ACDC: The Mutt Lange Albums

Here we come at last, after over a month of listening to ACDC albums, in order, repeatedly, I get to the end of the Mutt Lange produced albums.  Three albums, 2 singers, and enough classic hits to fill a best of album release themselves.  Some of the most iconic rock songs of all time on are this list:

Back in Black
Highway to Hell
For Those About to Rock
Shook Me All Night Long
Rock and Roll Ain't Noise Pollution

Those Five songs alone would be enough to make a rock band millionaires for life and immortals in glory.  This is only the tip of the ice berg of this era.

Looked at sequentially, I think you can see the influence of Lange in the band quite well.  The first album they did had much more of the original ACDC feel to it, and not just because Bon Scott was still with them.  There's some genuine rock and roll mixed in with the pioneering Hard Rock sound coming through.  It is with Back in Black and Brian Johnson's introduction that we leave a lot of the Rock and Roll behind, and are full in to Hard Rock that will exemplify the successful albums and songs from here on out.  If there is a low point, we see it in the 3rd and last album, which is still a great selling, and overall good album.

Let's talk about that 3rd album, as its the one I have heard the least of.  I read that they went to France and had troubles with the technical side of their first chosen recording space.  That kind of things leads to tension and resentment in most cases.  They ended up scrapping things and heading to a place outside Paris.  I think the band was feeling the strain, and it probably lead to them parting ways with Lange.  Lange, himself, was a very busy man at this time.  The #1 album before and after "Those About to Rock"'s #1 stint was produced by Lange as well.  He was establishing what would be almost as huge a stint with Def Leppard, and would produce The Car's hit album: Heartbeat City.

Then, after the release, the band embarked on this huge, multi-million dollar stadium tour of the United States.  The stage had the now famous canons, the Hell's Bell, and enough pyro to wage a war.  It was a hard, fast, and physically draining tour.  After all of this ACDC decided they needed a change, and did a few stripped down, less successful, albums in the manner of their earlier career(of which I have not really listened to them yet, and I'm actually excited to be doing that soon).

For Those About To Rock has really great songs, but its hard to follow up the greatest selling rock album of all time.  I think what was most missing was some Angus solos.  Almost all the songs are pounding, head banging, driven songs, but they lack the "break" in the energy for a Angus soaked solo that is memorable.  The production is there... in a big way.  There's lots of overdubbing, lots of backtracks with chorus and echo effects, Lange is probably the strongest sound in the band outside of Brian Johnson with this album.  If Giving the Dog a Bone from Back in Black, or Touch Too Much from Highway To Hell were among your favorites, then you have an entire album of these kinds of songs in For Those About to Rock.

It is one of the greatest stints in music between a band and a producer, and it was one of the greatest eras of rock that influenced the genre's most popular albums for a decade after, and home guitarists for decades since, and it was great to listen to.  I feel like I hit a peak, but I know there are several hits that I have not gotten to yet, and I know the newest album as of this writing was freakin' awesome.

 So on I go through the albums.

Hand Wired Amps: Convincing myself

There are several trends which are very hot right now in the Guitar amp world(much different than the bass amp world, believe me).  The big names are scrambling to make cost effective versions of both of these trends.  One of the trends is the "lunch box" tube amp.  Lunch box amps are very small compared to what people think of when they think of tube amps.  They are also low wattage designs meant to sound like their big brothers at much lower volumes.  People realized you do not need 100 watts... like ever, unless you're pro-touring venues without PA support.  This is not the trend this post is about. (pictured: a lunch box amp compared to its big brother, with almost 50 pounds weight difference)

Hand wired is another trend.  It has been around longer, though a lot of it was due to boutique snobbery.  A lot players rejected it because it is SO cost prohibitive.  Nowadays  though, with the realization that you can live fine with sub-30 watt guitar amps, some more cost effective hand wired amps are coming to market, putting in reach of people that are reasonable, and not gear-snobs themselves.  Let's start with the easiest way to explain what they are; Visually.

That is a printed circuit board, a marvel of 20th century tech.  It is clean, easily mass produced, and works really well.  Its the familiar green board you see on almost all electronics these days, from the cheap 2 dollar radio to the expensive $1000 smart phone.  What could possibly suck about it?  As you can see, those components are TINY.  Also, they are linked by the printed circuits.  If something burns out, you have a risk of it burning parts of the board out, severing more connections and generally making a mess of things.  Also, you need someone familiar with the workings of circuit boards to get any repairs done, and that's a more rare kind of specialist.  Many times you scrap the whole board and start over with a fresh new one, which is not cheap compared to how cheap the manufacture cost is.

