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You gotta check this out:
I found this today as a random google search -- some guy playing Toto's Africa on acoustic guitar solo. Like or hate the tune, it's an impressive arrangement.
From BoingBoing, here's Eddie Van Halen trying to play along with a keyboard that's so out of pitch, he just can't find the right notes...
Eppy has some good things to remember when considering music criticism. Some excerpts:
Over at Recording.org, there's a thread about a supremely clueless guy asking for advice on how to record.
I've been reading it for the last two or three hours, and I think I've hurt myself I've been laughing so hard. That, and I'm pretty sure my co-workers are going to have me committed.
Thanks to Tom for the tip.
We are going to be returning to Café Europa on October 1st. Hopefully, Lemmings will be done enough by then to be able to play it that night.
Remember Um, bop? Well, you (yes, you) can have the chance to open for them. Really, you can, if you want. It looks like they're trying to raise their profile by having a local band in each of their venues.
eSession is a website setting up the possibility of regular folk working with exalted music stars. Actually, I'm a little tired, but this might be a good idea. Right now, it's only in the vaporware stage, so it's too early to tell. But, they have a decent talent base (as of now):
Well, that's all the names that I recognized from the list (beyond ones-ee, twos-ees). Still, a start.
The three of us got together tonight, but we didn't play all that much. Rather, we went through some of the business things. Honestly, we should have had this discussion prior to hitting the studio, but we didn't and now we have to pick up the pieces and move on.
First, we talked about who was going to get credit for doing what on which song. Then we talked about how the money was actually going to be split (three ways, rather than by credit). We also talked about potential names for the album and some cover art stuff.
The new album will be called "World Tour" (at least, until either we change our minds or until we go to print); CD release party will be in late October/early November.
Some show ettiquette from Here's A Hint.
Now, there is the question of common courtesy during the non-performance parts of the evening. With 4 beats of your last note, you better be winding up cords, unscrewing cymbals and turning off pedals. Otherwise, you are sending a clear message to your fellows and the audience: "I hate you". And your shit had best be taken to the back or out of the club once it's offstage. There's nothing more distracting than watching a bunch of cheeseheads moving their amps in front of my while I'm trying to watch a band, and, in my opinion, they are free reign for the lead singer to snipe at.
Furthermore, when I said I'd give a band a chance, set up time counts against your chance. You have 20 minutes, so don't spend it twiddling with your guitar pedals or getting a drink while the bassist struggles with his 8x10 Ron Jeremy Edition Cabinet. Here's a Hint: You're not a rockstar, so get on stage and play. You have 2 minutes to soundcheck, after that start your fucking set. Either the sound guy knows what he's doing, or he doesn't. FUCKING PLAY. And don't waste my time between songs. Buy a tuner and be ready to go. I've never heard anyone complain that a local band didn't spend enough time mumbling weak jokes into the mic between songs.
This makes me think of a show that I played where the band before us did a sound check. For fifty-five minutes. After the first fifteen or so, I stopped caring about their show. Right around thirty, I just wanted them to play anything other than "okay, left tom...". At forty-five, I gave up and played pool for the rest of the night, pretty much ignoring anything they did from that point on.
Following on from the last list, here are another 10 completely bizarre death metal pictures.
David Valdez has put together some good thoughts on writing set lists.
- Vary the styles and tempos of the tunes- Mix it up!
- Don't play tunes in the same key back to back.
- Start out the set with something that is comfortable for the musicians, so things lock in.
- Be ready to change up your set on the fly depending how the crowd reacts. You may need to wake them up if they're getting too chatty.
- If you're playing a gig for wealthy older caucasions, play every tune at 160bpm (businessman's bounce tempo) and segue between every tune with a 3-6-2-5 vamp into the next key. Just kidding. This is exactly what many NYC high society bands do.
- Write sets that feature different instruments in the band and vary the solo order. Start with a bass solo or a bass melody once in a while. [preach it, brother!]
- Take the time to work on your set lists before you get to the gig and try to think them through in your head. Try to think about how you will feel after each tune. Keep old set lists that worked well for future reference.
- Ask your players if they have any tunes they want to play before the gig so you can work them into the set seamlessly.
- Consider changing the style or meter of an overplayed standard. You might try something like playing 'All the Things' as a waltz or the 'Nearness of You' as a double-time feel Samba.
I agree with David on almost all of these. I've written about set lists before, and it's always nice to find others with whom you share at least a few concepts.
The bassist for hire with a sardonic take on the rock scene said of Madonna:
"She was incredibly musical and could talk to musicians in terms they could understand as opposed to Tina Turner, who would say things like 'Could you make it more purple?"'
Having finished touring (and, presumably, not really wanting to work in the music industry anymore), bassist Guy Pratt has turned to stand up comedy.
An absolute great article on improvisation.
Communicating in Solos
Contrary to what some players think, the soloist is not the only one who is playing important ideas. The other members can greatly inspire the soloist, or in some cases can even join in as multiple soloists.
A successful solo is like a conversation among the group members. The soloist leads the discussion, and the group members are like the supporting actors who feed the leader ideas. When members of the group hear interesting ideas from the soloist (or from the other members), they can react in any of these ways:Important: The group can use any or all of the above methods at the same time. It’s not necessary for all members to copy or play against at the same time; variety makes an effective engine behind the soloist.
- Let the idea go by. This by helps the idea stand out, but does not necessarily build communication. Even when you let it go by, someone else may be communicating with it, so you’ll get your turn soon. Remember: the soloist may be in the middle of his or her own development and may play something even more interesting in a few seconds.
- Play against the idea. For example, if the idea uses offbeats, play against it with downbeats, or vice versa; if the idea is ascending, play descending, etc.
- Copy the idea (explained [in the article]).
- Alter or develop the idea (explained [in the article]).
I had no idea that Brian Eno wrote the startup music for Microsoft Windows.
Q: How did you come to compose ``The Microsoft Sound''?
A: The idea came up at the time when I was completely bereft of ideas. I'd been working on my own music for a while and was quite lost, actually. And I really appreciated someone coming along and saying, ``Here's a specific problem -- solve it.''
The thing from the agency said, ``We want a piece of music that is inspiring, universal, blah- blah, da-da-da, optimistic, futuristic, sentimental, emotional,'' this whole list of adjectives, and then at the bottom it said ``and it must be 3 1/4 seconds long.''
I thought this was so funny and an amazing thought to actually try to make a little piece of music. It's like making a tiny little jewel.
In fact, I made 84 pieces. I got completely into this world of tiny, tiny little pieces of music. I was so sensitive to microseconds at the end of this that it really broke a logjam in my own work. Then when I'd finished that and I went back to working with pieces that were like three minutes long, it seemed like oceans of time.
Oddly enough, I was just thinking this. Not that I'm all that prescient, mind you.
The physics of playing a didgeridoo. Having recently returned from Australia, this is interesting to me.
Thanks to Skarlet for the tip.
A cousin of mine recently moved to the DC area. He wants to "make it" in the music business. When I asked him what he meant by that, he said, "I want to get a record contract, make records, tour the world, that sort of stuff." To which I answered, "Then you probably need to move either three hours North or thirteen hours West." [*] (NYC or Nashville, for those not familiar with the area)
I've thought about moving to NYC a few times myself. DC has a pretty decent jazz scene, but NYC is really where it's at. So, it's interesting to see what someone who's living that life has to say about it.
Andreas Steffen from Germany asked me to write about what the life of a New York Jazz musician was like. Most people have some glorified idea of what the NYC musician does to make a living. Adreas' idea went like this: sleep until noon, practice, studio job, gig, jam session, repeat from start. That's pretty much what I expected when I got there with five hundred dollars in my pocket. The economic realities of living in NYC have changed drastically in the last thirty years. Long time resident musicians have told me that back in the 70s you could pay your rent by working one or two gigs a month. Many musician had large lofts where they jammed till the wee hours of the morning. New York is one of the most expensive cities in the world and gigs still pay roughly what they did in the 70s. There are still tons of fifty-dollar gigs all over town. Of course now you could be playing fifty-dollar gigs every night of the week and still be starving.
* Yeah, I know that some people have "made it" from the DC area. Good Charlotte, Dennis Chambers just to name two off the top of my head. Still, most bands that make it aren't going to be found here. It's just the odds, as much as that might suck.
A great list to bear in mind:
Talent and/or being 'gifted' is the more important than hard work & tenacity.
.....
If you go to a karaoke bar, you'll see great talented singers wail out their impressions of their favorite singers. Most have no formal training, only some natural talent. These are not the singers who go on to get record deals. The singers who work hard at their art are the ones who go on to be great singers. There's no substitution for hard work, and in the long run that karaoke singer will be wishing they'd put a little more effort into learning how to sing.
Some high grade, ground up sacred cow (there are a few more through the other side of the linky...) from Cameron.
Cassie has some interesting observations about back handed compliments:
The most recent comment came from a fellow at a nice outdoor performance this past Thursday, after the band I was playing with, the Swing Daddies, concluded the first set. This man seemed to genuinely enjoy the music, and I was glad he said so, except his choice words were a bit annoying: "You're the best girl sax player I ever heard."
Ok. I realize this is a compliment. Sort of. I'm glad he liked the band...and my contributions to the music. But why stick the "girl" thing in there? That's like saying, 'You're the best black basketball player I've ever seen' or 'You're the smartest Jewish guy I know.' And I'll be the first to admit that I'm not the best all-around sax player he--or anyone else--has ever heard, but what's wrong with a nice, neutral, 'I really enjoyed your playing'?
The one that most sticks out in my head was after a hip hop gig. This guy wanders over, shakes my hand and says something like, "You know, you're pretty good.... for a white guy."
To this day, I've never been able to figure out what the best response should have been. Probably not me cocking my head to one side and saying, "Umm... thanks?"
Written for Keter Betts, upright bassist for some true jazz greats.
It's possible that I might be playing at the Velvet Lounge soon. I have an offer, and I need to check around to see if things are going to work out or not.
Tomorrow, we go back into the studio to try and finish this album. I have yet to hear the rough mixes, and I'm more than a little apprehensive about it. During the last session, we had some issues with timeliness, and I'm concerned that it might be sufficiently noticeable to cause problems. I suspect that both Shahin and I will go over the rough mixes while Brett and Scott set up the kit.
Once that happens, we have four songs to get down -- Red Leaves, Soho, Brazilian Cafe and Snipe Hunting. Personally, I'm more than a little worried about it. These are the more rhythmically complex songs that we have on our plate (well, not Soho so much). I know that the bass line I've been playing on Red is probably too busy, so I might be backing off of the thumping to get a good take. We have consistently had problems hitting the ending stops on Brazilian when we play it live, so I have little reason to think that the studio will make those go any better. And (finally), Snipe is one of those songs that I've never liked what I play on it.
This promises to be interesting.
If you are a practicing musician, take this article, tape it right beside your mirror and live by just about every word in it.
No matter how eary or hard a part is to play, you must be able to play it perfectly.
It doesn't matter whether it's whole note chords or 32nd note arpeggios. Also keep in mind that any recording project has a fixed budget, which means that you have a set amount of time in which to put down your tracks. If you're struggling with playing your parts, in order to keep the project on budget, a producer will likely bring in a session player. Let me repeat that with more emphasis, in case it didn’t quite sink in the first time:
IF YOU CANNOT RECORD YOUR PARTS WITHIN A REASONABLE AMOUNT OF TIME, THE PRODUCER WILL LIKELY BRING IN A SESSION PLAYER!
In my amateur naiveté, I used to joke to my bandmates that I'd like to see them try to find someone who could lay down my rhythm parts in any reasonable amount of time! After talking to Jeff, I am convinced that they could and would replace me if I were to give them a reason to. That’s when it really hit me that:
As a professional musician, you must be able to play consistently well under pressues.
Playing music is a lot more fun than working in an office, but let there be no misunderstanding, with potentially large sums of money at stake, you are expected to do a job and do it well. Now I don’t mean to imply that you have to be some kind of virtuoso. Far from it. To be successful in the studio, a musician simply requires a strong sense for what a song needs and be able to capture those ideas on “tape” in a timely fashion. Live, consistency is one of the key components for giving each audience a good show for their hard earned money. ...
It continues, and you should as well. Go. Read it now.
From a definitive source.
Thanks to Brad for the tip.
Apparently, mine's Gilbert O' Sullivan.
All I have to say is, who?
Thanks to Brad for the tip.
Ever held on to a ticketstub, just for the memories? If so, this site is for you.
Thanks to Andrew for the tip.
Anthony's put up his diary on the Funk Box show.
Yelling "Freebird!" has been a rock cliché for years, guaranteed to elicit laughs from drunks and scorn from music fans who have long since tired of the joke. And it has spread beyond music, prompting the Chicago White Sox organist to add the song to her repertoire and inspiring a greeting card in which a drunk holding a lighter hollers "Freebird!" at wedding musicians.
Bands mostly just ignore the taunt. But one common retort is: "I've got your 'free bird' right here." That's accompanied by a middle finger. It's a strategy Dash Rip Rock's former bassist Ned Hickel used. According to fans' accounts of shows, so have Jewel and Hot Tuna's Jack Casady. Jewel declines to comment. Mr. Casady says that's "usually not my response to those kind of things."
Others have offered more than the bird. On a recent live album, Modest Mouse's Isaac Brock declares that "if this were the Make-a-Wish Foundation, and you were going to die in 20 minutes -- just long enough to play 'Freebird' -- we still wouldn't play it." Dash Rip Rock often plays "Stairway to Freebird," a mash-up of the Skynyrd epic and Led Zeppelin's "Stairway to Heaven" that Mr. Davis boasts lasts "less than two minutes. ... You're finished before people get mad."
I think I've mentioned before how much I hate -- hate that @)(#%& song, right? Nice to know I'm not the only one.
The end-all, be-all list of strange band names. Some samples:
Okay, this is just funny. Music-Critic takes the lyrics of pop tunes and breaks them down in to what they really mean. Here's their take on Destiny Child's Bootylicious:
You gotta do much | I don't know where you learned to dance, but you're embarrassing both of us |
I don't think you ready for this jelly | So far, you've given me no reason to believe you're capable of living up to my sexual expectations |
Thanks to Brad for the tip.
I knew that people have written tablature for guitar and for bass, but I had no idea that there was such a thing for drums...
Thanks to Brad for the tip.
You know how some songs dwaddle about for awhile, and then try to "kick up a notch"? Well, the easiest way to do that is to throw in a key change -- otherwise known as the truck driver's gear change.
From the website's FAQ:
1. Who or what is a truck driver's gear change?
Many writers and arrangers feel that when their song is in risk of getting a bit tired, it can be given a fresh lease of life by shifting the whole song up a key, usually in between choruses, towards the beginning of a "repeat-till-fade" section. You may have heard this technique informally referred to as "modulation", but the correct ethnomusicological term for the phenomenon is the truck driver's gear change. This reflects the utterly predictable and laboured nature of the transition, evoking a tired and over-worked trucker ramming the gearstick into the new position with his – or, to be fair, her – fist.
