Category: Music

I have had this site up for over a year…

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And I only have 20 posts (soon to be 21 with this one). I will make an attempt to post more and more. Since my band is currently in the midst of a ton of interesting and fun projects, I will try to make note of it here.

Current projects in the work…  our next EP,  Misanthropic Metropolis, has had us in and out of the studio for a few months. Doing final vocal tracking when we can get Brandon and Steve into the studio. I haven’t heard anything since I finished tracking bass for the EP, so I hope it sounds great after the guys finish the vocals. There have been talks of sending this to get mixed and mastered because having 4 audio engineers in the band could cause some butting of the heads when it comes to how it should be done. Aside from that, we are planning a tour for May with our buddies in Do As The Romans Do. And we are going to try to get a music video filmed in the coming months.

So the band front is really busy.

The personal work front has been the difficult part. I don’t have a consistent job, I am not doing anything outside of the band that is audio related, and I have a ton of bills.

That’s alright though.

I plan on doing a follow up Steve Jobs post, even though it is a bit late, but I’m still hoping it isn’t too soon.

Final thoughts heading out, I have been taking lessons and practicing new techniques on bass and I find that taking lessons, even if not in a musical rut or even if you are pretty confident in your playing, really helps you improve in ways you might not even expect. I suggest to everyone to take a lesson from time to time from a very skilled musician. And not just from the same guy. Take lessons from multiple musicians that play the same instrument with a different style. It helps so much!

Writer’s Block

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As some of you folks have experienced, writer’s block is just a straight up terrible thing. You get stuck in the same old rut and you try to push through it but nothing in your mind budges.

I’ve known some people that get through it by writing a bunch of junky, unusable tunes until they hit some spark and they go from there.

One thing I found to work for myself, is to play a different instrument for a while and play that instrument only (unless you play a specific instrument in your band or whatever). Playing a different instrument and forcing yourself to play it for a while will get you thinking differently about the same music that you write. I always have a guitar and a bass handy and I play the guitar with a pick and the bass with my fingers. When I’m not in a rut, I’ll play both interchangeably and do whatever I want with them (mostly meaning I play guitar with either my fingers or any one of various picks, and bass with fingers and/or picks).

This used to be especially successful when I also had a drumset or my keyboard handy. I am currently without the drumset and my keyboard is being used by my younger brother so I have been limited to the stringed instruments, but I eventually will get me another for use in my studio and also for me to get rid of my writer’s block.

Another good technique, is just listen to new music and pick out things you like and just learn how to play it on every instrument you own. It can give you some insight into how someone else plays and what their creative moments have lead to, which could also spark some sort of creative fire within you.

This is what has worked for me so far, and I am interested in finding more ways to help me become a better musician all around. I hope this helps one of you folks.

It has been a minute, but there are new things in the works.

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I know I am an infrequent poster on my own blog, over the course of 2 years I have only really managed to pull together 20 posts and only kept 14.

I will begin to make every attempt to post at least weekly to share what I think is important, not just for me, but for those people that I work with in the local music scene.

Today will be a sort of weak one right now. It is sort of about me and a few friends. My band is kicking it into high gear once again, because now I’m no longer holding the band back from a learning the music standpoint, we are able to focus on getting ourselves ready from a business standpoint. So those that are interested, prepare to see DDM doing more things more frequently.

I personally will also be writing more tunes and whatever does not make the DDM cut will end up being put towards my solo project where I will be responsible for all music and instrumentation with guest vocals from my friends in the local music scene.

In the meantime, I will be searching for a better paying full time job so I can begin to accumulate the gear necessary to make my job as a bassist easier. And once that is complete, I will begin to accumulate more studio equipment and hopefully get things ready for the future.

More info soon and later, I will be doing gear reviews/opinion pieces on currently existing gear to equipment in the works.

Successful weekend of playing music and recording

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Lucky me.
I spent the entirety of my weekend with my head in music.
First my band Debbie Does Malice played a great show with Do As The Romans Do, Reflections, and Vessels for Our Ghosts to celebrate a huge amount of birthdays. And second, I spent all of yesterday in the studio with Reflections to track drums and bass. Tonight, I’ll be recording guitars and vocals. I even get to try a fractal audio axe fx. More info tonight.

