I found an interesting mistake in my latest video. It's so interesting, in fact, that I'm going to record a separate video about it. Since I'll make a follow-up for this tutorial anyway, please tell me in the comments here if something's still unclear, too difficult, or any other advice, observation or correction. Any help is greatly appreciated!
The new video is up and is pretty successful by my standards. Do you dig my new setup? What songs I need to break down next? Also, help me get to 28,000 subs, now it's only 27,999 🤪
Live stream alert — on Monday, April 28, at approximately 6 pm GMT, I want to go live and celebrate exactly 20 years of being a fan of Mark Knopfler. I’ll reflect on my past, how this music affected my life, and what I learned in two decades. Time flies by, and it’s still my favourite music, my favourite songs, and I still want to share my love for it. Any questions, inquiries and comments are greatly appreciated. Mail me at fffoma@gmail.com
URGENT: I am planning to travel to London within 3 weeks for a short visit. Any help is greatly appreciated. I'm interested in places to stay, places to visit, and people to meet. For suggestions or questions, please mail me at fffoma@gmail.com
Today, I made a huge leap out of my comfort zone and in two 3-hour sessions recorded a huge live interview/masterclass about Mark Knopfler's music for one of the biggest and best Russian guitar stores. It was conducted in my mother tongue, and I had never spoken about this music in my native language before. I must admit, I fell in love with this music once again and as I was recording this, often I was unable to find words even in my own language.
I didn't need much preparation as I already covered the good 100 MK songs that I can approximate even in my sleep, and we chose a lot of obscured and not overly played acoustic songs. I was talking about songs like Sailing To Philadelphia, Baloney Again, Done With Bonaparte, Speedway At Nazareth, Marbletown, Privateering, RĂĽdiger and more that I already recorded for my channel in the last 8 years.
On a separate note, I’m so fed up with all the Baloney Sandwich that is going on in the world that I don’t care anymore. I’m here for the music, and I don’t care where, when and in which language it is being performed, discussed or loved. As I see music bringing happiness to people, when I witness the pure joy of people learning something new, I’m sorry, but I just stop to care. You don’t have lines on planet Earth. If you don’t believe me, ask the astronauts.
A decade on YouTube. About two months ago it was exactly 10 years since my very first “serious”, properly prepared, recorded and edited YouTube video upload, which was the recreation of the “I’ll See You in My Dreams” as played by Chet Atkins and Mark Knopfler and not so long ago shared on Mark’s page.
I often think about it and return to those innocent times, when I edited my first videos on a borrowed laptop in 2014. How I borrowed a guitar, camera and lights as well. How I uploaded the first video talking in English in 2016, climbing Everest of my self-deprecation, language barrier and lack of skill.
How by sheer miracle I came up with the idea of discussing Mark’s songs, barely knowing how to play just a few of them and having only one guitar. How I realised I could record everything on the cheapest guitar in 2022, cause like in English, it’s information that matters. Nobody cares about your accent or voice, nobody cares how expensive or cheap your gear is.
All this while working on jobs that were anything but music, trying to overcome yet another major obstacle. Usually, the best channels on YouTube come from professionals sharing their experiences. I still don’t have any experience in music, so I learn in real-time, and with tools everybody has, that’s why I grew to only 25,000 subscribers in 10 years.
Imagine having a medical science channel without any experience working in the field. Well, that’s me. Probably my main secret is that I’m an average, run-of-the-mill person who happens to be able to play some music and loves to share it, who also loves to sit in the kitchen, listen to good music, and eat good food. I’m Robert Frank from “The Ragpicker’s Dream” album cover photo.
I’m happy I’ve been active all these years, never really stopped or ever wanted to stop. My favourite part about this, apart from all the hurdles I faced and needed to defeat, would be getting inspired by something, knowing what result I want to achieve, having a picture of a video in my head and making it happen.
No real message here, I said enough in 10 years I think, but if you ask me what my channel’s purpose is, I would say — to celebrate the magic of song.