Contrary to what many people seem to think, the truck driver's gear change is in no way inventive, interesting or acceptable: it is in fact an utterly appalling and unimaginative admission that you've run out of inspiration and the song should have ended one minute ago; but you're under pressure to make something which can be stretched out to the length of a single. The concept of the truck driver's gear change seems to transcend all musical styles, from Perry Como to The Misfits, although my investigations reveal that it's most prevalent in mainstream pop, and, let's face it, it's unlikely to feature in hip-hop. But who's to say.
This may perhaps all sound a little abstract. So for recommended initiation into the concept of the truck driver's gear change, I suggest you check out Crazy Crazy Nights by Kiss, which is a perfect example of the, ahem, oeuvre. Many experts agree that the single greatest gear change of all time is Michael Jackson's Man In The Mirror, though you should be aware that it may make you physically sick. In a subtler vein, gear changes like Gabrielle's Sunshine are for the experienced listener only.
Thanks to Chuck for the tip.
Anyone who writes lyrics needs one; now you have no excuse.
Thanks to Brad for the tip.
He has a name. If you haven't seen the clip, it's painfully funny (an overweight guy singing along to a techno track from Europe).
First, the NY Times takes a look at the returning 80's acts and how well they are not selling:
A raft of once-popular acts, from the danceable R&B group New Edition to the pop idols Duran Duran and George Michael to the more self-serious Tears for Fears to the standard-bearers of teenage angst, the Cure, all shook off the dust and signed new recording contracts in the past 18 months or so, releasing CD's of new music in some cases for the first time in 15 years. In the footsteps of Motley Crue's double album, the stylishly snarling Billy Idol, the dark darlings New Order and the famously burly rapper Heavy D will be releasing new albums as well.
All have returned with attendant fanfare, sweeping across red carpets and past screaming fans at radio station visits and showcase concerts.
Yet despite the grass-roots enthusiasm and VH1 dogma - not to mention millions of dollars in marketing - the 80's are not selling. People may be donning the once-again fashionable styles of the era (even leg warmers and Flashdance tops) and dancing to the bands of their youth, but they are not going to the store to buy the albums. For the industry that bet on the revival, it's mourning in America.
Then, Mr. Thorpe clocks in with his return glance:
Bell Biv Devoe – Poison
If you can’t identify “Poison” by the chattering drum intro alone, then you’re hopelessly ill-equipped to have any meaningful discussions of modern music. Sorry, but that’s just the way it is. If someone says “never trust a big butt and a smile” and you don’t catch the reference, then you’re probably a complete square. These guys were destined to be big news in the New Jack Swing scene, since they cut their teeth in New Edition along with the esteemed Dr. Bobby Brown, who invented the genre mistakenly while trying to come up with a new material to make lighter tap shoes. I was delighted to find “Poison” included on the soundtrack to the latest Grand Theft Auto game, because it will introduce the song to a whole generation of twelve-year-olds who tricked their parents into buying a game about mulching officers of the law with a thresher. I don’t think I even have to tell you that “Poison” is still just as good as it’s ever been, or better. In fact, if anyone ever writes a better song than “Poison,” I’ll eat my hat.
Verdict: Caaan’t get it outta my heeaaad!
Band To Band is a service shows how any one band is connected to any other band by way of the changing members of the groups.
As an example, AC/DC connects to Blink 182 by:
Of course, the actual site makes it much prettier, complete with album covers.
Actually, there are quite a few reasons, but one of them is so I don't accidently record and somehow release a video of me singing and dancing along to a song that's way, way out of my range.
From the ladies at Suicide Girls, 100 albums to listen to while otherwise occupied.
For one thing, clearly these nice ladies have a rather inflated view of the average American male. For another thing, there are much better choices. Try Peter Gabriel's Passion as a far better accompaniment.
Thanks to Eppy for the tip.
In the "that's neat" category, humming can make a loud noise less painful. Who'd a thunk it.
If you're not from the DC area, you are probably wondering why someone is winning the bad guy from "Press Your Luck". Otherwise, you know that it's the local music awards. Here's A Hint has a rather scathing take on the whole affair. However, if you just want to know what did or didn't happen, check here.
I thought of my experiences at Bass/Nature Camp when I read this one.
Here’s Jim Nollman in action, playing guitar to a killer whale off the coast of Russia. An artist and environmental activist, he’s founder of Interspecies Inc, an organization promoting the artistic interaction of humans and animals.
At the camp, we spent a lot of time talking about the interaction of music and nature. this is a much more direct application of the concept. Could be interesting.
While the write-up is focused on recording voice-overs, it's a pretty good high level overview for recording the human voice in any fashion.
By the mid-Nineties female-led rock bands were everywhere. Sleeper, Elastica, Catatonia, Belly, The Breeders and Hole. Courtney Love was the new Janis Joplin, PJ Harvey was the new Patti Smith. We played as loud as the boys and partied harder. It felt potent. Liberating. Modern. For the briefest of moments, the genie was out of the bottle.
Fast forward 10 years and there's barely a female rock voice left. Of the 23 categories contested at this year's NME awards, a British female artist is nominated in only one: World's Sexiest Women. How has it come to this? Where is the female Alex Kapranos? Where are the female Razorlight? Didn't we make it easy for girls to become rock musicians and gain the respect of their male peers?
It's an interesting read from a former lady of the stage.
I've found this to be true time and time again when it comes to creating anything.
Software engineers know the feeling you get at a certain point in a project. You're getting to the end of the list of things, you have another seemingly short list of things that are "done" but need to be tweaked or fixed -- you're ninety percent done! This is known in the biz as the point you have completed the first ninety percent. The second ninety percent is yet to come.
Brad has an interesting article about musicians and their success.
It’s mostly anecdotes about famous or semi-famous musicians that have day jobs. It’s strange to me that this fact is still a mind blower.
Sometimes I wonder if artists being more up front about their earnings would impact file sharing. Something I’ve noticed is that many people exaggerate what they think musicians earn, which makes it easier to dismiss buying their albums after they download them. What’s $15 to an artist who’s riding around in a limosine [sic], right? What if you knew he took the bus? To work? Where he gets paid less than you?
It's not just a cliche. I have on good authority that a number of the guys from SR-71 work some fairly menial jobs in an effort to make ends meet. The funds from album sales and tour revenues just aren't enough to cover the bases.
Well worth the chuckle, from the nice folks at Your Band Sucks:
A collection of type fonts based on rock bands.
Thanks to David for the tip.
I don't know how accurate this is, but it does make for entertaining reading.
Thanks to Shahin for the tip.
A guy with whom I used to play contacted me about maybe doing a one week USO tour. More info on the way, when and if it materializes.
Anthony Wellington, bassist, teacher, all around good guy and friend, will be performing at this years BassQuake AfterShock this year. Occuring during the NAMM show in Anaheim, quite a few bassists will be there, including Norm Stockton as well as Drue Williams.
I've been studying with Anthony for about a year and a half, two years now. I've even had the privilege of seeing him play live twice, but I have yet to see him step out in front and let it all hang out. While I won't have the opportunity to check out this show for myself (I'll be in DC that night), if you have the opening, it will be well worth your time to check him out.
And congrats again, Anthony.
Gerd has created a magic 8 ball for music matters.
A "study" (whatever that means, there's no supporting documentation) indicates that married people are not as creative as single folk.
A study of 280 successful scientists found that their creativity tended to diminish once they got married. This also held true for musicians, painters and authors.
Thanks to Glenn for the tip.
Ya'd think that if 70,000 people boo you off the stage, that'd be a subtle hint that you are no talent waste of oxygen. Ya might think that...
Thanks to the recently resurrected TMFTML for the tip.
When Britney Spears writes about "True Masters" (her caps, not mine), you know the level of crap can only be rising.
My Christmas was wonderful and I had such a great break. I think I should rephrase myself from my previous letters when I was talking about taking a “break”. What I meant was I am taking a break from being told what to do. True Masters say it’s cool when you look at someone and don’t know whether they are at work or play since it’s all the same to them.
Unfortunately, it looks like her two year extended break from music is over. Dammit.
And let's not forget this little gem:
On a different note, I have a new dog named Lucky and I just bought her a new dresser for her room. Yes, she has a room, which she shares with Bit Bit. For Christmas, they got a baby chandelier to go in it. It’s the cutest thing in the world!
A baby chandelier for your dog. Words fail me.
A quest to call up all the 867-5309's in America, Via Andy.
An interesting article about the range of the human voice and the pieces written at the extreme edges.
The lowest note Mozart wrote however is low D for Osmin in Seraglio (Ha, wie will ich triumphieren). Monteverdi wrote also twice a low D, the first is at the death of Seneca in L'Incoronazione di Poppea. The second in the fragmentary opera Il Ritorno di Ulisse in Patria. ... More than these low notes and the high g3 - from the already mentioned KV316 - is 'normally' not possible, there's little room to manoeuvre for the human voice. ... Here you can hear Viktor Wichniakov, one of the famous Russian Basso Profundo, with a double low G (from the Contra-octave range, C1-B1, European notation) at the end.
And, here's another little detail:
Pop-diva Mariah Carey hits during two different live renditions of the song "Emotions" a G7#-note, the highest note in the history of recorded music.
At least all those ridiculous acrobatics have some purpose.
Thanks to Lynn for the tip.
While Ashlee can burp the entire alphabet (and is proud of that accomplishment), Jessica is still the belching champ of the family. Their parents must be so proud.
The bestest gift went to my mother. My father, my brother and myself picked up a keyboard for her.
See, there's a story here. My mother got her college degree in music education quite a few years ago. She went on to teach third and fourth grade for a few decades, retiring only last year.
While I was growing up, we had a piano in the basement. Every so often, my mom would go downstairs and play it. Generally, only when she thought no one else was around. I'm not sure as to why when no one else was there; maybe she didn't feel comfortable playing around others, maybe it was just for herself, I really don't know. In any case, it was an occasional thing, but sometimes I would come home and hear her playing some Mozart or a Bach piece.
About ten years ago, my folks got rid of the upright piano. It took up too much space, it was expensive to maintain it, the wood was starting to warp, etc. Ever since then, both my brother and I would say that she should get a keyboard, on the basis that if it was a big enough a part of her life to study it for four years in her youth, it's probably something that she might like to try again.
Well, earlier this year, she made an offhand comment to my father about how it might be nice to have a keyboard. So, Dad asked Mike and I to pick one up for him.
When we brought it out to her on Christmas, she was so surprised that she was completely speechless for a bit. After Mike walked her through some of the features of the keyboard, she started to play Moonlight Sonata -- from memory! There were a few wrong notes, but it was far better than I could have done.
Later on, she was working through the accompaniment part of the keyboard's programming. Built into the machine out of the box is Norah Jones' Don't Know Why, complete with score and lyrics. It just happens to be the first tune in the song catalog. My mom picked up the tune and sight read the music (at about 90% accuracy) on the very first try, without having played piano for 10 years and not being all that familiar with the song.
That's just simply impressive as all get out.
Merry Christmas again, mom.
Click on the face to find out who's who on the Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band album.
Thanks to Brad for the tip.
Here's A Hint has a discussion about bass solos and why there shouldn't be any. If that's how he/she feels, here's to hoping that he doesn't catch any of the Canvas shows...
Only when you understand why almost no one wants to hear a bass solo, can you begin to understand what it would take to actually play one that was listenable (your first clue is that not even Flea works a bass solo into every song). Just because you can play in 11/14 doesn't mean it's creative or interesting.
This makes me think of something that I've heard both Victor and Anthony say a few times: "It's easy to play solos for other bass players; they're impressed by technical stuff. It's much harder to play for a kid; they only care about whether or not the music sounds good."
I actually have to write a solo for Sunday's show (the original plan fell through -- Sorry Rob). While I know I could just throw together a bunch of chops, that won't make anyone happy, least of all me.
This is just so cool. A visual representation of the chord progression in Giant Steps. There's also an explanation as to how the chords move.
I know that there have been a number of times when I just don't particularly feel the urge to go and play. Or, to be a bit more accurate, I don't feel that urge as strongly.
What was once fun and challenging feel stupid and annoying. Or perhaps the things that used to motivate or move you don’t resonate at all. You feel nothing for them. It all just seems like so much more crap to deal with. If this sounds familiar, or you fear that this day is in your future, this essay is for you.
Some more ideas on how to deal with burnout.
A dictionary of musical technology terms.
From the Guardian.
Thanks to Brad for the tip.
A few examples
- The time Elton John joined George Michael on stage for a surprise duet of "Don't Let the Sun Go Down on Me" was the Light FM equivalent of Woodstock and the Sun Sessions all rolled into one, and as such needs to be honored four times a day.
- By the same token, the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack is the Light FM equivalent of Nevermind.
- There is some wish to listen to Barry White songs even at ten in the morning while hunched over a keyboard, trying to tweak the Excel spreadsheet.
- Phil Collins, Lionel Richie, and Hall and Oates are all still apparently still recording new material.
Thanks to Michael for the tip.
A motorcycle guitar. Or is it a guitar motorcycle?
Thanks to Brad for the tip.
Saturday asked me if I wanted to make a return trip.
Lindsey recounts the tale...
(Here is the story of the Biggest Douche I've Ever Met. Since he happens to be famous, I'm not going to say his name, but you'll know who it is.)
In Christmas of 2002, I went home to Tallahassee, Florida to spend the holidays with my family. As usual, I hung out with my good friend there who owns Tallahassee's best music venue. He told me about the show they were having that night, and rolled his eyes as he said who the band was "It's that guy from that (edgy drug movie). He has a band now."
"Omg, ___ ______ has a band?" I said.
"Yeah. They made us give them a $7000 guarantee even though nobody has ever heard of his stupid band. And get this - his booker called a couple weeks ago, after the deal was done, and told me that I can't refer to (Douche) in any way when I advertise the show. So, basically, I've guaranteed them $7000 for a show nobody is going to go to. Apparently, he wants to "make it as a band the traditional way without using his name as an actor"
With Band-Aid 20 coming out (resurrecting that hoary chesnut Do They Know It's Christmas), FreakyTrigger steps in to keep us all up to date with the goings-on since Band-Aid 2.
Anthony Wellington, bass player, teacher and friend, is the featured artist over at Bassically.net. Congrats, man!
It's hard to argue with this BBC poll. The major association I have with that song is Corky, which hardly helps.
I have two kinds of student writers. One kind is very good at style and atmosphere. They can talk about music in relation to their lives, tell how certain songs make them feel, relate their likes and dislikes. The other type knows musical terminology, and can describe music in intelligent detail. The first type of writer is entertaining to read, but ultimately merely subjective; the second is more persuasive, but a little dry and lacking in color and emotive effect. Almost none can yet combine the best of both worlds. The first type are almost all pop music aficionados; the second type tend to be classical and jazz musicians.
The big question for me is, is this an inevitable correlation? Are pop-music preferences necessarily subjective, or could they, given the criteria of a certain genre, be grounded in objective distinctions? Can one prove, if only on paper, song by song, that the Beatles were better than the Stones, or vice versa? What I sometimes love about the subjective pop style is its sense of how important music is to listeners. They really love the stuff, it’s crucial to their sense of self-identification. The classical/jazz people are better at proving they know what they’re talking about, but less good at making the music sound important to them. There is a rather obvious correlation here to the music business in general. Pop music accounts for something like 94 percent of all CD sales, classical and jazz for about 3 percent each - or at least, that was the case a few years ago. If classical and jazz writers worked harder at identifying with the music, making it sound life-consuming and identity-defining (as, God knows, it generally is), could those percentages improve? Do classical music and jazz stay under the radar because they inspire a technical, specialist sensibility? or just because we talk about them that way?
