[Jung Roe]

Thanks for the kind words Daryl!

I’ve learned so much about guitars at the MLT Club, and I love following all the guitar shop talk and customizations Lisa talks about. After all, Lisa is one of the greatest guitarists that ever walked the earth along with Mona. It’s in how expressive she is on the guitar, able to pull our heartstrings and make us feel the emotions and the magic in the music. She is brilliant. I think that is what a great musician is, and Lisa’s prowess on the guitar makes her one of the best guitarists in rock and roll right up there in the top echelon of the great guitar legends.

https://youtu.be/iN2KDTXZd6c?si=szOK17kvhLN9h1Ks

[Jung Roe]

Some more ideas for the MLT Notebook: Start a Common Place Book.

So I’ve kept personal journals and work notebooks for over 15 years now, and one of the things I’ve started doing naturally a while ago is collecting quotes and inspirational phrases and ideas from others books, movies, documentaries, youtube etc…., as well as from my own self-reflection. I started carrying over these quotes/ideas to every new journal. I have a section in the back of each journal that is now 10 pages long of quotes and inspirational ideas.

I learned recently this is a thing, called “Common Place Books”, and something many great thinkers and artists have been doing over the ages, going back to Aristotles time.

Great thinkers and creative geniuses like “Aristotle, Leonardo Da Vinci, Picasso, Isaac Newton, Thomas Jefferson, Albert Einstein, Mark Twain……etc all kept some form of notebook that helped them reflect on certain ideas, and helped them in their creative pursuits.” If you do a search in youtube for example, you will find a rich resource on “Common Place Books”.

A Common Place Book is a collection of quotations or passages, and a place to reflect upon them, where you make that knowledge your own, where you actually think about the ideas that resonated with you.

Commonplace book: A book in which commonplaces or passages important for reference are collected, usually under general heads; hence, a book in which one records passages or matters to be especially remembered or referred to with our without arrangement. – Oxford English Dictionary

How A Commonplace Book Boosts Your Creativity:

I know I digress, but hope this is helpful to someone and gives an idea of one way to utilize these wonderful MLT Notebooks.

NOTES & IDEAS
And now it’s up to my imagination
What it is I’m making of it all

Here are my 15 years of journals.

[Jung Roe]

Hi Russ

Lisa uses the Gretsch Duo Jet (G6128T-DSV) with the white pick guard installed. She mentioned that in one of the Ask the MLT forum replies. I thought she started using a different Duo Jet after the Cavern performances, but it turned out she just took the white pick guard off for the all black look.

I found the link to that post:

https://test4.monalisa-twins.com/forums/topic/about-the-gretsch-duo-jet-and-the-vox-amp/?no_frame=1#post-37934

test4.monalisa-twins.com

Restricted Membership Area – MonaLisa Twins

Restricted Membership Area – MonaLisa Twins

[Jung Roe]

Hi Roger

I know how you feel. I feel home sick for MLT. I think it’s similar to going away on the most wonderful vacation you could imagine for several weeks, and it has to end, and you come back home, and you miss those previous weeks so dearly, you feel home sick for it. You wish you can go back. We have their wonderful music to tie us over until the weekly Friday posts commence, and there is that additional livestream for the general public. I hope as a suggestion MLT will do some livestreams through the year. Just hanging out with them is absolutely magical, a most wonderful time. 😊🎈

[Jung Roe]

I’d gladly catch Mona’s cough, just to have been there in person with them! 😁💖

Hope you feel better Tim, lot’s of vitamin C. They say once you caught it, it’s too late for vitamin C, but I don’t think so,

[Jung Roe]

Hi Tim, Jeannette

Great photo, and one that makes you wonder. I believe we are all connected with one another and the universe. There are phenomena like Quantum Entanglement that defies our classical understanding of the universe:

Entanglement is a phenomenon where two or more particles become interconnected in such a way that the state of one particle is directly related to the state of another, regardless of the distance between them. Great physicists Einstein, Podolsky, and Rosen argued that if quantum mechanics were correct, it would imply “spooky action at a distance” because changes to one entangled particle’s state could instantaneously affect the state of another, even if they were light-years apart.

Researchers continue to explore the nature of entanglement and its broader implications for our understanding of space, time, and information.

With coincidence, I always remember this inspired insight from a great mind. “Coincidence is God’s way of remaining anonymous” – Albert Einstein.

Certainly the senselessness of John Lennon’s murder evoked a big question mark, and that passionate cry echoed across the decades for MLT who are greatly inspired by the genius of John Lennon and the Beatles to resonate passionately in their own album. John Lennon dared to question the events of his time, just as MLT questions the absurdity that goes on in our time. I don’t believe it is just a coincidence. MLT album WHY? is a remarkable masterpiece and perhaps MLT’s inspiration and creativity like all great work of art masterpieces in history tapped into something that is beyond our understanding.

[Jung Roe]

H Roger and Jacki

We are so lucky to have discovered MLT. We are certainly spoiled with unmatched quality in music they produce.