That is a hand wired 18 watt Marshall clone.  Look at it for a bit.  Notice how things are connected with mostly wires and how things are larger, and you can tell individual parts from one another.  The cost to manufacture this sort of hardware is at the higher end of amp manufacturing spectrums.  You need someone that knows what they are doing, and they have to do each piece by hand.  The benefit to consumers is that you do not need a degree in electrical engineering to work on them.  This is hobby level stuff and there are many "do it yourself" home kits for these kinds of amps.  Many vacuum cleaner repairment would know enough about electrical work to be able to work on these amps.

That is the benefit that is starting to convince me that I may want to go this route.  I despise having to send something in for repair work.  I hate negotiating prices, I hate the moving target that is an estimate, and I hate that I can't really tell the quality of the workmanship.  Hand wired amps allow for all of that to be in the open.  Whatever they use to fix the thing can be readily bought online, and easily price matched.  Its the same components that go into anything electronic of this type.  Also, it is not inconceivable that I would be able to do the repair work myself eventually.

The reality check is that its not 100% positives.

While Hand Wired is said to be more reliable, what they mean is that an amp tech can have it repaired and fixed faster.  If you're going to be moving around with the amp, chances are a PCB amp will be more reliable due to literally less wiring.  Hand wired amps are typically heavier too, while being less complex.  You can get certain bells and whistles added that more "modern" designs have, but it will cost you.  Cost is another one.  For what is "basic" in today's amp world, you will be paying over $1000, and that's just a head; no speakers.  I have gotten used to digital reverb in my amp head.  I could use a pedal, sure, but that means I would want an effects loop now too.  Those are all cost added luxuries to hand wired amps.

I can see why people like hand wired amps, and I can also see why they are way more expensive.  In the end though, since I'm not keen on owning a million different amplifiers, I think I need something a bit more modern.  Its just a bonus that means it also comes out cheaper.  I may be spoiled, but I want my emulated lines out, I want my built in digital reverb, and an effects loop is almost mandatory.  I have never been one for being a "60's cave man".  On the bass side of things I tend to stay top of tech in the class.  The guitarist of me has given in to the fact that I need tubes, but the bassist in me won't let me give up what I'm used to.

Gaining volume and day 57

Gain and Master Volume

To a bassist using solid state, the relationship between these two are very confusing.  To a guitarist, it is a little more obvious.  If you ask both what gain is, they'll usually give you a blank stair, and the guitarist will talk about getting a dirty signal.

If you look at a guitar as a signal transmitter, you can perhaps understand gain a bit more.  The signal from your guitar is relatively low, that is why passive instruments with no batteries are still the most prevalent.  The current created by the magnets and the strings is enough of a signal.  When it gets to your amp, it will encounter 2 stages in most amp designs.  The first stage is the "pre-amp".  This is the stage where this tiny, small signal gets boosted.  This is where your tone is "shaped", if you are to make changes to a signal, its much easier to fine tune the signal if it is larger. That is what the Gain does, its a knob that increases how big you transform your signal.  If you make the signal very large, you get pre-amp distortion.

(Pictured: to the left are the small pre-amp tubes, to the right are the large power amp tubes)

After the first Gain stage, the pre-amp, the signal goes to the power amp stage.  Again, this stage takes whatever signal you give it and makes it much larger so that it can power the speakers enough to make a mechanical transition of the signal.  If you have boosted the signal to great levels in the pre-amp using gain, then it will distort this power section as well.  It also means you get a HUGE increase in volume.  Power amp distortion causes the tubes to get very hot, and will wear out your amplifier components.  Power amp tubes will glow with the fire of a thousand suns when overdriven hard.

(pictured: power tubes, some people aren't used to seeing things lit up like this in electronics unless its LED's)

That is why the Master Volume knob was invented.  It sits between the Pre-amp and power amp stages(technically it is pre-amp).  With it, you can bring down the signal strength before it gets to the power amp section, but it will let the pre-amp distortion through.  Pre-amp distortion is popular because it is much lower heat and voltage, and is also cheaper to do all around.  You can get that distorted sound while keeping the power tubes working at normal temperatures, and keep your ears from getting split from volume.

