For once this is not specifically about songwriting but is it about being a musician and how that has effected my life, since I am offically a year older today.
Yes it is my 51st birthday, what I think should be a national holiday, but I don't have the pull for that. However, I thought I would take a few moments and ponder how my obsession has changed my life. Note that I am of course leaving out way more than I am leaving in, since this is thru the lens of my musical obsession.
I have been playing music pretty constantly from the time I was seven years old, with a break between 13-16 or so. Except for that one period, it has been my constant source of struggle, expense, inspiration and fascination. And fun don't forget fun.
I have so many memories connected with music. My Mom was a pianist, and I can't remember not having music around the house. I still have the piano my Dad gave her on her 25th wedding anniversary. Its in my studio, where it should be, ya know?
The phrase 'soccer mom' hadn't been invented yet. My Mom was more of a 'band practice Mom', hauling me and the trumpet she bought me from her part time job all over the place so I could sit in my second chair trumpet spot and try to sound together enough not to embarrass myself.
I can remember marching in the Rose Bowl parade when I was maybe 10 or so, and having the thrill of getting into someplace free cause I was a musician. I never have stopped liking getting comped into a club.
I took trumpet lessons for years, but then the Beatles happened and so of course I had to take up the guitar, this was maybe 1965???? I know that when I quit the trumpet I got a huge ration of crap from everyone, especially my trumpet teacher. But hey, he wasn't cool like the Beatles, right?
The guitar teacher I went to, who looked impossilby old to me, didn't cut it so I spent the next bunch of years trying to be whoever I thought was cool at the time time, Dylan, whoever, just learing on my own.
I can still remember the first lick I ever stole from a Grateful Dead record, that was a big postive thing for me!
When I was maybe 19 I got serious and started taking lessons from a great and somewhat wacked guitarist. I ended up playing classical music exclusively for the next six years. It was a great way to expand my ears, and I still think I have greater finger dexterity than most people that have only played rock guitar.
I remember one night going to a bar to see some guy play, and then I had that light go on in my head - 'hey, I could do better than that!'. Oh boy, did that one thought change the direction of my life.
It took some time, but eventually I started playing in bands, and then for the next ten years that is basically what I did. I had day jobs, and liked some of them, but I never thought about any career other than music, I mean to the extreme: I thought I could never survive if I didn't play music for a living. I guess that has turned out not to be true.
Being in so many bands, most of them long term situations, made a lot of my decisions for me. Just before the band era started for me, I was going to go to college to study classical guitar, but even though I passed the audition, I couldn't afford it. I didn't even qualify for student loans! After this happened, my first marriage crashed and burned, along with my desire to play classical music any longer. The marriage and the quite expensive classical guitar and I parted company. It was a good thing on the whole.
All through those years I spent enormous energy playing guitar, singing and writing and getting myself into all sorts of situations that I would not have otherwise been in. At one point, the whole band lived in the same house and we would practice seven nights a week in the basement. Later, I lived in a smaller place, and the practice room was the living room - you know, wanna watch TV move the drumset, that sort of thing. All this time I was in Seattle, a decade before grunge was popular, and it was a real nowhere place musically, but the small punk scene was to say the least interesting. Certainly I think I have played in more shitty dives than most folks. I finally had to move on.
I grew up in LA but I was always in love with SF, and thats where I ended up in the fall of 1981, broke but excited. I landed a job, got a place to live (sounds so simple, doesn't it? It wasn't) and after a long long time formed another band.
This band lasted maybe three years, and what head trips that put me through. We did play a lot of gigs, and just original material too, what might have been called new wave at that point. I hate that term. We also had the weirdest set of managers imaginable, two differnet sets, each weird in their own way.
Things happen, bands blow up and you either stop playing or get in another band, which me being a music junkie, I did. This was a pretty popular death rock band - yes kids, before it was called Goth, back when Bauhaus etc were first around it was death rock. It was a great band in many ways, and I got to play in much larger places than I ever had. No touring tho, just one trip to LA. We did have some great shows, and opened for some big name bands. I am still good friends with everyone in the band, and two of them live like a mile from me here in Portland. Good folks be hard to find bro, hang onto them.
