Viraj's Weblog

Yeh, that's right, my bike was stolen over the holiday. I had it locked to a pillar next to my car in my carport. They broke the lock and took the bike . There were even other bikes in the carport, but they decided to take mine probably because it was the most expensive.

So over the holiday I bought myself another bike, a Schwinn World Avenue. It was a recommended bike on a commuter bike review site. I like it a lot, and does much better on the road than my previous one. Let's just hope it doesn't get stolen as well. Sigh..

For the past few months I've been learning to play Led Zeppelin's Stairway to Heaven on my guitar. I have newfound respect for Jimmy Page, that guy is just amazing. Right now I'm playing it at about half the tempo. I have just finished figuring out all of the notes of the guitar solo, which has got to be the most awesome solo ever.

A friend got me started and taught me the first part of the song. Even that I mess up a lot but I at least know the notes. Then came the solo. I could never have figured it out at normal tempo. I used Audacity to time shift the solo -40% and set it on a loop. Then I spent hours looping tiny bits and trying to get the notes down. Audacity is just amazing for this. I think I spent all day on it today, but I think I got all the notes down. Playing them is the hard part .

This song has got to be the best song for guitar practice ever as it makes use of so many techniques. I'll post some samples once I can do it consistently. Otherwise you'd just hear all my mistakes. I'm using Garage Band for recording. It's pretty simplistic, but seems to get the job done (and I am in no way at a professional level). A friend let me borrow a Digitech RP20 effects processor and I'm having a lot of fun with it. The effects make me sound a lot better than I actually am .