what is going on in your musical life

So think I finally more or less have got the melody and changes of “Ornithology” memorized. Getting bebop tunes under one’s fingers surprisingly or unsurprisingly challenging. Especially that one, since it has different versions, one apparently with new section endings due to Bus Powell. Wonder if any of you are actively playing jazz in any capacity at this point.

That's a great track, Karl Malone! And I get why you're so hung up on having that bassline heard - it's brilliant when it comes in.

thank you!

Don't have to go crazy, but there are affordable decent home studio monitors out there. The thing with monitors is that they don't really add or subtract anything to the sound they are reproducing at least not the same way regular stereo speakers do. Stereo speakers are tweaked to have a pleasing sound, so the speakers can emphasize bass or some other frequency to tweak the sound. It's like having an EQ on it. Play it someplace and the speakers will have a different natural eq and whatever the original speakers boosts or cut is gone. That is why the bass can completely disappear from differing playback sources.

It was explained to me as it is like a carpenter measuring with a tape measure that is always wrong.

I played with a friend of a friend's Ampeg V4 last week and now I want one. If only it was in any way reasonable to buy one and an attenuator just to get high and play stoner riffs over and over and over.

The Tech 21 VT Bass sansamp thingy gets pretty close. I know emulation doesn't necessarily scratch itches like that - if it did, I would own a lot less gear - but just sayin'. More reasonable than V4 + 410 + attenuator.

nowhere near as bad as what jordan's dealing with, but the drummer in the band i've been playing with gets into a LOT of drama on facebook. he's always on there at like 2 a.m. accusing people of stealing $5000 in gear from him eight years ago, his wife got into an argument with his former bandmate on there, etc. etc. nothing terrible but just makes me nervous about his ... stability i guess.

― na (NA), Tuesday, October 24, 2017 2:23 PM (three months ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

still playing with these dudes. no interpersonal problems/drama. we have our second show (with me in the band) in a couple of weeks and we're recording in april. i have mixed feelings about the project - we have some newer songs that came out of jams and the other guys seem to think they're done but they still feel half-baked and jammy to me, and while i like most of our songs they aren't really in my preferred style/wheelhouse. i think a lot of that comes from playing with people with different musical backgrounds/tastes than me, which can be good, but i'm used to playing pretty structured songs, not these looser jam-based things. on the plus side, i'm enjoying just playing guitar and being able to work on improving my guitar sounds, and they're all old with responsibilities like me so they aren't trying to play a show every other week or anything. i joined to help with their goal of recording their new songs, so i feel committed to it at least through that process, then i guess i'll see what happens after that.

My band have finally released our first mini album online: https://discozhivago.bandcamp.com/album/spatulon

dog latin, that is fun music! Frenetic and mannered and fun. I listened to Handle and the last, more atmospheric track. Getting a little Falco-ish vibe maybe? Sorry if that's reductive, but I say it with genuine affection.

me, I continue to have an acoustic 80s-cover trio, which has played a couple shows and a couple parties. Pretty much Blondie but with mandolin and banjo. Also working on some home recordings of mostly folkier stuff, I am playing all the instruments and hoping to find guest vocalists. Expecting to do more space-rock drumming in the near future.

thanks YMP, yes each track is quite different from the last. Most of the songs were written and recorded at home by ourselves over the course of quite a few years. It was slow and arduous and I'm already getting moaned at by the other members about this bit not being quite right and that bit needing changed. We have loads more stuff but I felt 8 tracks was enough :-)

Listening. It's sounding fun so far.

I'll have a new chamber piece performed by Hub New Music this weekend. Also, I got a preliminary recording of my 10-string guitar composition from the performer, which is sounding promising. I'm still struggling to get new electric guitar/laptop stuff ready for gigs in March.