Eventually that wound up, and I ended up in an all cover band, that was a testament to what partying and not practicing will do for you. It was great, but my substance abuse, always a problem, got worse and worse. I hated my day job and so went down to motorcycle mechanics school to try and get an 'honest' career - but I still took my tenor sax with me. The best times in a really terrible place were sitting in with blues bands, and they had some fine ones there. That kept me from going crazy while my second wife, who stayed in SF, left me. This was not a good time in my life!
Coming back to SF, I realized I hated working on other peoples bikes, and that I worked for a total a-hole, and got out after a year. I made more money temping in any case.
I finally met the right woman, and started working on my own stuff at home, and I sitll do that do this day.
Now - to the meat of the meal. When I think back over the years, I realize that at every turn, where I went and what I do was influenced at least in part by the primal need for me to play music. Now of course I have my own studio, but naturally that has only increased my addiciton. When I recall all the things that being a musician has led me to in my life, I can say that its all been to the good. Sure, I never made it as a rock star, but how many do? One thing I know for certain that having the outlet for my creative energy has made me feel that I am not just what I always feared I would be, a man in the grey suit: faceless, with no interests, nothing to keep my mind engaged and keep the wheels greased.
Long ago I got over any illusions about getting rich and famous off this, but I also realized that doing music or any art must first and foremost be a selfish activity. The creative spark inside all of us needs to be fed, and for me this is how I do it: making music makes me feel a more complete person, and I cannot imagine not being in the musicians tribe, any more than I could imagine not being Jewish, which of course is my other tribe.
These things run as deep in my soul as possible, they are here every day, and I am grateful that I have been given a bit of talent, and a way to work on it. For all the good and bad times in my life, music has always been there for me to enlighten and frustrate and give me a center to revolve around.
So to whoever may read this, I hope you can relate just a little, cause if you can, you are indeed a fortunate person. Now go in peace and write some music!
Once again I tackle the rhythm beast, and make a little progress there...
Saturday and Sunday - I actually have some time to do a little work on this piece of music.
Looking back at the comments, it seems like the weakest point are the drums. Oh, I just have to get this off my chest: I don't seem to be able to come up with a damn decent drum part by myself. Let me be specific: I can do OK with electronic grooves that don't have to pretend that they are played by a real drummer. Plus I find on the ER1 its a great help to have the effects, really gives more swing than any of the quantizing programs I have used, software or hardware for that matter.
But like a real, flesh and blood drummer? That is a whole different ballgame. As I said, the comments on the drums made me listen to them again, and I didn't really like what I heard all that much, sounded kinda mechanical I guess, so I begin my search thru the literally thousands of midi drum files I have to see if something fits.
Now it would be easy if all these files were set up the same way, but that is not the case so I spend some time on each getting them set so that they will come out on the right track and with a normal drum kit. This makes everything take so much more time for the first crack, but its worth it later.
I spend quite a bit of time on this, more than I would like to think about. Finally I find something labelled as a bossa nova beat. Nothing could be much farther from the truth, but there it is and it works, especially on the refrain, where there is a bit of a rhymthic shift. I play around a bit with the drum kit I am using, and do some deep listening.
That was pretty much all I was able to accomplish on Satruday. Sad, ain't it?
Sunday I am back at it, this time searching for a beat for the verse section. Its another long slog. I finally come on something from a set of hip hop midi files I actually bought (!) and this works fairly well, considering its being slowed down from 160 to 120 BPM.
Again I have to play round with the drum kits - I have been fairly hooked on the XL7 kits from the Pure Phatt Rom, but I think its time to dig in and do some programming on them. For the moment, I am happy with how this kit sounds, with the possible exception of the kick; it could also be that the kick needs to be moved back a few ticks, but I tried that once and it just didnt do it. I did however write some cymbal and snare variations. You can listen to the new mix by clicking here and judge for yourself. Once again I would remind you this is on a slow server, probably better to just save it locally. I finally tried to find an intro drum beat. but ended up just writing some cymbals, which give the intro a lighter feel.
