what is going on in your musical life

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OAizj1BuAMw
We must do our alma mater.

https://watt.cashmusic.org/writing/institutionalizationofrock

― Canon in Deez (silby), Sunday, March 14, 2021 5:33 PM (yesterday)

this was a good read, thanks silby

― Zach_TBD (Karl Malone), Monday, March 15, 2021 2:50 PM (two days ago) bookmarkflaglink

I was excited to read this but found it pretty disappointing.

Idk if this is the right thread to discuss in any detail?

probably not

but i don't know. honestly, most people like me just don't post. if they don't know, they just don't post. i have the poster's disease of just posting, even if i don't know. i don't know. beats me

I think it would be best to dig up a relevant thread or start a new one. I'm sure there are more and better pieces on the topic.

Yeah, the article annoyed me, as was probably clear, even if I am all for 'institutionalising' any music (which is m/l the status quo in this country anyway). I could expand on another thread.

"annoyed" is exactly what it made me feel. I kind if want to start a new thread for saying 'no' to that article point by point.
Are you a professional music instructor, Sund4r?

I am, yeah.

dunno where to put this so it's going here

There’s a point in your life we’re you’re sat at work and the new starter tells people he plays guitar and someone says “ oh. Andrew used to be in a band” and you’re sat with a tie on and your wedding trousers and just feel terrible and they say “ he played Banjo with Muse”

— a.remote.viewer (@anewlinerelated) March 19, 2021

So I've made my wee bandcamp page and I'm going to try to organise my music into EPs or something. I was just wondering, when you lot are making music do you think about it how it would sound in the context of an album/EP or whatever or do you just treat each track as it's own thing?

So far I've just been taking each one as it comes and sort of starting afresh each time. I realise there's no right or wrong way of doing this, I'm just curious as to how other musicians think about these things.

bandcamp is the best platform IMO.

music streaming services' rise has precipitated a trend away from album releases and toward a steady drip of singles. obviously the album format is not going away, but maybe it's worth mentioning because it could mean there's less need for an album to break an artist, along with an increase in pressure to churn out more tunes. seems like it's publish or perish for the pop world as well as academia.

anyway i just think one track at a time. i'd been planning to cut a 2-tracker, but a catastrophic data loss event befell me, TWO very new laptops died for no apparent reason, and i was left dead in the water for several months as a result. i forget where i read that 2 is the ideal number of tracks for an EP, but it resonated with me. tons of dance music EPs suffer from filler tracks and remixes.

in my musical life i recently taught myself how to make tech house and came up with this track... or maybe it's 90s house. it samples paris is burning. i wish i could clean up the mix a bit, but all the data recovery software in the world could not bring back the session files, so the bounce of the ruff mix will be final: https://soundcloud.com/808mixtapes/davey-shindig-nerve/s-63y9hCl1kAA

shortly after i made that, i went through a cluster of tech nightmares and stopped making music for 4 months. just got back to it in earnest this week.

I think with an album/EP you just know. When I was writing and recording stuff last year I had about 20 files that I had been working on over the first three months, and I found that some began to make sense together in a way that others didn't. I had one or two that I really liked that didn't "fit" with what else I was doing.

Listening to a playlist of them on shuffle helped me a lot in terms of thinking of sequencing and intent, but I don't think it's as important these days. People might play your album or EP sequentially once they've bought it, but if they go on to your actual Bandcamp page the first thing they'll hear is your selected track.

also davey I really like that, Paris Is Burning can seem like such an obvious source of samples but I love what you've done with it

thank u boxedjoy! i couldn't not sample it, it's cries out to be sampled.

it***

a week worth of xp's paolo:

Yep, thats me. Back in the dubstep days I had a couple of vinyl releases, then put out various releases / remixes out digitally on Tigerbeat6 / Noodles (Si Begg's label) / Studio Rockers / Rocstar and quite a few smaller ones.

I eventually went down the whole 'build a room full of music kit and do it all on hardware' route and promptly ended up down a procrastination black hole (and the day job started taking up a lot more time), and didn't even send out tunes fornquite a few years.

