Category Archives: music - Page 4

listening and me

Posted by on May 5, 2010 2 comments

One of the things I do on my lunch hour is write in my journal. There are piles of essays in there on every topic that trips my trigger. Lately, I’m thinking seriously about my relationship with music and the guitar. It’s hard to do that and keep a straight face sometimes. We all want to believe that our relationship with music is unique. That it’s more complex than can be communicated in words. But I honestly believe that it’s like that for everyone. Music is a very different experience in that almost everyone listens to it and everyone who does has a reaction. I have met very few people who are indifferent about music. Ask someone about a genre and you are likely to hear either “love” or “hate” in the response. Seldom do we hear “yeah, I mean, I’m OK with country music.”

As I dig in to how my listening has changed over the last decade or so, it’s strange to see how picky I have become. It’s almost like my time is worth more now that we’re in a world where music is inexpensive and plentiful. And with the increase in the amount of music we have and the nearly invisible barrier to entry for artists, I don’t have the same personal gatekeepers that I once did. The result is that I strike out in fits and grab what clicks and leave the rest. It’s sad to say that I rarely let my iPod go on shuffle for more than two songs before I get twitchy and kick it over to the next song. And lately playlists are a bust as well.

Maybe I’m getting moody in my old age. Nah.

I think it plays into my creative process. I’m not interested in input right now. I want to play and record. I’d hate to think that my subconscious is silly enough to think it’s done listening, but maybe I need a break. Maybe it’s time to push full steam ahead and produce. Rolling into my least productive time of the year, that’s a frightening thought. But we have to ship, right? No point in saying you’re an artist if you never make anything.

The Recording Devil

Posted by on April 27, 2010 2 comments

This past weekend we had the great pleasure of hosting my good buddy Astra. She and I have been sending recordings back and forth for a while now and it seemed like a good idea to import her from her native land of Canada for a jam session and to hang out in general. She’s a lot of fun and aside despite having my son fall in love with her and follow her everywhere she went, we got some recording done. The best part was that we were able to get together with my buddy Jason of Cloxco fame (if there is any fame there…which there isn’t, but it’s my blog and I make the rules). Having two great singers in one room was an amazing experience. There’s nothing like the exquisite pleasure of making music with good friends who happen to be very talented musicians.

CHICKENS!!!!!

The way that Jason and I work is simple. We have two rules: three takes maximum for any track and nothing is allowed to be perfect. We’re really good at adhering to both of them. Astra did a great job of hanging with us on that.

What I find funny, and what prompted this line of thought, is that the three of us are pretty good with the whole performance thing and yet are so very self-deprecating. It’s difficult to listen to yourself and not be incredibly critical. I’ve done it for years. There were hours and hours spent recording myself in front of my little pocket tape recorder and listening to the playback so that I could get some idea of how I sounded so that I could improve. It floors me that today I could use my iPhone and get 100 times the quality and recording time out of it. Hell, when I was in college the idea of a cell phone for regular people wasn’t real yet. In any case, those recordings were a way to get better. They were a way to be critical of my performance in a positive way.

The recordings we made this weekend captured something that has never happened before and might not happen again for a long time. It’s impossible for me to treat it as a musical recording in any critical sense. It was our first exposure to the material and the first time we’d all been in the same room together. Great things happened and I’m very happy that I captured it. The recordings are documents. It doesn’t make them devoid of musicality or immune to criticism; that would miss the point entirely. What it does is imbue them with something special. Something extra. The feeling that fingers slipping around or missed down beats are unimportant in that context. The recordings capture an energy and a moment.

By all accounts we had a great time. The resulting recordings are awesome and the future work that will come from them has me bouncing with excitement.

writing and writing

Posted by on April 6, 2010 No comments

One of the funny things about creative work is that the idea in the head can often run counter to plans. That’s why plans are so wonderful. They provide a direction in the event that the next step isn’t clear. But that doesn’t mean that a plan is The Plan. The last two weeks have been a painful reminder of this fact.

In my head when I’m moving through my day, there’s a bit of music that repeats itself. It’s something highly processed. Very soft and amorphous. More of a texture than a melody or harmony. It sits just at the edge of my hearing. It’s very attractive. I’m more and more moved by it.

But that’s not what I’m doing in the studio.