God knows I've thought about this on more than one occasion. It's been a while since I've written seriously about music -- I've been surpassingly busy, I haven't really heard a lot of music recently that makes me want to get up in the morning, writing (well, writing with any sort of quality) isn't my strong suit. Maybe I should get bakck at it...
Avril Lavigne comes out firmly against lip synching.
The New Yorker did an article on Enron on how they rewarded talented people in their organization. Buried in the article is an interesting observation:
...[Carol Dweck, psychologist at Columbia U] gave a class of preadolescent students a test filled with challenging problems. After they were finished, one group was praised for its effort and another group was praised for its intelligence. Those praised for their intelligence were reluctant to tackle difficult tasks, and their performance on subsequent tests soon began to suffer. Then Dweck asked the children to write a letter to students at another school, describing their experience in the study. She discovered something remarkable: forty per cent of those students who were praised for their intelligence lied about how they had scored on the test, adjusting their grade upward. They weren't naturally deceptive people, and they weren't any less intelligent or self-confident than anyone else. They simply did what people do when they are immersed in an environment that celebrates them solely for their innate "talent." They begin to define themselves by that description, and when times get tough and that self-image is threatened they have difficulty with the consequences. They will not take the remedial course. They will not stand up to investors and the public and admit that they were wrong. They'd sooner lie.
How many times have you played with a musician who has "a lot of talent." I know I've sat through quite a few times with musicians like that. I've also spent a lot of time with people who worked hard on their craft. Without exception, I would always prefer to work with a musician who has expended more effort on their art than one who has a mountain of talent but doesn't work on it. Always.
Thanks to Robert for the tip.
When I play with The Canvas, there's a small problem. Brett's behind his kit and Shahin sits to play (a traditional approach for his style and background). While both of them can project visually to an audience, it still leaves me to carry the visual load (since I'm the only one who's mobile).
So, I had an idea while driving back from NYC -- hang a large, taut, white sheet behind the band, then use a laptop and a projector to project images on them. Not a novel concept so far, I know. Here's where I'm going with it, though.
When I have seen bands use video back drops, there's an issue of making it look good. If what's on the back drop has motion in it, it needs to either have a wildly different tempo/pacing so as to not seem to conflict with the music or it needs to be in sync with the music. The later is extremely hard. It also should be vaguely related to the song at hand -- if the band is playing a song about love, war images probably aren't going to fit.
So, here's my idea. Take a song like Sahara Dance. Project stock footage on the back drop -- in this case, images of sand dunes, maybe with wind blowing across the tops. Just simple stuff like that. No need to worry about synchronization, no need to worry about the video upstaging the band. It's just an additional element of a show.
Perhaps I was spoiled by my experience as Bass Camp. Bass Player Live was nice and all, but I didn't enjoy it as much as I thought I would. The sessions and clincs were too crowded to really get much interaction with the instructors, and the overall atmosphere was alternatively more competitive and more sycophantic. While I did enjoy checking lots of gear, I don't know if I got as much from the clinics as I would have liked.
Having said this, I'd go back again. Next time, though, I'll plan ahead (instead of winging it) and stay for the whole weekend. Maybe the second day would have been more to my liking.
For my last session of the day, I made the time to catch Matthew Garrison. I had heard the name once or twice (he's a Fodera sponsored artist), but I didn't know much about him.
What a pleasant surprise.
Matthew plays with a must-see-to-believe right hand technique that uses his thumb and three fingers in very tight sequences. It's an amazing sound. But one of his suggestions that I really appreciated was how to keep a song fresh.
Garrison took the tune Giant Steps and then started to move around the time signatures. First, he played it (using a drum machine for rhythmic assistance) in 7/8, cutting off an eighth note where he could. Then he played it in 9/8, extending notes where he could. By approaching the song like this, new aspects are opened up.
As a side note, I know quite a few musicians who couldn't play Giant Steps in the original time signature, let alone messing around with it like this. Very impressive.
Mike Pope gave a talk about radically reharmonizing music. I've talked to Mike a few times before (mostly in the Fodera shop), but this was the first time I had ever heard him really expound on music.
What he did was to take two notes (one treble and one bass). Then start to move the bass note in an orderly progression (say, diatonic) down, and then play a treble chord on top of it that includes the initially chosen chord.
For example, take high C and low C in the key of C (just to keep things simple). Right off the bat, you can play Cmaj on top of the low C. Move the low C down a half step to B, and the top chord becomes B9. A whole step drop (A) changes the chord to A-7. And so on.
But the main thing to keep foremost in mind when doing this exercise is to keep melody as the primary item. Harmonies must be subordinate to the melody.
To be honest, there were more things that I wanted to go and check out than I had the time -- four of five sessions all at once.
First up, I decided to go and listen to Reggie Hamilton speak. Reggie's played with a "who's who" of people -- Stanley Clarke, Boyz II Men, Whitney Houston, Barbara Streisand just to name a few. I figured he'd have some good insights.
Two of the main things I took away from his talk was two just be yourself -- learn from other people by mimicing their chops, but respect their privacy enough to not take their tone or their licks. The otherthing was to leave space open in the song, to let the tune breathe for itself.
After consideration (and talking with a few people), I've decided to stay in NYC for the night, go through one day of Bass Player Live! and then head home. I've got work to do (as well as a rehearsal) on Sunday, so I can't stay for the whole thing, but one day is better than none.
I'm here anyway; I'd be kicking myself later if I didn't go. Another factor is that work started for me about a 2:45am when a server crashed. So I don't know if I would be good to drive home tonight anyway.
While I was heading up to NYC, I ran Anthony's M-Bass up to NYC (the one with the Om inlay). John Maghini was exhibiting at Bass Player Live, so he was going to be in the area. Anthony wanted some details on the bass changed, and John wanted to be able to display the workmanship for the crowd.
So, after Fodera, I wandered into Manhattan, hooked up with John, gave him the bass and then we talked for a bit.
Coolfer, I love ya, buddy, but I think you're overreacting on this one.
...[I]f you write about computers and technology, you think the music industry is filled with idiots. And, of course, because you write about computers and technology, because you know a thing or two about laptop battery life and open source programming, your alternative business stategy blows away that of the music industry.
I went to the article. and checked it out for myself.
The record industry continues to simultaneously regard the Internet as a threat to its existence and the key to prosperity.
While the industry clings to the argument that file sharing hurts sales because people won't buy what they can get for free, record labels have begun to offer free, high-quality streams of soon-to-be-released albums in hopes the exposure will stimulate sales.
The contradiction couldn't be more striking, nor more puzzling. In its continuing campaign against sharing copyrighted songs, the industry has filed lawsuits against thousands of people, rejecting the notion that exposure to free music helps listeners identify what they like and may later buy.
Apparently the record industry believes access to free music does indeed boost sales - but only if the music is shared by a label, not by a music fan with a home computer and Internet access.
Perhaps I'm just missing something here, but what's so staggeringly wrong about this observation? The first paragraph lays out a premise. The second paragraph points out two actions which the labels (taken as a broad grouping) have done (links to sources would have been nice, but it doesn't appear that the Richmond Times is operating in a web world yet). The third para opens with an opinion, pointing out the way in which the two statements from para two are seemingly in opposition to each other. This followed by an additional fact (lawsuits are filed) and an inferred opinion (since the labels are suing, the writer assumes that they are rejecting a notion which he/she puts forward). He/She then throws in a new summarization of the prior sentences.
Is this spot on reporting? Not at all -- it's a local paper in a small market city. I was hardly expecting Edward R. Murrow. But the sarcasm's a bit much. It might even shock you, but some techies might just be able to contribute to the music industries travails.
Find out the real names of your favorite music figure.
One musician thanks his fans:
I don't say it enough so I'll say it here: I love my fans. I worship them. (I don't really feel comfortable calling them "fans" — I like to call them "listeners." But for now it's easier to type "fans.") It's the fans that encourage me to continue writing and recording, to keep trying to get gigs, to continue pursuing some sort of music career. Fans encouraged me to put out a record, fans bought the record, and fans spread the word. Right now, fans are helping me find gigs and giving me great ideas on what to do next.
My mailing list is pretty small, only a few hundred names. But it means the world to me that handful of people are interested enough in my musical dabblings to trust me with their email address.
In the end, fans are really all I've got keeping this whole music thing afloat. It really is that simple. And if I don't show proper appreciation for them, well, I just suck.
Winning fans is hard work, and fans will hold us accountable and keep us on the path. True fans will let us know when we're hot and when we're making mistakes.
Losing fans will do more damage to your music career than any P2P pirate. A fan should be far more valuable to us than a sale.
Hear, hear.
And, as a side note (combined with shameless self-promotion), if you'd like to join my mailing list, I'd be all sorts of appreciative.
Thanks to Brad for the tip.
The advent of quality, inexpensive recording hardware/software available for home use has revolutioned the face of the music industry:
Digital technology has changed everything about the process of making music: From the way artists compose and record their songs, to the way these works are distributed. Apple Computer's GarageBand, Sony's ACID and other powerful yet easy-to-use software programs let professional musicians write and record music whenever and wherever the muse strikes. On the tour bus. In the dressing room. Even on the plane.
"Recording with Pro Tools made me feel more like a 14-year-old punk rocker than I have in years,'' said [Tim] Quirk [of Too Much Joy], 39, who by day is RealNetworks' executive music editor in San Francisco. "There are no rules and no restrictions. Even if you wanted to do things before, you were physically limited in how much you could pull off.''
Now, he says, ``If you can think of something, you can pull it off.''
Speaking as one of the people with a home setup, it's a lot of fun, too.
Thanks to Gerd for the tip.
Almost as hard as starting a band is naming it. I can remember big white boards full of words as each member of the band tried to come up with something that was clever (but not too clever), hip (but not too trendy), etc, etc.... Here's some help. Here are a few names that I got from the random generator:
What do these names mean? I dunno. It can't be worse than Hootie and the Blowfish, though.
Sex, drugs and rock-n-roll -- it's a cliche. So, it's probably no surprise that the rock lifestyle has claimed a few lives. The NY Daily News did a story on the subject. They list the deadlist bands in rock (the bands which have had the most members die), the worst day in rock (when Ritchie Valens, Buddy Holly and the Big Bopper died in a plane crash) as well as those who have "outlived expectations" (Courtney Love, David Crosby, Ozzy Osbourne).
Then you have the list of the most dangerous jobs in rock:
Thanks to David for the tip.
So, there's this opinion piece, talking about how jazz is being more and more opaque in the digital age without all the liner notes and attendent documentation to explain what's going on with the music. I've written a little about this before, but this article is a different (and very pessimistic) approach to a similar topic.
When I first read the article, it bothered me, but I couldn't quite put my finger on it. Luckily, Mwanji (back up to his usual posting greatness) dissects the writing sentence by sentence.
One of the many reasons why Mwanji is a must read if you are into jazz.
A gallery of such stalwarts at Steven Seagal, William Shatner, Catherine Bach, Farrah Fawcett, David Hasselhoff, John Travolta, Burt Reynolds, Jeff Bridges and Clint Eastwood.
There's been a lot of writing going on lately, all of which were focused on the difficulties of trying to put music subject into words. Scott has the master list, compiling all the contributions from Kyle Gann, A. C. Douglas, Scott himself, Lynn S, Fred, Alex Ross, Helen Radice and Charles T. Downey. It's an interesting read, and things that I have been strugging with for some time. Hell, it's part of the title of this blog (the smaller text underneath).
As a musician, I am nearly constantly using my hands. Keepnig my hands and wrists healthy is obviously a big concern. While at camp, I learned some tendon exercises from Sifu, which have been a big help. Here are a few more.
From a DC area music critic (who's really funny to read), a list of things not to do. A quick sample:
On that last one? Amen, brother, whoever you are.
-- Update --
Now with correct links!
It was once "All Things Strat", but apparently the folks over at Fender had an issue with that name.
Stephen Hawking, rapper extrodinaire. Got love the title: "A Brief History Of Rhyme". Even more of the Hawkman can be found at his website.
In response to the court decision, Downhill Battle wants you to try create a thirty second song using only a given sample.
No, that's not quite right; there were at least one category where someone who wasn't from the US won.
- World's Best Male Artist: Usher
- World's Best Female Artist: Norah Jones
- World's Best Group: Outkast
- Best Pop Male Artist: Usher
- Best Pop Female Artist: Norah Jones
- Best Pop Group: Outkast
- Best Pop/Rock Artist: Avril Lavigne
- Best Rock Artist: Evanescence
- Best R&B Artist: Usher
- Best R&B Female Artist: Alicia Keyes
- Best Rap/Hip-Hop Artist: Outkast
- Best New Female Artist: Hilary Duff
- Best New Male Artist: Kanye West
- Best New Group: Maroon 5
- Diamond Award: Celine Dion
- Outstanding Contribution to the Music Industry Award: Clive Davis
- Best-selling Artist by country: Australia, Delta Goodrem; United Kingdom, Dido; Ireland, Westlife; Netherlands, DJ Tiesto; Ukraine, Ruslana; Russia, Philip Kirkorov; Germany, Sarah Connor; Africa, Latifah; Scandinavia, The Rasmus; Italy, Eros Ramazzotti; Switzerland, DJ Bobo; Spain, Alejandro Sanz; France, Kyo; China, Jay Chou; Japan, Hikaru Utada.
Lemme get this straight. All of Africa is one culture? I suppose all those Latin countries just don't count, either. And what group of mouth-breathers voted for this lot anyway? Usher as the world's best? Surely, we can do better than that.
Coolfer comes up with another great article about some things to consider when buying music. This is really a must-read. Here's an example:
Understand the Economics of Music. A CD does not cost $1 to make. The manufacturing cost may be around $1, but the costs involved in finding, recording and marketing that music are considerable. Also, consumers should consider that musicians have muliple revenue streams. If you really care about supporting a particular musician, go to the live show and buy a T-shirt.
Really. Go read the whole thing now.
Tonight's the Bass Extremes show at the Birchmere. I got down to the venue about four hours ahead of the performance to try and get a good seat (festival seating and what not). While I was waiting, Anthony came out and saw me in line. He asked me if I remembered to bring my bass (which I had). Then he invited me into the hall to listen to the sound check. Not a bad way to cap off a week of Bass Camp.
Really, he does.
''I'm sorry,'' he says, from his home near Geneva, Switzerland. ''I'm sorry. You know, the amount of people who have grown up hating me, and it's no fault of mine. I wrote the songs. I didn't ask the stations to play them so much. I remember they were advertising a guaranteed Phil Collins-free weekend in Milwaukee. People all over the world are sticking pins in effigies of me because they hate 'Another Day in Paradise' or 'Sussudio.'''
Thanks to David for the tip.
Judakiss penned a little ditty asking, among other things, why did Bush knock down the Towers. The Morning News hollas back.
Thanks to Simon for the tip.
I was leaving work today when I heard one of my co-worker's cell phones go off. Her ringtone was set to Lynard Skynard's Sweet Home Alabama. To put it mildly, I was shocked. She's hardly the stereotypical fan of that particular tune. I asked her why she had that as her ringtone, and she said "I liked the movie."
