Archive for the 'Music' Category

The Other Band That Had T1000′s Brother

Published on March 27, 2011 in Music. 0 Comments Tags: , .

So here’s a brief history of my (re)discovery of Nine Inch Nails.

Firstly, my older brother Dave was into industrial music. I’m not sure to what extent, but I remember him having self-printed posters of Front 242, Front Line Assembly, a Nitzer Ebb album, and Nine Inch Nail’s Downward Spiral. I mean, he was definitely more into your regular alternative rock stuff from the mid 90′s, but I guess he must have dabbled a bit in the industrial scene.

Come to think of it… I wonder how he would even discover these bands? Maybe some real real old online bulletin/message boards? Magazines? Ancient shit.

Anyways, I remember when the video for Closer was getting a lot of attention. I distinctly remember hearing that song a lot when I was kid. I remember thinking that it was really really catchy. I remember the video being one of the strangest music videos I’d ever seen.

I also remember seeing the video/hearing Head Like A Hole. Again I thought the video was really weird. It was sort of seizure-inducing with the rotating robot head thing + really short cuts in between. Also, I remember the song being really catchy.

Then I remember when I moved to the States, I’d started watching MTV. They always had these programs on like Saturday and Sunday afternoons. They would go over controversial videos, or events, or some whack shit that went down in previous years MTV awards. So I remember them going over Madonna’s sex book, her “Erotica” music video, George Michael’s “I Want Your Sex”, and somehow Closer got thrown in there too. I guess tey had banned it or something. They would only played a censored version during the day or something. And I don’t mean like… they cut out FUCK, I mean they cut out several sections of the video that were too controversial.

I distinctly remember when The Fragile was about to be released. I think I’d JUST really got into music then. My CD collection was at either zero or maybe 2 albums. I remember there being so much hype around the release of the album. Double-album, follow-up to their hugely successful The Downward Spiral album. I remember thinking about going to Walmart and buying it lol. But I chickened out or something. When I was first getting into music I felt like there was some weird judgement thing going on when I’d go up to the cashier with this CD in hand. So I rarely bought CDs. Nowadays I take a lot of pride in my music purchases.

I remember a few music videos being released for The Fragile, but I don’t remember them getting a lot of play on MTV. Every so often I might see the video to March of The Pigs on VH1, but that wasn’t even from The Fragile. I’d randomly hear references to the band and Trent Reznor in pop culture (Eminem? Stick nine inch nails between my eyelids). I’d started to get this vision in my head that they were some really deranged band. All their music videos up to that point were pretty fucked up visually. I’d hear about how Trent Reznor was some super dark, depressed, secluded, introvert guy. He was beefing with Marilyn Manson around that time too I think.

Then several years passed. I moved back to Canada. I tried to get into their stuff again during high school, but I guess my obsession with crazy guitar virtuoso shit made NIN sort of useless to me. Sure they had some heavy songs, but all the guitar parts were really simple. I couldn’t listen to the songs for more than a couple minutes. No repeats. And so many of the songs were these weird long drawn out pieces with real quietly whispered lyrics lol. I really didn’t understand what all the hype around the band was all about. I used to listen to the 102.1 The Edge’s History of New Rock with.. I forget his name. Real good dude though. Real good radio program. Some of the episodes would have references to NIN. And my respect for the band grew a little more.

Some more years passed. Again I’d never really hear much about the band. I’d see weirdos in NIN t-shirts. I associated those weirdos with the same weirdos with Tool t-shirts. I thought of them as a band with fans with stupidly elitist standards. And I was trying to get away from that (even though I was very elitist with my taste in music at the time). At the time I felt like NIN fans were just stupid angsty post-gothy types. You know? Dressed in all black with eye liner and shit. Spiked boots and shit lol. They’re all fucking tools.

And just about a month ago I was reading an article on a blog I’ve been following for a while now, This Recording. There was an entry about how a lot of people go through a NIN phase in their lives. And they documented the several stages of fandom. It was interesting. And it gave me a sort of idea of who these NIN fans really are. And I became interested in learning more about the band and Trent Reznor. I was also really interested because I’d recently watched The Social Network and remember the score being really outstanding. Trent Reznor was nominated for an Oscar around that time too (which he ended up winning).