Solid state bassists, of which there are more than tube users these days, don't have this kind of distortion usually.  So how do they know how much gain to use?  Well... they get a helping hand.

Day 57

I have pretty much explored my guitar amp and can now manipulate it to do what I want fairly quickly.  Not too bad for having it for a decade right?  Yea lol.  I made it a point to know how amp EQ works with bass. A lot of people I've known that played kind of have these super complex and powerful EQ's and have no idea what they're for.  They max them or set it all at 12 o'clock and call it a day.  Then they talk about needing this or that pedal for this sound.  I wanted to get away from that.  It is a habit of mine to see that kind of stuff and want to not be that way.  When I got the Thunderfunk, I was like "I really REALLY need to educate myself if I'm going to have this kind of amp". I remember my bass bud coming over a good number of years back and him not being happy with not getting a Claypool sound.

"its gotta be his fingers or his carl thompson"

I informed him that Claypool likes to play full mids blasted.  A "frowny" if you look at it on a graphic EQ.  I EQ'd it in, and sure enough, there it was.  He then played Tommy the Cat and made me realize how much I suck at bass.  Anyway, recognizing EQ'ing and sounds has always been important to me.

So far I switch between as light a distortion as this amp can get(which is not very light lol) and a high gain metal sound, which it is surprisingly good at doing.  Sometimes it gets pretty fuzzy too.  I have some stuff to learn about the frequencies and how they interact with the band.  Like, I don't know the mid frequencies in Guitar, so I don't know if boosting them will interfere with the bass player's sounds.  The whole reason you do not want to scoop a bass live is that you kill "your" frequency.  You boost where you overlap with the drums, and you muddy up the guitarist by interfering with his highs, while your relatively instrument free play area of the "mids" is cut all to hell.  That's a "scoop", and its only great in your bedroom.  I need to research the guitarist's play area.  It sure seems a lot of people scoop a guitar and it seems more accepted.

Metal not lmletal and day 49

The problem of volume has always been with the guitar.  Earlier strings instruments used bows and could have giant bodies to provide immense volumes.  Eventually the body would get so large that you got out of the guitar's sound pocket and you'd be playing Bass.  Any form of making a guitar larger ended up being more like larger string instruments like the Harp or the piano.  This was all solved by electrical amplification in the 20th century, but right before that revolution an amazingly cool guitar style was invented.

Resonators are guitars designed to work with metal parts to create a strong reflection of sound back to the audience.  The sound was certainly louder than many acoustics of the time, but the metal really did give it a unique sound that did not work with most types of music at the time.  Resonators became cheap, and easier to move around than having your own electrical PA system.  The more "rural" types of music adopted these "outdated" instruments, and due to the sheer amount of usage they got in Bluegrass and blues, they are now accepted as mainstay sounds of those genre.

Resonators have metal bowls and reflectors, known as "Cones" built under the strings to take the sound and reflect it back out into the audience.  The originals used a 3 cone design, but a split in the company lead to a simpler and cheaper "dobro" design using a single cone.  Further, you could get square necked resonators to play like a steel lap guitar, or the round neck variety to play more like a traditional guitar.  Both are popular with slide guitar techniques.

Resonators, to me, rank as some of the most beautiful instruments ever created.  There are entire guitars manufactured out of bell brass and engraved with patterns and designs that remind me of the dualing pistols of the 17th century.  There are just as beautiful wood and metal combos that look like something out of a junk yard, but sound amazing.

Day 49

Still snowed in, but my hearth is still warmed by the awesomely burning light of ROCK.

or something Jack Black would say.... or maybe I'm watching too much Gearmanndude.  Wait, same person aren't they?  Has that myth been busted?  I refuse to accept it.

Anyway.  Somehow in between all the metal and rock, I came up with a very poppy guitar track.  Sounds a bit like "Steady as She Goes" now that I sit here and think about it, but I think that I was channeling Nirvana's Nevermind when I was doing it.  It is poppy, and its sorta happy sounding, but don't hold that against it, its fun to play!  I swear.  I'm really jonesing for a fuzz pedal these days.  Its quickly looking like 70's rock may give way to some 90's alternative soon.