I also was playing around with the refrain, and added a bit of a repetitive synth part. Again I will have to work on the sound of this part a bit, but I think it works well. Like in a lot of my music, I am trying not to crowd things up, and make the melodies work as part of the rythmic scheme also.
Back to my main question - how bad is it not to write your own drum parts? Am I just giving myself some stress that doesn't count? I used to do this same sort of thing with samples that I ran thru Recycle, but these weren't as flexible as simply having the midi notes. And maybe I am beating myself up too much: all those years that I played in bands, I never troubled myself with trying to write drum parts, I mean, that is what the drummers are there for, right?
Still, after all these years of cutting up loops and using every tool I can think of, it just doesn't seem right that I can't whip up the beat I want to, no sweat.
So what do you think about this???
Tonight I finally had the chance to work more on this piece and got a lot done for just a couple of hours.........
This has been a very busy week at work, in the garden, and its finally gotten hot, which is good - my studio is in the basment where its cool man cool.
I did a lot on this piece tonight. First, I had the idea to remake the bassline, sorta inspired by the middle section of 'Hollow Inside' by the Buzzcocks. Except maybe no one but me will hear that.
Anyway, this is only for the refrain, since I had written more on the verse section bass days ago. Now I start to put the two together, but of course its never that simple, is it? In the refrain, I spend quite some time writing some cymbal parts, thinking of some of the drumming discussion over at the worlds best muscians forum . I really do try and think like a drummer, and no I won't do the obvious drug jokes tonight. After some time, I think it works...but I keep messing with the cymbals anyway. Is there any limit to how many cymbal sounds it is legal to own? I must be close to it......
Now I decide that part of the original bass line from the ER1 is kinda cool in a crude way. I mess with it a bit as an intro to the verse. Then I mess with it some more, and it is not really recognizable in its original form anymore. So be it. I am trying on this intro to somewhat drag and hesitiate behind the dualing cymbals. Oh wait, you wanna follow along?
click here for the 120 ways test mix mp3 file
Note: it will stream but it would probably be better just to right click and save - its pretty small.
I was thinking about what Barbara had said, about not all the electronic sounds needing to be in this piece. So I thought I would dial up a clavinet type sound - kinda jazz like, something I have great fondness for. So I loop the phrase and start playing around. Pretty soon I start to convince myself I'm Stevie Wonder. Except of course I am not blind, I am not black, and I sure as hell can't play like him! I sort of like it, not sure. I go back to other work on the song.
I had written some involved DX100 lines for the refrain. I rework these, and make them much more spare, more on the order of a call and response for the vocals. These work for sure.
I listen to the whole piece again several times. I realize that some of the synth parts that I originally like work fine, except for under most of the vocals. I end up leaving these in the intro sections, and the end of the vocal phrases.
Listening to my clav part again, I realize that it really isn't that good. I was playing something like a quiet bed for the verses but.....I think its almost bland and too loungey, ya know? So, off with its head! I still had some fun, got some practice time doing that, so its not a waste.
I also realize that the dual cymbal parts don't work well for the whole song, so I dump one set during the verses. That gives the verses more breathing room, not so crowded. I mean, you don't have to put everything on that pizza, do you? I think it gives more of a nice transtional feel between the verses, too.
By now its getting late, there is just enough time to dump a non mixed version to my website. I really sorta hestitate to do this, since I know the vocals and trumpet - both just scratch takes, OK?- ended up being too loud after running them thru T-Racks.Not a great mastering tool, but hey, its what I got. Also all the other horn parts aren't in there, I will no dobut rerecord them. So I would love some feedback on this, anything you want as long as you realize how unfinished it is. I mean, I still will have to have some other music on the verses, for instance, and there is a bridge I have worked on......and on and on it goes.....
Hope you find something little gem in this mud.
A bit of work on the timbre and the bass
Listening to the tracks, I decide to try and use a non-electronic sound for the bass. I dial up an upright bass sample on the XL7. Its an OK sample, but not fantastic. In fact I have never really heard an upright bass sample I am pleased with, unless its something that was a sampled riff by a real bassist - of course that would sound good!