On Christmas morning I awoke to the CBC and they were playing Christmas music by some of the big artists today. I heard Taylor Swift’s rendition of “The Little Drummer Boy”, and it was so bland. She incorporated a lot of modern Wah, wah voice effects and tricks modern pop songs are so assimilated with. There was just nothing moving to draw me back for another listen. She tried to put a lot of feeling into her vocals, but it was just musically lacking. They played a few more classic Christmas songs by some other very popular artists today that I can’t even remember the name of, and just as well.

The musical talent of today’s pop artists can’t even be compared to MLT. Today’s mainstream chart topping music can be summed up with a simple phrase, “mediocrity prevails!”.

Well I shouldn’t be so critical and negative during the holidays festive spirit. 😉

[Jung Roe]

Thank you Jurgen for sharing all those beautiful Christmas traditional/folk music, castles and scenery. A beautiful collection of videos I enjoyed. You always bring so much beautiful content: music, cultures, places and things to the forum I never would have known about.

I’m not familiar with any of Leopold Mozart’s work, but that one you posted is quite good. Talent certainly ran in the family, with Wolfgang’s sister witnessed to be the greatest talent in the family actually. If times were different, and women were allowed to express and develop their brilliance in art equally like men, it might be Marianne Mozart’s work eclipsing Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, but the world of music is less because of the short sightedness and inequalities of humanity at the time.

John Lennon’s music and legacy certainly lives on, knowing no boundaries in nationality nor generation, so broad and wide. “Mull of Kintyre” is one of my favourites of Paul’s solo songs, the bagpipes are awesome in it and makes that song.

[Jung Roe]

Hi Russ, glad to help. Was nice to revisit that guitar post.

[Jung Roe]

Hi Daryl

Good point. It is often too easy for Governments to take the view that people are starving in other places, and only those activities that work towards a strong economy is all that matters. While this is all important, I also believe it is important to allocate funds for science and innovation projects for the long run, to further humanity and make the world a better place. Also, funding arts and humanities in education and human development is critical. As Robin Williams said in the movie “Dead Poets Society”, what is the point of learning to read and write, when there is nothing worth reading and writing about.

[Jung Roe]

Hi Bud

Yeah I ‘m with you on the weather. Living in the Pacific Northwest, and technically a rainforest along the BC coast, we get a lot of rain, and in the past years a drizzle that starts in October and ends in May HAHAHA. We are not the biggest consumers of coffee in the world by accident, with Seattle being home to the very first Starbucks in Pike Place Market, I’ve been to it many times over the years. We need that soothing and picker up java boost a lot. A very renowned piano man busker performs around there often too, Jonny Hahn, check him out next time you are in the area. Local KING 5 and KOMO 4 have done news features on him over the years.

Thanks for all the wonderful pointers to stay physically and mentally healthy, a lot of golden nuggets of wise advice there. Here are a few inspirational quotes and reflections I’ve collected over the years in my journals:

1..Spending time on what interests you, like your hobbies, is also a form of self love.
2..Without music/art, the crudeness of reality would make the world unbearable. – George Bernard Shaw. (an important one for all of us!)
3..If you want to live a happy life, tie it to a goal, not to people or things. – Albert Einstein
4..And here is one for Mona and Lisa: One person can have a profound affect on another. Two people can work miracles. They can change the world. – From an episode of Northern Exposure (Andrew Schneider).
5..I have no special talents, I am only passionately curious. – Albert Einstein

Here is a bonus:

6..Being happy doesn’t mean everything is perfect. It means you’ve decided to look beyond imperfections, and see the beauty of life.

Happy Holidays to all.

Jung

[Jung Roe]

MLT withdrawal indeed. JP, I will be in the other car at the lake too, a few hundred feet away.

[Jung Roe]

Hi Daryl

Taylor Swift is certainly a phenomenon, but it’s not because of good music. I saw a good program a little while ago, about how the music industry capitalizes on “hooks” in music, certain canned vocal sounds that when played often enough through very similar assimilated music that they push out in streaming media, it has an addictive effect, and the crowds start to crave it. it’s not good music, just canned music people have gotten drawn and addicted to.

When I took a gander through the top 10 Bill Board Charts recently when the Beatles Now and Then song was released a few weeks ago, all the top 10 stuff sounded similar, with a set of common hooks and off the shelf vocal mixes. If you are young and you stream that stuff all day and night, soon you get addicted to it, and the brain thinks it’s good music. That’s how the record labels along with streaming services and Apple and Samsung work together to keep feeding the golden goose with assimilated artists producing the same regurgitated sound in molded music that the industry has determined is good music and is what shall be promoted. “Resistance is futile, you will be assimilated”… is what todays music industry is all about. Rick Beato has some pretty good videos about the sad state the music industry is in with bland music that dominates the charts.

[Jung Roe]

Hi David

Certainly the billions in funding NASA, is money well spent, and a great investment into humanities future. While it is great to see private investment into space programs like SPACEX, that can lead to even more innovation, I think there is always the tendency for it to get derailed or misused for greed, profit, and power by special interest groups. I think the US Government should always continue to fund NASA’s space programs for the purpose of science and science alone to further humanity’s horizon.

[Jung Roe]

You both have a heart of gold.

https://youtu.be/zNq6AVSns-M?si=UGws23oVXhe7DUOk