So I'm practicing Stranglehold and while looking at my "recommended" tab, there was Black Betty.  Wow, it looks "doable" for me as well.  Black Betty just has so much energy, I figured I wasn't ready for it, but I think with practice I can get it pretty quickly.  It all goes back to my power chords having a lot more definition and sound to them.  As I said before, they're becoming less punk and more 70's rock, and that's evident with the two new songs I'm practicing on.  Black Betty has also been in my head because of Rayman Legends.  There's a level on that where the bad guys play Black Betty while you bowl through them running from some monstrosity or another, and its highly entertaining.

Solid State and Bass, also Day 23

The first question people will ask on this subject is "what is the difference?" and from a technological point of view, Solid State amps use diodes and transistors instead of tubes for their pre-amp and power sections.  There are hybrids, particularly with bass, where there are tubes in the pre-amp section and solid state in the power.

The problem is that a solid state amplifier will not compress a signal once the signal goes beyond what the design is created to handle.  Tube amplifiers will round off, compress, and fatten a tone with lots of harmonics, and send this signal to a speaker and it creates this magical "guitar" tone that we know today.  In a solid state amp, this signal is hard clipped.  It turns a mountain into a mesa, with a fat top.  You send this flat top signal to a speaker, and it makes the speaker want to destroy itself.  Well, not really, but a speaker is designed to move in and out, not to move out and stay out during the "flat" part.  This causes a speaker to malfunction.

Now why in the world would anyone want to use solid state?  Well, they cost less.  Their parts are manufactured for a myriad of electronic gadgets, so you can get the pieces and throw them together.  They also are more reliable, as there is less heat, and more stable parts used, in general.  There is another section of people that like them, and that is people wanting 100% clean tone.

The non-compressive nature of Solid State means that there are not a lot of overtones introduced to the signal, you have a pure clean tone.  Sure this kind of sucks if you want a creamy, rich, bell tone from your clean channel, but if you're applying a lot of amp modeling, effects pedals, or computer modulations, then a solid state signal is the "blankest" of canvases.

Then there are the bassists.  Bass takes A LOT more power to get the sound out into the audience than guitar does.  Some bass amps with tubes get up to the 300 watt range, but that's pushing it.  These monsters weigh over 100lbs without a speaker cab.  While on the solid state front you can get into the 1,000's of watts for under 1,000 dollars and under 20 lbs.  Now, 300 tube watts, when they are overdriven, can get insanely loud, but you're losing some of your "clean".  Solid state provides the largest, cleanest, most defined headroom for bassists.  There are other things to take into consideration, wattage is not a guarantee of volume, and the type of power supply will influence the sound as well, but in general bassists are much more accepting of solid state than guitarists.  Because of that, bassists now have literal pocket sized amps with 500 watts, and 4x10 speaker cabs that weight under 40 lbs.

Day 23

I warmed up with my Guitarcade as usual.  I also played some of the game based on Bending.  While still kind of inaccurate, the game did prove to be fun.  I think for a beginning guitar player, they should have stuck to the thicker strings further down the neck, because nothing will give beginners blisters faster than bending on the B at the 12th fret.

Anyway, I did the harmonics lesson.  Harmonics on guitar seem dreamily easily.  I wish they were this easy to do on bass guitar.  In bass guitar, harmonic play is like a top tier thing, up there with piano-esque tap play.  Jaco made himself legendary by making it a hallmark of his playing.  On guitar they almost seem effortless.  I know the lesson said that not every spot on the neck will make a harmonic, but it seems that just about any spot did.  This is not true of bass either lol.  Anyway, I got through the lesson pretty easily, but that might be because of my prior bass practice in the subject.

I did a lot of "amp" practice today, meaning I did it w/o Rocksmith.  It is just easier for me to practice scales and the songs I know with my amp.  I have a 25 foot guitar cord, and the amp is in a more convenient spot.  So I start a movie on netflix, put the amp on clean, and practice scale runs while I watch the movie.

I am really feeling the need to learn more blues-rock and rock style playing.  I keep doing the bluesy stuff I have practiced with for years, and I'm wanting to learn something new that I can improv in.

Play what you like, even if you don't like it. And Day 19

Forgive me if I've ever given you this "speech" already.

I did not consider myself a "bassist" until I had this strange set of revelations.  One of these revelations was that I should embrace what I find fun to play.