One big problem doing the bass way is that I have to use the keyboard to write the bassline - I mean, its OK, but if you are used to playing with strings its just not the same thing. It is quite interesting to me that the original synth bass parts, simply moved over the upright bass sound, are just not going to cut it. Its that timbre thing again, plus they sound quite stiff with the more realistic bass sound.
I end up writing a set of variations on the original bassline, and again marvel at how much things can change, even with the same notes, depending on how you swing the parts. Thats why I don't do much with quantizing anything, with the exception sometiimes of drums - I want it to swing with my own groove, ya know?
That is about as far as I got today - so if anyone out there wants to donate a bass for this project so I can make it really groove, I mean even an electric bass, I'm not gonna be picky here - just drop me a line.
This having to work for a living really cuts down on my lifestyle.......but I can still do some work in spite of that.................
Sometimes I think I lead a weird life. Working for a company where I can work at home if need be sounds nice, unless what you do entails having to stay up and do some work starting at 1:00 am. Since I was at the computer anyway, and it was only midnight, I decided to do some work. The last session I recorded my little inspiration for the refrain for this song, so now I set to work writing the music for this.
All day in my head, when it had a chance to think about music, I kept hearing the music for this refrain, with almost a little Spanish feel to it. To start I needed at least a marker beat, so I copied the kick drum pattern I had written from the verse. Next I wrote a simple bassline to work with this. I should say at this point that I had already recorded the refrain vocal twice, but now I realized that I would need yet another scratch vox, since I had just sung those takes acapella, and the timing was not exactly spot on.
I record the vox again, then search out a good tone on the DX100 and lay down a simple arpeggio. Next I copy this and move it down an octive. I move this new part over the old one, and then instead of lining it up exactly, make it a tick or two later than the other part, for a bit of choursing. Last thing is to take a increase the durations of the notes by 200% - a simple thing to do in Sonar.
Now that I have this basic chorus, I drop it into the rest of the arrangement. This seems to work well with everything.
I have Barbara come down and snag a listen. She really likes the melodies, the drums., the jazzy feel these parts has. She is not so convinced about the repeating synth parts or the refrain music I have written.
You know I respect her ears, and sometimes I would just as soon move on during a piece, but it is true that this song has changed so much over the course of a few days that it may be I need to rewrite some of these parts. Since I had snagged an existing riff off the EA1 for the synth parts, thats no biggie. I may also tweak the bass line a bit, at her suggestion, since its simply a big fat sinewave, and now may be the time to push this thing further towards the jazz camp with something a little cripser. As always the rule for me, make it better and discard what isn't working.
In spite of that I will be making a copy of this song which still has all the original material, and get rid of all the vox parts and just leave the first things that came out, just so I can remember.
You gotta love having storage space!
Today did not start off well, I woke up at 5:00 am and was quite ill. In spite of that, some thing excellent occured.
OK, I am not going to bore you will my being sick. But it is interesting to me: I slept a lot today, which is the only thing that seemed to help. At one point, as I was laying down upstairs, I mentally ran over the latest piece of music I am working on. I don't know about you, but there is this loop in my head, been there since I started writing music, that runs all the time it seems in the background of my thoughts. Its running now as I type these lines, and it was running right at that moment too. I was thinking about the trumpet line in this song and then blam! a whole set of lyrics, with the melody a slight variation in the trumpet tune, came poring out of me. I grabbed a pencil and wrote them down and tried to go back to sleep.
Then a few minutes later, a refrain, I mean the melody and lyrics, came into my head, from an even more mysterious place than the other stuff I had just written. I mean, the entire thing just came out at once, with as far as I can tell, no concious thought of my own. I don't know how to put this correctly, it was like watching a movie or something, almost like an script running by itself.
This was too good to let go and possibly lose, so I dragged myself down to the studio, fired it up and recored both the verse and the new chours that just appeared out of nowhere. Trust me, I went back to sleep after that!
I am still fascinated though by how this happens. And I am not saying that this is the greatest melody of all time, the song of the ages.......but I think its a good song and I still wish I knew how to juice the process. Sometimes I think its like Platos cave, where the ideas are already there but I only get a glimse of them from time to time. Of couse, that means I never really write anything at all myself, which doesn't exactly thrill me, ya know?