I finally bit the bullet recently and went back to just a Macbook and a few choice bits of kit and that EP I posted is the first result :D

*for quite

Personally I'm always thinking in terms of albums & EPs, but it's more like 'how many tracks can I get out of this particular concept/technique/gear setup'?

If it's extremely fruitful, then it's an album, but that's only really happened a few times for me. Often it's only two or three tracks before I exhaust that avenue, then it's either an EP, or I pair them with another set of tracks that can plausibly fit together, and then I'll specifically make a few more to bridge the sonic gaps (which can be inspiring in itself).

(btw Willl I'm curious what those choice bits are)

@ Jordan - its all long obsolete stuff that I've had knocking around since the 90's atm, all actual sound generation is coming from the Mac:

Akai S2000 with a flash drive containing every drum break chopped up, only really used for jungle bits / timestretching, or to overload the inputs and then sample back to Ableton.

Soundcraft Spirit Folio 12 channel desk, literally used as a 12 channel distortion pedal to feed multiple outs from Ableton, saturate and mix together, then resample back in the box.

+ Roland Octapad Pad 80 for drumming fun + electric piano / knobby controllers etc.

Davey that track above is nice

thank u paolo-san

I have another general music question that doesn't have a right or wrong answer, and here it is: do you lot usually finish a track that you've started or do most of them get abandoned?

I've been making an effort for the last couple of years or so to finish just about everything that I start. I think it's quite common for new producers to give up on tracks early and I stopped doing that after reading a tip for beginners saying that it's generally best to finish something even if you're not happy with it, because if you don't practise finishing music then you'll only get good at starting tracks off. This can get quite frustrating though because obviously when you're working in a DAW you can go over and over something for ever and sometimes it's just not worth it, but then again sometimes it is. So I'm trying to get a balance between persevering with something and realising when enough is enough and it's time to drop it.

I definitely have a fair amount of unfinshed stuff on my hard drive. If you've never finished something, that sounds like good advice. However, it's fine to cut bait on something if you aren't feeling it!

Once a track gets past a certain point I almost always finish it. I think it's a good skill to recognize when something isn't worth fixing though, when to just move on. I have plenty of sketches that just didn't get off the runway.

I can only think of one track in the last year or two that was borderline, it went through multiple total re-writes, but I was too in love with the main beat to give up on it (even though everything I added to it made it worse for awhile).

I'm very bad about losing interest in quality tracks before finishing them, I find that if I leave it too long, I just have a very hard time getting into the headspace where I was excited about the track in the first place

my general strategy has been:

1. start working on something
2. forget about it for 10/15/20 years (delete where applicable)
3. rediscover it around the time ILX does a pre-cover project
4. slap some Garageband loops on it and call it done

lol

There really is something to be said for re-sampling and mangling abandoned sketches/tracks though, once you've forgotten about them and they feel like they've been done by someone else.

i don't have nearly enough patience or skill to try and make music myself but i'm finally getting excited about building a collection of dance music again since the stimmy is paying for my new pioneer controller and i might be able to dj at a function by the end of the year.

My knowledge of how to edit tracks is still very rudimentary so if I record it live, that means it’s done.

no reason, but at this point, do you think it's more effective (in terms of getting people's attention) to put stuff out on a bandcamp day, when lots of people are already listening and buying stuff on bandcamp, or a day or two before a bandcamp day, when things are less saturated?

You could put the release up a few days before as a pre-order w/some preview tracks, then release on bc day? Then you get the announcement + release notifications.

It's a cliche, but I think artists are probably sensitive people, and I recognize two dominant responses to criticism. One is to develop a runaway self-critical sense, for better or worse. The other is to develop a sort of callousness that allows some people to produce piles of work unobstructed by judgement. Both approaches have their own stigmas, of course.

But there is a deep feeling of failure and inadequacy that I associate with not finishing things, and that feeling is constantly at war with my own desires: to keep things pure in potential, to resist confining the work to a particular 'outcome', and a sense that nothing is ever enough.

