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.

instrumental diversion

Posted by on February 10, 2010 No comments

There are still a couple of weeks until the bits and pieces that will be my next guitar building project arrive. In the mean time, another project that has been on the list for a long, long time has presented itself yet again but at exactly the right moment for execution. Last night a box containing 10 random wooden cigar boxes showed up on the doorstep. Six or so of them would make excellent cigar box guitars. Building one has come up so often that my wife has quit responding to my thinking aloud on the topic. Personally, I think they make a great project on many levels.

First, it’s a musical instrument. Aside from playing one is there a better use of one’s time than building an instrument? I would argue that there is not. Playing, building, listening. All great things to do with musical instruments.

Second, they’re inexpensive to make and thus allow for greater experimentation with far less risk. It’s a box with a stick attached. I can get all kinds of wild with that without worrying about ruining an excellent piece of quartersawn mahogany.

Third, the construction is simple and can be done while watching a little boy in the garage. I won’t have to use the loud saw that he hates and time with the belt sander will be limited.

Finally, I think they’d make excellent gifts. I would love to make a few and just give ’em away to friends. I know a lot of people who make music and a novel object like this one might give someone a kick.

I have a couple of cabinets to finish up this weekend but I’m going to try and squeak out one instrument for giggles. I’m nothing if not ambitious with my weekend time.

As far as recording goes, things are in good shape. The minute that I decided not to pump out a track per week I came up with something in a single hammer stroke that is simple and beautiful. This augurs well for the EP project. More on that as it develops.

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.

delight

Posted by on February 4, 2010 4 comments

Over the years I have tried to write some kind of artist’s statement. I’m not entirely sure why but this academic pursuit seems to be a really, really good idea. There’s something about writing down where you started, how you got to where you are and where you want to go from here. If I had written it ten years ago it would have been entirely different. It’s that realization in part that is motivating me to do it now. But the process has gotten away from me and it reads more like the skeleton of a memoir of my life with composing and playing music. I mention all of this here because it was my intent to write about my new guitar; the one I built.

Last night I took my studio time (still sans headphones) to sit and play. No direction or recording. No motive other than to run my fingers over the strings and enjoy whatever presented itself. Playing has always been a meditative practice for me. Nothing takes the edge off quite like an hour with my guitar. In times of crisis when I need to focus I head for my six string.

I sat and played for a bit. This new instrument has an amazing sound. It has a touch more high end than I’m used to but the bass still punches through (not bad for an OM style and I honestly think some of what I’m getting is from using strings I’ve never used before). The fretboard feels good. It’s wide, more like a classical guitar. There’s plenty of room between the strings for me to get some good tone (I’m a finger picker). I still can’t get over how good it feels. It has plenty of flaws and it isn’t very attractive. But there’s a beauty in its tone and imperfections that inspire me. That’s it more than anything, isn’t it? An instrument that inspires me to pick it up and play is worth one hundred times whatever a “perfect” instrument that sits in the corner costs. This instrument inspires me. Maybe it’s the who knows how many hours I spent on the slow and staggered construction during which I thought and learned. The guitar is the end product of one process and the beginning of another.

I’m not one to wax poetic over instruments (often) but my wife caught me saying things that would have gotten me slapped had I said them to another woman. I guess it’s harder to get upset over a piece of wood.

As I played I remember what it is that makes me such a horrible performer. Playing is a meditative process that I do for myself. I don’t like being watched, I guess. I wonder how someone who meditates or prays would feel about doing it for an audience. That sounds like hyperbole I’m sure, but it’s true. As a result of this practice I don’t much care for learning other people’s songs and I spend most of my time improvising or formalizing an improvisation. Some might call that songwriting but as a composer I feel like it’s more of an approximation than a composition. I mean, when I hand a piece of music to a performer I expect to get more or less what I gave them. In my case I sometimes write down a tuning and a tonal center and maybe a lick or two. Most times I can’t reproduce what I did without a recording but I don’t care so what does it matter?

The statement I’m working on (or through) reminds me of these things. I’m reliving a lot of what brought me to music and what it meant to me versus what it means to me today. There isn’t quite the gap I might have expected but the differences are stark, not subtle. I’ll likely post bits of it here as it develops.

And yeah, no music yet. Tonight I’ll have to really pull it together and get something down. Likely a quick jazz tune for a buddy of mine to record some vocals over. We’ll see how the new guitar does on a recording.

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.