Well, this is the purpose of the blog after all, to try and explore this creative process, and the only way I know how is to write the events down as they happen, and if I can at some point determine a pattern, then I will have hit the lottery!
And please don't tell me that I should get sick more often...
Where I make some headway with the drums and the arrangement
Tonight I wanted to try and write a new basic drum part, so I start on the ER1. One advantage of having grooveboxes is that you can just create patterns right on the box. In this case, it was more tones than patterns that I was after, and here is a prime example of how your mind is the most important instrument of all: as you will remember I started this piece by getting entranced by the wild sounds of this drum machine. Now that the tenor, so to speak, of the song has changed so much, I can't for the life of me get a single sound, except the hi hats, out of the ER1 that I can use at all.
Now is when having more than one synth is really a godsend. I call up a drumkit on the XL7, slap it into grid record mode, and in not too much time I have a very simple but I think effective bassdrum and snare groove. The XL is wonderful for this quick kind of sequencing, and someday I hope to really get much better at using its powerful internal sequencer. For the moment, I take the midi file out of the XL and right into the arrangement.
I take the basic four bars and as is my habit, I write small variations on each part, so I have some movement and the groove isn't static. I will do more of this later, but for now it will work to help me flesh out the song. Its also not out of the question that I will delve into the midi file stash I have and grab a chunk of a groove out of there too. Its like a stew: whatever I have that fits into the pot gets cooked.
Last thing: as I listen to the trumpet improv, I come to the realization that there is a perfect place to break into the 'B' section I wrote last night. I slice up the horn part (don't you just love digital audio?) and drop in the 'B' section. So there is no horn, no drums on this section, that will all come later. Its also a place to maybe write a vocal part or some other motif or phrase that will move the piece along.
And wouldn't you know it, now I am having some second thoughts on the hi hat parts...........but that can wait for the next session
Back to the groove and how things can morph like you don't expect
Last time I wrote, I was about to explode the drums tracks on this song, so I could more easily work with the sections I want. In most software sequencers, there is a function where you can split a single track into several tracks, based on the notes. Good for drums, right, where the note values are more limited. Using Sonar 2.2, there is a Cakewalk Application Language (CAL) file that does this. This is one of the little odditites about Sonar, that there is this little computer language that you can write routines in that will work within Sonar. Not that I could write any of them, but some people can. On the one hand, its cool that its open, on the other its not like Sonar is doing anything to update the CAL stuff, which is cheesy since some of the functions, IMHO,should be built right into the program anyway, like in other software sequencers.
So I want to run this simple routine to spilt the drums into seperate tracks, and the CAL file should do this for me in a few seconds. Only problem is: which CAL file, since I have a ton of them, to make it work right.
Turns out there are several that have names that sound sorta close. I try them all, and they all crash and die for different reasons. This means I have to go to the web and find the right routine. One thing that is great about Sonar is their searchable user group, and I find - after some difficulty, the answer there.
Net loss of time maybe 20 mintues, but it doesn't exactly get the juices flowing, ya know? However, I was able later to use another couple of CAl routines, for random panning and random velocity, with no problem and they work well. So the learning time was well spent.
Now I have all the tracks seperated. One bad thing about splitting the tracks is that the midi continuous control information stays on one track. A drag, and I may have to deal with it later. Anway, the first thing is to combine the hi hats. You are no doubt aware that the ER1 only has two hat samples, one open and one closed, but you can at least effect them with the ur, effects. I like the way they sound.
The other drums, the bass drum and the gong like sounds, I mute for the moment. This makes the whole song sound really peaceful and mellow, a good place to start. Then I start to bring in the other percussion, the weird gong sounds will all the analog strangeness they have - what Barbara my wife calls that science fiction stuff.
I listen over and over to this, muting/umuting the other drum parts. I become dissatisfied with some of the sounds and start to tinker with the ER1. One part of how I do things: I am pretty fearless when it comes to overwriting sounds in the synths, even if I don't really have to. I just like the flow of the work, and if I lose a tiny something? Well, I get a bit PO'ed but thats OK. I also don't tend to save lots of versions of things, like whole songs. I suppose it would be good, but I prefer to go forward not back.