Attracting Attention From NonFriends to Become Potential Fans

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When most people start or join a band, there is a stage when most of your “fans” are your mom and assorted other family and friends. At some point during your tenure with said band, you are going to want your “fans” to include more than just the folks you know personally and actually have fans that don’t necessitate quotations around the word defining them. What goes into building an actual fanbase?

There are many factors that aid in this fan gathering, one of these factors that is surely the most influential is sounding not bad. This should be obvious but many people overlook this factor and inevitably get themselves a record deal and become multimillionaires. The sorry sorry saps…

Another large factor is doing things that will make people familiar with your name and spark interest in your band. A common way to do this would be to perform live shows with more recognized bands of the same or similar genre. You want to sound exactly like everybody else because this will cause people to mistake you for bands of a superior stature.

And finally, one often forgotten factor that will help your friends lists numbers and facebook likes is keeping in touch with the people that already like you. Word of mouth is a very powerful tool for bands. You want your fans to tell the world that you are the best and all music is simply an ant compared to your amazing-ness because fanboyism does not cause any annoying results to listeners.

But in reality folks, you do want to sound good, you want to play shows, and you want to satisfy the people that do like you, because building relationships is extremely important to success – whatever that may be for your band or group or solo project. Don’t step on toes and reject potential fans because you feel your group is better or somehow playing to the wrong crowds. People are generally filled to the brim with various tastes and likes. I know I, personally, like all sorts of music. I’m not simply limited to listening to metal. I do like to play metal and heavier music a lot because it gives me a way to vent any angers and frustrations in a constructive and creative way keeping me cheery and fun at all other times, but heavy music is in no way my only outlet.

I think playing these songs that help me enjoy my life substantially more to a crowd of people that actually want to listen is another way to justify all the time and energy that goes into being a musician. The fame and money of years past are long gone for most but it isn’t for those reasons that I play music. It’s simply because I enjoy what I do and having the opportunity to make a positive difference in other people’s lives while at the same time making a positive difference in my own life is worth any and all of the struggles – including doing all that I can to share my creativity with more and more people every day.

I hope all the musicians reading this feel the same way I do.

Now get out there and make some good music so I have something cool and new to listen to! I’ll do the same for you!

Standing, shaking, frightened and rocking?

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I have always wondered what the sensation of being in the spot light and being the focus of attention would be like when I was a youngin’. I thought it would be so awesome to have everyone look right at me and actually desire to see what I have to offer. I always played guitar because it seemed so cool to be able to create things that people actually enjoyed hearing, so naturally, I wanted to play in front of people after getting better.

The first experience playing in front of people that were not friends and family was an extremely scary one for me. I did not expect that I would be so worried about standing in front of a bunch of people and doing something I’ve practiced thousands of times before.

But I did…

My knees shook and my hands began to sweat. I could not look away from my guitar and up at the staring faces. I played and winced as if I were in physical pain for every mistake I made – which made me make more mistakes. The whole time I felt like just leaving mid song and never come back. But I didn’t want to let down my band mates, I was the only guitarist and the music we played would not be the same.

So I suffered for the entirety of the first two or three songs. But something happened.

I started to ease up on the terrible feelings I had. I looked up and saw people jamming their heads and moving their bodies. I loosened up and started moving around a bit more and the feeling turned into something different.

I can only describe that feeling as the ultimate bliss…

 

Years later, this feeling of fear has turned into a form of rush that actually turns my energy up several notches and leads me to playing more aggressively and more eccentrically purely for entertainment. What was once an almost debilitating fear is now an adrenaline rush.

No more stage fright.

The basic feelingdoesn’t go away but with some conditioning, you can turn the jitters into something positive that will end up making you perform better. The real issue is making it past those first few frightening shows, because you can’t avoid it, you just have to make it through them.

There is not a wonder solution to the issue, you just need to change your own mindset, which may be extremely difficult for some.  But the reality is that the key to a strong stage performance is to convince yourself that you are amazing at what you do.

