Motivation

Recently, I've been going though a very hard time in my musical career. I'm hoping this blog post will either act as a vent so I can think things through clearly, or maybe give direction to anyone who reads this.

For the last few months, I've felt like I should just quit while I'm ahead. I've done my time at college, I've played in bands, I've learnt more guitar theory than I know what to do with, so what else is there? We all know that the chances of getting a good standing in the music industry are few and far between, so why am I putting in all this effort for it to just never work out? 

It's a very pessemistic thought, and I've never been a 'glass half empty' kind of guy, but that's where I'm at right now. After having the idea of playing jazz guitar on a cruise ship, I studied for days on end all about jazz theory, jazz chords, everything jazz. I then put it into practice, managed to have a pretty decent backing of theory and technique (nowhere near where I want to be though) so I began to contact cruise companies. Every single one of them came back and effectively said 'Jog on, mate'. It was a real kick in the teeth, and since then it just feels like it's all for nothing.

As I metioned in a previous post, I could quite easily walk into a covers/tribute band and play 2 gigs a week and be able to afford to live. But then it just feels like I'm selling out. I want to play original songs I've co-written, or written myself. I want people to be singing MY lyrics, not me singing other peoples. 

On the other hand, would selling out be so bad? I'd get to perform a lot, I'd meet loads of fun people, I'd be making a good income, it sounds ideal right? I'd be gigging everywhere and all the time, it would be perfect in a way. I might try to contact some people in covers or tribute bands, and see what it's like from someone who has experienced it. 

I'm already in an originals band, and that's doing well. So I could put my eggs in different baskets and audition for a covers and tribute bands. I'll see what's out there, and see if it's something I'd be into. As for the cruise ships, I've given up on that now. Although, it did motivate me to learn a lot of jazz theory in a very small amount of time, and that's never a bad thing!

This blog post may just seem like a huge ramble to anyone who reads it, and it's in no way related to my college course, but this is really the only place I can post things like this. It's kind of helped being able to write it out too, and maybe if someone stumbles across this in the future, it could help them. 

Careers

In our careers class, we were given the task to really sit down and think what we want to do in life. For me, I originally wanted to go on a cruise ship in a jazz trio, but after getting shot down by lots of different companies, the motivation has gone and I'm left wondering what to do.

Our tutor mentioned what's known as a 'Goldilocks Goal'. This is a series of 3 goals, one which is so massive it almost scares you, one that is achievable with a certain amount of work, and one that can easily be achieved. My Goldilocks Goals are:

1. Get signed, release an album and tour everywhere with my new band.

2. Cruise ship guitarist (Although the motivation for this has gone)

3. Play in a covers/tribute band 

The thought of being signed and touring everywhere doesn't exactly scare me, but I feel like it's a long long way away. It's more of a luck thing nowadays, although we have performed with bands that have recently been signed to a label.

As I mentioned earlier, I contacted a lot of cruise ship companies recently after I had the brainwave of wanting to do it. I was so hyped for it, thinking it would be ideal. Seeing the world and playing 2-3 hours of jazz a night? Getting paid and having next to no expenditures? Perfect! However, every company I contacted said they aren't hiring jazz bands anymore, because it's almost an outdated genre. It was kind of a kick in the teeth, seeing as I was set on doing it. But hey ho, life goes on.

Although I could pretty easily walk into a covers band, or a tribute band and make money to live on, it's not where I want to be. I want to express my life through my music, not stand and robotically express someone elses. It's more a case of weighing up whether I want the money. It feels like I'd be selling out almost, by doing something I wouldn't like to do. But I need to eat. So this seems like a viable option.

Speaking of how much I'd need to live, we were given the task of adding this all up. Say I spend £50 a week on food, that's a fair amount. I don't eat much anyway. Unfortunately, I gave into the temptation of smoking. So £3.50 a day, 7 days a week is nearly £25. That's not too bad, in all honestly. I was expecting worse than that when I got the calculator! Luckily for me, I have nice parents so I only pay £10 a week rent. So, in a month, that's £200 on food, £100 on cigarettes, and £40 on rent. £340 a month. 

