Rock Bottom Presents: NBC 26 Drum-A-Thon

At 10:00 a.m. on Friday November 11,2011 until Saturday November 12,2011 at noon, NBC 26 and Jay Jefferies will be doing the 26 hour "Beat Cancer" Drum-A-Thon. It will be at Television Park-1336 Augusta West Parkway, down by the Augusta Mall. All proceeds of the event go to benefit the 12 Bands of Christmas, which helps pediatric cancer patients. Everyone is welcome to participate and here is how:

1)Register. You can register by email- director@12bands.org . by fax at 866-626-4148 or by getting a registration paper (at rock bottom) and mailing it in to 12 bands p.o. box 12623 augusta ga 30914.

2)set a goal for how long you think you can play.

3)ask friends, family and co-workers to sponsor you. there is a pledge form on mail in sheet or online.

4)turn in the pledge sheet prior to drumming.

5) the top 10 drummers who raise the most money will get entered into a drawing to win a limited edition Pearl Drumset to be drawn at the conclusion of the Drum-A-Thon. (12 noon on saturday 11/12)

12 Bands, NBC 26 and Rock Bottom Music are doing as much as they can to "Beat" cancer away this holiday season. The drumset that is up for winning is not the run of the mill cheap starter kit. It is a kit a seasoned drummer would love to have. The kit comes with high quality birch shells and heavy duty hardware. Its a Pearl VSX set in strata black. We have a VSX kit in stock at rock bottom that you can come look at(its in gold though and NOT the one up for winning) that can give you an idea how it looks. So do what you gotta do and sign up, get some sponsors and drum! Or sponsor a drummer that is doing it so you can do your part to "Beat Cancer."

Diatonic Major Scale Part 3: Connect The Dots La La La La

In this, the 3rd part of the series on the major diatonic scale, we are going to be connecting the patterns. By now you have built the scales, played them up on one string and then did the 7 three note per string patterns we had to death. Now we are going to connect the scales. What you are going to do is start on pattern 1. Start on the 1st fret (F Note) on the 6th, Low E, string and play through the pattern up to the last note on the High E string (the 7th fret, B note), slide up to the highest note of the next pattern on the high E string. Play this pattern backwards all the way down to the lowest note of the pattern on the Low E string (3rd fret, G note). Slide up to the lowest note of the next pattern(pattern 3) which is the 5th fret, A note. Play this pattern all the way up to the highest note of this pattern. You will repeat this process for every pattern. Going up one pattern, sliding up to the next highest note of the next pattern and playing it backwards. Doing this will get you knowing how all the patterns connect and how to weave in and out of each one. Once you get use to doing this all the way up all 7 patterns, start on pattern 7 and do the whole thing backwards. Become a master at this. Doing this needs to become 2nd nature. Become a Jedi young Skywalkers. Attached is a copy of the patterns. Follow the arrows that help illustrate what I explained for going from pattern 1 up to pattern 7. Have fun you will young Jedi you must. Click on the pictures to make them bigger.

Spotlight Licks: Al Moore

This "Spotlight Licks" is brought to you by guitar chicken picker extraordinaire Al Moore. Al currently plays in a band from Atlanta Ga called the Joe Olds Band. They tour around Atlanta and south Georgia at the moment. Their new cd has currently been finished and will be out this fall. Check on ITunes or go to http://www.joeolds.com to get a copy.He has been playing guitar for 16 plus years now. He has played in local bands Shiloh and the Jeremy Graham Band and has played with Hank Williams jr, Lou Brian and Dierks Bently. He has toured the country playing to thousands of people over the years. I have not tabbed anything out because the video he does does an excellent job of demonstrating his lick. Have fun with this chickin pickin lick!

Spotlight Licks: Artemia

This edition of "Spotlight Licks" is brought to you by the band "Artemia" by way of their super musician drummer Michael "Dork" Dinkins. Gonna let Dork take it from here.


