MusiM

Well I’ve been busy lately but I still feel lazy, which is an odd state to be in.  Getting married next week which is exciting.  Stretch (AllThisIsMeaningless) is back in town so we’ve been working on some tunes.  Mostly finished what is probably/hopefully the intro track the other weekend.  Now I just need spare time to work on music again.

Found out a few crazy things.  Jeremy Latcham, a dude I went to high school with and barely knew is one of the producers for The Avengers.  One of my old friends from jazz band’s brother is one of the guitar players for the Queen reunion band.  Its cool and depressing all at the same time.  I’m ecstatic for these people but I’m also asking myself, what the heck have I been doing?  I can do more.  Why haven’t I been doing more?  When did my being a fan usurp my creativity?  I need to get out of Tulsa.

Contrivances, allusions.  More words that mean similar things and could be interpreted as passive aggressive stances.  I take issue with art sometimes because occasionally an entire chapter of the art becomes a series of contrivances meant to invoke certain emotion without giving any actual substance or meaning.

Meg Lee Chin is a lesser known musical artist that I occasionally enjoy, probably most know for her track Nutopia that was featured on a Pigface album.  Its a neat song that takes some liberties with the lyrics.  Most songs do this but its an example off the top of my head.  ”Sipping chemical cocktails” is a phrase used in the song.  The insinuation is that a chemical cocktail is something bad like a drug.  In the context of social language this is an acceptable allusion.  In the context of science and reason, water is a chemical substance.  Its certainly not a bad thing to drink water.  Chemical reactions happen in nature without humanity and some might argue that humanity’s existence is due to a chemical reaction in nature.  Point being, its a phrase she used that in all reality is empty but holds context and allusion anyway.  Its not the only one she used in that song and every musical artist with a vocalist at some point uses them if not all the time.

A big complaint on modern horror movies is that they are built on these contrivances.  Horror is a unique genre in that the audience wants to be scared or to jump (not mutually exclusive).  The problem is knowledge is the ultimate weapon against fear so horror movies have to play on these expectations and assumptions.  A horror movie that isn’t clever is probably a bad horror movie.

The problem in art is when something is composed entirely of allusion or contrivance without having any actual intended meaning behind it.  The general public perception of artists is a deep thinker who has statements to make and emotional journeys to enhance the soul to take us on.  The problem is most of the time we do stuff that we think is cool and the depth just comes from our attention to detail rather than an agenda.  A large part of art for the adult is to renew our ability to imagine.

There’s a line to play played between music and video.  Music is almost entirely dependent on imagination.  Video answer the visual and therefore the only thing the watcher is left to imagine is what’s not being shown on camera.  And that’s if the video encourages the watcher to imagine anything.

And then there’s something like the ending of Mass Effect 3 which is built entirely on allusion and contrivance to give the illusion of meaning.  Close your eyes and listen to the music.  It starts out pretty sad, goes into a steady strong build, but at the end of the build something goes wrong.  Music settles down, then credits song hits.  You know its a credits song because it has a beat and makes you want to walk.  Its meant to instill you with a strong conclusive feeling.  The song raises no questions.  While I won’t spoil any of the actual ending video, the video is a series of textbook scenes thought through only to the point of dramatic effect.  The emotional cues are there.  If the game has succeeded in making the player worn out enough, the user may be thinking entirely with emotions at that point.

Why did the alien in Contact take the form it did?  Why did Aragorn in the Lord of the Rings movies struggle with the decision to take his ancestral sword?  Dramatic effect.  In movies, certain angles of shots, certain pans, and certain events are all cues for dramatic effect.  The shower scene in a horror movie will always be associated with this whether the scene is intended to show love, sex, or murder.  A large part of comedy in movies today exists because of these allusions and contrivances.  Film makers sometimes don’t know how their movie is going to play out and will simply film these scenes hoping to edit them in such a fashion that it becomes something.

Like most things in life, taking some but not all is often the best course.  But then again, there are no answers here, only questions and observations.  Have a good day

No I don’t know what needs to change but its time for something to change.  I’ve gotten lazy and uninspired.  None of my music assignments are finished for other people which is pretty horrific for me.  I mean if I have any actual dream of writing music professionally through commissions I have to be able to write this stuff out on command.