Live Stream alert! I’m planning to go live tomorrow, on Sunday, 20:00 Moscow time, 5 pm London time or 10 am Pacific time. Anyhow, if you can’t attend it, leave your questions anywhere, here in the comments, on YouTube or email me, and I’ll see it. Ask me anything about playing guitar, Mark Knopfler or teaching. I’ll try not to touch politics too much in this one. Peace!
All songwriters in the world get asked the same question at some point. What comes first, music or words? And it’s quite interesting that most have a clear answer describing such a vague creative undertaking. I remember having this romantic idea of how it should always be music first. Songs getting to you in dreams Paul McCartney style. He famously wrote only a few songs where the words came first, one of them was “All My Loving”.
However, I found out that I prefer to listen to and study songwriters who write lyrics first and songs where words take precedence over music. I think songs like this have more room for being well-crafted and thought over, especially if you have to deal with some fine poetry. In this case, music is supposed to silently flow around words, getting into all the gaps and becoming unnoticed. Sting is more on the music side. Rodgers & Hammerstein II worked with lyrics first most of the time.
Because any poetry by definition has rhythm built into it and is beautiful on its own, the goal of a songwriter is to craft a song like Michelangelo discovering a statue in every block of stone. And since I always talk about Mark Knopfler’s music here, in a 2012 interview he admitted that yes, for him it’s more lyrics first. You can tell by studying his songs, and his craft is of a very high calibre. I wish I could be a songwriter myself, but my role is that of an observer.
Pavel Fomenkov
I found an interesting mistake in my latest video. It's so interesting, in fact, that I'm going to record a separate video about it. Since I'll make a follow-up for this tutorial anyway, please tell me in the comments here if something's still unclear, too difficult, or any other advice, observation or correction. Any help is greatly appreciated!
6 months ago | [YT] | 14
View 1 reply
Pavel Fomenkov
The new video is up and is pretty successful by my standards. Do you dig my new setup? What songs I need to break down next? Also, help me get to 28,000 subs, now it's only 27,999 🤪
9 months ago | [YT] | 41
View 17 replies
Pavel Fomenkov
Live stream alert — on Monday, April 28, at approximately 6 pm GMT, I want to go live and celebrate exactly 20 years of being a fan of Mark Knopfler. I’ll reflect on my past, how this music affected my life, and what I learned in two decades. Time flies by, and it’s still my favourite music, my favourite songs, and I still want to share my love for it. Any questions, inquiries and comments are greatly appreciated. Mail me at fffoma@gmail.com
1 year ago | [YT] | 11
View 0 replies
Pavel Fomenkov
I apologise for the false alarm. Unfortunately, I am unable to travel to the UK.
1 year ago | [YT] | 12
View 2 replies
Pavel Fomenkov
URGENT: I am planning to travel to London within 3 weeks for a short visit. Any help is greatly appreciated. I'm interested in places to stay, places to visit, and people to meet. For suggestions or questions, please mail me at fffoma@gmail.com
1 year ago | [YT] | 22
View 3 replies
Pavel Fomenkov
Today, I made a huge leap out of my comfort zone and in two 3-hour sessions recorded a huge live interview/masterclass about Mark Knopfler's music for one of the biggest and best Russian guitar stores. It was conducted in my mother tongue, and I had never spoken about this music in my native language before. I must admit, I fell in love with this music once again and as I was recording this, often I was unable to find words even in my own language.
I didn't need much preparation as I already covered the good 100 MK songs that I can approximate even in my sleep, and we chose a lot of obscured and not overly played acoustic songs. I was talking about songs like Sailing To Philadelphia, Baloney Again, Done With Bonaparte, Speedway At Nazareth, Marbletown, Privateering, RĂĽdiger and more that I already recorded for my channel in the last 8 years.
On a separate note, I’m so fed up with all the Baloney Sandwich that is going on in the world that I don’t care anymore. I’m here for the music, and I don’t care where, when and in which language it is being performed, discussed or loved. As I see music bringing happiness to people, when I witness the pure joy of people learning something new, I’m sorry, but I just stop to care. You don’t have lines on planet Earth. If you don’t believe me, ask the astronauts.