I work in a pub for the majority of the week too, so that makes a fair amount of money for me. So in all honestly, I don't need to rely on music as much as I thought I would. I can get by working in the pub, but then I won't be doing what I love as a living. I could try and find a happy balance, but seeing as I only started working there 3 weeks ago, I don't want to tread on any toes. So until I'm settled with the bosses, it looks like pub work is for me.

Heavy Metal Mixing

During this weeks lecture we were shown a mulitutde of songs, and we were given the task of reviewing the mix. This related back to my first post on the blog, in the way it's impossible to determine what is a 'good' mix.

One of the tracks we were shown was August Burns Red - Truth of a Liar. This isn't really my cup of tea, genre wise, but I can see why people would listen to it. This track seems to fit into the whole generic metal mix, where everything is over compressed and cranked to the max. The kick drum was gated and EQ'd, giving it the standard metal 'clicky sound'. You can also hear where it seems to be triggered and quantized. Of course, this is what modern production can accomplish. Anything and everyting can be edited and made to sound how it's wanted. The band rarely get to chose how they're going to sound, as it's left to the producer times which can lead to huge band fall outs. Sometimes, the over proudction makes it sound unatural and almost robotic. Unfortuantely, this has become the norm now.

However, some metal tracks break this sound. It may be the era of recording, or the producer chose this sound, but Pantera - I'm Broken seems to have hit the nail on the head. It's a near perfect mix (or so it sounds to me, other people may have different opinions). While most recordings don't have depth to them, this recording sounds as though you are sat in the room with them listenening to them play. That's what I enjoy anyway, the sense that you can imagine being there with them. The drums sound real, the guitar and bass sound beefy, and each one is crystal clear on the recording. You would have no trouble learning any individual part by ear. As soon as the track starts, you're kicked in the face with a spot on guitar tone and everything else. 

So, the real argument is, what are you trying to sound like? Do you want to be real sounding like Pantera, or do you want to sound like every metal band nowadays?

Creative Arts Research Skills

This year has been a completely different kind of course, for me. Every other year, I've had to sit up until 2 in the morning writing essays and paragraphing and everything else you can think of. But this year was a lot more relaxed and free.

I much prefer blogging to writing essays. My blog is a place where I can go and post all things musical, and it's really useful. I can store things on here that I think would be useful later on. The fact we can also record ourselves playing and upload it for people to see is good too. I've never really thought about uploading a video anywhere, but blogs have changed that. I also found myself falling into a routine, where I would type things and save them as a draft. This is so they were not public, but I could go and read what I was thinking two weeks ago or something. The course has shown me I learn things and organize things in my own way. For example, most people wouldn't prefer to sit and write things that are on their minds down, but I find it easy to do and I potentially have a  blog post on me. Having the blog has helped develop that because it's a designated place for me to ramble. Also, learning new techniques on guitar and videoing myself doing them has improved my playing vastly. The fact I can sit there and watch my technique gives me the opportunity to see where I'm slacking and give me areas to tune up. For example, I wrote a post earlier this year about my picking technique. I hadn't even noticed that until it was brought up and I saw myself doing it on a video, and I've now changed it and I've progressed since.

Instead of getting an assignment brief and being told to go and write an essay, we would have a lecture about a certain subject and then write a blog post on it. I found this so much better than writing essays, because I could be informal and just ramble on. I found it good practice to sit with my blog open during the lecture and type notes and later edit them to a post. If it were an essay, I would have to wade though pages upon pages of notes and find what I needed. The blog got rid of that, because it was all there and I just had to expand on ideas I wrote down. As said before, I prefer to write as if I'm talking to someone, so quite informal. With my blog, I see it as I'm talking to the people who read it. An essay just seems like I'm typing to no one, and it gives me no context to write in.

On the other hand, I can see where essays kind of have the upper hand. While blogging may be informal and place to ramble, it can get extremely messy. If I need to find something relevant, I have to find related blog posts and scour through to find what I'm looking for. In an essay, it's all there in one huge chunk of writing. The worst you would have to do it really quick scan it to find what you need. Looking at it from an tutors view, it's the same kind of thing. If you need to mark a student on something, it would be a lot easier to have it all there in front of you than stored in bits around a blog.