For starters, man, do I feel old. Secondly, she had no idea as to why I was as shocked as I was. (and finally we get to the point of this post)
I grew up in a small, redneck, Southern town. We're talking Dixie flags all over the place, gun racks in the back of the truck windows, an Appalachia kind of area. Sweet Home Alabama was the soundtrack of so many racist idiots from my youth that I have an automatic association of that song to bigotry. And I don't think I'm the only one to make that connection. It seems to be rather commonplace for Lynard Skynard to backfill the introduction of a new character in film and TV, a shorthand way to ascribe lots of unsavory characteristics to a person. If you think I'm wrong, please, suggest an counter-example.
Perhaps this is a function of both age and location. J had no idea of any of the connotations of the tune, but she's fairly young and from upstate New York. I got it right away (I'm both older and from the South), as did another one of my co-workers (older than both J and I, as well as a native of DC). In any case, my distate for Sweet Home is hardly a revelation for those who know me.
It's been a while since we had a list here at the Musings, so here's one detailing the most hated men in rock. And, yes, I know there are twenty people in the list below, but the title of the article is the ten most hated. Don't blame me, I'm just reporting.
On top of this, there's the comment
Sting, meanwhile, is another story. This turtleneck-sweatered Jaguar shill has so desecrated his Policeman legacy that we're not entirely convinced the current soft-rock incarnation isn't the original Sting's evil twin. He is, without question, the most hated man in rock."
I don't particularly agree with all of these people, but I'll give him Durst, G.E. Smith and Scott Stapp.
Thanks to David for the tip.
I believe that Bartók, Feldman, and many others never meant that you cannot teach someone to compose but rather that you cannot teach imagination, creativity, and natural musicianship—in other words, the basic talent (tools) needed to be a composer.
An interesting article ruminating on how to teach writing music to his students.
This site takes whatever worlds you give it, parses through the string and matches the individual words to sounds clips on file. Not what you would call the smoothest of things, but it can be entertaining.
Mandonna, an all male Madonna tribute band. Before you clicky on the linky, be forewarned that there is music (obnoxious music, natch) on every page. But, if you just want to see the videos, go here. Their take on Like A Virgin has to be seen to be appreciated.
Thanks to PlanetKyoto for the tip.
A good list.
- Jaco Pastorius -- "It ain’t braggin’ if you can back it up!"
- Miles Davis -- "Those songs to me don’t exist, you know? So What or Kind of Blue, I’m not going to play that shit, those things are there. They were done in that era, the right hour, the right day, and it happened. It’s over; it’s on the record."
- Thelonious Monk -- "I say, play your own way. Don’t play what the public want — you play what you want and let the public pick up on what you doing — even if it does take them fifteen, twenty years."
- Oscar Peterson -- "We’re not like pop musicians who have to perform the same top ten tunes every night of a tour."
The 9th annual World Air Guitar Championships hope to yield the best imaginary instrumentalist. While it would be appropriate for the winner to get imaginary prizes, they actually get an electric guitar to take home.
Thanks to Rob for the tip.
Townsend, some boy band that I've never heard of before and never want to again, has released a cover of the Def Leppard classic Pour Some Sugar On Me. To say their version of the song sucks would be to insult all those songs out there that really do suck. Just when you think it can't get any worse and they can't suck out anymore groove from the tune, they add a white boy rap in the middle.
But the video introduces even higher degrees of suckage. The lead singer from Smashmouth is in it for some reason, as is Teck from MTV Real World Hawaii. The only thing that kept me from ripping my eyes out while watching this dreck was the scene where the lead singer is glammed up and is nearly the spitting image of Hedwig from The Angry Inch. It's unintentional, of that I'm sure.
Thanks to Jonson for the tip, I think.
-- Update --
Oh, darn. Townsend has broken up. Whatever will do, wherever will I go, blah, blah, blah.
-- Update 2 --
I tried to find Townsend's album on Amazon, but no luck. Apparently, they're not even worth stocking, which makes it harder for me to mock them appropriately.
This strikes me as a rather self-inflicted problem.
But my iPod addiction harbored a darker, more disturbing side. With more than 1,000 songs at my thumb tip, I could satisfy any desire, any time. My iPod was like a drug. I lived in my own self-imagined movie, instantly tailoring the soundtrack to fit, or inspire, my emotions. Some days unfolded languidly, similar to a Wes Anderson film, filled with nostalgic post-punk songs and the occasional Nico track (yes, Nico). Other times, I blasted on the treadmill at the gym to thumping techno beats. This winter, after a girl I briefly dated abruptly announced that she was "still in love with her ex-boyfriend," I spent the night trudging through the Arctic air of Greenwich Village with Conor Oberst’s wallowing voice on repeat. More recently, when an evening with romantic overtones ended on a positive note, I boozily left the bar amplified by the hopeful lyrics of Death Cab for Cutie front man Ben Gibbard. The music lent some kind of dramatic import to what I was experiencing. Without it, I felt empty. Mostly, I now realize, it just made my days feel like some cheesy Dawson’s Creek episode.
Personally, I've started to travel more and more without music on at all. I know that my last three ideas for songs came when I was on a long trip, just singing to myself.
Having seen a few bellydancers over the years, I would have never married the dance with heavy metal. What do I know.
A website dedicated to observations on shows. The particular events skew towards the UK (and classical music at that), but it's an interesting idea.
A huge page of drum solos. All the greats are there -- Chambers, Peart, Krupa, Bonham, Gadd, Rich, Weckl -- you name them, they're probably on the site. Also check out the list of killer grooves or the pile of videos -- actually just spend some time on the whole site!
Well worth the time for any bass player who wants to learn some great grooves. To me, the more a bassist knows about drums, the better he/she can lock in with them.
How to fake your way through being, say,
- a juggler -- the end of your act has to look impressive, not be difficult. Build up tension by "missing" the finale once or twice before "getting it right"
- a lounge pianist -- Never agree to Christmas sing-alongs if there is alcohol involved. Your singer will only remember the first two lines of his favorite tunes, or you’ll waste a half-hour on a drawn-out, stumbling, “12 Days of Christmas.” The singer will be forgiven when he sobers up, but you’ll look unprofessional.
- a street performer -- In street performance, it’s possible to make money without really knowing how to play your instrument. You can pick up a cheap accordion at a thrift store and simply make stuff up on the street corner. Most people usually won’t stick around and listen for long if you are on a sidewalk where there’s little room to stand, and you can play the same thing over and over and still make money.
- even an attorney -- Do whatever it takes to fit your contracts onto a single page: Format with single-spacing, use a 10- or 9-point font, and reduce the margins to less than an inch. Most people assume any contract that fits on one page will be simple and straightforward, and even sophisticated negotiators can be charmed by the lack of a staple.
To which I'd like to add bass player. You can never go wrong rooting the chords. And, if you can't find the beat, you'll always get into trouble playing ahead of the beat. Hang back and play behind the beat.
An interesting article in the Washington Post about the dearth of prominent female guitarists. While I do agree that women guitarists do not get anywhere near the same kind of attention as their male counterparts, the sad part about the writer is that they ignore some very good players (like Jennifer Batten, just off the top of my head).
One of the odder comparisons I've ever read.
Both groups are as close as one can get to being cult artists while still releasing Top 10 albums on a regular basis. And both attract an audience that comes primarily to gawk at the musicianship. In Rush’s case, the response is a little more literal: instead of circle-dancing or staring wide-eyed at the band, fans play air drums along with Neil Peart (whose amazing dexterity and stone-faced Vulcan look make Rush the only power trio whose undisputed star is the drummer). And in an era where obvious backing tapes and flat-out lip-synching have spread well beyond the Britney circuit to rock bands like Creed and Korn, it’s telling that two bands who are all about live playing, warts and all, drew some of the summer’s biggest crowds.
Thanks to Tim for the tip.
A site with lots of sound and video clips of Spinal Tap.
I do like listening to old jazz albums (Dizzy, Louie, the like), but sometimes the language can be a bit opaque. Now, there's help.
American Idol calls out to DC. Thousands respond. I'd be willing to bet that a few well placed claymore mines would do wonders to clean up the gene pool.
Greg's train of thought is very clearly pitched towards classical music, but there's something here for any musician.
Instead, I want to ask why people in the audience don’t get more deeply involved with music itself. Someone, very likely (and of course understandably), might reply, “But we can’t do this—we’re not musicians!”
But I think the audience really isn’t given a chance. Here’s a small but telling example. Once, at the New York Philharmonic, I read program notes for some large-scale piece—I think it was a Bruckner symphony—that among much else told me that the work was scored for four horns. But right up there on the stage, in plain sight, were five! Any musician could tell you why that was. The horn is a difficult instrument, and the principal player has a sovereign privilege, to not play everything in his or her part. Thus a fifth horn sits in reserve, to fill in when needed.
But do people in the audience know this? Not likely, and the Philharmonic—along with just about every other orchestra—wouldn't think to explain, even when they face a stark contradiction between their program notes and what they put on the stage.
Greg Sandow talks about perform an opera from Handel in the fashion that Handel intended it to be.
A ramp should be built from the stage out into the middle of the audience, so that singers can walk down it, stand in the middle of the opera house, and entertain. (That happened in Handel's time.) Think of a Handel opera production almost like a cabaret show. The singers should perform more as themselves than as their characters; since a long series of da capo arias makes no sense unless the singers are showing off, showing off is the best way for singers to bring their characters to life.
The lights should be on in the opera house. (As they were up to the middle of the 19th century.) The audience should be free to talk, to come and go, to take breaks from the performance, to walk around. That way, the performers would have to grab our attention; if they didn't, we'd stop listening.
A really interesting compare/contrast between the information found on the label of a record and the info in iTunes (and, by extension, the data found in almost any mp3 tag).
Jazz has remained a very accessible art form partly because fans are educated by their own music collections. Albums employed text, photographs and graphic design to illustrate how a network of artists created a musical language together.
Without the physical album, online music stores will play a much larger role in teaching new listeners about jazz. While institutions, educators and preservationists will soon face the same challenges, music stores will be the first to use digital interfaces to educate the listening public about jazz.
Really a must read. As I was reading, it got me to thinking about the change in information over the last few years (digital media and no). Shrinking the package from vinyl to CD gave artists less real estate to work with when they were projecting their ideas to the public. I don't know if a modern day label would justify the expense incumbent to cover art of any magnitude (think Bitches Brew).
At the same time, the explosion of virtual real estate would seem to expand the horizons of people, but that doesn't always seem to be the case. I know that I get lazy when it comes to this sort of detail. A DVD can hold more information about almost any artist than most people will ever want to know -- 99% will never put it in the player. I'm making up that stat, but I have good reason to think it.
Case in point -- Oteil Burbridge's Family Secret. It's actually much more than a CD -- it's a double disc release, both a CD and DVD. I love Oteil's work and his playing. I listened to the CD nonstop for about two or three weeks before moving on to other things. It was only a few weeks ago that I got around to dropping the DVD into my player, and even then it was on as background while I did other things. And, not to toot my own horn, but I'm both a fan and serious about music. Couple that with my techno-geek nature and you might think that would pre-select me to be exact kind of person that would be enthralled at the availablility of a DVD, but I didn't do it. From that, I would suspect that more will not be looking at online offerings than will.
While he was in Ibiza, P Diddy tried to perform.
"He was getting the crowd going and singing over some tracks. But when he tried to rap the crowd turned on him, shouting and jeering until he left the stage."
And a visit to underground club DC10 for after-hours party Coco Loco the following day was equally disastrous.
The insider continued: "He got on stage and everyone cheered - but once he started rapping there was another chorus of boos. He persevered but the crowd reaction was so bad he was forced to leave the stage.
"He looked very hurt and was heard asking one of his flunkies: "Why don't they dig me?""
Because you're an overrated hack with delusions of grandeur?
The lads (and lass) of Nickelcreek and the former frontman of Toad the Wet Sprocket will be playing together next week at the Birchmere. I was interested in going, but I dwaddled and now it's sold out. A friend of mine is going (hope you have fun, Patrick -- drop me a line and let me know how it went), and this is what he can expect to find.
They are really bad. The saddest part is that the people in the photos are probably completley sincere about it.
Thanks to Rev Bob for the tip.
The Washington Post has a good write-up on Prince before his show at MCI this week.
With the possible exception of Brian Wilson, no one in pop has been called a genius more often than Prince. It started in the early '80s, as it dawned on everyone that this tiny kid from Minneapolis wasn't just writing all the songs on his albums but playing all the instruments, too. And then he started writing hits for everyone else, for acts including the Time, Wendy & Lisa, Apollonia 6. It was strange. All this choppy, racy, synthed-up fusion of rock, soul and R&B pouring out of Minnesota, of all places. And one guy is the Svengali of it all.
One of these days, I'm going to stop with the lists. Really, I will. Is there a 12 stop that can help me?
This is aimed more at rock critics, but the points should apply pretty broadly.
Thanks to the indispensible Coolfer Glenn for the tip.
I'm taking the idea from Frank:
First Record Bought: I'm sure it was something Rush.
First Concert: I think it was Stryper (and man, am I embarassed about that)
Favourite Music Movie: Spinal Tap or Standing In The Shadows Of Motown
Favourite Music Book: Jaco
Favourite Songwriter: Richard Bona
Favourite Record Label: Real World
Favourite Magazine: I usually avoid the rags.
Favourite Bassist: Wow, there's a long list. If I have to say one and only one, I've got to go with Victor.
Favourite Album Cover: Schroeder's Greatest Hits -- so retro.
(In a new category)Least Favourite Album Cover: Boys For Pele -- Tori Amos
Favourite Teen Idol: Umm... Hillary Duff. Sure.
Artist Who Broke Your Heart: Jimmy Buffett. I used to like his stuff until I realized it was all the same. Every last note of it.
Artist You Will Always Believe In: Prince. Miles of talent, always worth paying attention to.
Singer Who Makes Your Skin Crawl: Kenny G. and Courtney Love.
Singer Who Makes You Swoon: Norah Jones. And the Indigo Girls (Emily if solo, but together, their harmonies usually stop me cold).
Favourite Sound: Well played, correctly intonated fretless bass.
Album You Will Always Defend: Moving Pictures -- Rush. Yeah, it's their most commercial, but it's still got some great work on it.
Album You Own That No One Else Does: Let The Kid Play -- Isaiah Williams.
Classic Album You Own but Don't Like: The Very Best -- 10cc.
Artist You're Supposed to Like but Don't: Wilco. Maybe I just haven't given them enough of a chance, but I don't quite get all excited like others seem to do.
Song You Can't Stand by an Artist You Like: Volare by Gipsy Kings. The first 30,000 times, it was okay....
Band That Should Break Up: Um, the Stones?
Band That Should Re-form: Just for my 80's nostalgia, Van Halen
Guilty Pleasure: Backstreet Boys, I Want It That Way
Favourite Music DVD: Spinal Tap or Standing In The Shadows Of Motown
Concert You Wish You'd Seen: Any with Jaco Pastorius.
Dream Collaboration: Richard Bona and Victor Wooten.