1 year ago | [YT] | 109
View 20 replies
Pavel Fomenkov
A decade on YouTube. About two months ago it was exactly 10 years since my very first “serious”, properly prepared, recorded and edited YouTube video upload, which was the recreation of the “I’ll See You in My Dreams” as played by Chet Atkins and Mark Knopfler and not so long ago shared on Mark’s page.
I often think about it and return to those innocent times, when I edited my first videos on a borrowed laptop in 2014. How I borrowed a guitar, camera and lights as well. How I uploaded the first video talking in English in 2016, climbing Everest of my self-deprecation, language barrier and lack of skill.
How by sheer miracle I came up with the idea of discussing Mark’s songs, barely knowing how to play just a few of them and having only one guitar. How I realised I could record everything on the cheapest guitar in 2022, cause like in English, it’s information that matters. Nobody cares about your accent or voice, nobody cares how expensive or cheap your gear is.
All this while working on jobs that were anything but music, trying to overcome yet another major obstacle. Usually, the best channels on YouTube come from professionals sharing their experiences. I still don’t have any experience in music, so I learn in real-time, and with tools everybody has, that’s why I grew to only 25,000 subscribers in 10 years.
Imagine having a medical science channel without any experience working in the field. Well, that’s me. Probably my main secret is that I’m an average, run-of-the-mill person who happens to be able to play some music and loves to share it, who also loves to sit in the kitchen, listen to good music, and eat good food. I’m Robert Frank from “The Ragpicker’s Dream” album cover photo.
I’m happy I’ve been active all these years, never really stopped or ever wanted to stop. My favourite part about this, apart from all the hurdles I faced and needed to defeat, would be getting inspired by something, knowing what result I want to achieve, having a picture of a video in my head and making it happen.
No real message here, I said enough in 10 years I think, but if you ask me what my channel’s purpose is, I would say — to celebrate the magic of song.
2 years ago | [YT] | 234
View 57 replies
Pavel Fomenkov
Live Stream alert! I’m planning to go live tomorrow, on Sunday, 20:00 Moscow time, 5 pm London time or 10 am Pacific time. Anyhow, if you can’t attend it, leave your questions anywhere, here in the comments, on YouTube or email me, and I’ll see it. Ask me anything about playing guitar, Mark Knopfler or teaching. I’ll try not to touch politics too much in this one. Peace!
2 years ago | [YT] | 40
View 4 replies
Pavel Fomenkov
"Sanctions". So my BuyMeACoffee account is no more, and I'm one step closer to be closed from the world. Don't know what to do yet, let's see.
2 years ago | [YT] | 33
View 21 replies
Pavel Fomenkov
All songwriters in the world get asked the same question at some point. What comes first, music or words? And it’s quite interesting that most have a clear answer describing such a vague creative undertaking. I remember having this romantic idea of how it should always be music first. Songs getting to you in dreams Paul McCartney style. He famously wrote only a few songs where the words came first, one of them was “All My Loving”.
However, I found out that I prefer to listen to and study songwriters who write lyrics first and songs where words take precedence over music. I think songs like this have more room for being well-crafted and thought over, especially if you have to deal with some fine poetry. In this case, music is supposed to silently flow around words, getting into all the gaps and becoming unnoticed. Sting is more on the music side. Rodgers & Hammerstein II worked with lyrics first most of the time.
Because any poetry by definition has rhythm built into it and is beautiful on its own, the goal of a songwriter is to craft a song like Michelangelo discovering a statue in every block of stone. And since I always talk about Mark Knopfler’s music here, in a 2012 interview he admitted that yes, for him it’s more lyrics first. You can tell by studying his songs, and his craft is of a very high calibre. I wish I could be a songwriter myself, but my role is that of an observer.
2 years ago | [YT] | 49
View 5 replies
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