I know that seems weird, but I have to explain a little.  I'm probably notorious around my friends were hating radio.  I really can't wait for 2 or 3 songs that I don't care for to get done for 1 tolerable song.  This means that it is hard for me to focus on learning any songs I find blah.  This also means I don't like playing "blah" bass lines that exist in a lot of classic Rock or the genres I listen the most to.  Its my flaw, I know I suck more because of it, but I try to live with it.

About 6 years ago I was turned on to "jazz improv" bass by the Talkbass forums.  I have to tell you, I can't sit and listen to this stuff really... but holy crap do I love to play it.  How can I explain that without sounding like a jerk?  Maybe its like the people that will play sports, but hate watching it on TV?  Maybe it reminds them that they should be doing it rather than watching it?  I do make myself sit and listen though, for learning reasons.  It has probably made me what people would call a "busy" bass player.

I read that John Paul Jones used to listen to horn players and that's how he got inspired for his bass lines in Led Zeppelin.  So I immediately got on Youtube and looked up the horn player I knew the name of, Louis Armstrong.   I also branched out.  The silly thing was, I forgot to go back and listen to more Led Zeppelin.  This came later with another "revelation" I will write about later.  By listening to that, I began appreciating the older "golden era" of horn player's music.  I also became a much better bass player, and learned a very clean, "poppy" sound as I tried to come closer to the sounds I heard on the jazz.

Anyways, all of that is to say, play what you find fun.  Sure, you've probably heard it, and you've probably thought "well yea, play what you like not what other people like" and I say YES BUT, maybe you find something fun that you don't like.  Play to your strengths.  You may love Punk rock, but you find you hate the bass lines.  You may despise Surfer music, but find tremolo picking to be tons of fun.  Play what is strong for you and it will make you practice more, and eventually you can work your style into the genres you like.

John Paul Jones works his motown inspired stuff into the heaviest rock that Led Zeppelin does.  Flea brought funk bass into punk rock.  Brent Hinds of metal band Mastodon is a bluegrass banjo player.  I have, on several occasions, brought my improv jazz into blues.  I am currently bringing the only thing I really know decently on guitar, simple blues riffs, into chugging palm muted metal.  Play what you find fun, play what is strong for you in technique, and then YOU can make it the genre you wish you were playing.  You may find your own voice and bring something new to the world.

Day 19

I'm not going to lie, I did not get a lot of playing in today.  I had jury duty and after I got home, I took a nap.  I used the guitar unplugged for about 30 minutes, noodling as I waited for lunch to get cooked.  Practiced the stuff I've been practicing lately.  I did play 1 game each of my "warm up" Guitarcade games.  I also played some of the Scale Racer.  I love the look of Scale Racer.  It reminds me of Rad Racer, a game I played a  lot in my youth.  Scale Racer is the kind of game that is going to help me learn scales.  I wanted Scale Warriors to help so badly, but I'm more focused on getting the "game" correct than learning anything.

I did get some practice in though, so I count that as a triumph.  You can take it as you will.

Things to Come and Day 07

There are several things I can write posts about with this game, but in 60 days I will be running out of topics that are purely about Rocksmith.  In an earlier post you saw me talk about the History of SG's, and I think I'm going to continue putting up some music related stuff like that.  I'd like to clarify why I think they taught the Overdrive, Distortion and Fuzz topics out of order.  I'd also like to talk about some common Pedal designs that get copied over and over and resold for ridiculous amounts of money(Ross Compressors, Tubescreamers, and FuzzFaces).  Then there is the fact that I think of guitars like samurai swords, and I'd like to talk about the origin and the journey of a few fabled guitars/basses through the years.  The way Brian May got his guitar is a very cool one, and then you have the journey of Jaco's recently re-discovered Bass of Doom.

I also have a few personal posts that I plan on having.  I have a post already written about my own personal guitar.  Its not a "look at this expensive, nice, badass guitar, aren't you jealous?" kind of post, because my guitar wasn't expensive, and I actually have a story that goes along with it.  Generally I will try to not have robotic non-posts about stuff that means nothing to me.  I either think its cool to know, would like to try and educate, or mean something personal to me.

I will continue my daily updates.  I feel like there will be days that are kind of uninteresting.  Its the equal of speeding up time in the "My success story" videos on youtube.  I will, however, continue to document the general happenings of my day inside the game.

