Category Archives: music - Page 5

discovery through ignorance

Posted by on March 15, 2010 No comments

On “Ask This Old House” there is a semi-regular segment where one of the hosts brings in an odd looking tool and has the others guess what it is. The first is always the joke option. The second is something closer to useful. When the intended use is revealed it’s usually pretty cool but the other ideas, including the ones we armchair contractors come up with, were pretty neat too. When the question isn’t “how do I use this?” and is restated as “how might I use this?” everything changes. It gets interesting.

When digital audio first became available to me I had a great time opening up an editor and beating up sounds. Playing them backwards. Speeding them up. Slowing them down well below their sample rate. Running a reverb and removing the source (dry) component from the output. In all of these operations there were unpredictable outcomes. While one might guess that forcing the program to stretch a sample out would distort it, the way in which it was finally broken and sounded was up to the combination of the signal itself and other factors that weren’t easy to chart – especially for me at that time. In each session I found something new.

As my understanding increased and I had a chance to write some software of my own, I noticed that I was less and less excited. I knew how things were “supposed” to be used and as a result I started only using them in that way. But every now and then, something happens that illuminates that path of blissfully ignorant discovery again.

Over the weekend I used my iPhone to capture a video of my son playing in the water at the beach. It was just over a minute long. I tossed it into iMovie and put a song I just finished over top of it. The song was about 3:30. So I told iMovie to make the video as long as the audio. Then I told it to stabilize the picture. I had no idea what that would do. It turns out that it analyzes the video and drops out frames where the camera jerks around in an effort to make things appear smoother. With the video already slowed, these dropped frames stylized the movie in a beautiful way. Having clicked my way around an application I’ve used maybe five times, I sat back and watched my work in action. The way that the picture lined up with the music was wonderful. The simple actions and the tension of the music seemed to blend and almost look as though it had been choreographed.

The point? Had I really wanted to stabilize the video, I’m sure I would have felt that it didn’t quite do the job. I might have reshot it entirely. I might have edited it in some way. I certainly would have redone the music to match better with the action. But because none of it was intended and I wasn’t predicting an output, I got something that was aesthetically pleasing.

Ignorance is usually a bad or dangerous thing. Yet being able to access that part of the mind that is a novice filled with curiosity and the willingness to play is essential. I’m anxious to beat up some sounds. To plan a little less. To play a lot more.

what have you done for me lately

Posted by on February 26, 2010 No comments

In graduate school there was a seminar for composers where we talked about our work and personal philosophy of music. One big questions was “are you an innovator or a more conservative composer?” Being as electronic/computer music was my focus I sided with innovator. My argument was that if one traced the history of computer music it was one of experimentation. If a composer wasn’t pushing forward with a new technique then there wasn’t much to hold one’s attention. I felt that it was a culture of “what have you done for me lately.” I still think that was a pretty accurate assessment based on my discussions with other composers and students. We listened for the technique and not for the music.

That should have been a pretty big red flag. After the dreams of my PhD faded and I retreated creatively to my mental cave, I found myself drawn back to the guitar; my gateway to music. And not the classical guitar that was the center of my musical training but the steel string acoustic guitar. Something visceral and very real settled in when I returned to it and I’ve been riding that feeling ever since.

Now, years later, I’m starting to wonder if there isn’t a need to combine the two. That deep passion for music and the deep research that comes with technology and its application. Thinking back to journal articles and more academic discussions makes me think that I really do need more. It’s a good time to take stock and experiment a little. The things I’m reading these days have put most of what I’m doing in a new light. Some of it good, some of it less good, but all of it indicates a need for adjustment if not wholesale change.

Musical development is a road that never ends. I think I’m being reminded that it’s OK to pull over for coffee from time to time but there’s a lot of ground to cover.

goodbye to a piece of gear

Posted by on February 21, 2010 2 comments

When I started playing the guitar what I really wanted was to play the electric. Something loud. Something purely rock and roll. But when mom picks up the tab for the lessons, she gets a lot of say in the matter. That meant it was a good year or so before I actually moved from studying the classical guitar to the electric. I was still in junior high when I got my first electric guitar. It was a Cort knock-off of a Les Paul. Not pretty. Barely functional. I still remember hearing voices and drums through the pickups. Not that it mattered. The thing weighed a ton and took a lot of abuse. It was also $99. The perfect price point.

At first, I played it through our old 70s vintage Pioneer receiver. It worked well for a time. I could really overdrive that bad boy when no one was around. But it wasn’t portable and I couldn’t really jam with other people. So I bought an amp. At $129 the Peavey practice amp was the best thing going. It had a pretty crunchy sound and could keep up with a drum kit. I saved my pennies and dimes (allowance, lunch money, and anything I made by mowing lawns or shoveling driveways) and eventually had the funds to take it home. To say I was excited doesn’t really cover it.

I used it for practicing in my room late at night. It travelled to college with me. Then on to New York City when I went to grad school. I drug it to the harsh winters of Minnesota and it kept me busy on long, boring nights in the corn fields of Iowa. And when I moved to Texas, it was in the back of the truck bopping down the road. But something changed. It always does.