So I went on Youtube. And went through a lot of music videos. Revisited the ones I’d already seen. I felt like I could appreciate them as art rather than a form of promotion for the music and the band. I read up about the band’s history. Learned about how T1000′s brother was in the band, why he left the band, how Filter was formed, Trent’s involvement with Marilyn Manson’s career, and Trent’s struggles with the media and the music industry over the years. I’d watch a bunch of interviews from 15 years ago. All very interesting. Trent wasn’t really at all the person I thought he would be. He would mention how he found himself starting to turn into the person that the media would portray him as. And how that got him into a really bad spot. And you can see elements of that in his interviews from the late 90′s. And then in more recent interviews he seemed so much more relaxed and not afraid to just be himself.

Did I mention the musics REALLY good too? lol

I guess since I’ve personally gone from an instrumentalist/musician role to a producer role, I’ve really come to appreciate NIN a lot more. There’s so much going on in the production. And the mix of sounds are really interesting. Mixing in heavy distorted tones with electronic elements.

I recently acquired the entire discography. I’m really into The Fragile right now. I wonder what would have happened if I’d bought the album back when it came out. How would my taste in music differ? Maybe I would have gotten into music production before guitar virtuosity?

Something Out of Nothing

Published on February 8, 2011 in Music. 0 Comments Tags: , .

I was working with an artist a few nights ago. We laid down a basic skeleton for an idea. And then for the first time I actually watched how another artist worked in their creative state. How she came up with melodies/lyrics/flows.

I’ve worked with her several times before but our work flow that night was a bit different. Usually she’ll have a basic melody and I’ll find the key and an appropriate chord progression. I might lay down a basic drum idea, and then I’ll start playing around with the chord progression. Meanwhile, she’ll be doing her own thing coming up with lyrics/melodies. And it sort of feels like we’re in different creative bubbles when we work. Even though the same music is playing in the background, and we’re both working off of that, I’m mostly paying attention to my part and she’s mostly paying attention to her part. I’ll slowly figure out parts I want to play over certain sections as the basic progression loops, and she’ll start typing lyrics into her laptop and reciting bits and pieces. Sometimes she’ll be like “Ooo that’s so sick! Did you hear that?” And I’ll be like “Nope. I was too busy hearing my own shit.”

But  was a bit different this time as I laid down a bunch of different ideas before she started writing anything. Basically, my part was done for the time being so instead of trying to develop more on the production side as she came up with the lyrics, I just watched how she worked and how she came up with her ideas.

Coming up with something out of nothing. It’s magic. It’s inspiring.

I got to observe exactly what her routine was. Sometimes sifting through old lyrics for inspiration. As new ideas came she would write them down. But after a few repetitions she might filter them out. From a third-person perspective it seemed so methodical and even a bit tedious. So many ideas would get scrapped, but the end product would always be on point.

I guess I too have a similar procedure. It’s a bit different though because I’m working with instruments and instrumental melodies rather than coming up with lyrics and their associated vocal melodies/rhythms.

Come to think of it, it’s actually sort of weird (and perhaps amateurish) how I’ve only recently seen how an artist I work with works. In all my past projects I would send an idea to the artist and they’d come up with their part at home, and a few days later we’d record it. I would never get to see them in their creative state.

So I need a video for this post. I was thinking about recording some video footage of us working in the studio, but decided against it.

Instead, I’ll refer to YouTube.

A few nights ago I found this old documentary on YouTube about Stevie Wonder’s 1980/1981 USA Tour. It showed a lot of concert footage, behind the stage footage, and footage of Stevie writing.

In this clip Stevie lays down a basic idea of a song.

Trigger

Published on January 27, 2011 in Music. 0 Comments Tags: , , .

One of my favourite aspects of music how you can recall/trigger memories just by listening to a song. With certain songs/bands that I listen to, I associate a particular time period in my life. And it reminds me of whatever emotions I was feeling at that time. For instance, whenever I listen to Slayer or old Metallica songs I’m reminded of how it felt to be some weird outcast long-haired kid in high school. Or if I listen to… lets say… the soundtrack to Aladdin (no I don’t actually have the soundtrack) it brings back childhood memories of watching the movie on VHS at my cousins house.

Depending on how much I listen to a band, their music might trigger multiple memories. I’ve been listening to a lot of Depeche Mode recently. I’ve been listening to them since before I was even trying to listen to music.