Day 07

Wow, its been a week already?

Well today I messed around with the Riff repeater because the missions had me doing that.  I also got diverted into sorting songs and playing something from the 1980's.  I chose "Every Breath You Take" because there's not a lot of 80's stuff in this game by default.  The song threw an F chord at me and it looked like I had to twist all my fingers and use 2 hands to be able to do it... I'm so intimidated by chords.  Anyway, got through the song, got the mission done, not sure what good it did...  The Riff Repeater is really nice.  Ever wish you could slow down a song in Guitar Hero/Rock Band?  Maybe you could, I did not play those games later on.  Well you can do that here.  You can adjust the difficulty and the speed, you can even have the game alter it as you get better.  I'll do a larger topic about it later.

Played some Ducks Redux.  It had an annoying habit of not being able to tell the difference between my 2nd fret on the E string and the first.  I re-tuned the guitar, and still, it had that problem.  It was not a problem before... I'll have to keep an eye on it.  I may have to look and see if others are having this problem.

I had decided that on day 10 I'll force myself to learn a song.  Learning theory and application is just so much for fun for me right now.  I'm not playing in front of anyone, so its not like I get requests for songs people would know.  I'm more interested in what I can do in making my own stuff up.  I broke that decision and played some more of "You Really Got Me" by the Kinks.  Turns out that song is like a sharp "E" tune, but not enough to be a different tuning altogether.  So every time I play that, I have to re-tune for other parts of the game.  I felt like I have improved already.  The confidence in my fingers to find the correct place and to be able to shift while keeping that simple power chord used in the song has me optimistic.  Still going to wait and focus on it after day 10 though.

Anti-boredom and Day 02

Anti-boredom

The jury is out on if this game IS genius, but it does have a few brilliant ideas.  I'm not a complete beginner, so there's a few things in the lessons and videos that I already know.  The genius thing that Rocksmith 2014 does is they never turn off your guitar.  While your points are being totaled up, while you are watching videos, while you're waiting for something else to begin, you can be playing.  I don't feel bored at all, because I can always be noodling around while things are happening inside the game.  Not that the wait times are long for loading screens, they are very tolerable.  While I was watching how to work a strap... I was practicing my E minor scale.  While I was waiting for my score to total in a mini-game, I was practicing Brain Stew(song not included in game).

There is hardly a time where I'm not making noise.  I really think I'd be appreciating the game less if this was not a feature.

Day 02 No songs... ok, songs too.

I started out the day deciding not to try and play a song.  I am a long way from songs being very fun right now.  I started out going to the lessons section.  I watched a few without skipping, and as I mentioned above, thank goodness they let you play around while the lessons are going on.  I worked on getting the lesson's practice track down to memory, and then I moved on.

Looking at the menu, I decided to finish out a mission about setting up a jam band.  Apparently I did it wrongly yesterday for completing the mission.  Paying more attention to it, I loaded a pre-set band like they tell me.  The pre-sets have a lot of variety, and you don't have to dink around with little sliders if you don't want to.  I really appreciate how this game has obviously powerful control over things, but has perfectly usable pre-sets.

After a few jam missions completed, I decided I wanted to try the Guitarcade.  Yesterday I payed a visit to the Guitarcade as part of a suggestion that the game gave me(not a mission, songs will suggest things to help you play the song better).  I obviously was not ready for it,  I sucked at the game and so stayed away from that.  Today I loaded up the first game, Gone Wailin'.  All these games have a retro 8-bit look to them, and I really like it.  Gone Wailin' is a guy that rides on top of a whale.  You make more noise, the whale spouts water, elevating you.  There are bananas to grab as the characters move along the scrolling background.  It is pretty fun actually.  What does it teach?  Well, you have to mute a lot, which is something good for beginners to practice, also it will build up hand endurance.  While neither were something I really needed to practice, I am new to using a pick.  I have this bad habit of my index fingernail raking the strings, leaving me with a sore finger nail later in the day.  I'm using this to help me keep in the habit of holding my fingers more correctly.

At the end of my session, I decided to go ahead and look at playing a new song.  The Arctic Monkey song is pretty good even though I"m not a huge fan of theirs.  I also played some more of "You Really Got Me" by the Kinks.  Still not fun to learn songs yet.