I can tell you that after just getting up on that stage and telling myself that people want me to play that I have become more and more capable of having fun doing what had initially intrigued me as a kid. Sharing the things you create with others is an experience I hope everyone gets to have at some point in their lives because it is unlike any other. Stage fright is a real issue but it isn’t something that has to stay forever. You can essentially choose to be without it, you just have to know how to believe.

The quality of streaming video!

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I’m so happy that the quality of video being streamed is of much higher quality than it once used to be when I first started watching videos online. Back whenever that started to be a cool new idea, I remember that even stuff that was DVD quality before it was thrown on the web somehow manage to turn into three or four color squares that covered 90% of the play window.

Now on youtube, you can see stuff in HD!? I know this happened a while ago, but I’m just starting to recognize its worth to me.

Now, whenever I’m flipping through the millions upon millions of useless videos, I can easily spot the crap and avoid it. That has always been my problem…

Sometimes you wont know it is crap until it stops and starts suggesting more videos of the same kind to watch – NO!! I don’t want to watch any more like this because they apparently decided it was a good idea to not make “shitty video” one of the tags. So I waste hours of (arguably) valuable time to get maybe 10 minutes of entertainment.

I’m also glad that when I get on youtube and want to listen to a song, it is usually really easy to find and there are some good options for the official and live videos of the artists’ performances.

I still run into the usual garbage like some guy putting a chopped video of his cat playing with a ball of yarn put to the soothing sounds of cannibal corpse.  But it is becoming rarer to see that sort of thing. I don’t think I ever see those crappy cell phone videos of some band that an idiot apparently felt was worth sharing with millions of people that don’t care.

To celebrate, I shall link to a video of Paramore performing a song called “Careful” from their album brand new eyes through the youtube channel of their label, Fueled By Ramen.

Just want to make a comment on the video itself, it reminds me of that old random saying that fads repeat themselves, simply by the presence of skin tight animal print pants. But I have a feeling musicians have been and always will be huge fans of animal print tights.

One final word: Custom picks are in!

The start of summer…

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Usually I’m really happy to get away from school, I usually look forward to the freedom of doing anything I want to without any deadlines. But I have found that having this structured mess called IPR in my life makes everyday pretty fun. Sure, there is a lot of tough homework and tests can get on your nerves, but how often do any of us music nerds get to spend so much time with other like minded nerds?

I haven’t seen so many talented people in one place.

I have never felt totally right with the people I spent time with until now.

I have made a lot of friends. Maybe some enemies- don’t know until there is an attempt on my life. And I have just met some really cool people that don’t mind sharing some of their knowledge with someone who wants to know more.

Take advantage of this IPR goers. You probably will never have an opportunity like this where you can meet people of extremely different interests and be able to get non-smartass answers about their area of expertise.

Can’t get enough Metal…

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To come from these fingers. I need to practice practice practice. But that isn’t just me, you all need to practice too. You can’t expect to improve without some effort. My problem right now is that I have again fallen into my old trap. I have started to focus more on technique then on writing. Sure a really heavy part sounds great but if it appears to come from nowhere, it really doesn’t matter how cool that one part is. I need to just jam out, no more of this, “where can I insert finger tapping and sweeps without it sounding TOO cheesy?”

That issue aside…

I have fallen in love with my seven string guitar again. It is just so mean and it has a great eighties hair metal lead tone if I want it.

My goal for this summer is to get my own PA system. A new amp for the guitar, and maybe even a new 7 string. Longer scale, more chunk, maybe some sort of alder body super strat with some corksniffer pickups in there like some BareKnuckles. But BareKnuckles aren’t worth it if I get some cheapy 7 or even in my current Japanese made 7. I’m not going to cheap out on my next 7, simply because what sort of variations on a seven would anyone really want? If I just got one really nice 7 make specifically for tight clear and big sounding metal, I wouldn’t need any other 7 again. That isn’t true for 6 strings. You can get 9 entirely different guitars and you still could be unsatisfied with the overall diversity of guitars. Also, One nice metal 7 can replace a glam rock 6. It would accomplish the same thing if you used the appropriate amp settings.