Greetings from Artemia-land. When we were recording our song "Ghost of the Avalanche," we decided to add an impromptu keyboard lead to the latter half of the instrumental bridge. It was written and recorded in about an hour--- however, because I played drums on the song and there were two guitar parts, we never incorporated into our live set until recently. Because the members of Artemia all play multiple instruments, we decided to play some musical chairs where we would do acoustic/clean/piano versions of our songs to open ourselves up to playing different venues... with our guitarist Eric playing drums and myself on keys. So because the lead was written and recorded on the fly and then never revisited, I had to sit down and learn what I had played. Once that was done, I decided to tab out the lead for guitar so that we could add it to our live set on guitar.

If you listen to the song, you'll hear the main theme which is a melody based off the D minor 7 chord. For the instrumental bridge, we thought it would be cool to modify the main theme and play it in various keys and modes first soft and clean and then repeat it hard and heavy. So the lead actually follows each of these key/mode changes every four bars and eventually works back around to the D minor 7 theme for the final chorus.


For the music nerds, the lead begins at time 4:09 and follows this progression: D minor 7... A minor 7... B minor 7... C dominant 7... F dominant 7... E flat major... F# minor 7... C# minor 7... and then the chorus comes in with the D minor 7 again.



As I am not a guitarist and the lead was initially written on keyboard, I have no practical knowledge of how this will actually translate to guitar--- parts of it may be very easy, but other sections may be extremely difficult. Couple that with the fact that, while the song is actually in 4/4, there is a poly-rhythm occurring to give the impression that there's a loop of 5/4 - 5/4 - 6/4. So if you're looking for a challenge or an experiment or are simply interested in jamming what some of the locals have come up with--- here it is.

First half: http://i30.photobucket.com/albums/c324/HeirToRuin/Avalanchelead1.jpg

Second half: http://i30.photobucket.com/albums/c324/HeirToRuin/Avalanchelead2.jpg

The song: http://artemia.bandcamp.com/track/ghost-of-the-avalanche

SIDE NOTE: The guitars are tuned to standard pitch with a "drop d" tuning.

On a side note Dork's band L.I.E. is retiring for now and are playing a farewell show at Sky City on 11-11-11 (national metal day). If you are 21 and up you should go check it out. Artemia is Dork's baby now. Check out their new cd.

Jeramie McCloud: Shadow Kill Clan

This is a special piece on a long time student, Jeramie McCloud. He is in a band called Shadow Kill Clan. I like to promote as much student doings as possible. Jeramie is a very promising student and musician. He was a "Student Spotlight" of mine back in October 2010. He has been very busy since then. His band is a hard rock/metal band that is a take on classic, modern and industrial type metal. He and his band mate, Matt Green have been working on the new Shadow Kill Clan cd. I sat down with Jeramie and talked S.K.C. and music.

John Berret: How long has Shadow Kill Clan been together?

Jeramie McCloud? About 9 years or so.

JB:Who all is in the band?

JM: Myself and Matt Green.

JB: Why and how did you two get together?

JM: I enjoy music and growing up and high school and being an angry kid music was my outlet. The band started with many members at first. Matt originally came in as a replacement player. Matt was in the band a year and we never spoke. Never talked at all. We would come to jam and the most we ever said was "hi." After a year we started talking music and just got closer over time. We both figured out we paid for everything and did all the work so we might as well just do it our selves. Now we live apart, he lives in Washington D.C., and we just do all the songwriting and recording online.

JB: How is the new cd different than the 1st cd?

JM: Matt is more involved now. He plays keyboards and dj's so there is alot more keyboards and synths. The songs are more epic, with a more electronic/industrial feel.

JB: What's your goals with the new cd?

JM: To get people who aren't into our style of music listening. Break down more walls and get people into more metal.

JB: Will there be a new cd in the works once this one is done?

JM: We have 40 plus songs wrote and 1/2 are completed. We will have another one for sure.

JB: Any advice for any students looking to release a cd someday?

JM: Have as few people involved as possible. Get yourself involved in the recording process. Don't limit yourself to just one style of music. And also get your self involved in as much of everything else involved with your music as you can. Strive to be as independent as you can.

Here is a link to their website http://www.shadowkillclan.com/

Here is a link to their new song...it is killer http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Ft0DXBZcxU