Cheers Sund4r

lol just remembered that track 2 ends with the line 'I'm on the money yeah'

Good stuff DL! I enjoyed that. Will you hate me if I say the first song sounds like a Libertines tribute? Nothing wrong with that though, and on a whole I'd say you've really got your own sound down. Bookmarked!

oh man I'm not a fan of them. I was going mire for a punky Pere Ubu vibe but it's weird what you pick up from the sounds around you and the Libertines were a huge huge band for people in the town where I lived and their music was played in every pub I'd go in. I take it as a compliment :-) thanks LBI

You totally should! It beats 95% of Libertines own songs any way :) It's not a signature song by any means, but it's a great opener imo. Especially because the album really opens up into different directions after that. I'm really enjoying it.

i made this 4-track cassette tape collage over six months in 2017. i'm more proud & satisfied of it than anything else i've ever made. i got totally immersed in it and near the end of my self-imposed deadline, i almost didn't want to let it go, because it was the most fun i've ever had making something. there's around 800+ distinct edits & sound sources. i hope some of you listen & like it...
THE STREETS ARE HOT TONIGHT

^^^ nice man!

i put a bunch of 'beats' i've made over the last cpl years onto one of these online beat stores tonite, i don't even know if it's a good website in any manner, i just didn't want them collecting any more dust. some of them were songs i produced with vocalists that never got released so i reclaimed the music from them, and a cpl are just plain old beats of various genres.

http://www.firstdub.com/producer/autologico.html

i dunno. anyone have any experience selling music online in one of these kind of things? wonder if there's something better i could be doing.

i dig those beats! i don't have any experience selling beats, but i know a lot of people do it thru soundcloud & twitter via people they already know and building a following online. but i only have a peripheral awareness of all that

glad you liked STREETS... working on the b-side now, SIPPER OF TEA. gonna put out a tape in a few months

Made a bunch of cassettes with different covers and pretty pleased with how they look

https://f4.bcbits.com/img/0012236483_10.jpghttps://f4.bcbits.com/img/0012236488_10.jpg

Sounds okay too, abstract field recording stuff if anyone wants to listen to that sort of thing https://automating.bandcamp.com/album/einstellung-zwei

they look great! I bet they sound good too. I'll take a listen.

ya i listened to that last night, sounds great!

i'm thinking about becoming one of those guys who, instead of hitting the distortion pedal in the loud parts, has the distortion/overdrive on all the time and uses the guitar volume knob to change level of distortion. feels classier. but i wonder how hard it'll be to train myself to do it.

What if you want a sound that is both loud and clean though?

Personally I want to be able to have a consistent level of loudness but with varying levels of dirt. Especially for fingerstyle bits, where I'm quieter and need more volume (but don't want distortion).

I always play with my volume knob at 10 and uses pedals (if any) to control volume. I understand it though, unlike ever putting your tone knobs anywhere but 10. why would you do that? Always sounds like shit.

If you need loud and clean to match your loud and distorted by a boost. Handy little buggers.

I tend to get all the toanz the same apparent volume (clean, dirty, weird), and use a boost for solos. So there are eight options:

- clean
- dirty
- weird
- clean + loud
- dirty + loud
- weird + loud
- weird + dirty
- weird + dirty + loud

Not sure how I would get to that array of options with the "everything dimed and control it from the guitar" approach, but I wish NA the best in the quest for tonal bliss.

A limiter?

EZ, we might just be talking past each other - NA was talking about not stomping on anything at all, right? Just cranking everything and controlling it with a pinky from the guitar.

Yeah, I was mixing your comments with his and trying to answer a non-existent question. Story of my life.

Agreed to do a dj set in Chicago that starts at 3:30 am, because as crazy as that sounds to me now, I'm sure with each passing year it will sound crazier and less appealing.

Also finally taking the plunge and using CDJs.

ha ha there is maybe a 1.4% chance i'll go out at 3:30 a.m. but let me know the details anyway

I started an instagram for posting short clips of me doing (so far) covers. It's a really easy and immediate way to put music out there without it having to be perfect, and it's helping me sort of break through the ice on singing/playing for people who don't already know my musical side, since it means friends from other parts of my life wind up seeing my clips. Just trying to learn to give less of a fuck at this point.

Plus I don't even have to even have an entire really good take, just a good 45 seconds or so.

