What is the meaning of life? How many times have we asked this question? How many times have we heard someone else ask it? Why do we spend time searching for the meaning of life? Instead, why not search for your purpose in life.
As the days and months pass your time spent searching for the meaning of life could have been spent looking for, working on, or discovering your purpose in life. There is a difference and the difference is huge.
The word purpose is defined as:
: the reason why something is done or used : the aim or intention of something
: the feeling of being determined to do or achieve something
: the aim or goal of a person : what a person is trying to do, become, etc.
This definition has three glaring calls to action. First, you must have intention, second you must be determined, and finally, you must have a goal. Life without meaning is dark, vacant, and hopeless. Life without purpose is a drain on society and an even larger drain on those around you.
Find your purpose, then search for the meaning in your life.
This is a gorgeous track produced by my friend Anurag Mishra and one that is perfectly suited to playing improvised lines over. Everything about it is suited to melodic development and soaring vocal-like lines.This is my first move into playing lines that are not typical or expected. I played with a more legato tech nique in this solo then I ever have before letting the sound of the guitar do the rest.
This “moving away” from traditional musical expression comes from two things: Daring to be different, forcing change in my usual approach to playing, and a lot of reflection on guitar playing in general. Sometimes expression on the instrument can only be produced by forcing technical demands in both rhythm and note choice.
There is no question that musical performance, especially improvising, it’s the truest manifestation of the soul.
Exotic and glamorous, Lana Del Rey is an old soul. She is from another time, and I for one, am glad the time is now. A good friend described her music as “exotic”. That’s more accurate that any other description I could come up with.
Brave melodic motifs, unusual leaps, daring scale choices, and surprising twists of phrases, this young lady has unapologetically taken pop music to a higher level well beyond the trite and true banality that calls itself popular music.
She does it so naturally that it’s as though she was born to be the change agent in popular vocal music. But there’s more. Lana isn’t a one trick pony. She is more. Sure, her music is avant guade meets 1940’s style standards, but add to her lyrical strength where she holds back nothing in her black or white description of life and you have a complete artist in every sense of the word.
Take her new single, High By The Beach, from her forthcoming new album, Paradise. Lana does not sugar coat subjects, nor does she doesn’t edit her thoughts for radio. She’s not outrageous flashing about like a firefly trying to wow us. No not this girl. “You take the wheel, I don’t wanna do this anymore. It’s so surreal, I can’t survive if this is all that’s real”. Or take her mission statement for moving on after a relationship, “Everyone can start again, not through love but through revenge. Through the fire, we’re born again. Peace by vengeance brings the end”.
This is not a contrived and processed pop star. Lana Del Rey is an intelligent musician who delivers an orchestrated musical palate that has not been heard for decades, if ever. What’s even better is the way in which she continues to experiment, not seeming to care what the expectations are. Using old-school string sounds with lush orchestration, mixing in beats that are not only current but incredibly appropriate, and adding blazing guitar when needed, we finally have a model of what creative and expressive music can be in world of the chronically vapid.
As for her lyrics, they are deep, harsh, sweet, sarcastic, and full of life’s best and worst moments. At times, I swear she is writing about my experiences. That’s how a real artist connects with an artist in any area of expression. Her prose can only come from one who has lived with extremes in ups and downs. The girl has been there and back and knows exactly how to express it. My God, if I could write one phrase half as good as she can…
Lana Del Rey has hit on something. A music that is both from another time and at the same time, timeless. A woman, strong, beautiful, daring, vulnerable, and smart, I for one am taken in by someone who understands life as I see it.
Guitar tutorial for “High By The Beach” by Lana Del Rey
PERFORMANCE NOTES:
Key: B Minor Capo Key: A Minor
Scales used in melody: B Natural Minor/B Harmonic Minor
*Capo Guitar at fret 2.
The chords should not give you much trouble technically. The challenge wiil be what you do with them.
How will you interpret this music?
How will you turn a synthesizer-based composition into one that works on an acoustic guitar that has no sustain? Where the notes die quickly where you are the one who must create a sustained effect?
Chord progression for the verse/chorus is:
Am F Dm E
This stays unaltered until the bridge.
Once the bridge does occur, the new progression breathes new life into the structure.
Chord Progression for Bridge:
Dm C G Dm / Dm C G Dm/E7
This new section provides the perfect escape from the previous (and only other) chord progression in Lana’s composition.
[Lana del Rey]
Boy, look at you, looking at me
I know you know how I feel
Loving you is hard, being here is harder
You take the wheel
I don’t wanna do this anymore
It’s so surreal, I can’t survive
If this is all that’s real
All I wanna do is get high by the beach
Get high by the beach, get high
All I wanna do is get by by the beach
Get by baby, baby, bye, bye
The truth is I never
Bought into your bullshit
When you would pay tribute to me
Cause I know that
All I wanted to do is get high by the beach
Get high baby, baby, bye, bye
Boy look at you, looking at me
I know you don’t understand
You could be a bad motherfucker
But that don’t make you a man
Now you’re just another one of my problems
Because you got out of hand
We won’t survive
We’re sinking into the sand
All I wanna do is get high by the beach
Get high by the beach, get high
All I wanna do is get by by the beach
Get by baby, baby, bye, bye
The truth is I never
Bought into your bullshit
When you would pay tribute to me
Cause I know that
All I wanted to do is get high by the beach
Get high baby, baby, bye, bye
Lights, camera, acción
I’ll do it on my own
Don’t need your money, money
To get me what I want
Lights camera action
I’ll do it on my own
Don’t need your money, money
To get me what I want
All I wanna do is get high by the beach
Get high by the beach, get high
All I wanna do is get by by the beach
Get by baby, baby, bye, bye
The truth is I never
Bought into your bullshit
When you would pay tribute to me
Cause I know that
All I wanted to do is get high by the beach
Get high baby, baby, bye, bye
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Exotic and glamorous, Lana Del Rey is an old soul. She is from another time, and I for one, am glad the time is now. A good friend described her music as “exotic”. That’s more accurate that any other description I could come up with.
@MarkGTR 