Three words on Usher: money making machine. I assume the guys are all okay with him under the Girls' Pants-Loosening Amendment to the Constitution of Manliness.
I worried about taking the 10 and 12 year-old flares to this show, but it was successful in every way possible that doesn't end with me on top of one of Usher's dancers and the entire RBC Center yelling, "Go Sun, it's your birthday -- not really!"
I am the King of the Niche Dwellers, and I had forgotten how fun it is to connect to the Biggest Thing on the Planet at its peak. That is Usher right now. If I could only have touched the hem of his garment, I know I'd have been made whole.
A dad goes with his daughter...
A few ideas to consider:
Those crazy college students.
One student was describing Glass's life in Paris as a young composer, where he was hired to transcribe Ravi Shankar's music into Western notation. Ravi Shankar, hero of classical Indian music; the man who taught John, Paul, and George how to play the sitar and the tabla. That Ravi Shankar. The student's description of Shankar? "He's the dad of Norah Jones." So much for the "godfather of world music." (George Harrison, for you damn youngsters.)
It seems to me that many of the CDs I pick up these days tend to have a hidden track (or two) on them. Sometimes, the hidden song is the best one on the disc. Other times, it's best viewed as a diversion. In any case, a website out there is dedicated to uncovering these hidden gems.
This is one of the stranger ones I've ever heard. Signing a dead dog?
Now we have a few people submitting their CD track list for the most hated CD ever.
Thanks to Cider Woman for the tip.
Kyle Gann has been participating in the critic's conversation over on Arts Journal. One of the things he has been talking about is musicians and use of terms.
Of course, artists don’t like thinking about terms. Nothing is more fatal to creativity than to already know the answer before you frame the question. Artists have good reason to be suspicious about what terms you yoke them to, because terms wield power.
It's an interesting digression.
At least this list had me laughing a few times. Some highlights:
- Magic Man by Heart (Soloist: Roger Fisher. Album: Dreamboat Annie. Year: 1976) -- I shouldn't even have to explain this one. God, who on the planet hasn't been subjected to this grating instrumental break? As we all know, the heavy rockin' Wilson sisters influenced a legion of equally- feminine '80s copycats: Bon Jovi, Poison, Motley Crue, etc. ...
- Sucker In A 3-Piece by Van Halen (Soloist: Eddie Van Halen. Album: OU812. Year: 1988) -- Sure, ol' Eddie has had his moments: he flaunts his nimble fingertips on early VH instrumentals like Cathedral and Eruption. Yet he's probably one of the worst group players in history. To anyone whose higher brain functions have developed beyond a sixth grade level, these aforementioned instrumentals must seem like empty, childish pleas for attention. Eddie is all about showy technique that elicits a lot of "Wow, dude's" from hyperactive, misguided suburban adolescents. But at least this kind of technically- obsessive masturbation was somewhat original for its time. On Sucker In A 3-Piece Eddie relies on hyperbolic whammy-bar hijinks without really "playing" much of anything. Unable to break out of the stylistic prison he locked himself in years before, he's seen here as just another aging rock virtuoso making stale rock- god gestures on yet another incredibly forgettable Van Halen album.
- Do You Feel Like We Do by Peter Frampton (Soloist: Peter Frampton. Album: Frampton Comes Alive. Year: 1976.) -- I think this one's pretty obvious. Is it a guitar, a voice, or a combination of the two? Whatever it is, it just won't shut up. Didn't Babe Ruth use one of these devices for his famous farewell speech at Yankee Stadium? As far as failed experimental effects go, this voice- box gadget is the biggest loser of them all.
- Free Bird by Lynyrd Skynyrd (Soloist: Gary Rossington, Ed King, Allen Collins. Album: Pronounced Leh-Nerd Skin-Nerd. Year: 1973.) -- Unless you're Forrest Gump, this isn't much of a surprise. This impotent three- pronged hillbilly guitar attack is exhausting to say the least. "Well, damn, bitch! They fingers bled on that thar solo," Junior Samples says. Well, I slammed my fingers in a car door when I was seven. They bled. That wasn't too bright, and neither is the soloing on one of the most revered rock compositions in history. For a solo that's supposed to be akin to a spontaneous "backyard jam," it sounds forced and phlegmatic as hell. A couple of years before, Neil Young (Skynyrd's arch enemy) recorded the ideal blueprint for long- playing guitar sparring matches on Down By The River. The more you hear Free Bird the more evident it becomes how bereft of ideas these bloated, attitudinal hickoids really were.
Okay, I included the gratuitious Free Bird becuase I completely HATE that piece of garbage song. If I saw it walking across the street, I'd speed up.
Thanks to Shahin for the tip.
MTV did for music what KFC did for chicken. -- Lewis Black
From Danny.
Yet another list, this time aimed at stadium rock anthems.
Thanks to David for the tip.
Honestly, I thought that he was dead. But, fortunately, that's not the case. He's alive and well, still playing guitar once a week in a NYC jazz club. Les Paul is probably best known for inventing a style of solid body guitar, but what I didn't know (before this article) is that he invented the technique of multi-track recording.
Not too long ago, I played around a bit with a guy named Clint Crisher. He was trying to throw together a funk band to do dance/pop music. We had been in contact a few times, trying to work out a time when I could get together with him and the other musicians he had found, but nothing ever really came together.
A few days ago, he rang me up to let me know that he was a bit frustrated with the DC music scene. It seems that he liked what I did, as well as the drummer that he found, but he couldn't find either a guitarist or a keyboardist that were both good enough and stable enough to create a band. So, he's heading out to LA to try and throw something together out there. He was also kind enough to invite me along.
If you couldn't guess, I'm not heading out to LA anytime soon. I'd be all for playing a sit in with Clint here and there, but I'm not quite willing to pull up stakes at this point in time. But I do wish him well...
Thanks to the tireless efforts of Frank, we have both segments of Stylus magazine retrospective of major music producers and why they matter. Brian Eno, Phil Spector, Rick Rubin, Timbaland, Joe Meek, Max Martin, Glyn Johns -- just a few of the people covered.
Several of the writers over at Arts Journal are having a conversation as to the future of classical music. Some of the ideas are completely applicable to any form of music.
I'm doubting it is playable, but still kinda cool. Now with a working link!
Thanks to Reen for the tip.
Eppy, who's always got something thoughtful to say, weighs in on the pluses and minuses of jam bands:
Really, if you're indie, there's no reason not to like jambands. Well, aside from the music, of course. But there are a host of things the indie mentality values that the jambands scene has in spades. A non-corporate business structure: check. A community-based promotion and distribution model: check. No sell-outs: check. Being totally "for the kids": check. Bands form organically, make the music they want to make uncompromisingly, get signed and distributed by independent labels, tour relentlessly in largely non-corporate venues, build up a fanbase through hard work, get written up in grassroots publications as well as independently-owned ones, and maybe find wider fame and success. What's there to complain about? They've acheived amazing popular success without much of any compromise to either the mainstream or corporations. Jambands constitute probably the largest independent music movement in our time. Why wouldn't you want to emulate it?
Well...because the music's bad, right?
Me personally, I either really like jambands or I hate them. There's not a lot of in-between for me. A good jamband (and even one of my favorite bands -- The Flecktones -- can go that way from time to time) takes something that works, gives to a crowd that wants it and both the band and the crowd feed off of each other's energy in a big ol' feedback loop. Jambands get in trouble when they keep a groove alive for too long, losing the crowd as they go.
Another great way to think of harmony.
Tonality was based on a simple gag. Get the ear to "buy" that the four notes that make up a tonic chord are a four note mode. That the top and bottom notes are the same isn't material - we recognize that it is a four chord. When all of the other chords are heard as being the same mode, with flexes. This means that when we buy that the V7 chord is really the one chord flexed and transposed, we buy the tonality.
Thanks to Chris for the tip.
NYPLM considers the legacy of the 80's stalwarts:
It's A Sin was all over the radio at the same time Def Leppard were equally everywhere thanks to the monstrously beautiful sculpture that is Hysteria, and the two were really related, glam-influenced away-from-the-beautiful-people-and/or-London UK music obsessives who drew on their inspirations specifically to conquer them. Slam up It's A Sin or One More Chance or I Want To Wake Up from Actually next to Gods Of War or Rocket or Pour Some Sugar On Me and the effect is transcendence in an echo chamber light years across, hotwired energyflash in ways often now displaced or hovering on fringes.
Honestly, just scroll and read for a while.
But, if you want particulars, check out his thoughts on the major leagues of sports as compared with the music industry:
Of course, one of the reasons labels don't do [operate as a league] currently is because it's to their advantage to sign acts that a) don't know much about the business and b) negotiate from a position of almost total weakness so they accept terms that are sort of punitive of success. But if there was a league, that would make a non-studio musician's union a viable propositon, because there would be a unitary entity to negotiate.
Or his take on the Metallica documentary.
Specifically, [the movie] show[s] not only the introductory talk when [Metallica tells Robert Trujillo, who's joining the band] that he's going to get a million dollar advance (!) against future profits (!), but they also show the meeting between the four band members (in beanbag chairs, if I'm recalling correctly, although maybe this is just wishful thinking) and their lawyers to hash out the new corporate agreement that incorporates Trujillo. The lawyers are clearly very uncomfortable having the cameras in the room, and, fuck, no wonder: for me, at least, it was absolutely shocking to see those kind of closely-guarded details on public display. I want to go back and watch it again and again and nail down exactly how they worked that shit out.
To be totally fair to Eppy, he didn't much like the movie, but I'm still interested in seeing the film. Now even more so, if I can learn the negotiating secrets of a bass player who seemed to have made one hell of a positive career move.
A one stop shop for all things musical about African music in general and Zimbabwean music in particular.
Thanks to Tim for the tip.
Today, when I was studying with Anthony, he lent me one of this basses (the Fodera I took up the other day to NYC). While we were playing, Anthony's wife dropped in to talk with Anthony for a bit. I tried to get out of the way of the door, and ended up bouncing the headstock of his bass off of a rack in the room, chipping the top of it.
I'm an oaf.
A look at the asshats of rock shows:
- The Singer -- He wants to the world to know he's got a great voice. So he sings. Really, really loud, during the lulls, during the shrieks. All the time.
- The Reckless Smoker -- A cigarette is a dangerous weapon around people packed together tight.
- The Angler -- They arrived late, and they don't want to stand in the back. So the Anglers connive to get close to the stage, which is tricky -- and rude -- at a show that's sold out.
- The Requestaholic -- They came for one song, and they're going to hear that song if it kills them.
- The Talker -- The bane of nearly every show. A shocking number of ticket buyers regard rock concerts as ideal moments to catch up with friends.
- The Stander -- Ordinarily, this is not a big deal. But if everyone else is sitting, it can lead to violence.
Please, please. Don't be one of these people. Mass beatings will ensue.
Thanks to Lynn for the tip.
Okay, I have an idea. Over on Richard Bona's website, I've asked him if he has any plans to drop by the DC area as a solo artist. If you've got a bit of time, drop by and chime in with your two cents worth. I figure that if there's enough people pestering him to come, he just might do it. And that would be a good thing.
Just what we needed and didn't know about -- the search for the best "guitar face". Perhaps this one might be it.
We can only hope.
Two people playing the game Soul Cailbre, getting the characters to dance in time with the music. Again with the too much free time.
Thanks to Cory for the tip.
On the heels of John Moe and Richard, here's my list of follow-up songs to one hit wonders (with the song it's following, just in case I'm being way too obscure):
Original Hit 2nd try Get Here Get Lost People Are Still Having Sex People Are Now Having Kids I'm Gonna Be 500 Miles I Got Really Tired And Sat Down For Awhile Tubthumping Let's Just Drink A Lot Afternoon Delight Tomorrow Hangover Turn Up The Radio Get Your Hearing Checked Beds Are Burning And Now The House Kung Fu Fighting Then He Got A Gun Video Killed The Radio Star Internet Killed The Video Star
Thanks to Xeni for the tip and the ideas.
Remember way back when? You know, when Eddie Van Halen was the "best guitarist ever, man!" ? Well, if you smiled when you read that, here's a photo history of his guitars.
A graphical analysis of various songs, demonstrating the repitition of the parts. You can even listen to the music, albeit in a crappy MIDI format. But still kinda interesting.
You'll love this site. Such things as masterbation songs, criteria for perfect 80's video and a comparision between the German and English lyrics in 99 Luft Balloons.
Thanks to David for the tip.
If you're heading out to see Rush in concert, this is what you're probably going to get.
On the Rush album Grace Under Pressure is a song called Red Sector A. It's one of the more downbeat Rush tunes, with the lyrics focusing on survival. Geddy Lee talks about it's actual origin.
The seeds for the song were planted nearly 60 years ago in April 1945 when British soldiers liberated the Nazi concentration camp Bergen-Belsen. Lee’s mother, Manya (now Mary) Rubenstein, was among the survivors. (His father, Morris Weinrib, was liberated from Dachau a few weeks later.) The whole album Grace Under Pressure, says Lee, who was born Gary Lee Weinrib, "is about being on the brink and having the courage and strength to survive."
Though Red Sector A, like much of the album from which it comes, is set in a bleak, apocalyptic future, what Lee calls "the psychology" of the song comes directly from a story his mother told him about the day she was liberated.
"I once asked my mother her first thoughts upon being liberated," Lee says during a phone conversation. "She didn't believe [liberation] was possible. She didn't believe that if there was a society outside the camp how they could allow this to exist, so she believed society was done in."
In listening to the tune, I had gotten the concentration camp metaphor, but I hadn't realized that it was a historical look as well as a nihilistic look forward.
Thanks to Marty for the tip.
They come to the US seeking to escape the onslaught of Britney Spears and decadent Western music.
There are many like Mr. Zhang, established musicians from China who perform daily in the city's bowels. Convinced that the best music, Western or Asian, is truly borderless and that their own talents are sufficient to make ends meet anywhere, these artists have converged on New York like the philosophers and poets who swarmed to Athens in classical times. They feel not just lured, but pushed; China, in their view, has turned its back on traditional music in favor of the pop dazzle of Britney Spears.
"I want to try my luck in New York," Mr. Zhang, 42, said, speaking in Mandarin. "In China serious artists like us aren't as respected as pop singers. That's not right. Maybe Americans can see the true appeal of Chinese music, and I can make my way to the grand concert halls in New York."
While I'm glad they're around (I rather like traditional Chinese music), I don't know if the US will be all that more a hospitable place for them.
If ever there were any doubts, they've been erased now. From Scott over at Stereogum, who's obsession with Britney (and her decline) might just be crossing over into stalking land...
To celebrate the 20th year anniversary of Purple Rain, Prince held a concert in New Orleans (at the Superdome) that featured Shelia E, Morris Day and the Time, as well as Lisa Coleman (of Wendy and Lisa and The Revolution fame), Larry Graham, Chaka Khan and Doug E. Fresh.
Greg Sandow revisits his original thoughts on the Concert Companion.
The Concert Companion, though, is aimed mostly at people who haven't gone to many concerts. My working theory goes something like this: For some, at least, of these people, classical music seems something like a blur. It all sounds very nice, but at first it's hard to separate one moment from another. The more I describe the essence of each moment, at least as I feel it, the easier it will be for people to get some handle on the music, and begin to hear what's going on as the sound flows and changes. The people using the Companion don't seem to object to this. What some of them did object to, at the New York tests, was me telling them that certain moments were wonderful or dazzling. That struck them, I was fascinated to learn, as either gushing or patronizing. So I learned (with thanks to all the people who spoke so honestly about their objections) to write more calmly, but still with plenty of personal feeling.