I also need to start participating in more life things.  I do have a passion for videogames and heroclix but I really can’t afford to buy a new game even monthly and I certainly can’t afford to buy a brick of every new heroclix set.  Heroclix  is at least a social hobby for me.  Videogames are not.  I realize there’s a lot of big fans of multiplayer but competitive gameplay is just a waste of time for me.  It requires me to build a skill which takes the time of learning, say, a new instrument.  If a competitive Halo player spent as much time and passion as they did playing Halo as learning an instrument they would at least be able to play on the level of a virtuoso.  Maybe not improvise, but definitely play.

Gaming for me is something to do to relax, have fun, and hopefully get a good story out of.

Point being, I need inspiration.  I need something in my life so that I can write the fun music that these jobs I have require.  I think I’ll start jogging again.  That always helped me write new stuff.  I also need to find some new interesting music that connects with me that’s not sad.  I also need to start learning other people’s music again.  Well that’s not entirely true as I have been learning “I Was Lost Without You” from Mass Effect 3 which is a beautiful track.  Man I wish I could afford piano lessons.

There is a dirty secret about lessons.  Teacher’s are a wonderful shortcut to learning things and a good teacher will teach you to think on that instrument for yourself.  But the thing of it is, the teacher is really just an arrow.  A person to bounce questions off of.  Everything a person needs to learn an instrument is readily available to them through the internet and learning to play books.  Some techniques are harder to learn from a book, particularly in the flamenco vein, but sometimes you just have to stand up and walk through the door yourself.

Man I’m old.  I elected to play Heroclix instead of seeing VNV Nation again.  Also I’m drinking a little which always means uncle John’s going to be a little more frank than usual.  Frank what am I, eighty?

Anyway, next mini-album is underway.  When writing music there’s always a fear of the music that’s done becoming irrelevant.  This is especially true where electronics is concerned since so many people base the quality of electronic music on the latest tech filling out the EQ stream in new and interesting ways.  And it also doesn’t help that I discovered that an attitude at Bethesda is that once a produce is out, its now crap and they have to figure out how to make a better one.  This is unfortunately my mentality on music.

I’ve had a lot of music to write for other people later which is nice except I’m not meeting any of my personal deadlines.  Plus upfront, upbeat or happy music does not come naturally to me.  Don’t get me wrong, I absolutely love writing music for other people and I love challenges.  Think of it this way.  Picture yourself in a bad mood and then imagine how much happy people piss you off when you’re in that mood.  Now apply that to writing music.  No I’m not depressed but I have moods that do their damnedest to decide what type of music I’m going to write.

Anyway, next mini album is currently 4 tracks consisting of Exquisite, Airship Down Commission, and two unnamed.  The first two are done aside from some minor EQ tweeking.

And then there’s dubstep.  I’ve been trying to figure out the techniques used in making it.  I have a pretty good idea of how its done I just haven’t implemented it yet.  Not to say I will ever release a dub step track (or at least one that I consider dub step).  See I love different styles of music.  In the words of Ghost in the Shell, over specialize and die.  Inbreeding has never done anyone any good.  All innovations in music have come from multiple styles and cultures coming together.  To close yourself off stylistically as a musician is like eating McDonald’s during your work out regimen.

Also who decides whose stuff gets to be popular?  What brings a giant public consciousness together to accomplish this?

I did a custom opening tune for The Super Budget Brothers over at http://superbudgetbrothers.com/.  Its a podcast reviewing one budget to free game a week from some TVGP forum regulars.  Check ‘em out!

So in an effort to revitalize myself musically I have begun new habits, like practicing.  Yeah I’ve been bad about practicing for years.  But I need to be better at piano and I miss being able to use a pick well on guitar.  So I’m spending a half hour almost every day practicing piano and guitar.  Well a hour half each that is.