My earliest memory that triggers is at 7 years old (I’m estimating), I’d hear my brothers playing this music. At that time maybe it was Music For The Masses or Violator. I remember hearing a lot of Songs of Faith and Devotion too. I remember hearing it playing out of my brothers rooms. I remember hearing it from our Hi-Fi system in the basement.

Side story. I think both my brothers bought Violator on CD. Like seriously. You couldn’t share the CD? You couldn’t live with a dubbed copy on cassette? We even had that many CD players in the house? I swear we only had one CD player in my house at that time. So unnecessary.

Side-Side story. Same thing happened with The Joshua Tree. I think they also both had it on cassette too lol.

Anyways.

I also have the memory of re-discovering the band on my own. Time travel to Napster era. What would I download? Firstly a bunch of songs I heard on the radio, then some songs people told me to get, and the finally some songs for research. I remember remembering that I liked some Depeche Mode songs. So I’d Napster search for it and get a couple of random tracks. You know? Research.

And then I’ve also got this memory of being a stupid teenager and listening to their 101 live album from their Music For The Masses era. And then all the albums following that. It was all some depressing shit (musically). I think it listened to it to compliment my usual listenings to death metal. I like mixing in some SAD/DEPRESSING with my ANGRY. Sometimes you need a break from “sand-in-a-blender” distorted guitar tones, double bass pedal patterns, and the Cookie Monster.

There something about their music from around Black Celebration until about Exciter. I don’t really know how to describe it in my own words. I read a comment on YouTube (I was researching videos for this post), and it mentioned “every time I hear this song I feel a wave of emotions”. Sounds cheesy, but I’m going with it. It’s weird because its such a massive change from their early career which had a lot more of a happy/synth-pop/dance vibe. I’ve read up enough on the band to know what might have caused the change in their sound. Their sudden popularity in the US following Music For The Masses. The growing tension between the band members (eventually leading to one of the members leaving the band). And of course…. drug habits.

Come to think of it, I feel like a lot of modern bands these days don’t have that sort of element to them. I rarely ever hear about a band who suddenly became popular, and the band members dealing with some conflict of becoming “too big” and struggling with depression, or developing a terrible drug habbit. A lot of bands from the 80′s and 90′s had their greatest days were when key members of the band were strung out on coke/heroine or something like that. But maybe I just don’t listen to enough modern bands or maybe I just don’t pay attention anymore. Or maybe…. the whole rock star lifestyle thing isn’t appealing to musicians these days.

Anyways

I also listen to new Depeche Mode and it’s alright. I still prefer their material from the late 80′s and 90′s over their real early stuff or their very recent stuff. I mean, I don’t wish they were all fucked up on drugs or something, but their music from that time period I’ll always favor, and I wish they could somehow get back to that.

I’ve suggested to my brothers that we should go see them live. I have a feeling they’ll stick to a lot of their classics.

Anyways. Clip here. I would have used a YouTube video, but Warner Bros Records is being lame and won’t let you embed their videos. And I really like this song and this video, so I had to refer to stupid Daily Motion.

Depeche Mode – Only When I Lose Myself

Little L

Published on January 3, 2011 in Music. 0 Comments Tags: .

Well apparently I haven’t been making enough updates. It’s been a few weeks since the last entry. All of the sudden its the next year, and things are looking up.

Okay time travel back to about 1997.

The year I moved to the US was the year I started to discover music on my own. Whatever was on the TV and on radio I would absorb. I’m pretty sure it was that year that Jamiroquai was getting huge accolades for their Virtual Insanity music video.

Years passed by and I assumed they became a one hit wonder. Eventually I’d come to discover they’re actually doing quite well for themselves. Even before their breakout single, they were acid jazz innovators. And they’ve been steadily releasing albums every couple of years. And it’s all super funky.

I’m still working my way through their discography. This is one of my current favorites. Listening to this has become part of my daily routine lol.

 

Damu The Fudgemunk

Published on December 2, 2010 in Music. 0 Comments Tags: , , .

So far I’ve went through the history of how I got into production and how I got into metal. With the release of Damu The Fudgemunk’s Supply For Demand, I guess nows about the right time to get into how I got into hip hop.

Going from long hair and Morbid Angel t-shirts to crispy line-ups and fitted caps is certainly a strange transition. Identity crisis? Maybe. Maybe one day I’ll move out West, get into country music and start sporting cowboy hats and shit. lol

Throughout most of my teenage years I wasn’t that into hip hop. Those were my metal days. And most metal heads were all about the “YOU CAN’T SPELL CRAP WITHOUT RAP” slogan. On top of that, since getting into thrash metal and “real” metal, I grew a hatred for Nu Metal aka Rap + Metal. Linkin Park? Hate em. Limp Bizkit? Hate em.

