Illektro Lab Entertaiment

Archive for November, 2011

Singing and playing the guitar is really a wonderful thing. It gives me so much joy and peace and… well, a lot of wonderful feelings.

I have been playing for a while now. 35 years have passed since the first time I picked up my brother’s guitar for the first time, in attempt to play the durned wooden sound thingy.

As beginners we have enough to think about, trying to get our fingers to do as they are told. Struggling with chords ain’t the easiest thing, and on top of that we try not to sing off-beat or off-key. Arpeggios and stuff doesn’t even exist.

But the time comes when we can handle that. The shifting between chords runs smoothly we can sometimes even remember the lyrics. And sometimes we get bored of just strumming up and down, up down down, up up down…well, you know what I mean.

Take it to the next level with fingerpicking songs

When you want do something else for a change, why not try putting away your pick for a while. Try fingerpicking songs! It’s a little tricky, but if you really go at it, you will see progress in no time.

Here is a list of great fingerpicking songs you can try out. Some are my own favourites, others comes from friends.

Dont Think Twice Its Alright- Bob Dylan

Landslide- Fleetwood Mac

Blackbird- Beatles

Nothing else matters – Metallica

One last Breath – Creed

Love Of My Life – Queen (But listen to Brian May’s live version. Awesome!)

Streets Of London – Ralph McTell

Stairway to Heaven – Led Zeppelin

Dust in the wind-Kansas

Dear Prudence – Beatles

Tears in Heaven – Eric Clapton

Sounds Of Silence – Simon & Garfunkel

Love Will Keep Us Alive – Eagles

Acoustic #3 – Goo Goo Dolls

Slow Motion – Third Eye Blind

Still – Foo Fighters

Into Dust – Mazzy Starr

Battle of the Beaconsfield Miners – Foo Fighters

Razor – Foo Fighters

Hallelujah – Jeff Buckley

Greensleeves – Trad

Wonderful tonight – Eric Clapton (fingerstyle arrangement)

More than Words – Extreme

Here comes the sun – Beatles

Freight Train in C – Trad?

scarborough fair- Simon and garfunkel

The Boxer – Simon and garfunkel

This list should get you started exploring the world of fingerpicking songs. Playing the guitar this way bring a whole new dimension to the music.

Flush mounted wedding albums have not been around for a long time, but they are here to stay. They offer a lot of advantages over traditional albums, which more than justifies the higher prices that photographers usually charge for them. This article is trying to give an overview over what exactly makes flush mount wedding albums more special and why you should not settle for less.

More spectacular and original design

Flush mounted albums are digital albums, designed on the computer in so called “magazine-style”, which gives your album designer a lot of possibilities. Whereas a traditional album forces the designer to work with photos attached to a single-colored piece of paper, there are virtually no limits to the design of a flush mount album. This is because each double spread is designed on the computer and then printed on a SINGLE large photo. So, the limits to the wedding album design are not set by the way the album is made, but by Photoshop (or any other software the designer might be using).

More impressive way of presenting photos

Flush mounted wedding albums have thick pages that will not bend. The photos fill the whole page. There are no margins at the edges of the pages or in the fold in the middle. This allows to present photos in a far more spectacular way of than possible with a traditional album. Traditional albums limit the designer to use comparatively small photos that will at most fill one page (with margins at the edges). Also, in flush mount albums the designer can use photos that stretch over the full width of a double-page spread. For example, group shots of the whole wedding party look stunning when presented that way.

Better suited as storybook wedding albums

An album that tells a story revives the memories of the big day more vividly and is more interesting to read. Flush mount albums make great storybook wedding albums. On a traditional album it is somewhat difficult to add nice looking text. One could write or print text next to the individual photos, but it is very hard to compose text and picture in a stylish way. Flush mount albums make this task much easier. The text can be put wherever the designer chooses, next to photos or on top of them, in whatever font-style and color he or she wants. In flush mount wedding albums it is common to print the transcript of whole speeches, maybe with a photograph of the speaker put in the background.

More suitable for large sizes

Flush mounted albums look great in small sizes and stunning in big ones. With a traditional album it is crucial to keep them below the critical size, when pages are getting too big for single photos. Some photos are so important that they need to be on their own dedicated page and if then there is tons of white space around them, they start looking lost. In flush mount albums the photos fill the whole page without margins no matter what size you go for, so a single photo will never look lost. For the extra important photos you can even cover a whole double-page spread. Also, super wide sizes like 15″ x 12″ look great with flush mount wedding albums, whereas they just don’t work that well with a traditional album.

To sum up, if your photographer offers flush mounted albums then go for it. They will often cost substantially more than the old-fashioned equivalent, but it is worth it. If you want to save money, than DON’T get the album from your photographer, but check online for an alternative. A couple of companies are specialized on flush mount and therefore can offer much better value for money than your photographer.