The trick to good practice involves several aspects, not the least of which is goals.  Have something simple and achievable for the half hour period but also be sure that you have a weekly, monthly, and yearly goal as well.  The monthly and yearly goals probably won’t be readily apparent until you’ve spent some time with the instrument.  My weekly goal for instance on piano is to play the first page of this jazz waltz I have.  My monthly goal for piano is to play the whole piece.  My day to day goals typically involve either memorizing a line or getting used to a change over.

Also metronome.  If you want to be a good musician you have to use a metronome when you practice.  Knowing where the beat is is imperative to rhythm and increasing playing speed.  And speed isn’t restricted to death metal.  Listen to David Bowie’s Lady Grinning Soul from the Aladdin Sane album for instance.  There’s a lot of speed there but its not a high bpm song.

Learn the whole song of whatever it is you’re learning.  Sure you might not be able to play the solo within the week but make it a yearly goal.  If you’re learning Dream Theater’s Erotomanic for instance, learn all the rhythm riffs the first month or two.  Then start learning a new song but save 5-10 minutes to work on the solos.  The hardest part about a Dream Theater solo is speed so those minutes could easily be spent ramping up the metronome while keeping up with a few scales.  If its a Megadeth song, Marty Friedman is a fan of neck wide appregios so work on those.  The trick is figuring out what the difficulty is derivative of and training that skill consistently over a regular period of time.

For me right now, its basic chromatic sixteenth notes with a pick on guitar.  Start on the low E, play 4 notes, change strings and move up a fret.  Then repeat back down.  I’m only at 150 bpm at the moment but I’m hoping to be up to 200 bpm by the end of the month since I used to be able to do that.  Occasionally I’ll switch to the model system and make up a quick neck run.  On piano its this book called “A Dozen a Day” or something to that effect of mechanical exercises and a song called “Waltz” that’s a little jazzy and this beginner piano book that I got when I was in high school.  Next week or the week after I might break out the sheet music to Muse’s “Apocalypse Please”.  The main difficulty in “Apocalypse Please” is being able to stretch.  Not like Rachmaninoff stretch but healthy large 7 to 8 note chord stretches.

And lastly don’t burn yourself out.  Limit your time.  I’m doing a half hour a day 3 or 4 days a week.  I haven’t gone as far to pick a consistent time each day but I’m typically doing it after work from 6-7.  Yeah sometimes you may want to spend an entire evening practicing.  The trick is to quit before you get angry.  And if you’re the type who starts out angry the trick then becomes simply not getting angry.  And on the other end of the spectrum you don’t want to only spend 5 or 10 minutes practicing.  To paraphrase my old martial arts teach once you’re worn out is when you start to learn.

Man December was dead for me and now that we’re in the new year I have a metric TON of tunes I need to write for other people.  Granted I’m not getting paid but that’s not the point.  The point is I have friends who like my music enough to desire their own custom tune.  Its looking like the first one is done but I’m still waiting on the final comments from the party.

The next one is requiring me to use a guitar pick again which I have horribly slacked on.  I’ve written two ideas for this one but I was listening to some old 80′s metal the other day (or 80′s rock by today’s standards) and came up with a fun idea.  We’ll see if it works in execution.

And I actually have two more projects beyond those I just mentioned.  One is a remix and one is a three tracks for a single party.  So color me excited!  Now I just need to get the endorphins flowing so I can write some upbeat music!   Well maybe not for the remix.

I do still have my next album in mind.  It’ll be 4-6 tracks and so far two of those are done.  Another of the tracks I’ve written like a 4 minute guitar track for and I’m pretty sure the song will write itself once I get around to recording the guitar.  The other 1-3 tracks are completely up in the air.  I might turn The Carousel theme in a full fledged song.  That one really depends though if I can make it better.  I don’t want to make a soulless crappy version of my podcast’s theme song so again, might not happen but its on the plate.  My goal is to sell the album for $5 so I need at least 5 tracks to do that but if March hits and I don’t have those done I may just do a cheap 3 tracks for a dollar bit.  I don’t want to sit on finished tracks for years again.

Anyway, that’s where I’m at.  Hope everyone is doing well!