I'm trying to think if i've ever heard an unfinished version of a wotk in progress that the finished version actually improved upon.

Beatles anthology has a few dozen

Lol, there's definitely a ton of stuff i haven't heard in any incomplete form tbf

The pandemic has eventually been good for my drum practice, it was rough for awhile there but enough time with the pad has eventually led to solving some dumb technique issues that have always plagued my weak hand. It only took 25 years! Very on brand for me, I have way more persistence than talent. :)

Not that I can play everything I want to play all of a sudden, but everything is sounding much more natural and even, and I'm actually looking forward to some gigs that are scheduled for this summer/fall.

rad! that is encouraging because i bought a drum set (and a sensory percussion setup) last april... and i thought it'd be like riding a bike, but no, i can't keep a steady beat like i used to. i've failed to practice in favor of working in the DAW. maybe i'll start putting in a little practice time on the regular. persistence gets u further than talent imo.

would you... happen to have any recommendations for a (2nd-time) beginner on where to begin for practice? i'd rather not pay for lessons. maybe i'll put headphones on and try playing along to some funk jams until i'm back in the groove. that's what i did when i was 10 and got my first kit. man, small kid time it was so easy to pick up technique on percussion.

Cool! I don't think you really need to pay for lessons these days, with all of the available info on youtube.

What kind of music do you want to play, or what are you interested in improving? For hand stuff, I like to practice on the pad and keep an eye on things like having as little tension as possible everywhere, making sure the stick is resonating (that I'm not gripping it too tightly), that they're both moving in a natural arc, etc. Mostly because I've had some profoundly bad habits in my weak hand for years, which I imagine aren't a problem for a lot of people.

For time, playing to records is great, especially records with programmed beats. I especially like to play swing and triplet stuff over, like, metronomic techno or whatever. But it's also good to just practice with a metronome where there's empty space in between the clicks (and much harder).

For beats & ideas, just looking stuff up on Youtube or listening to records? And really, the answer is whatever seems fun at the time or inspires you to keep playin.

don't forget that this thread exists, lots of good advice already in there imo DRUMMERS: Advice for a beginner

I think the first time around, I just listened to songs and tried to make more or less the same noises.

A couple years ago I thought it would be good to do some actual practice-pad practice. So I'd do like paradiddles and whatnot. It may theoretically have strengthened my playing and/or my time. But as far as I can tell, in actual performance I just turn my brain off and move my arms, playing more or less what I always would have. Which is almost always adequate for the purpose. I dunno.

https://musicthing.co.uk/composing-with-tape-recorders-by-terence-dwyer/

Downloaded this, have to get my tablet working to read the PDF - physical copies are $$$$$ on EBay and Amazon

I was hoping HarvardX or coursera or one of those things would have a experimental music class but a quick search didn't find much.

XP i'm looking to play funky stuff... mostly steady not-super-fancy grooves, and some fancy fills here and there. thank u all for the tips, and for that link. i'm gonna try all yr recommendations and promise myself to put in 30 mins every time i go up to my li'l studio. :):)

first band practice in a year and change

i am........... euphoric

best day of my life really

:)

Congrats! It’s still illegal to play music with other humans present (unless singing in church) where I am. Haven’t had a full band practice since feb 2020 or any rehearsal at all since October.

My band is practicing on the 3rd - we played in the singers driveway last fall but we’re all double vaxxed so can actually play inside together for the first time since we played a show in February 2020

I'm making progress on the guitar and can now play reasonable halting facsimiles* of:

Blackbird
Just Like Heaven
True Faith
Inbetween Days
Fast Car
Mother
Get The Message
I Feel You
High Hawk Season
This Night Has Opened My Eyes (kind of)
Here Comes The Sun

* very simplified versions, not the exact guitar parts recorded, except for Blackbird

I also recorded a very short solo in an Ellington piece one of the groups I sing with is doing for a virtual concert at the end of the month.