It’s never a question of if a piece of gear will fail but rather when and how badly. When the end came for my old Peavey, it was serious. One channel was all gone and the other barely held on to its voice. So it is now ready for its final journey to the end of the road. The list of components that are salvageable is zero items long. Stuff like that wasn’t made for stripping for parts. And so a solid piece of gear passes into the night after about 22 years of loyal service. So long, old friend. You were truly the real deal.

peavey amp

And don’t you worry, the amp that replaced it pushes a lot more air and will more than do the job.

starting something new

Posted by on February 8, 2010 4 comments

Epiphanies are hard to come by so when drops in for a visit, I take notice. It was a big goal for me this year to release a song a week on ye olde blogge but what I have come to see is that it takes longer than a week for me to polish something to the state it needs to be in for public consumption. I’m often surprised by the positive feedback I get for what I feel are unfinished tracks and it leaves me feeling a little weird. Either I’m too picky or folks are just being nice. Either way, it’s not good and I’m not feeling good about the work I’m releasing, aside from being able to say I put something out. Where does that leave me?

What I really want, and have always wanted, are songs and pieces that connect. I like thinking of “the album” as a larger form and individual tracks as movements that exist within it. It’s really difficult, though not impossible, to have ten or twelve songs relate to one another in a meaningful way and, more to the point, in the age of the iPod and the death of continuity that is “shuffle” I want to produce tracks that compel the listener to follow that development. In that vein, I’m going to pursue the idea of the EP.

With six or so songs in a unit, I think I can produce several of these in a 12 month period (where several > 2). Maybe even 1 per quarter. Maybe not. But the point will be to have a unit that is polished and released with no regrets. That might be what I enjoyed most about Nothing of Consequence: no regrets and it shipped on time. I still think it sounds great. Download it here: https://www.othertime.com/musicblog/?page_id=377

So there you have it. I have some collaborations going on right now that will require their own vehicles, but for me, I will be focusing on the EP for the foreseeable future. This means, sadly, that I will have to come up with useful ways to elaborate on my progress here on the blog both for accountability and to keep the six or seven people who read this with any regularity coming back for more. I might even go back to my exercises (one complete piece written and released in one sitting). They keep me sharp and happy.

My focus is getting tighter and it feels good. More music soon.

no more rock and roll dreams

Posted by on February 3, 2010 No comments

If you played the guitar in High School during the late 80s and early 90s like I did there is an excellent chance that you were in a band. Somebody had a drum kit. Somebody played bass. And somebody screamed into a mic. Maybe there were keyboards (Yamaha or Roland only, please), maybe not. Odds are pretty good it was a four piece and you played pretty loudly. Loud is a really good definition of bands at that stage and in that place in time. I know my band was loud. Really loud. And we played pretty fast. Most songs sat around the 138 bpm mark or higher and moved at a good clip. Did I mention that we were loud? Especially in my mom’s basement or in our singer’s garage. Really, really loud.

While setting up for practice or tearing down there was always at least one 10 minute break where the “what ifs” broke out and we’d go on at length about how cool it would be to get a record contract and tour. How much money we’d have. How many guitars I would be able to go through in a show. How we’d remember the tough times and help bands like us make it big. We’ll set aside the “rough life” of living in a college town in northeast Ohio for a little bit because, well, with nothing to compare it to your first bite of caviar is just salty sacks of nastiness.

Since those days in the basement I have learned that life as a touring musician isn’t for everyone. It’s hard work that requires dedication and sacrifice. My life took me to different places and my journey with music was on an entirely different track from that of the kid wailing on his Strat. I’m glad I did what I did. No regrets there. But something that I have come to realize is that the dreams of that era are fading into myth and legend. Record contracts don’t work like they used to (or like we imagined they did). Touring isn’t about private jets and fancy hotels (not that it ever was for most bands). The time of the megadeal is dying out. Things are smaller now. The world is a different place.

At 16, I dreamed of being on a stage in a huge stadium with tens of thousands cheering for every guitar solo I tore through. Today, you couldn’t drag me to a stadium to hear a concert. It’s crowded, noisy, and generally not fun. It’s a “me media” world now and artists have to fight for space on an iPod and not for top billing at a show. There are many who disagree with that, but among the people I know (my tribe if you will) this is exactly the case. When I release a sketch or an album, I’m hoping for a person to listen to a tune all the way through and then toss it into the vast random shuffle of his or her music library to be doled out in the context of playlists or at the mercy of random. On occasion I’ll go to hear a good band or to support someone I know. That’s cool. It’s usually a smaller venue and a good time is had by all. There is a connection that carries the experience. It’s good. It’s fun. But the big Rock-with-a-capital-R shows are a dying breed and will be all but gone in five years’ time.

This isn’t a lament.

Someone mentioned to me the other day that if Back to the Future were made today, Marty would go back in time to 1980. That was a kick in the head. In 1980, no one that I knew had even heard of the Internet. Well, my dad did, but he wasn’t talking about it. No browsers. No “social media.” None of that. There were cultural gatekeepers everywhere. Today? It’s all but gone. Get some free web hosting and jump on the site of the minute and you’ll have a platform for your work. And that’s any work. Books, music, paintings, sculpture, crafts, all of it. Of course, that means that everyone gets a smaller and smaller slice of the attention at large. That’s great if you have adjusted your expectation.

There aren’t many seats at the table for bands like U2. Who is the next U2? Will there be another U2? There’s an entire industry hoping that there will still be a table at all, but for msot musicians I don’t think it much matters. If you can be content to have listeners who number in the hundreds, you’re doing very well. Get to the thousand mark and maybe you can make a living with your art. I wish you luck! I’m aiming for it myself in a skewed sort of way. But the big rock and roll dreams are all used up. It was a powerful and wonderful time, but check that verb tense. It’s in the past and that’s OK.