It’s not like I was completely ignoring rap music in general. In the early 2000′s rap and hip hop was all over the radio. Some of it I liked, most of it I didn’t pay much attention to. I might have downloaded a few tracks here and there, but never really bothered researching about the artist, the producer, the influences, the roots of the whole thing.

This is going to sound super lame, but I didn’t get into hip hop until the release of Jay-Z’s The Black Album. That in combination with Kanye’s College Dropout which I think dropped around the same time frame. So this is like… Grade 12 for me.

Late start. I know.

Oh hold up, hold up. I just remembered. Why did I even bother downloading (yes downloading) those albums?

The summer before Grade 12 I was introduced to Samurai Champloo by one of my old friends from the US. It’s an anime about a trio who…. I don’t even know what. They roam the country-side of Japan? Battle dudes? Stuff like that. What I really got into though was the OST. I was doing a distance-ed Online Grade 12 Biology course and used the OST as my study music. The music was just so chillin’. It was hip hop beats, but very minimal. I looked into it more discovered that most of the music for the series was made by a Japanese producer by the name of Nujabes (RIP). My early style of hip hop production was heavily influenced by Nujabes. I’ll likely dedicate another entry just for him too.

When I finally got into hip hop production my starter toolset included Reason 3.0 and Recycle 2.0. I’d check up forums as usual. And by this time YouTube was getting real big too. I’d watch videos of big producers talking about using the old MPC’s, SP1200′s, and ASR10′s. I had a few favourite YouTube producers. One of my favourites is this producer based out of Washington DC who guys by the name Damu The Fudgemunk. His videos were simple. He sat in front of his old MPC2000 in his grimy basement setup, loaded up a beat from floppy, played it, and sometimes would use the mute groups function. His videos were a lot different from other YouTube producers because he wasn’t showing off his ability to make a beat in 10 minutes. He wouldn’t show you, but you could tell his took a lot more time with his beats. The MPC2000 only had 2MB of memory! Just think about how small the sample time on the MPC2000 was! You really had to plan your shit out. You really had to know your breaks. The whole vibe of his music was just so hip hop. Breakbeats, grimy vinyl samples, and scratches. His stuff sort of made me want to pick up DJing too.

Anyways. It’s been several years since I became a Damu fan. When I first followed him all he had was a YouTube account. Then he formed a group called Y Society. I copped the CD and the vinyl for their debut release. Since then he’s released a bunch of instrumental compilations, and just recently released another solo project (which I also copped).

Supply For Demand. Check it.

…And Justice For All

Published on November 18, 2010 in Music. 0 Comments Tags: , , .

I’m almost embarrassed to admit that once upon a time my favourite band was Metallica. It’s kind of like how I’m embarrassed of the pictures of myself in my high school grad year book where I have hair down to my shoulders. It’s kind of like how I’m embarrassed that I used to have vinyl stickers of metal bands plastered all over my guitar. It’s kind of like how I’m embarrassed that I’ve collected all four Metallica action-figurines (not dolls).

:::Brief hater-lude:::

I hate getting into bands late. I got into Metallica in late 2001, early 2002. They hadn’t had a real album since Reload, which was considered a sellout album. Actually it was their sellout follow-up to their real sell out album, Load. Or if you’re super hardcore, you’d say something crazy like the Black album was the sellout album. Either way, I got into Metallica post-sellout, but pre-suckass. Yea. I got St. Anger the day it came out, and it blew chunks. But for the sake of anti-hate, I’ll focus on the good stuff.

:::Anti-hate commencing:::

I’ve always been a fan of music forums. I mentioned it a bit in my previous entry. In the early 2000′s there weren’t any music blogs, so my main was to discover “new” music was through music/musicians boards and forums. One of the first forums I hit up was the Tabcrawler.com forums. I originally went there just to grab and print off guitar tabs when I was first learning guitar. I was mostly into pop-punk and a bit of 90′s alternative rock. I learned all the standard songs every beginner learns. I mastered power chords pretty early on too lol.