The point, after all, is to call attention to those background woodwinds, so that people hear more than just the surface of the music. And I can't see any way of doing that without saying something about what the woodwinds are doing. I can't just say, "Listen to them." Because then people might ask, "Listen to them doing what?" A precise technical description of what they're doing in that passage would be very hard to write, very verbose (far too long for a single Concert Companion screen), and also, come to think of it, not precise at all, because there aren't any technical terms to describe what's going on. The winds don't play a counterpoint, but are something more than an accompaniment -- which, by the way, I can't say in Companion commentary, because the people the Companion is for won't know what these words mean. (Or even the concepts. The idea that there's material that stands strongly on its own, even if it's subordinate, and other material that simply fades into the background to accompany the things it's subordinate to -- you need a fair amount of musical experience just to think in these terms.)
So I find the Concert Companion very promising. And useful, too, based on the simplest of criteria -- the people it's designed for (orchestras, and the audience) find it useful. What its future is, beyond all this, is hard to say. I'll just repeat something I've suggested before -- as classical music starts to change, it's not helpful (and maybe even dangerous) to try to guess how the changes will work, or which of them will turn out to be lasting. We just have to try things, and see what happens.
Towards the bottom of this article on the current spate of music documentaries comes a list of rare documentaries on music luminaries. These movies sound like they'd be fairly interesting:
Eat the Document (filmed 1966)
Bob Dylan's 1966 British tour was a flashpoint in rock history: he had "gone electric", and nightly faced baying mobs of livid folkies. Yet the film of the event - directed by DA Pennebaker, who was responsible for 1965's acclaimed Dylan documentary Don't Look Back - has rarely been seen, thus denying the public the chance to see a drugged-out Dylan attempting to interview John Lennon in the back of a limousine. Dylan is verbally decimated by the unimpressed Beatle, then throws up in the back of the car.
Cocksucker Blues (filmed 1972)
It was Mick Jagger's idea to film the Rolling Stones' 1972 US tour, his enthusiasm undaunted by the fact that the last time the Stones had been filmed, at their 1969 Altamont concert, the cameras had captured the murder of an audience member. However, even Jagger was horrified by Cocksucker Blues: a parade of debauchery that includes Keith Richards nodding out on heroin and telling Jagger about how to snort coke properly, and an orgy in a private plane. Suppressed by the group, the film has gone on to become perhaps the most infamous rock documentary in history.
And, if anyone knows where I can find a copy, please feel free to share the love.
Thanks to Coolfer for the tip.
Unfortunately, I was not selected to attend Bass Camp this year. For those that did make it, congradulations. And I hate you all, so very much (said in my best Cartman imitation).
And a special congradulations to Rob, who was accepted.
This is great! The Guardian, a British newspaper, sends a seventeen year old kid out to review some of the biggest acts in rock from the 60's and 70's.
I think my music taste has always been eclectic, but, until three months ago, the closest I had ever come listening to a Beach Boys album was when I wrestled Pet Sounds from the arms of a tipsy middle-aged woman at a New Year's Eve party in 2001. I thought that Kraftwerk was a low budget German airline and that Abbey Road was John Leslie's ex-girlfriend.
He goes on to review Brian Wilson, The Who, Paul McCartney, Diana Ross and Kraftwerk.
...[D]espite Mr. Smith's punchy guitar patterns, pleading melodies and melancholy grandeur, he was considered a dreamy lightweight compared to serious-minded contemporaries like Michael Stipe of R.E.M and Bono of U2. And though Mr. Smith remained a black-clad pied piper of adolescent depressives around the world, no one had him figured as a major rock influence. But now, Mr. Smith's yelp is everywhere.
I wouldn't have made this connection, but that's just me.
A great article for non-guitarists on how to write music for the specific needs and abilities of an electric guitar.
Let's start with the obvious: the electric guitar is not just a loud acoustic guitar. The electric guitar is a three-part instrument comprised of the guitar itself, effects pedals, and the amplifier. Each of these contributes to the sound produced, and the possibilities encompass an enormous sonic range. Like any acoustic instrument, each electric guitar has its own soul that depends on the wood of its body, neck, and fretboard. Unlike an acoustic instrument, its tone is transformed into an electronic signal that can be altered downstream by the assortment of devices it encounters on its way to the speakers and shake up the air.
A great article, one that got me thinking of some new directions (using small wooden dowels under loosened strings for a koto sound? that's an interesting concept....). Read it all.
An analysis of the archetypical gospel singing style.
[Aretha Franklin's] singing of the anthem was great not because it was unprecedented but because it epitomized and revitalized a vocal style that has grown so ubiquitous that it's become a cliché. That is the inflection of basically straightforward tunes with all manner of extra notes per syllable (melisma), ornaments and shouted exclamations. ...
[Mahalia] Jackson's renditions of gospel favorites and, especially, Christmas carols shocked me as a boy; they reoriented my whole way of hearing music. The carols were familiar to me in the four-square versions still sung in churches today, white churches anyway. Jackson twisted and bent them, just as Ms. Franklin bent "The Star-Spangled Banner," but never in a way that did them any disrespect. She took those tunes and jolted them to new life.
A retrospective on Rush.
The band, currently celebrating its 30th anniversary with a summer tour stopping in Utah Wednesday, had some early success with its first albums and a commercial failure with its third, yet was given another chance by its label -- a chance that turned into "2112," one of the group's benchmark albums -- and a platinum success.
That was the late '70s. In 2004, the band probably would have had its contract canceled by the record label after one decent-selling album. In reality, a new experimental, free-form band like Rush would probably have a hard time getting a record deal at all these days.
"We were never the kind of band that was easy to sign or easy to figure out," concurs bassist, keyboardist and singer Geddy Lee. "We were always so weird, compared to the mainstream and what [music industry] people are looking for. Most people in the music industry don't know what they're looking for anyway. There's maybe two percent of the people who sign bands who really have an idea. The rest are just following the trends."
The article goes on to talk about the live show on this year's tour. Lots of visual components and a three hour and twenty minute run time.
Thanks to Coolfer Glenn for the tip.
I got 7 out of 10 right. I don't know if I'm proud or embarassed.
Some thoughts on the structure of scales.
...[I]n a white note collection (C D E F G A B) that uses triads as the main harmonic referents, C or A will have a head start over other notes in being heard as tonic. One suggested reason for this priority is that the C major triad and the A minor triad are the only triads of this diatonic collection that do not contain a note a tritone away from another note of the collection. In this collection, B and F form the tritones, so any triad with B or F would not be prioritized to be tonic.
Worth reading, if you're into that sort of thing.
One of the lines that I can remember from Almost Famous is the argument between the lead singer and the lead guitarist. "We had this worked out; I was going to be the front man, and you were going to be the mysterious guitar player." Sometimes that mysterious thing works; I know that piqueing my curiousity can heighten my interest in something that I might have otherwise skipped over. Other times, it just annoys me and I tend to ignore it (Slipknot for example).
I'm not the only one, it would seem; Eppy really doesn't like this kind of carrying on.
Goddamn but I hate mysteriousness.
Well, I guess I mean that I hate mysteriousness as a behavior creative types engage in. (I kind of like the mysteriousness of the universe, but that's probably not a positive trait.) For one thing, it allows said types--especially musicians, who are not that bright--to get away with shit they couldn't in a million years if you actually called them on it. The whole technique of representation-v.-statement is riddled with opportunities for deception, but as long as there's not a point of view (just, rather, some free-floating imagery that seems meaningful or straight realism that merely depicts instead of setting in context), what can you get mad at? Well, a lot. And this isn't even getting into the musical issues involved. But as long as they're allowed to get away with being "eccentric" (see below post on romantic images of mental illness) then, hey, they're just kooky artists! Judge the output, man!
The Museum of Boomboxes. I'm old enough to remember when it was cool to have the biggest one possible (like large enough to cause significant spinal damage if you were to walk around in ultra-rad mode with boombox on your shoulder, the speaker blasting directly into your ear). But I'm rather glad those days are over.
Thanks to Max for the tip.
Here's the latest one from AFI. AFI! Aren't they the film people? So when is the RIAA going to produce their best books of the decade list?
Some highlights:
6. Mrs. Robinson, The Graduate (1967).
10. The Sound of Music, The Sound of Music (1965).
22. Everybody's Talkin', Midnight Cowboy (1969).
38. Theme From 'Shaft', Shaft (1971).
40. Fight the Power, Do the Right Thing (1989).
41. New York, New York, On the Town (1949).
As a side note, I'm starting to get a bit tired of the profusion of lists.
More humor from Something Awful:
Well you know what, Robert Smith? You’re not getting my cash, you money-grubbing, wooly gothic bastard. You can’t release three crap albums in a row and then expect everyone to come running back whenever your accountant/muse dangles a solid-gold carrot in front of your fat, pallid face. Not only am I wary of your motives, but I’m entirely fed up with comebacks in general. They’re never any good, despite what initial reviews will always tell us. You Are the Quarry is Morrissey’s best work since The Smiths? Hog fucking wash. After that fiasco, I’ve absolutely had it with washed-up 80s tearjerkers clamoring for my dime.
Dennis Chambers, one of the best drummers in the business today, will be presenting at a drum clinic at the University Of Maryland (College Park) on the 29th of July. Cost is $30/per. He'll be holding forth at 2pm on a Thursday. If I didn't already have too many obligations, I'd take off from work to go.
While talking with Darryl last night at the Marcus show, he giving me an update on Norm Stockton. Norm's just finished up two more DVDs of instructional videos and is getting ready to hit the road doing promotional work for MTD. If you get a chance to catch him play, you should really make the time.
People are shocked -- shocked!, I say -- about close dancing at high school proms.
Most of the dancing is not of the cheek-to-cheek variety, a fact that has caused controversy in some quarters. Though the dancing varies in intensity, the partnering position of choice, back to front, is at once less intimate and more sexual, and the couplings, even at a formal event like the prom, constantly shift.
Called grinding, freaking or "backing it up" in its most brazen form, this kind of dancing is not flirtation. It is war.
"It's like a battle between you and the guy," said Candy Javier, 18, a senior at Monroe Academy for Visual Arts and Design, one of five South Bronx high schools that had a joint prom earlier this month at the V.I.P. Country Club in New Rochelle, N.Y. "They're pushing forward, and you're pushing back." She shrugged. "You're not doing it," she added. "You're just dancing."
I know the guitar tech over at Hot Licks; he's a good guy named George. He and I have talked a number of times, mostly when he was looking for a bass player.
So on Tuesday, the store gets a call looking for their guitar tech. This lady on the other end of the phone starts asking George a bunch of questions, like "I've got this problem with my amplifier, how can I fix it?", "If my guitar was doing ____, what steps should I take". After a few of these questions, she then introduces herself as Marcus Miller's manager, tells him that Marcus' normal guitar tech can't continue on the tour and would he be available for a show that weekend?
Of course, George lept at the chance. He went down, proved his mettle by wiring up the rig (which can be no small feat, as I can attest from my own experience with my own rig -- a rig that is rather simple by comparison) and diagnosing problems on the fly. George has since been invited to go on the rest of the US tour and over for the European tour. He's the guy in the middle of the photo to the right, kneeling and repairing a faulty cable.
George is about 23 or so, working at a day job in a music store and then gets a call up to the major leagues (so to speak). The dream really does come true. Good luck to you, George.
Driving home from Harrisonburg (about a two, two and a half hour trip), I started to think about a conversation I witnessed a few days ago. Okay, a conversation I sort of eavesdropped on (they were in the same bar I was, a few stools down).
These two people were arguing over... something. Something that seemed to be pretty inconsequential (like who didn't fold the morning paper back on to the table that morning), but neither one was willing to give even an inch. Furthermore, as they got agitated, they would lapse from English into their own native language (I wasn't really paying enough attention to determine if they were each speaking their own language or both speaking the same).
As I was driving back, I thought this might be a good idea for a tune. Something in a minor key, dark and moody. The song would be about an argument with the subtext of "you don't respect me, you ignore me, you think I'm a fool" -- and we've all had that sort of argument with our lovers where the actual topic of discussion is just the vehicle for the underlying issue.
The twist that has highly caught my attention is to have two singers, each singing in their own language. For example, one in French, the other in Italian (since both are romance languages and derived from Latin, so they are somewhat similar in sound quality to each other but with different aspects). With this setup, you have the immediate contradiction and confict between two sides of the duet. They can sing together, in turn, to each other, even in harmony with each other, but neither can understand what the other is saying. Even if the notes and phonetics match up, each partner is in a different world. I'm really liking the imagery that brings in.
Unfortunately, neither my French nor my Italian is anywhere near good enough to pull this off. I'm going to poke around for awhile to see if I can find anyone to help out with the language side of the coin(and I'm open to suggestions if you know of anyone who can speak/write both French and Italian) while I go ahead and write up the music to frame the words.
Today, a large group of us gathered over at Anthony's. I think that most of us were bass players, but I can't be completely sure. Maria was there, as was Francis. Rob also came out and I met a few other bass players in the area (always a good thing). We hung out, had some food, did some socializing (which, inevitiably led to bass players comparing gear and talking shop) and then check out some basses.
John Maghini (from M Basses) came down. He made a 7 string bass for Anthony awhile back, and he came down to meet the students, talk to people, answer some question on making basses and show some of his wares.
He also brought down a new 9(!!!!) string bass for one of Anthony's friends. 9 strings, sheesh! I tried playing it and pretty much wanted a "You are Here" map to find out where I was doing anything. I thought Anthony's 7 string was hard to play; this was a whole new world. For the technical minded out there, it was strung F#-B-E-A-D-G-C-B flat. The top two strings where actually lead guitar strings adapted for a bass extension.
All in all, a good time. I didn't get to stay as long as I would have liked (I had to drive to Harrisonburg, VA to meet my folks), and hopefully next time will be longer.
I know that quite a few people don't much care for Dido (I found one or two of her songs on her first album to be a guilty pleasure), but the NY Times damns her with faint praise:
If it occurs to you that total silence might have produced the same blissful feeling, then you're on to something. Dido Armstrong (she uses only her first name), from Britain, has figured out a way to make music that is no better, but also no worse, than silence.
Jacob Slichter was the drummer for Semisonic. They had a charting hit with Closing Time back in 1998, and their album went platinum. They also got dropped by their label after the follow-up album went nowhere.
Slichter has taken his experiences and written a book about it all.
''At 32, I imagined I was the oldest tenderfoot in the history of rock 'n' roll.'' Slichter is the rookie in the band, the other two members having been in another popular Minneapolis band, Trip Shakespeare. Initially, he is scared and alienated by the road. At the group's first McDonald's stop on its first tour, Slichter is surprised to find his bandmates and their sound man sitting at three separate tables eating in silence. He later asks Dan [Dan Wilson, the lead singer/guitarist/song writer of the group]:
'''Dan, do you find the road to be an emotionally cold place?'
'' 'Yes.'
'' 'What do you do about that?'