For next year, I think I'm going to stick with what I already do, but just do it better. I'll sit in a lecture and write down the key talking points in a draft blog post, write some notes beneath and then shape them into a post that night. Talking about blogging is all well and fine, however getting work in on time for me is something I must focus on. For next year, I'm going to work on this and hopefully improve my organization skills. It would be better I guess to once I've finished a blog post, while I'm still on a roll, I should do any work assigned to me that night too and not leave it or leave it half way finished. I'd like to see the freedom continue next year, because it is a really nice feeling not to have the pressure of outstanding essays over your head. The blog covers essays in short little posts, and it works so well. I would very much like to write an instrumental album too, and record it and release it all myself. It would be an awesome achievement. I'm hoping to record myself a lot more too once I finally have my home PC and studio sorted.

Contrapuntal

For part of our course, we have been asked to identify and analyze from textural and contrapuntal effects on tracks. There are four types of describing musical texture are: Monophonic, Polyphonic, Homophony and Heterophony.

Monophonic means it is one single line. For example, a solo guitar piece with no backing whatsoever. It also applies to a group singing/playing the same melody, like happy birthday or a hymn.

Polyphonic is multiple lines. A choir is polyphonic, as each section or member is singing harmonies at certain points.

Homophonic is almost like Monophonic, except there is usually some kind of backing. The single line is the dominating melody, and everything else is just there to support it. Most music now is homophonic, where the singers vocal melody is dominant and the band accompanies this.

Heterophony is again, almost like Monophonic, whereas the line is usually played or sang the same with little variations. If you listen to some African chants, you can hear this. It's pretty much the same, except each person puts their own twist on it.

I'm going to choose three songs and analyze where each of these come up. My three songs are:

• Beach Boys - Good Vibrations
• AFX  -Children Talking
• Steve Reich - Six Pianos

As mentioned earlier, most music nowadays is Homophonic. This happens in the verse of Good Vibrations, where it's the vocalist standing out and the band kind of in the background. However, when it gets to the chorus, it changed to Polyphonic, because a second melody comes in. This melody is a harmony line, but it's still different enough to be classed as a new melody. It keeps switching between the two, which gives lots of contrapuntal effects.

In the AFX song, it starts with a child talking about mash potatoes. This is monophonic, as there's nothing there to accompany it. Although it's not sang or played, it still has pitch and is therefor it's classed as a melody. When the electric percussion comes in, it creates a rhythmic counterpoint. This is where the drums is playing something completely different and different rhythms to the melody.

Six Pianos was composed by Steve Reich. By the title, there are six pianos, meaning this track itself is polyphonic, but starts off monophonic. This is because there is one piano playing the melody. As the other pianos are added, it becomes polyphonic. Each piano is playing different but the same things, if that makes sense, as it's just phased. Some pianos are also dedicated to playing a separate melodies, giving a more complex contrapuntal effect.

Poster Performace

In an older post, I uploaded a draft poster I was planning to use for promoting my band. I thought this poster would have been good to use because it fit our genre, had a photo of us and had lots of space for gigs. But when it came to actually using it when we had a gig, it didn't really live up to my expectations.

A few things I noticed were:
-We needed a decent photo
-Not enough space for extra information
-No direct links to our Facebook/Twitter

After a few alterations, I came up with this:

This was used to promote a gig we had in a shop at Merry Hill. I'll go into what it was like playing in a shop later on, but for now let's focus on the poster. As you can see, it seems to have a better lay out, in the sense that our name is nice and big, and the photo looks professional. Also, we have the date and time big too, meaning it would be hard to miss. The thing I really like about this poster is the QR code in the bottom right corner. If someone were to scan this with a smart phone, it would take them directly to our Facebook page. This is a HUGE advantage, because most people are too lazy to go wading through Facebook to find us. It's also quite a gimmick. I know I would scan it, just because it's something you don't normally use a phone for.

After putting this up on the band page and around the shop we were playing at, we had quite a big response from people. It wasn't quite the amount I was expecting, but there was still a buzz about it. The shop actually taped these down on the counter, so everyone who bought something would see it. I personally think this worked a lot better than the old one would have, only because it seems a lot more professional.