I have a sort of slow funk song I'm working on that I'm proud of but it's being let down by some very dry, stiff-sounding programmed drums. Does anyone here have a way of recording drums that sound halfway realistic and would be interested in hearing it?

my musical life is stunted
i had been working so hard for so long and then things just kind of fell apart
i still have active long distance recording thing, but the IRL playing opportunities have all sort of vaporized -- one person i had a couple shows with has been very busy with other priorities in her life, and that's about all i had going on. i would like to revive my musical life, so that is my goal for this spring/summer. i have been working hard and playing for 5 years in june; can't stop now.

on the upside, i am getting my musical fix by teaching a class about music at work, which is both gratifying and educational. i've learned a lot too!

dog latin: I sometimes start with a drum machine as a guide track, record all the other stuff, and then overdub real drums as a last step. (And delete the original drum machine bit.)

The result sounds pretty bandlike to me, but it is kludgey and time-consuming. Happy to help if you like.

Wish I could DL...I did a drum session for some guys last weekend, and we got a pretty good sound in their living room (also one of them went in the basement with his iphone to get some trashy room sound through the vents). It was a pleasure to be able to record drums that someone else was going to edit/mix, and it was pretty much in my wheelhouse (focusing on sound & feel, nothing too technical, just replacing programmed beats & breaks to a click).

LL I think it always comes in waves, but I guess putting yourself out there and talking to people always helps. 5 years already!

yeah 5 years already! in june technically.
now for the real problem: i have real difficulty with the concept of "putting myself out there" for a number of reasons, not the least of which is the stigma against self-promotion. i don't need to go on about the shame and stigma of self-promotion among music-making people. however, if i don't do it, no one will come to me; unfortunately every time i try to do it, i recoil internally and stop before i even start. then there is the feeling of begging for attention, which has been trained out of me over many years. i'm not really sure how to reach out without feeling this way, like i have no idea how to do it. i feel like i need advice from someone who knows me & gets my perspective and situation, but ???

you're right though, it does come in waves. i am not having one atm but like i said, i am getting a decent fix elsewhere in my musical life.

LL, to me you are a hero for passing on to others what you know/love. The courage to do that is laudable - so is your general air of humility and wonder about it... being eager to exchange information with your students and cast out a net for suggestions.

Personally I spent a decade working frightfully hard on composing original music, recording almost every instrument myself, teaching it to a full band, and finding gigs at which to present it to the public. I love it but the cost/benefit ratio is way out of whack.

In contrast, my current ninjacoustic trio - beloved 80s covers but using folk/bluegrass instrumentation - is relaxing and fun.

Thanks! It's so fun too -- I went on outings with students on Sunday night (to see a string quartet play Wadada Leo Smith's borderline incomprehensible compositions about Marian Anderson and Ma Rainey AND talk about them at the cost of $5) and Tuesday (to see a house band play for swing dancers at a legendary Chicago venue). The only student who kvetched about it (and not even directly to me) was the young woman who spent her 20th birthday seeing string quartet free jazz with her mom (who is also in my class and reported the kvetching) <3 good times imo <3

i'm not really sure how to reach out without feeling this way, like i have no idea how to do it.

There's definitely a lot of people clamoring for attention, and social media really amplifies this. I have the same issue, but I realize, that in the context of the "news feed" you just blend in with everyone else (unless you go about attention-seeking in a very dramatic way -- which I also have seen plenty of), and you shouldn't feel shame or like you stick out in a bad way.

One thing I think is useful is to be specific about what you are looking for. Are you looking for collaborators? Are you looking for gigs? Are you looking for gigs for a specific project? And if you are contacting people, or just doing a fb post "putting it out there" people tend to respond to specifics, rather than more general things, where you will get "likes" and "hearts" but little actual action.

and in my life -- I have now been booking music in arts venues for 19 years, on and off, mostly on. I keep saying, "okay this is the last one" and then I get pulled back in ...

that's good advice, thank you <3
i know i have more luck getting things actually done by talking with people in person than via social media.

Performing tomorrow. Don't feel ready yet.

Just finished mixing my fifth record

Had a meeting with the label and they're saying "January 2019"

I feel sick to my stomach, lazy, stupid, but also happy that I might get a vacation this summer

daer fgti's label, ur slow coaches

grats though!

That sucks, but I've been enjoying the time between finishing the thing and the thing coming out. I always feel like I can't truly start on another record until the last one has been released, so it's nice to mentally let myself off the hook from feeling like I should be making music. That's obv a long time though.