Weird yet dope braids

For my last blog post I wanted to try some of the braids that I was scared to try before. I first tried the leave out braid, then the upside-down braid. Both of these styles actually took me a month to master, this is why I had to make it my last one. These two styles I tried out on my soccer team mates, on our trip to Spokane. First up was the leave out braid, it is a french braid, but you only take out a little piece of hair, then skip a few inches down and grab another. It is difficult to explain in words, but the point of it is to look like a cool pattern, rather than to pull your hair back. At first this braid is quite simple, you start of with just a normal braid, next from the book I read, "Carefully grab a small section of hair and bring it to the braid, repeat this like a french braid. It's pretty much the same except you  have to go down an inch before you take another piece, making a noticeable gap in the braid" (Smith 1222). At first when I read this I was very confused, but after I tried and looked at the pictures it made sense. It took me 17 tries, but finally I got what it is supposed to look like:

This is my good Friend Katherine, (our right mid) everyone say "Thanks for modeling Kat". OK Now that one wasn't too hard for me, it was time to do the scariest of all, the upside down braid. I have tried this before and failed. It is a french braid on the back of your head instead of the top, typically girls will do this when they have their hair in a pony-tail, for instance I have seen girls do this for soccer. I did not really know how to go about this braid, but my book had some suggestions for doing this on someone else. "Have the model lay on a bed or some sort of flat surface, you must be above them. Make sure they tuck their chin in, and have all of their hair forward" (Smith 1734). I combined this new technique with what I have already learned about French braiding from my first post. Surprisingly it turned out really cool! a big thank you to Taylor for modeling (her hair is colored and it makes it look cool) Well that is all for my blogs, I hope everyone learned some valuable tips on braids because I sure did! I challenge you ladies or dudes with long hair to try rocking some cool braids to school! Bye guys!

Recording the Drums - Tuning

When deciding what kind of book I should read for this project, I had trouble deciding on what new thing I should learn because I'm pretty much filthy at everything already.  I came to the conclusion that instead of learning something new, I should build on something I am already dope at. Once I realized this, it became clear what I should do. Since I've been drumming for so long, I think its time I learned how to get my drumming into recordings. That way I could give you all the gift of my tasty drum fills straight from my drumset to your earholes.

The book I choose to help me understand the subject of creating a home recording studio, was "Recording Drums: the Complete Guide" by Mike Major. The First thing the book tells me I should do before even getting the recording equipment out, is make sure my drums tuning's are top notch. Before reading this book I thought I had knew about everything needed to tune a drum and make it sound good, But apparently it is way more complicated than just tuning diagonally  across the head and  making sure everything is in the right pitch. My guy Mike Major  says that tuning a live set is very different than the what is needed to make a audio recording sound "phat"(his words not mine). To make you're toms sound good in a recording, they should be tuned to slightly match notes on a scale, " You can mix and match intervals. I find that you need a wider interval between the lower toms but you can get away with a closer interval between higher toms. for example on a kit ranging in 5 toms ( 8-10-12-14-16) [inches] try a tuning that goes (from bottom up) C-F-Bb-Eb-G." (Major 10)  By tuning the toms to these intervals it helps give them a good sound distinction between them without them sounding too dissonant when hit together or ringing out. after you get the basic tuning of the notes for each head, you've got to fine tune them to make them sound sexy.

"To start, multiply the frequency of the desired fundamental note by 1.75 and tune both top and bottom lug-pitches to that frequency. Then, measure the fundamental pitch of the drum and adjust the pitch of top and bottom heads accordingly"

After hours of fine tuning i have finally come to a sound that I believe gives that "phat" feeling Major was referring to. Of course because I am not using any recording equipment yet, it will sound really crappy when just heard through the microphone of an iphone so chill.

By the end of the book I'm hoping to do a drum cover of a popular song and post it, so if you want to you can comment any song I should do a drum cover for and hopefully i can do it!