes on the fretboard of a guitar or other stringed instrument.
• Supports a variety of standard and alternate string tunings: guitar, bass, banjo, ukulele, mandolin.
• Training mode allows to focus learning on particular parts of the fretboard.
• Game mode provides a fun way to make progress. Work your way through levels of increasing difficulty!
• Train your ear at the same time as you improve your working knowledge of the instrument.
• Left-handed and right-handed neck types.
• Tune your instrument with your cell phone. Open string tones can be produced for any of the supported tunings!
• Dynamic user interface that works on a wide variety of mobile devices.
• Support for pointer input (stylus, touch screen, etc).
• Available in English, French and German languages.

So if you know anybody interested by this kind of application, please spread the word! This can be an interesting tool for music teachers as well as apprentices, and musicians of all levels. I know I certainly wanted something like this as a guitarist, hence why I ended up writing it myself. :)

www.mobiletutor.org

So... What do Steve Vai, Joe Satriani, Dweezil Zappa, Steve Lukather, Paul Gilbert, Billy Sheehan, Dave LaRue, Scott Henderson, Johnny Hiland, and Johnny A. have in common ?

All these rock guitar and bass heroes were together on the same stage at the House of Blues in Hollywood this Saturday night, and I was there!

( Review of an incredible event, with pictures! )

Still more concerts to go to this month: I'm going to see Roger Waters at the Hollywood Bowl this evening, then will go check out Kamelot / Epica / Prymary at the Galaxy Theater in Orange County on Tuesday. The next day will be Porcupine Tree at the House of Blues, followed by an exclusive preview of their new live DVD at a movie theater the next day. Then the Flower Kings will be playing in Whittier on the following Monday. Busy!

Well, while I'm testing that video posting thing, I might as well see how that works from YouTube as well. I just created a musician account there.

So here is another video I recorded last night... Doesn't exactly look embedded though.



EDIT: Trying actual embedded video from YouTube, the right way now!

Many months ago I had purchased a 7-string Ibanez electric guitar. It's a pretty cool guitar, but getting it in tune is an absolute nightmare, because it is equipped with a Floyd Rose floating tremolo. Which basically means that the bridge is in a delicate balance and tuning any string has an influence on the tuning of all other strings. It took me a while to get the technique down with my old 6-string, and the addition of the extra heavy B string makes it considerably more difficult. Heavier wound strings pull a lot more tension on the bridge, and therefore adjustments on them have more effect.

When I first received that guitar, it wasn't in tune out of the box. Trying to get it in tune back then messed things up even more. I spent a few days trying different things, but was never able to get it properly in tune. Since then, this guitar had been essentially gathering dust in a corner of my room.

Today I decided to give it one more try, started from scratch, and managed to get it back in almost perfect tune! I can finally make use of my investment. I'm so proud to have finally managed to beat that damn Floyd Rose nightmare! The key was to find a way to hold the bridge in place while retuning the strings, to get it back in balance. Then a few adjustments to the springs in the back did the trick. I am just stunned that there are absolutely no online resources explaining how to do this. Only pieces of info here and there, most of them applying to 6-string instruments.

Next challenge on this guitar will be to put a higher gauge of strings, but I think I'll hold that for a little while. At least until my other light sets are through. I think I have the technique down now, but it's still not trivial. The good thing about Floyd Rose locking tremolos though is that the strings tend to stay in tune for a very long time. So the painful exercise of tuning the instrument is rewarded by the fact that you don't have to do it as often.

I just got back from my first Eric Johnson concert, who was playing on Wednesday at the House of Blues in Hollywood.

I always liked his music ever since I heard him on the first G3 album, and I since got a few of his albums, and I appreciate his particular guitar tone and his relatively straightforward blend of blues-rock.

That being the House of Blues, with a security more strict than most airports, I have no pictures of the gig. However it was a lot of fun. Opening for Eric was a female singer with her acoustic guitar (whose name I didn't catch), which was quite entertaining. Chicks with guitars are always hot anyway. ;-)

As for Eric Johnson, the man can definitely play the guitar, and is quite the shredder when he wants to. It's funny how he still looks so young, is that guy ever aging? He was accompanied only by his drummer and bassist. There were a couple of technical mishaps during the performance - at one point his guitar got horribly out of tune, it was interesting to see how he handled it. Very hard to tune a guitar in the middle of solos... The sound was also very loud for that kind of music. The venue has usually great acoustics, but I was amazed that my ears are even more ringing now than after the 7 hours of heavy metal of the past weekend.

The concert itself wasn't very long. He came back for 3 encores! Now that seems just a bit excessive to me. Why doesn't he just extend the length of his set in the first place, or make bigger encores? In the end, including the 6 songs in the encores, the whole performance clocked in at about 2 hours. On my way out I picked up an autographed copy of his latest CD, titled "Bloom". Yay for more autographs!

Busy week as expected. I'm going back to the Baked Potato tonight for O.H.M. That's another band I know almost nothing about, except that I have heard they are very good. I'm never disappointed by artists at the Baked Potato, so since Vin wants to go I'll just tag along and check them out. And I'll be back there again for Mike Keneally as well, possibly preceded by some Universal Studios fun. Maybe I can increase the ROI on that annual pass.

Finally, I listened to the new upcoming Opeth album, and I must say that it is really excellent. Too bad I missed them on their tour last week. I can't wait to have my own copy in my hands.