The sounds are now mutating, but I go back and listen and really what I like aobut this piece is the bassline, the synthline, my horn and the cymbals. What I do is fire up another track, and copy the hats to this new track that is connected to my XL7. I start playing around with the sounds, and after a lot of experimentation, I hit on using a preset with some nice hats, including some reversed hits. In combination with the ER1 hats, this gives a sort of looser groove. I know it may sound strange to think of four hats playing at once, but it works for me.
I also try other bass sounds from the XL, and tweak the sound on the EA1 bass a bit. Nothing that inspiring....
At this point I ask Barbara to come down and give it a listen. At the risk of repeating myself, my wife (who played violin in her youth) has a great set of ears, and is very honest with what she likes and doesn't like. She listens to the tracks, and likes everything but the percussion sounds from the ER1. She says, this is a jazzy piece, what do you need that in there for, its fighting the feel of the music?
And damn if she doesn't hit it again. She also catches some out of tune notes - where the heck are my ears anyway?!?!?!?,then she splits and I get back to work.
I fix the blue notes - I must say, I listen to so much non-western music that things sometimes sound OK to me that to most people would clash, that or I am getting tone-deaf! - and do some more listening. I decide that yeah, I can live easily without the other ER1 percussion.
Now I do some more fooling with other percussion, and then it hits me that I could take one of the themes and with a bit of modification, I can make a nice little transitional flow. I know this piece needs at least one other section, and this is a rather tuneful, not radical way to do it. I then modify the bassline to fit and sort cheat - my chord progression, a down/up crawl that is half the length of the normal synth part, does not want to resolve cleanly. What I do is get is close to a nice resolution, but because the synth has lots of echo, I can let it fade. The pause, about 4 beats, is enough to let the listener have a nice not jarring transtiton between the parts. At least that is the idea.
At the end of this session, I have a now quite mutated song, in the sense that I am not using all the weird percussion stuff I recoded, that got me started on this song in the first place. I could be frustrated by this, but actually, the more that a new piece goes in a direction I could not predict, the better as far as I am concerned. As much as for any other reason, I play music to exercise and expand my mind. and the more it goes where I don't conciously direct it, the better. I still am going to use as much of the original horn part as possible, so I don't lose that live feel; I am sure I will have to record some more horn for the new sections tho.
So much for staying true to the original impulse, but who wants to know, really, where they are gonna end up when they start a new piece?
After writing the first extensive entry today, this is a progress/method report
A couple of well spent hours, taking the raw ideas and doing the first bit of construction. Typical for me: tweak several sections of the repeating bass line so that it has some feel, some rational variation. Same thing with the melody on the ER1, things like transposing, changing the lenght. Chop all these up into 4 bar phrases, change the order around so that its not static. Came up with a nice beginning, another variant on the melody.
Listening to the trumpet again, quite a bit of it is ususable. Maybe not inspired, but it works with the piece. Sort of a gentle swaying....
Next step is to work on some sort of arrangement other than just the endless flow. I know there needs to be some sort of break or variation so that the listener is not lulled to sleep and/or bored.
One this is certain, the drum tracks will be exploded, so that I can more easily mess with the individual parts. As always, the space between the notes is as important as the notes themselves............
Once again last night I was struck with an inspiration to write a new song. This blog is of course an attempt to analyze these times, to see if I can determine a pattern.
Pattern, maybe pattern is the key. Here is what happened: its Friday night, 10 pm, warm night and had just come in from our really nice and peaceful garden. I came downstairs and I was set to do some more work on "Passion". I start by just straight listening to what I have so far, which is the intro, verse and chorus and then in time honored tradition verse/chorus again. I tinker with the drums a bit, adding some fills and cymbal crashes in the right places.
One thing about this song unlike most of them is that I am not using my ER1 drum machine (has to be the all time best, cheap drum machine ever!) so I think that maybe I will drop it in after the second chorus, to give a little bridge section so that I can just hammer in the chorus again and finish the structure of the song.