As for playing in a shop, it was an extremely weird experience. A normal gig for us entails being loud, dancing, running around in the crowd and just having a laugh. Being in a shop, it was quite difficult to do this. We were up on a balcony, so we couldn't exactly give the performance we wanted, but we have it a hell of a go. If we were playing a pub or club somewhere, it would be completely different. And again, if we we're playing a festival, it's another different experience. Having done all of these, I can begin to explain what kind of impact location has on a band.

As I've gone over, playing in a shop in a crowded shopping centre is all well and could, but it almost inhibits your ability to be 'normal'. For me, it was the fear of knocking something over, or injuring someone. However, playing in a pub or club is different. In these venues, you don't share the stage with the public or a shelf full of shoes. You can move, dance, run, anything. Another factor is why people are actually there. Why do people go to shops? To shop. Why do people go to venues? Live music. These may not be the right words to portray what I'm thinking, but I almost felt 'in the way' at the shop. Moving on to playing festivals, it's another story. Again, the stage is yours to own, but the audience interact in a different way. Yes, you still have the drunken fool screaming 'PLAY FREEBIRD!' but at a festival, there's a whole lot more. It's a much more relaxed kind of gig.

All in all, each different location is influential. It shapes how you play. Having never busked before, I'm quite interested as to how musicians react to that.

Recorded Music Age/Music in Context

What's the point of being a musician? To be world famous? To have all the money you could dream of? A private jet? Whichever your reason for being a musician is, there's one key part that can get you all of these. Without this part, you wouldn't make anything. Your audience. Imagine if you had absolutely no fans whatsoever. You would release an album you probably paid to have recorded and released, and no one would buy it. Seems like kind of a waste. But of course, every band has their target market, and this is who you tailor your promotion too. For example, being in a ska band, our target audience is drunken, drug smoking glue sniffers. But hey, they're gonna pay for me to eat.

People seem to enjoy what we play. We all know ska to be a bouncy, happy, dance-y kind of music. when we play a gig, it's almost a weird experience. Ska isn't really a mainstream/popular genre, so when we get up and play, it shocks people. Most of them are drunk anyway, so as soon as we hit the first off beat, people are dancing and laughing. The music kind of takes over them.

Of course, music has all kinds of effects. When you're sad you listen to sad songs, when you're happy you listen to happy songs. It's just basic. Music can lift you up when you've been down. Music has been used with people that are ill too. For example, there's that guy on the TV who can't talk a complete sentence without listening to music.

So actually being a musician, where do you start? Do you write happy songs, or sad songs? This is the demand that put on us. We're almost expected to play what they want to hear. It's a horrible position to be in, but we do it anyway. An example of band album not being received well is Metallica's Lulu. People know Metallica as the God's of thrash metal, and they bring what the people want to hear. However, this album was recorded with Lou Reed, a well known figure in the music world, and Metallica's fans hated it. They said it wasn't 'Metallica' enough. This shows that it's a delicate game we're playing, with lots of risks.

Not just focused on the music though, musicians are expected to be some kind of clean, god-like beings that never do wrong. Look at Miley Cyrus for example. She went from being a teen pop star/actor, working for the most over the top and fake companies in the world (Disney), to being the controversial musician she is today.

I personallly think Miley has been swept up in social conventions. If you turn back to the 80's, musicians were known to be heavy drinkers, smokers, addicts, and whatever else you could think of. It seems to me like musicians now are trying too hard to act like this, when it's really not suited to them. It's almost cringe-worthy reading the news about the newest generic pop star being caught smoking a joint. You almost want to walk up and scream 'IT'S NOT THE 80'S ANYMORE, YOU LOOK RIDICULOUS.' The likelihood of that having an effect is ridiculously slim.

I've been over how it affects musicians, but how does social culture change the music? For this, I'm going to compare two tracks. Different genres, yes, but I hope it will show my point. First of all My Funny Valentine. Here's the first part of it...

'My funny valentine
Sweet comic valentine
You make me smile with my heart
Your looks are laughable
Unphotographable
Yet youre my favourite work of art'

 Everyone knows this standard. If you were to look at the lyrics, it's about how beautiful and unexplainable the valentine is. It's about love and not wanting the valentine to change. Now, I'll compare it to Nicki Minaj's song, 'Stupid Hoe'. Let's look at the lyrics of the chorus...