Somehow I got turned onto the forums side of the site. I first started to read up on guitar gear, amps, bands, random shit. I slowly stopped listening to some much pop-punk and started to get into metal. Late 90′s/early 2000′s metal was defined by nu metal bands like KoRn, Limp Bizkit, System of a Down, Deftones. I would detune my crappy Squier like it was a 7-string and learn how to play to these bands. Then on the forum I learned that the “real” metal heads hated on these bands. So I started looking into the “real” metal bands from the golden era of metal.

Thrash metal. The big four. Metallica. Megadeth. Slayer. Anthrax.

Except for Anthrax, I made my way through all their shit chronologically. I started up with Kill ‘Em All and slowly made my way through all of Metallica’s albums. I’d get all the Megadeth and Slayer stuff too. I was buying up all their live DVDs. I was downloading every live video I could find of these bands playing on Kazaa. I was buying these ridiculous Metallica action figures. I was growing my hair out to my shoulders. I got an ESP LTD EX-series guitar because James Hetfield used an ESP Explorer. I swapped the pickups to EMG actives. Basically, I was real into it.

I loved how the songs were so much more complex than any of the pop-punk songs I was learning before. I loved how the songs were so fast compared to the slower/groovier style of the nu-metal stuff. Most of all I loved how intensely hard it was to play the songs. I really respected these bands as high level musicians. I respected that James Hetfield could play all the rhythm parts of Battery, ALL DOWN PICKED. I respected that Kerry King and Jeff Hanneman’s rhythm parts would make my hand and arm cramp up, and that no one could ever transcribe their fucked up solos. I respected that Marty Friedman and Dave Mustaine would trade impossible solo’s every other section in Hanger 18.

Getting into thrash metal really forced me to practice guitar. Inspirational? Certainly.

I was playing through most of Metallica’s “….And Justice For All” album tonight. I didn’t bother to look up any of the tabs. I mostly just went off muscle memory and ear. The old school metal heads used to debate Master of Puppets vs AJFA. I always went with AJFA. Some say the mix is terrible because of the prominent “smile” EQ, but I never really missed the bass. The guitar riffs are killer.

Listen.

Djent

Published on November 11, 2010 in Music. 0 Comments Tags: , , , .

A brief history on how I came to discover djent.

I first heard about Meshuggah when I was in grade 9. I went back to the US that summer to visit friends and also went to Ozzfest, aka my first non-free concert aka my ears were blown the fuck out. Seriously my ears were ringing for days. We were sitting right up at the front, near the right side, right next to a giant stack of PA speakers. I think I incurred some level of hearing loss because of that concert. I didn’t catch Meshuggah that year, but I’m pretty sure they played the previous year. There was also some mention of them on MTV too. I remember hearing something about “Heaviest band EVER” and “heavy for the sake of heavy”. I actually think it might have been in an episode of The Osbournes. This was a long time ago, so I don’t remember it so clearly. But this isn’t really that relevant. I just wanted to state that I’d heard about them several years before I actually bothered to listen to them.

At the time I really only followed bands from the New Wave of American Heavy Metal. The big 80′s thrash metal bands like Metallica, Megadeth, Slayer. If you asked me what my favourite album was at the time, it’d be a toss up between Master of Puppets and …And Justice For All. Even though I got into these albums 15-20 years after they first debuted, they really defined my taste of music in my high school days. With time, I’d eventually explore the many sub-genres of metal. One of the big milestones is when I started to get into Swedish death metal.

Towards the end of high school, I was really into the Gothenburg sound. Bands that came out of the Gothenburg scene like In Flames, Dark Tranquility, Soilwork, Arch Enemy combined melodic guitar riffs with brutal death metal vocals.  I’ll admit it took me a while to get used to the vocals. Most people can’t get past them. The first song I heard that had the growlish/screamish vocals was Arch Enemy’s Enemy Within, and I absolutely hated it. But I appreciated the fantastic guitar work and musicianship. Focussing on that guitar work, the vocals eventually became tolerable. And then somewhere along the line I actually started to enjoy the growls. By the time I got into Morbid Angel felt like I’d built up a high tolerance for extreme vocals and dissonance. I had no problems going to sleep listening to Altars of Madness.