''Without lifting his eyes from the page, he spoke. 'Eventually, you'll grow to enjoy that coldness and learn to crave it.'''
From this write-up in the NY Times, it looks like it will be an interesting read.
Thanks to Mwanji for the tip.
Tonight, PBS will broadcast a show called Keeping Score about the San Francisco orchestra gearing up to do a performance of Tchaikovsky's Fourth Symphony. If the website is any indication, the show should be excellent.
This is really one of the best music websites I've ever seen.
Thanks to Alex for the tip.
We've all suspected it from time to time. That artist that you think you like (say, for example, Nickelback) has just came out with a new song, and it sounds surprisingly like one of their previous outings. "They're just keeping true to what their fans expect," you say to yourself, "They can't be that cheesy/arrogant/lazy to rip off their fans like that."
Phil Collins explains himself to his fans.
I, perhaps mistakenly, hoped that this set list would be looked at as a celebration of my music, covering a lot of what's been enjoyed by MOST people over the last 25 years or so. I have changed a few things around, contrary to some opinion, arrangement wise, and brought some songs back to the way they were originally, as well as adding some new pieces altogether.
Some people have been complaining that Phil Collins' set list has been dominated by his radio hits, and this is bothering them. To those people, I'd have to say, "Have you been listening to Phil Collins for the last two decades or so? He's been about nothing but radio friendly, middle-of-the-road pap for quite some time; where have you been?". Or something like that.
Thanks to David for the tip.
Kelly Clarkson, winner of the first American Idol contest, has been voted the most talented off all the American Idol contestants. Which is a little like being voted the best fry maker at the local McDonald's. Great, but is being the least sucky an actual accomplishment?
Whitney, honey, I know that you have a good voice. And you have to keep up that whole diva image thing. But this is a bit much (3rd item). Going through 3 private planes? Who do you think you are? Britney?
The year that rock 'n roll finally broke through all the noise and clutter and captured the attention of America's youth. The year that teenagers all across this great land discovered the joy of loud guitars. The year will probably be 2004.
Why do I think rock music is about to break again? I think I see a shift in people's tastes. People don't know exactly what they want, but they want something different. Witness last year's critical and commercial success of The Flaming Lips' Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots. This year we have seen Dashboard Confessional do some damage on the charts. We have seen Thursday succeed with their major label debut. We have also seen bands like The Postal Service and Modest Mouse emerge from their underground status'. Modest Mouse hit the charts with their latest release and Ben Gibbard of The Postal Service and Death Cab for Cutie was recently featured in an article by Newsweek. I think it is safe to say that something new has started to take shape.
As with some other articles from the last few days, the interesting part for other musicians can be found here:
The major labels have looked at quality of the music secondarily in the past because they could always rely on their connections and marketing abilities to make almost any band they wanted popular. Now with the change in the industry due to the Internet and the radio and TV industries, the major labels have lost much of their advantage. As a result I think you will see more and more bands make decisions like Ben Gibbard and his Death Cab band mates who decided to stick with the independent labels that gave them their first shot. As a result of all these changes, I think we will start to see the whole industry start to look like the indie market. Major labels have already started cutting their rosters and their staffing levels.
It looks like this kind of trend might just be yet another nail in the coffin for the majors.
Sam Bisbee did his You Are Here video almost entirely in still photography. I didn't care for the song all that much, but the video is well done and entertaining. It reminds me of Peter Gabriel's Sledgehammer in some ways, but at what had to be a very small fraction of the price. This is definitely something to remember, should I ever get around to making a video. A great example of how the DIY spirit is not only alive and thriving, but pretty darn creative as well.
Thanks to Eric for the tip.
Another person bemoans the loss of such a great band. Well, actually, he doesn't. But it's still an amusing read.
For the past ten years, Creed has been speeding down rock and roll’s steep decline like Calvin and Hobbes in a rickety toboggan. When they stumbled upon mainstream rock in the mid-nineties, it was still in stable condition but yearning for fresh air. Creed came to rock and roll with smothering-pillow in hand, dispatched it with surprisingly little struggle, and took over its identity like a glassy-eyed pod person.
If you're a jazz fan, does that mean you enjoy the "hot jazz" of the '20s, the swing of the '30s and '40s, the bebop of the '40s and '50s, or the free jazz of the '60s? Whatever your answer, it's significant that there's an assumption of linear development and, for lack of a better word, purity inherent in this familiar succession of styles. Not so for the fusion that followed in rock's wake, or for what's commonly termed Latin jazz, which I'd argue is really a complex array of styles, sounds, and approaches that have been elemental to jazz since Jelly Roll Morton invoked the Spanish tinge back in the '20s—and, if Morton is right, before. In any case, sometime after the middle of the 20th century, jazz's rapid formal mutations led naturally to crossbreeding that took the music further from its insular community with each passing decade. ...
The most eloquent spokesman for jazz's crossover mandate was Duke Ellington, who usually buried the issue beneath his assertion that there were only two kinds of music—"the good kind, and the other kind." Yet in a 1947 interview, he told readers of the music-education journal Etude this about jazz: "It requires, basically, two separate kinds of awareness. First, the thorough musical awareness that 25 years of steady development have brought in jazz. And, in the second place, an awareness of the contemporary scene with all its shadings of feelings."
Actually, what I most enjoy about jazz these days is how it takes a little from here, more from there and still a touch more from way over there. To me, the combination of jazz and world music is the most interesting area of music today. I can't wait to hear the next artist bringing new polyrhythms from Africa, new scalar/meters from Micronesia, all the sort of stuff that you just typically don't find in the everyday.
Thanks to Mwanji for the tip.
From Tom Ellard (of Severed Heads) by way of Eppy, the seven steps of writing music:
Just speaking for myself, I spend a lot of time in steps 1 through 4. Five seems to surface after a few months have passed and I don't know if I have anything I have written that has graduated to step 7. But hopefully one day....
The search for the next guitar great goes on.
A listing of one person's best song parts. Not the whole song, just the best parts.
Some highlights:
Thanks to Karen for the tip.
Fitehouse is making waves with their open source approach to making music.
Fitehouse's choice weapon in this particular war is the Bomb, otherwise known as open-source music, Cohen said. Open-source music does not inhibit the listener from file sharing or creatively changing the sounds. Rather, it invites listeners to build upon, collaborate and redistribute. As the innovators of this concept, Fitehouse solicits its fans -- or nonfans if that be the case -- to do the same, Cohen said.
In a press release, members of the band said "Fitehouse's Bomb campaign was undertaken to counter the stream of misinformation coming from the RIAA and to help return music to its rightful place in our cultural heritage."
The group states in the preamble to the Fitehouse General Public Music License, "By making music free for all its listeners and performers, the Fitehouse GPML can help re-orient songs from their current role as simple marketable commodities or entertainment products, and assist us to guarantee music's survival as a vibrant form of expression of the human condition."
What do you mean that some rabbis might be a little unhappy with Madonna as their spokesperson? For more details, we go to Simon:
Rabbi Shmuley Boteach isn't very impressed by Madonna's "embracing" of Kabblah, railing that no good will come of it all in an article "Perverted priorities", no less, for somethingjewish.co.uk:
You know your religion is up a creek when [...] the most famous representative of your mystical tradition is simulating lesbian sex with scantily clad pregnant dancers.
Earth to Phillip Berg: Do us all a favor and dump Madonna as your principal spokesperson. Sorry to be so crass, but Madonna is a slut. Yes, she may sing, and she may dance. But she is famous for being a slut. And no religion dare have a slut as its principal representative [...] I realize that Madonna has brought the Kabbalah Center great notoriety and is, according to reports, a contributor to the tune of millions of dollars. But is the Kabbalah Center really so desperate that it is prepared to promote itself through a vulgarian whose main contribution to the culture is porn rock?
Added to which, you know, she's not done a decent album for over half a decade...
Then, her PR steps in, issuing a counter-statement:
"I find Rabbi Boteach’s comments regarding Madonna frightening. His vile attacks on her character and as an artist are staggering for someone who professes to be a religious person. . . . I suggest this man take a look at his own character and what problems he may have that would make him feel that he should make statements about a truly beautiful human being that he does not know in the slightest. . . . Madonna’s relationship with the Kabbalah and her commitment to (their) teachings has been a beautiful experience for her and the fact that Madonna wants to share her lessons . . . is yet another example of her truly generous and loving spirit."
Which, is all nice and everything, but sort of misses the point of what the Rabbi was getting at - which seemed to be "What sort of religion associates itself with a woman whose image is one of a shaggarama on legs?", which would mean that Madonna being a lovely lady he doesn't know in real life would be kind of beside the point. We're just astonished that someone working in PR is suggesting that a Rabbi might have some character flaws.
The Rabbi, of course, strikes back:
"For Madonna to put herself forward as a spiritual spokesperson while continuing to degrade women by simulating sex acts at music concerts, portray full nudity in her movies, and to ridicule lesbians by performing same-sex kisses merely for TV ratings, is a mockery of her claims to a life of spiritual renewal based on the teachings of the Kabbalah. Women like Liz Rosenberg especially, who heave [sic] greatly distinguished themselves professionally through their brains rather than their busts, should be at the forefront of criticizing Madonna’s assault on feminine dignity."
Yeah, wouldn't be holding my breath for Madonna's PR woman to launch an attack on Madonna's behaviour. Now, let's just leave them to it...
This is a bit of a dated article (originally published in '95), but it's still a great reference for anyone interesting in playing Latin style music.
The clave pattern is two measures in length "in which each measure is diametrically opposed. The two measures are not at odds, but rather, they are balanced opposites, like positive and negative, expansive and contractive, or the poles of a magnet. As the full pattern is repeated, an alteration from one polarity to the other takes place creating pulse and rhythmic drive. Were the pattern to suddenly be reversed, the momentum within the rhythm would be destroyed…" (Cornelius, 1991: 15-6). The clave found in salsa, also known as son clave is notated in example 4. How a song begins determines which measure of the clave will be played first. The phrasing of the melody is the determining factor (e.g. where the accented rhythms of melody occur). This is referred to as either 3-2 or 2-3, meaning either the measure with the three strokes is played first with the two stroke measure following, or the two stroke is played first followed by the three stroke measure. According to tradition once a song begins the clave does not change its measure order. For instance there could never be a 3-2-2-3 clave sequence. Once the song has begun it functions similarly to the continuous bell patterns found in West African musical traditions by providing a rhythmic formula which serves as the foundation. As Roberta Singer states "Clave is a rhythmic time line that… functions as a rhythmic organizing principle for the entire ensemble" (Singer, 1982: 168). The rhythm may be overtly played or implied. Competent musicians in salsa must develop a "clave sense" similar to what Richard Waterman labels a "metronome sense" where a subjective pulse is felt by the participants which may not be overtly heard and functions as an ordering principle (Waterman 1952).
Jim's Big Ego uses the Creative Commons licensing to distribute their music online.
Creative Commons, cofounded and run by Stanford Law professor Lawrence Lessig, aims to find a balance between the extremes of strict regulation and unchecked exploitation. Creators can mix and match from a menu that helps express the terms under which they'd like to share their work. Infantino, for example, allows the public to copy, distribute, perform, and sample from his songs as long as it isn't for commercial purposes, the author is given credit, and any derivative works are distributed under an identical license.
This could be an interesting avenue to explore. I've thought about throwing up something I've written under the CC license, letting anyone take it and extend it, just to see what would happen and if anything that I thought was good would result. But I've been reticient as of yet. I've already been cheated out of credit on a few albums on which I have played, so I'm a touch reluctant to open myself up to that again.
Thanks to Brad for the tip.
And, in more Harry Potter news, the star of the films would like to become a rock star. Hey, um, Danny boy? So would a lot of us...
I can't think of a better summation of Avril Lavigne than her exegesis of Alanis Morissette's "Ironic": "I love how this song was written with all the different examples Alanis uses of things being ironic."
I just wish I had written it myself.
A list of albums that one writer would like to never hear again in college dorms. Some items on his list:
Some of Phillip's reasoning for not playing, say Pink Floyd's Dark Side Of The Moon --
Alright, we get the next point. You like to smoke weed. I'm not going to stop you from doing so, but you're, like, so going to get busted if the RA hears "Us and Them" coming out of your room. I mean, people have been lighting up to that song for, oh, I don't know, only the last 30 years. Just giving you the heads up, man.
-- Update --
I suppose that I should say that I don't agree with all of the items on this list (I rather like DMB, mostly because of Beauford's drumming), but I threw it up here for the amusing chuckle.
Thanks to Karen for the tip.
Yes, you read that right. Cookie Mongloid is a speed metal band from the Bay area that plays speed metal with a cookie monster as the singer. He even sounds a bit like Cookie Monster. It's not my cup of tea, but you have to give points for originality.
Thanks to Xeni for the tip.
From a fellow bass player, Max Valentino (I can't find his own home page, but here's some press for him), some well written suggestions on how to approach reggae. Note: this article has been reprinted from the TBL mailing list with Max's permission.
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I have played a lot of reggae and other Caribbean styles in the past (I was born in Martinique), and have toured with a number of high profile Jamaican acts. Reggae is in essence a very simple form, but as with all simple music forms, there is great complexity in the nuance. The key to making it all work is feel. This is not just from the bass point, but from all the instruments involved.
The classic guitar rhythm, or skank, is counted as 16ths notes even at incredibly slow tempos. This is very important as the guitar rhythms fall on the "e's" of each beat, not the "ands". A common mistake many guitarists make when playing reggae is to apply this rather simple rhythm on the "ands" of the beat, which, in essence, turns it into a slow polka.
The classic "one-drop" rhythm is where the bass lays out on the initial down beat of each measure, following it by a 16th or sometimes even an 1/8th note away. This is also applied in many African and Latin music. The concept of "rhythmic displacement" although quite easy to explain, is quite difficult to master. And, as a sidebar, this concept is creeping right into the musical vocabulary of contemporary R&B via the work of D'Angelo , Raphael Saddiq and others.
Yet, the one-drop can be applied the other way around; where the drums lay out on the one, with the bass playing that downbeat, which applies another twist to the syncopation.
Other reggae rhythms, such as popular dancehall grooves, "steppers" and such, feature a more traditional 2 and 4 backbeat, but offer a great deal of give and take 'tween the bass and kick drum; with the drums laying back on the beat and the bass pushing -- or vice versa.
This sort of interplay between the kick and bass is very important, as rarely will you want to phrase with the kick, as is so common in rock, but rather engage in a dialogue with it; perhaps a dance with it would be a more appropriate metaphor.
Notewise, roots (hmmm, is that a pun?) and chord tones play a major role..........as does space. Lots of space. This provides room for the sublime rhythms of the style to take place. Add to this the very heavy and deep tone of the bass... well, those notes, though being few, occupy a lot of sonic space. I have found it important to have some treble on the bass for articulation and definition. Rolling the tone back by a half, on a passive instrument, works well. The tone needs to be deep, yet defined. A lot of this also comes from placement of the right hand. Try plying softly up by the neck for a really "dubby" tone.