I leave Sonar running and just hit play on the ER1, and spin the dial. Well, of course its the wrong tempo, I mess with it a bit and then stop the sequencer. What I have found is the basis of a really cool pattern on the ER1. Now, I will admit that I use the patterns that are in the machine, but I do mess with them, which is what I proceed to do with this. I am always amazed on how much variety you can get out of this box, and twenty minutes later I realize that this is something I should record, at least for later.
My setup is complicated, so it takes a few minutes to reroute the cables, but soon enough I am recording this one pattern, and just twisting knobs like there is no tomorrow. Its a low groove with a kind of melodic pattern in it. I just keep improvising until I have about five minutes of shifting timbres.
This is so good I decide to mess with the EA1. I will say, this is not quite as good as the ER1, not enough control over the synthesis, which is why I lust after the later model EMX1. Still, it has some nice sounds, and dead thick basses. So I start messing with presets on there, and find one that, once its slowed down to 120 BPM from 168 or whatever it was, fits really nicely (as a starting point) with the five minutes of groove I already have down. I record a bar of it, then copy it to the rest of the song, again as a place to start.
Then I broke out my trumpet, dialed in some long ass delay and started playing over this groove, just to try it out. I realize after a bit that this is starting to sound serious, a low electro-jazz groove, and I am all about that. I decide to do some recording. Again, I have to stop and get out the one good large condenser mic I own, but soon I am up and running, and just start improvising over what I have. I come up with a little motif, and some stuff that grows out of that. I make mistakes, cause I don't have great chops, but its OK, I can edit it.
That is pretty much where I stopped, since it was pretty late. One thing I did discover is that the ER1 has somewhat shit timing, as it started to drift relative to the EA1. I spent a lot of time shifting drums parts over so they would line up correctly with the bass. Weird that the drum machine has less accurate timing than the synth.
The main thing I am trying to do here is understand what happens when I am able to write some music. I don't know if I am any closer to understanding that at all. Basically I got entranced with a repetitive pattern of notes, entranced with the subtle and not so subtle manipulation of the timbre, and the rest just flowed from there. I have no idea whatsoever where I got the idea for the trumpet motiv.
Of course I can't split my brain up and analyze why all these sounds made sense to me last night - but I certainly wish I could. I will continue to write about this song, like all the others, as it progresses.
And here I thought I wouldn't have anything to write about here, since I have been too busy and too tired to write any music this week!
Oh yeah, I decided on the title, 120 different ways to say the same thing, for this piece since its at 120BPM and at least right now, the drum patterns, the notes themselves, don't change at all, but sound different due to manipulating the synth parameters. Its also a good idea for lyrics, if this song goes this way.
Today, typical Monday, except its Tuesday, right? Work, get some stress on, come home do the yoga, now I brief bit of free time.....
and I wonder, do I try and work on a piece of music or do I just woodshed and practice my flute? In the ideal world of course I would have time for all things, and be younger thinner and richer....but here we are in real time, and I decide that for tonight, at least this part of it, its the flute. And in between the times when I need to pause for breath, I can type this up.
Now I have been focusing mostly on getting my CD done, but I just don't seem to be able to turn on the muse at will. For one thing, it takes a couple of minutes to fire up all the gear, and while that isn't much, its not instantaneous.I do find tho that playing the simple scales I need to do to learn a new instrument sometimes can clear my brain. Learning just a new note position can lead me to thinking of some new phrase that I might not record now, or even remember tomorrow, but I think that it adds up to the storehouse in my brain, and makes yet another nerual connection for musical thought. It starts to put me in the space of hopefully creating. Amazing, considering the silly little beginners pieces (with titles like The Cats March and The Worm Slithers [Play 'slowly and creepily' the book says]. Perhaps its focusing so intentley on the intervals......
I know for a fact that I seldom sit right down and knock something out. Usually its twiddling around for some time until the brain begins to function, and even then its suspect. I try and just let the ideas flow out, and later come back and keep the cream of them, without getting too analytical about it. I also know that when the creavitive flow actually starts, I write a ton of material in really short periods of time. Then I will slog to finish the pieces, which is the hardest part, no? But if I could just come up with a way to jump start the process............well, I guess I could put it in a bottle and market the stuff!