And so it was around this time that I started to get into Meshuggah. They aren’t death metal. Their style has the extreme sound, but the focus is really on the polymetric rhythms. Most of it goes over peoples’ heads, and most of it goes over mine too. So I’ll try to explain this as simply as possible. The drummer plays a kick and high-hat pattern in 4/4, but hits the snare to a 5/4 beat. You do this for 20 beats and you’ll hit a reset, and the loop starts over again. This gives the music a sort of hypnotic feeling. I can’t begin to understand how the drummer is able to keep to different time signatures in different limbs, playing to different time signatures than the guitarists/bassists. Hell I can’t even play the weird syncopated stuff the guitarists do.

The best I can do is program the polymeters using a drum machine. A lot of the musicians you’ll find on the Meshuggah forums take this approach as well. In fact a lot of the bands on the forums started off as a one-man-band projects. One dude in his bedroom, with a Line 6 POD, Cubase, and Drum Kit From Hell samples. Minus a lot of nice outboard gear, this basic type of setup is the core of what Meshuggah would use for a couple of their albums (drum kit from hell samples and all). As their projects grew, the better “bands” were able to fill out and find drummers, bassists, vocalists.

It was in these forums that I first came upon the word “djent”. It’s derived from the mid-range heavy guitar tone you can find on Meshuggah’s Destroy Erase Improve. You palm-mute and hit the strings of a guitar hooked up to a modern metal amp like a dual/triple rectifier or 5150, boost the mids plenty, and what you get is “djent”. It’s also what a lot of these bands that came out of these forums get labeled with. These days, I don’t listen to as much new metal bands as I used to in my high school days, but the ones that I do listen to seem to have been influenced by the “djent” movement. Everyone’s using weird syncopated rhythms. They’re going crazy with

Anyways….

Looking back, I’ve realized how much of an impact the forum has had on me. I probably wouldn’t be producing/recording/mixing it it wasn’t for the Audio Recording and Shameless Self Promotion and Band Spam sub-forums of the Meshuggah forum. I started off recording covers back in high school, and always went to the Meshuggah forums for advice on recording gear, EQ-ing, software, and general feedback. Seeing and hearing what these guys in their bedrooms were able to achieve really inspired me. I idolized guys like Acle, Bulb, Chimpspanner. I’ll definitely do separate entries on their respective bands in future entries, but until then check out the Meshuggah forums.

Official Meshuggah Forum

Since I’ve included a video in every entry I figured I should keep up with that. So here’s my favourite Meshuggah music video. New Millennium Cyanide Christ.

Kaleidoscope Heart

Published on November 4, 2010 in Music. 0 Comments Tags: , , .

It’s strange to think there was a time when I had absolutely no interest in music. Stranger still, it was during this time that I first learned how to play piano. In retrospect it’s easy to understand why I quit piano lessons so early on. I had no interest in music. Piano practice was a chore. At the time the only music I listened to was whatever I overheard playing out of my older brothers’ rooms. It was the early/mid 90′s so I was mostly only exposed to alternative rock. That was the “in” shit back then I guess.

It wasn’t until my brothers moved out, and I moved to the US with my mom and dad that I started to discover music on my own. This was slightly before Napster hit it big, so my sources of finding new music were limited to music videos I saw on tv, music I heard on the radio, and music I heard people talk about.

Sidenote: I remember in 5th grade kids were asking me if I knew about Biggie and Pac, because for some reason maybe Canadians didn’t know about them lol. Really though, I never heard of them until they asked me because my brothers listened to alternative. The only rap music I knew by then was like Coolio, LL Cool J, and I’d probably seen Run DMC with Aerosmith in a music video somewhere.

So what I’m trying to say is the way I discovered music when I was first getting into music was through MTV’s TRL and VH1′s Top 10 countdown. I remember every Friday after school I’d be checking VH1′s Top 10 Countdown. To me, and a lot of people I know in my age group, the pop music that got pushed out during the late 90′s/early 2000′s is pure nostalgia. I’m talking about Marcy’s Playground, Tal Bachman, Sixpence None The Richer, BSB (lol), Goo Goo Dolls, Savage Garden. I’m talking about whatever the hell was on the latest NOW! compilation cd (or Big Shiny Tunes for you Canadians). My brothers generation had alternative rock. My generation gave you a choice of pop punk, the beginnings of widely commercialized (aka pop) hip hop, and girl/boy bands. Everything went pop.

I grew up listening to Top 40 pop music. It’s ingrained in my musical DNA. I eventually abandoned it, and found myself listening to the heaviest of heavy metal I could find, the elitist of elite progressive rock, then the most grimiest of grimy hip hop I could find. But still I’ve got a soft spot for well-written and well-produced pop music.