When I go into the sanctuary that is my studio, I get distracted. I pick up a guitar, recently it’s the one I made as it’s more and more my only instrument, and strum. Or pick. Or just noodle a bit. The next thing I know, the framework of a more traditional song structure produces itself. In fact, this has happened probably 8 times in the last two weeks. Good ideas are flowing from the stream that I’m not as excited about. Or so it would seem. But I’m not one to buck the muse. When things are working, they’re working and that’s so much better than when everything goes dead silent.

So the notebook is filling itself with chord progressions and snippets of melody. Alternate tunings. My own brand of notation. The pages become overrun with ink and I hurry to record a stable version for future reference. All is well. When this storm dries up, I can go back and rework some things. I’ll have a bed of material to get things moving again and new inspiration will strike. And eventually I’ll get to write the piece that’s sitting just out of sight.

teaching myself

Posted by on March 30, 2010 No comments

When there’s a clean slate in the studio the first thing I do is pick up the nearest instrument and make some sound. I’m never really sure where it will go, but it starts with a sound. Sometimes, like last night, a curious thought will occur and I’ll follow it for a while. See where the thread leads, if anywhere. My computer soaks it all in and I can sort it out later. I’ve probably learned more from myself by listening to these recordings than I could have from any number of teachers. When I’m alone, I behave in a unique way. I do what comes naturally and it points out my strengths and weaknesses. Most importantly, it’s what I do when I’m alone in the studio that is presented as my work. So this practice of recording brings me quite a bit of good information. From this exercise I have learned:

  • I love the six string guitar.
  • I prefer to play fingerstyle at all times (electric guitars included).
  • If there is no instrument at hand I will torture any recordings I have with piles of processing and ruthless edits.
  • The sound of open strings thrills me.
  • An out of tune instrument can be interesting but is annoying more often than not.
  • Patterns are fun in moderation.
  • Mistakes become beautiful with a change of context.
  • Practicing a part and getting it right kicks ass over editing every day of the week.
  • Improvisation is at the center of life.

I’m sure other people do this. I know they do. I’m not as certain that everyone analyzes things the way I do. Maybe some are pickier about it. Maybe folks don’t listen repeatedly after the fact. What I do know is that this is really useful:

  1. Capture it.
  2. Wait 6 or more hours.
  3. Listen to it.
  4. Think about it.
  5. Listen again.
  6. Repeat.

The procedural aspects of the process build habits. The repetition brings results. It’s a practice.

patience

Posted by on March 26, 2010 No comments

I’m doing a lot of reading these days. I should say that I’m a pretty big reader but adding the nook to my life has pushing things over the edge. Where I was barely clearing a book every three weeks or so I’m now knocking out one a week while juggling three at a time. Got a toddler? Get a nook. Or any eReader. Seriously. It’s worth it. Anyway, the books that I’m reading are centered around creative people and the process of the world and the work. It’s been very inspiring and has put me in a good frame of mind for considering my next project. I can’t really be sure what it is I have up my sleeve but based on some of the comments I received about my last release, it’s safe to say that it’s going to have a more chilled out, amorphous feeling to it. I’m feeling the urge to get back to my computer music roots. Stay with me.

things in my bag

One of the greatest compliments I got with my so-called tape music was that it sounded very organic. It wasn’t minimalist and repetitive. There was a direction and a form even though the form wasn’t something that was self-referential. A couple of my fellow composers analyzed the structure of my work and compared it to a one way street. Everything flowed in a known direction but there was no looping back. It was always forward.

This makes sense as that’s how I compose. I start at the beginning and work my way to the end. That’s not to say that things aren’t revised to meet where it turns out I’m going, but for the most part it’s a very linear process. This has its ups and downs, but in the end the work has, if I am successful, a flow that seems inevitable. Not predictable, but inevitable.

I have been digging through my old recordings for sources and have come across some things that are exciting. I plan to start beating them up so I can have a goodly pile of stuff to work with. If I had to decide right now I would say that I’m looking at a piece in three movements. That’s pretty decisive for someone like me.

With any luck I’ll keep up with the blogging for as long as the muse allows. Expect some tunes and fragments next week. There are some sketches brewing in the back of my mind. In the mean time, I have a set of guitar sides that need some attention. I’d like to be able to carve some tone bars this weekend and maybe glue some kerfing. Bold goals indeed!