Feel is very important. Robbie Shaklespeare, for instance, has a feel which sits very much at the back of the beat, even on up-tempo dancehall stuff, which creates that laid-back sort of feel we all associate with reggae. Family Man Barret, whose work with Bob Marley is a must study for reggae lines, on the other hand, tends to play way up on the top of the beat, in essence following the vocals (which are also phrased on top, or even ahead of the beat), and this created the classic Wailers groove; the other instruments would lag behind the beat while the bass charged on the topside.
Often players performing Marley tunes, will play behind the beat with a laid back feel, and then wonder why the groove doesn't quite work. Therefore it is really important to work with a metronome of drum machine and learn to feel the placement of the beat (behind, on or ahead of), as well as the concept of rhythmic displacement -- which are actually good practices for all bassists -- not just exclusively for those trying to cop the reggae vibe.
You know those people who "play" music by the subway entrance? We have them around DC. There's the guy with the trumpet at LeFlant Plaza who can only play two patriotic tunes (Yankee Doodle and America, The Beautiful) as well as the bucket drummers around DuPont. There's also the more mobile ones: the guy with the Ibanez guitar, drum machine, mike and amp who plays a hammer-on/Stanley Jordan style of tapping constantly, the three/four guys with pan flutes and guitars....
For the most part, I ignore these people. I'm a struggling musician, and more power to them for trying to make it, but I haven't heard much from them that really gets me going. It would also seem that I'm not the only one who feels this way.
Just speaking personally, I love world music. I own quite a bit of it and play in a world band. So, hearing world music in movie soundtracks has (frequently) been the only thing about some films that I have enjoyed.
However, some have noticed (Salon link, registration/ad required) a trend in having a single female perform a plaintive wail in the background.
The story really took off in 2000 with a quiet indie release called "Gladiator." Ridley Scott's Oscar-winner opens over a golden wheat field through which strides a haggard but homebound Russell Crowe. Slowly, a low female voice begins to separate itself from the murmuring strings. In lilting half-steps, the exotic melody rises skyward. It's foreign, but comforting. The woman's words are unidentifiable -- Arab? Indian? Bulgarian? -- yet speak clearly of home and family and long-awaited happiness just beyond reach. Throughout the film, each time Crowe dreams of this far-off resting place, the plaintive vocal returns, even as he finally joins his family in the afterlife.
Hans Zimmer wrote the "Gladiator" soundtrack, and is credited, along with vocalist Lisa Gerrard (formerly of Dead Can Dance), with delivering the vaguely ethnic wail to the masses. Five years later, the wail now makes more appearances in Hollywood "epics" than the requisite heat-of-battle beheading. Any movie with a foreign setting is a shoo-in for a wail or two -- "Tears of the Sun," "Black Hawk Down," "The Four Feathers," "The Passion of the Christ" -- although stateside flicks aren't immune. Probably the oddest recent wail sighting came in Danny Elfman's score for "Hulk," which featured the jolly green giant skipping through the Nevada salt flats to a quasi-Arabian rhythm section and a spirited female screamer of dubious descent.
John Debney, composer for "The Passion," admits that the wail is a full-blown fad, like many other movie music trends that came before it. Television and film music from the 1980s was stuck on the "Miami Vice" sound: repetitive, synthesized riffs over repetitive, synthesized percussion. In the 1970s, it was the saxophone (think "Taxi Driver"). In the '50s, the UFOs massed overhead to the eerie squeal of the theremin. Now, Debney says, the sound "du jour" is the exotic, warbling, ethnic "female vocal" ("wail" is so ugly). Has it been overused? Sure, says Debney. Has it become a cliché? Probably. Should it be banned from movies forever? Let's not get carried away.
A great post/riposte between McWhorter and Ezana. Worth some time to browse, if you want to learn something about musical construction in American music.
A new rivalry, perhaps?
Simpson instantly became a household name for her many ditzy quips, including her failure to identify chicken from tuna - which AMERICAN IDOL judge Cowell believes was staged.
He says, "The odd thing about the music industry is that here's a girl who's career wasn't exactly on fire and then she goes on television, pretends that she thinks that CHICKEN OF THE SEA is actually chicken and on the back of that sells two million records. It's weird, isn't it?"
I'm rather tempted just to let the two twits have at each other for a few rounds and then shoot the victor.
Thanks to Simon for the tip.
Just a PSA for any singers out there. It happened to the dude from Darkness....
I was driving back to work tonight (yes, there are times when my day job really sucks) and I caught a little of the local smooth jazz station on the radio. There was some sax player working through a tune. It had a decent enough driving thump to it, so I thought I'd give it a bit more time. If only I had changed the station.
It turns out that it was Eric Singleton (remixed by XL) doing his version of Take Five. I don't know if it was Singleton's treatment or XL's, but they made the song 4/4. Jeez! That completely defeats the point of Take Five; one of the major accomplishments of the tune was the breezy and grooving way that it made a 5/4 time feel both normal and natural. Making it 4/4 throws away Brubeck's genius.
And therein lies one of the major reasons why a lot of jazz cats dislike the smooth variant.
Britney Spears rushed off of stage in Berlin even before the last song was finished in tears. Hopefully, everything's okay, and it was only her realizing that she's ripping her fans off by denying people the privilege of hearing her sing, as opposed to lip synching.
I think I've finished stringing together the solo piece for Friday's show. So far, I've got a tap opener, which bridges into Pachelbel's Canon in D. From there, it transitions into a thump/tap section and then returns to the theme of the opener. It's rather sloppy right now, as my technique isn't quite up to what I'm playing yet. Now that I've written the piece, though, I can work on improving my hand motions.
I'm planning on playing this for Anthony tomorrow to get his criticism and suggestions for improvement.
How would you like this little gem affixed to your name:
Lionel Richie, the father of the reality star Nicole Richie, appears on ABC tonight to introduce "Motown 45," a celebration of the 45th anniversary of that Detroit label.
Not that he was all that great once he left the Commodores, but still, give the man some credit for what career he did have....
It's actually an interesting read. And it's always good to understand from whence we came.
Thanks to David for the tip.
The UB40 official website has a wonderful picture of the band's severed heads roasting in Hell - this is the only good thing I can say about them. UB40 were a testimony to the unifying power of reggae - as in their hands any song, be it country, rock or AOR, sounds basically the same. A mid-tempo shuffle ornamented with Campbell's graceless Brummie whine, the music of UB40 brings to mind fag ash floating in half-drunk cans of stale Red Stripe and joints made out of tea leaves.
Thanks for the laugh, Tonya.
Eppy lets a pompous critic have it who is making "The Case Against Rock And Pop" (you can hear the capital letters as the guy writes). I've been sitting on this for a few days, trying to come up with something intelligent to add to this, but I can't. He's pretty much covered the bases (and did a darn good job in the process).
One or two shows have been added as well as one or two dropped. Hope to see you out at one of them.
Penn Jillette (of Penn & Teller) plays bass, in addition to his other accomplishments.
Thanks to Neil for the tip.
I'd be all over these. Just like the SL-1200 MK-II's that I used to use (being a vinyl kind o' guy).
Here's a web page listing some of the more interesting scales. I'm using some of these when I play with Shahin. The scales as written are for guitar, but they can be applied to a bass with a minimum of effort.
Jim Henley's approach won't necessarily be apt for anyone, but it's not a bad starting place.
Don't take this wrong, _____, but fuck your own voice. Your own voice will take care of itself as your craft matures. Your own voice will, if you're going to have one, insist on emerging. In the meantime, learn the craft. Learn the vocabulary and practice of meter. Learn rhyme schemes. Learn the ways that free verse gets written that yet contains music. Reread poets you admire, read about them and then read the poets they get compared to.
Thanks to Cory for the tip.
I was outside with the pallbearers from the undertaker's. I gave the nod to the crem attendant. He pressed 'play'. Well, it was Celine Dion, it was 'My heart will go on' ... but it was the dance remix.
As a thumping drumbeat massacred the gloopy song, one of the pallbearers turned to me and said, "So are we meant to take the coffin in at this pace?"
"No," said one of his colleagues, "it isn't a drum, it's the deceased knocking on the coffin, trying to get out!"
It became one of the challenges of my ministry to maintain dignity and not burst into hysterics during the funeral.
Today's episode of amusement comes to us from Simon.
A nice recap from Reuters on one of my favorite bands.
The complexity of Rush's songs led some critics in the '70s and '80s to accuse the band of being pretentious. But the innovation that sustains its career commands deep respect from fellow musicians. For some, the members of Rush have been personal mentors.
And few accomplish what Rush does onstage. A band that built its following with hard touring, Rush is most alive in front of an audience. Its stage productions, while entertaining, never overshadow its performance. The onstage grandeur belies the group's small size.
From Rasputin:
Perhaps the artist who recorded you is expressing a desire for his fans to come to his house and rock with him. Knowing what I know about the gentlemen, I would politely decline and offer instead to rock with him and several other attendees at a certified music concert venue.
Tim "the Ripper" Owens is the actual true story on which the rather bad movie Rock Star was based. Today's Washington Post has a good write up on his experiences.
This wasn't 'sex, drugs, and rock-and-roll.' It was a job, and if you don't treat it like a job, you won't last." (Ripper takes naps before every gig, and all day long chugs not booze but odd teas that he's heard are good for the vocal cords.)
But Hollywood got the biggest thing right. "I had a dream, and my dream became my job," he says. "I got to live it."
For seven years, he toured the world with Priest. But last year, Ripper was -- well, defrocked.
Some interesting thoughts from a Belgian guy.
It made me think (not for the first time, but with the kind of focused clarity that only seems to happen while driving, for some reason) about how unimportant pitch is compared to phrasing and intonation, in making a solo funky: a handful of notes, repeated over and over, but in consistently wonderful, groovy patterns and with fittingly greasy attacks.
Early this week, I was studying with Anthony and we were working on soloing; how to approach the individual notes, ways to lay back across the bar lines and the like. One of the more important things that Anthony kept trying to get me to focus on was to stay in syncopation with the beat, working the pocket a little before and little after the beat. Mwanji's writing is on the same wavelength as what Anthony was saying.
Thanks to Eppy for the tip.
Just in case you were wondering.
Thanks to James for the tip.
NGB joined up with Stoked.TV to produce a video for one of their tunes. Check it out.
A list of bands that almost could have gone somewhere slightly different.
| Actual Name | Discarded Name |
|---|---|
| Radiohead | On A Friday |
| The Cure | Goat Band |
| Chuck D | Chuckie D |
Thanks to Frank for the tip.
JP Tropicale is a pretty darn hot band; I've caught a few of their performances on CD and I hope to catch them play sometime soon. I'd recommend you check them out.
Britney gets a tattoo on the back of her neck. It's just too bad that the Hebrew letters she put there say complete gibberish. Then again, maybe that was intentional; a reflection of what's on the inside.
-- Update --
Just to compound the issue, the Torah forbids getting tattoos.
Diane Warren, writer of such sappy love songs like Unbreak My Heart and I Don't Want To Miss A Thing, apparently is a bit of a boorish jerk in real life.
Before meeting Warren, I'd been warned not to expect a gushing, poetry-spouting sweetheart; instead, think a Beavis and Butt-Head-type who favours four-letter words that aren't "love". "She's liable to eff and blind, and come out with words that would make men blush, let alone women," laughs EMI UK's chairman Peter Reichardt, who's known Warren for almost 20 years and handles her songs outside the US.
Thanks to Emma for the tip.
Mr. Haimovitz closed his eyes, put bow to string and laid into the Prelude of Bach's First Cello Suite. He did not stop at the end of the movement but went on to play the entire work, about 20 minutes of music. It was some of the most moving and soulful playing heard by this listener in a very long time. The music seemed to pour out of his cello and wash over the huddled group, over the sea of empty tables and flimsy plastic chairs, over the bar and over the television flickering quietly in the opposite corner of the room.
What came through in that moment was the simplicity of the basic musical connection, and how it requires so little of the glittery packaging that can often pass for the concert experience itself. Ultimately, Mr. Haimovitz's tour may be proving the under-recognized value of new music in attracting new audiences. But the enraptured faces in the semicircle suggested an equally important insight into the power of smaller numbers, the richness of direct contact.
Perhaps classical music's audience problem could be solved if there were more living, breathing, palpable moments of exchange like the one that took place in this beer-drenched corner of a Mississippi pizza parlor. "It's so simple," Mr. Haimovitz said when happily back on the road, "to just take out your cello and start playing."
This sounds like a very good thing.
Total Guitar magazine in the UK has compiled a listing of the 20 best guitar tracks in rock.
Some of these I haven't heard of (Muse?), and some of these are being overpraised (No One Knows is a decent enough song, but not quite the top twenty ever). Take it for what it's worth.
No, really, he does.
This is one of the reasons I'm really loving Courtney these days. These are the kind of complaints artists make all the time: I lost creative control, the label isn't doing enough to promote it, etc. But you'd usually either make it in private, to friends, or make it in public, but quietly. Courtney does it in a Rolling Stone story while she's promoting the CD, and says she's going to follow it up with a press release. Now, don't get me wrong: this does happen. I've certainly been on the semi-receiving end of a few of these sorts of missives, but it was never quite in this context. There's something different about it, and what's different about it is everything else.
Kylie Minogue says she deliberately made herself feel faint so she could sound raunchy on her new track.
The 35-year-old singer starved herself of water and fresh air to reach a near orgasmic state on the track entitled Chocolate.
Wow, I guess she was trying to suffer for her art sales.
-- Update --
The inimitable Simon has something to say on this as well.
Apparently Kylie confuses 'orgasm' with 'choking', which is, in itself, interesting - that's what you'd get after dating [Michael] Hutchence [from INXS]: It was all about timing - how long I could go with little oxygen. I think it was worth it. It sounds really beautiful.
We'd really suggest that you don't try this for yourself. Unless you're Dannii, of course, in which case: it's gotta be worth a try, hasn't it?
It got a snicker from me, excepting the whole making fun of a dead person thing.
A couple of thoughts on how to revive a dead band successfully.
So now MoB [Mission of Burma] offers another template: how to resurrect a long-gone band.
First off, keep the initial breakup fairly civil. "There was no bad blood," Prescott says. "It was just time for people to move on and try something else. And Roger [Miller, guitarist] had tinnitus, which was the biggest factor."
Second, keep working. Prescott has stayed active with three different bands...
Furthermore, don't rest on your laurels. "Another big factor was Roger was completely uninterested in playing again unless we wrote new songs and were active like a band," Prescott says. "Otherwise it's kind of stale."
But nothing else matters if you can't deliver both the old and new material live. ...
Digging on cool music isn't about bowing down to it ten years later. It's about moving on, making your own, and finding the next geniuses to stack the canon. Even if you have to plow through the old geniuses first.
Thanks to Frank for the tip.
Chris Ullman can whistle.
None of that paltry squeakiness, and no using those fingers to bend that tune. Ullman is strictly a professional.
As the Alexandria resident heads south to North Carolina this weekend for the International Whistlers Convention, he's optimistic that he will walk away with the top prize, and it's not as if he's whistling in the dark.
This story comes from today's Washington Post. It feels like one of those "gosh, aren't people sorta silly" articles that sometimes make the human interest sections of the local news. I, for one, didn't know that there was an international whistling competition to win. But I wouldn't mind hearing Mr. Ullman's work.
Thanks to Lynn for the tip.
An visual way to see how the music of one bands is related to another. It just might lead you to find a new, cool group.