So today’s source of inspiration is an album by a pop singer-songwriter. You’ve likely heard Sara Bareilles’ hit single Love Song on some commercial on TV (I’m thinking Apple most likely). Her follow-up Kaleidoscope Heart debuted at #1 in the US.  I don’t ever hear her music on the radio or TV, so I thought this still deserved some shine. I just got the album about a week ago, and I’ve really been enjoying it. It’s a nice break from the weird combination of prog metal and jazz I’ve had on loop for the past month. Her style reminds me of Fiona Apple, Sarah McLachlan, but with a bit more pop-rock.

I really wish I could improve my skills in purely pop song writing. I feel like working on hip-hop forces me into a loop-based mind frame. It starts with one hot drum loop. Layer it. Remove bits, and replace certain sounds with other sounds. Take the same drum loop, alter it a bit, switch up the melody ever so slightly and you’ve got the chorus. It’s easy. It’s why people seem to be able to bang out a track in less than an hour.  Working on metal/prog metal is different. It starts with riffs and there’s no restriction in terms of song structure. You want to write a 25 minute epic? People are down for that.

With pop music, you’re stuck with a very formulaic structure, something along the lines of intro-verse-chorus-verse-chorus-middle 8-chorus-out. You won’t find much deviation from that. It’s different from hip hop because your basis isn’t a hot drum loop. It’s different from a metal/prog song because you’re not trying to write the most difficult riff ever or the most elaborate song structure. With pop it comes down to a catchy melody. And beyond that it’s about the arrangement and production. Adding in layers of acoustic guitar, strings, horns behind piano melodies. Getting just the right amount of reverb in the main vocals. The ooh’s and aah’s layered on top of the vocals. The barely audible harmony layers. Creative use of effects like adding a bit of vibrato to a piano breakdown section so it sounds like an old out-of-tune honky-tonk piano. It wasn’t until I started to work on production that I started to pay attention to these details. Pop songs are simple and catchy, but there’s a lot more going on than you think.

Listen.

Autumn Leaves

Published on October 30, 2010 in Music. 0 Comments Tags: , , , .

I’ve been stuck in a sort of writer’s block for a while now. I’ve been trying to wait it out. In the mean time I’ve been re-working my guitar skills. Ever since I started to focus more on the production side of things my guitar skills have been decreasing and decreasing and decreasing.

I picked up The Jazz Theory Book by Mark Levine a few weeks ago. I felt like I needed to put in some more time into learning music theory again. It’s been so many years since I’ve had any sort of theory lessons. I think the last time I had lessons was in grade 11.

I also picked up Creative Guitar 1: Cutting-Edge Techniques by Guthrie Govan at the same time. I actually downloaded a PDF of it before and read the first few pages, and thought it was pretty insightful. I was starting to get tired of reading off the super bootleg version PDF though. There’s a lot of good stuff in there that isn’t just scale exercises, finger dexterity, speed exercises. Just a lot of practical advice on how to improve as a musician. Most of the exercise stuff I’m pretty much past, but it’s always nice to have more variety of exercises for warm-up. I might just need to pickup Creative Guitar 2.

One of the best things I picked up from these books is the idea of constantly transcribing music. I never really bothered to do it before because there’s always tabs available on the internet. So recently I’ve been trying to work on picking up things by ear.

It helps train the ear, and also helps me appreciate the track that I’m trying to transcribe even more. Right now I’m working on Cannonball Adderley’s rendition of Autumn Leaves. I have it stuck in my head all the time now. I wake up and I hear this in my head.

1st

Published on October 29, 2010 in Music. 0 Comments Tags: , .

New blog

Not too sure exactly what I’ll include in this blog. I know for sure I want to include music. I want to include original stuff, and songs that inspire me as well. Or just whatever I’m listening to I guess. New discoveries. Stuff I’d want other people to get exposed to. Stuff I feel deserves more exposure and recognition.

Should I include daily personal stuff? Dunno yet.

Should I try to use proper grammar and stuff? Dunno yet. So far, not really. Look at these sentences. They’re not even sentences.

Oh. Why another mind? Yea, it’s sorta biting Arun’s style. I like the duality of the blogs. And at the same time, Another Mind is an album from an artist I’ve been recently really been getting into.

Here’s a live version of the first track off Hiromi Uehara’s Another Mind. Enjoy.