So I’ve written jack during the last month, musically and literally.  Played a pretty sweet gig doing background jazz for a hospital volunteer dinner where they paid me and feed me steak.  Trish and I are available for hire.  Our set list includes classics like Perdido, Girl From Ipanema, Satin Doll, and a really freakin’ sweet original that we recently named Got Into a Groove.

Anyway, so new plan on the whole album thing.  Forget full 10+ track albums, I do not have the time for it.  I mean I’m what, trying to write and talk about videogames and get someone who can hire me to notice in a positive way, work a 40-50 hour week engineering job, nurture a relationship with my fiancee, teach guitar on Saturdays, write music for MusiM, do music commission work, and do soundtracks for my friend’s Youtube videos?  Like that horribly written string of words I just wrote that I’m calling a sentence, its just not feasible.  The last few weeks have been filled with social and family obligations too.  So new plan.  4-6 track EP’s.  Boom, almost done with my first one.  Should have thought of this years ago.  Might even be able to afford cardboard sleeve or box style hard copies too.

Anyway, I have to start doing cardio again so I can channel my inner happy kid, I have another podcast song to do!  Endorphins are how I stimulate happiness.  Hopefully I’ll get some free time this weekend.

Man has it ever been a doozy of a fall.  Let me run down this timeline for you.  I believe August was when I had to put together a new machine since my old was literally fried by a storm.  Soon after one of my LCD monitors died.  About a month later, my old hard drives started giving out so I spent the last of my money on some new ones.  About three weeks ago, one of them died.  Like, the Bios will not recognize it died.  Had to mail it in to Seagate which cost me $15.  Received the new hard drive last week and installed it.

Suffice it to say, I am out of practice in the department of ze writing of ze muzak.  So I’m going back to the jam out for an hour and upload it to Soundcloud routine.  Anyway, I have a new commission of sorts I’m working on for an upcoming podcast so my jams will at least start out with the intention of running closer to chiptune, although the one I started last night certainly dropped that ball pretty quick.

I started out using the TriForce VST but after layering reverb, distortion, and then padding out the riff with a dry sine from Massive it turned into a pretty raw and thick noise.  And it was about this point in the project when I realized I don’t have any of my custom Absynth patches on the computer yet.  But that’s not always a bad thing as it forced me to go through the Absynth library which is pretty top notch.  I did run with C#-ish minor for the key even though I’m stereotyping myself by going that route.  Really C minor, C# minor, and D minor are the keys that are easiest to me.  The trouble is having the patience to learn a new key well enough on piano to improvise with it.  One of these days I’m going to take piano lessons again.

Anyway I have a guitar gig next week so probably a lot of my music time will be practicing for that.  Nothing big, just background music for a dinner.  But ya know, I get paid.

Man should I ever be in bed.  So I’ve been riffin’ around on Soundcloud an awful lot (or what I feel is an awful lot) for better or for worse over the past few months.  I think its time to become a bit more focused.  Therefore I have compiled a list of my favorite riffs from the last several years that I haven’t used and I’m going to start trying to develop them into songs.  There are around 20 of them so I’m hoping I’ll wind up with an album in the end.  I also have a birthday present I owe a certain sister so I’m digging up all those riffs to get it in my head again.  What this means is I probably won’t have as much to post to my Soundcloud.  At the same time, I take a really long time to write a tune when left to my own devices so don’t except this new album to pop up any time soon.

Either way I’m not convinced too many people actually understand that the riffs I post to Soundcloud are incomplete thoughts.  Reflections in muddy water at best.  Notes made on paper that I thought would be fun to upload.  I’m not trying to belittle anyone or anyone’s favorite genre or anything.  I just got a piece of criticism that kind of unnerved me a bit (I am a sensitive guy).  For me, Soundcloud is a dart board of ideas that other people can watch and that lets me interact with other people in hopefully a positive way.  We all see and experience the world in different ways, which means we can all be right about quite a few things, especially where art is concerned.

I swear one of these days I’m going to sing on a track too.  It’ll be crazy.  Of course you can hear one track I did vocals to on my Myspace.  Note that I never check the myspace anymore.  I should probably also warn you its a comedy track.

Also none of those review sites ever reviewed me.  Anyone have any favorite review sites I should submit to?