'You a stupid hoe, you a, you a stupid hoe [x3]
You a stupid hoe, (yeah) you a, you a stupid hoe
You a stupid hoe, you a, you a stupid hoe (stupid, stupid)
You a stupid hoe, you a, you a stupid hoe (you stupid, stupid)
You a stupid hoe, you a, you a stupid hoe (you stupid, stupid)
You a stupid hoe, (yeah) you a, you a stupid hoe (you stupid, stupid)'

Just... Look at it. Really take it in. It's ridiculous. How did we get from My Funny Valentine, to this? What happened? If you were to look at the youth of today, it's getting bad. There's teenagers getting pregnant, kids stabbing each other, and Justin Bieber. I'm guessing it related to the audience again. When My Funny Valentine was released, it was probably used to woo some girl you wanted to marry. It had a purpose. It was done properly. Nicki Minaj probably got annoyed with some other dolled up 'popstar' and wrote this song. It just shows how things have gone wrong.

Culture may be a big influence on musicians and music, but there's another big influence too. Politics. We all know punk was created as a rebellion. Sex Pistol's God Save The Queen is probably the most iconic track of the punk era, due to it's tongue in cheek political message. It was like a protest they made money from. But punk wasn't the only protest music. If you listen to Hendrix's Machine Gun, you'll notice it's about the Vietnam war. He used a really cool thing where he had the snare drum doing a certain pattern which imitated a machine gun being fired. More recently, a band called Jeremiah Ferrari released a song called Mindless Riots. If anyone can remember, in 2012, London saw some extremely bad riots that happened for no legitimate reason. The track is about how stupid people were, breaking into shops and stealing what they could. I wish Jeremiah Ferrari were bigger than they are, because this track could make it so well.

Before recordings, people would buy sheet music. If you wanted to hear a song, you would have to learn an instrument and play it. If it needed more players, you needed a band. This all changed when vinyl came out because the people that made the record players, also made the record. They found it to be better selling thousands of copies of one song, instead of one copy of thousands of songs. It was also made easier with recording because you could make multiple copies to sell.

Seeing as there was no amplification when recording was created, it was extremely difficult to get a decent mix of the music. It all relied on the positioning of the band. For example, you would have the bass and guitar quite close to the source of recording, and the drums and brass further back. The vocalist would differ on position, depending on the power of their voice. Although, seeing as there was no amplification, singers were trained to sing as loud as they could so they would be heard at a concert.

The artists didn't make much money until Motown came about. Most of the money went to the promoter. Motown players were on salary, like they were doing shift work. Before Motown, players would make money on tour or for performances. Now, they were being paid to record on tracks. With the advance of technology, it was a lot simpler to record them too.

A big question is how did artists promote before the internet? It's a really puzzling idea. Nowadays, you can put a poster online and the whole world has access to it. Even people in a different county can see it. It makes everyone connected. But before this, how? Would they just put posters up in high traffic places? Would they use word of mouth? I suppose it's all of these things, but there's one useful tool that recording brought along. Albums. Albums made it possible to record longer tracks and were used for promotion. If you recorded a 45 minute album of 7 tracks, more people could come to see you play those tracks than if you released a 15 minute record. People wouldn't come to see you play 2 tracks and covers.

Albums or single that were released a while ago were tallied up to see which one sold the most for that week. We know this now as 'The Charts'. Usually, it's around 40 for some reason, but there can be as many as 100. If you think about it in present day, the Top 40 is useless because there are 100,000 songs made public each week. In the 50's, it was the Top 40 out of about 200. This proved it was what everyone was listening too.

In the future, I can't imagine how big a part the internet will play.  Already, most of the music bought is from iTunes, so where can we go from there? There's also streaming, like Spotify. You can easily download this on your phone, so music is everywhere. With the creation of Google Glass, I'm trying to think how they can incorporate augmented reality with music. Maybe you could download a video of a gig and play it through your Glass to simulate being there? Who knows. I think music is going to keep on evolving. They say things go in cycles, so maybe big bang jazz will come back and be the big thing. Let's see Nicki Minaj do that!