Stephen Carpenter

Stephen "Stef" Carpenter (born August 3, 1970) is an American musician, known as the co-founder and lead guitarist of the rock band Deftones.

His guitar technique makes use of both ringing open strings and dissonant chord voicings, as well as stock power chords in poly-rhythms. Carpenter began his musical career with Deftones playing the traditional 6 string guitar. After becoming influenced by such bands as Fear Factory and Meshuggah, he began playing a seven-string guitar in the late 90's. After Deftones' third album White Pony, subsequent releases would be written with seven strings; up until 2010's Diamond Eyes and 2012's Koi No Yokan, which were written with an eight-string guitar. He was ranked 60th in Guitar World's The 100 Greatest Metal Guitarists poll.

Biography

Early life

Stephen Carpenter was born on August 3, 1970 in Sacramento, California, to an American father and a Mexican mother. He has a sister named Marci. He grew up in the Sacramento area and pursued many hobbies, including skateboarding.

Stephen Carpenter (writer)

Stephen Carpenter, born in Weatherford, Texas, and raised in Kansas City, Missouri, is a writer, director, and cinematographer with nine films and two television works to his credit, and more in development.

Carpenter has been writing since 7th grade. He graduated from the University of California, Los Angeles School of Theater, Film and Television. He lectures on writing and story structure at the University of Southern California's School of Cinematic Arts.

His screenplays include The Man starring Samuel Jackson and Eugene Levy, Blue Streak starring Martin Lawrence, and others. He has written and directed several thrillers, including Soul Survivors, starring Eliza Dushku and Casey Affleck. His most recent (2011) creation is the NBC television series, Grimm, which premiered in the 2011 fall season.

Carpenter's first novel, Killer, published in 2010 on Amazon Kindle was No. 1 on Amazon's Mystery/Thriller lists, and was characterized as "a blockbuster debut" by Entertainment Weekly. His latest book, Killer in the Hills, was published by Amazon in December 2011. He is currently (December 2011) developing a one-hour mystery series for NBC.

Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds

"Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" is a song written primarily by John Lennon and credited to Lennon–McCartney, for the Beatles' 1967 album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. Lennon's son Julian inspired the song with a nursery school drawing he called "Lucy—in the sky with diamonds". Shortly after the song's release, speculation arose that the first letter of each of the title nouns intentionally spelled LSD. Lennon consistently denied this, insisting the song was inspired by Lewis Carroll's Alice In Wonderland books, a claim repeatedly confirmed by Paul McCartney.

Despite persistent rumours, the song was never officially banned by the BBC, and aired contemporaneously on BBC Radio at least once, on 20 May 1967.

Arrangement

Most of the song is in simple triple metre (3/4 time), but the chorus is in 4/4 time. The song modulates between musical keys, using the key of A major for verses, B♭ major for the pre-chorus, and G major for the chorus. It is sung by Lennon over an increasingly complicated underlying arrangement which features a tamboura, played by George Harrison, lead electric guitar put through a Leslie speaker, played by Harrison, and a counter melody on Lowrey organ played by McCartney and taped with a special organ stop sounding "not unlike a celeste". Session tapes from the initial 1 March 1967 recording of this song reveal Lennon originally sang the line "Cellophane flowers of yellow and green" as a broken phrase, but McCartney suggested that he sing it more fluidly to improve the song.