what is going on in your musical life

so...kind of unexpected, but I post random covers/singing to FB all of the time, and the leader of the local instrumental metal band Kaupe here, who I'm friends with, saw it, didn't know I sang, and wants to collaborate.

I thought it was just drunken talk but he came back w/ a track today that he wants me to work on. to come up with melody/patterns for screams/etc.

never done this before. any tips from anybody who has been on this side of the fence before?

Nope but sounds exciting and cool - good luck

I got recruited to play drums with some local parents in a sort of concept cover band that's doing 90s trip hop and chillout stuff like Portishead, Morcheeba, Zero 7, etc. with a few other mellow/moody things thrown in. Not 100% up my alley but I'm really enjoying it because they're good musicians and good people. That's kind of all I want from a band these days, people who are musically well attuned, nice to be around, and care about presenting something at least decent to the audience.

Also they don't play painfully loud which I love - reduced volume practices where I mostly use bundle sticks and brushes.

that sounds fun, after watching a bunch of Men I Trust concert videos, I'd really love to be in a band that plays music that is both super chill but tight and groovy

Man, try the Rute 505s. Subtler than rods but stiffer than wire brushes, and you can retract/extend them to get the right level of response.

I also like the Vater Whip and Meinl nylon offerings. Generally, for me, in acoustic settings, nylon has proven better than wooden rods (e.g. the ProMark Lightning/Cool lines).

I am the quietest drummer in my area, and I am extremely protective of that niche. I want to use real drums (as opposed to cajon or electronic kits), so stick choice and dynamics are key.

After nothing for a couple years due to covid we played a show back in february but nothing since then, until now when we've got two shows in one week.

The first one is at the dive bar place we've played a couple of times and I'm not to stressed about, but we're playing at a local farmer's market next Saturday (which feels very on brand for a group made up of middle aged university faculty) and I'm really nervous about that one because there will be a lot of people there and I will probably actually know some of them compared to the 10pm Thursday slot at the shitty club.

Also bandleader has slowly but insidiously injected enough of his jam-band-ness into us that we will be playing the trifecta - one song each by phish, the dead, and the allman brothers

Ugh
Which songs

Waste, Jack Straw, and Melissa respectively. I honestly don't mind but it's funny to me how they just kind of crept into our repertoire

I am attempting to share some demos with a record label, but I'm not sure what's the best way. I'm nervous about just handing over audio files and would prefer that they just preview the tracks with no downloads. I tried sharing private links from soundcloud, but that seems to confuse people.

Is this a reasonable concern or should I not worry about it? Is there another way to share a link to a stream without making the track publicly available?

I've always done private soundcloud, but I believe you can disable dls for a Dropbox link. There must be a way for Google drive too?

Bandcamp not an option?

I did a show yesterday where I sang “Master of the House” from Les Miserables, “I Like Myself” from It’s Always Fair Weather, and “Lucky To Be Me” from On The Town. I’m doing it again tomorrow afternoon.

I don’t feel like there’s a lot of risk in giving out audio files. What’s your concern, that they’re going to pirate them or something? If you share as mid-quality MP3s or something you should be safe from most eventualities.

...just throw some tags on there; sirens, "You are listening to a Moodles production", etc...

Subtle Moodles audio watermarking

I don't know if I'll do it but I like this idea

*future voice* 'if yung moodles dont trust you i'm gon shoot you...'

Lizzo (feat, Yung Moodles) - Watermarkin’

new faith/void lp getting recorded in january lfg!!!!!!

Looking back on my 'practice diary' posts over a year ago I can say it was a valiant effort but I was totally on the wrong track. Speed is a false idol, eliminating any and all tension was a much more fruitful path to pursue. It's scary at first because if your mechanics aren't right and you stop squeezing the stick, you basically can't hold on to the stick or play at all. But it's been a very slow process of figuring out how to let the stick bounce back while still having control and not squeezing or tensing anywhere (including, like, breathing and not gritting my teeth while playing fast). Things are finally starting to feel really good in my right hand for the first time ever though, it's exciting.

Also finishing a drums-only EP where my former drum teacher recorded all the drums, and laying the groundwork for a follow-up to the tape that came out this year, which is the closest I've ever come to being fully happy with a record.

Good wishes to you, Jordan. One of the most salient things about drumming (of any sort) is using the energy that's already there in the drum, sleeping like a seed in the wintry earth.

The tension of the surface - which you put there when you installed the head - becomes part of the momentum for the next stroke, and the next and the next. The elasticity of the skin between your thumb and index finger is also involved in producing the note.

It's physics and it's mechanics, but it's also a metaphor. Sometimes I think about this in a woo-woo spirtual way when playing a gig. I really only need to intentionally hit the drums once. The first beat of the first song. Everything else just logically flows from it.

That is part of why I don't really even remember most gigs. I start playing the first song, and the next thing I know we're done and it's time to settle the bar tab and load out.

It's been a year in the woodshed here, nothing really broadcast out. I got a third single with basic tracks done with a drummer with my bud from Louisville, but we have not yet did the overdubs to finish.

My guitar playing has definitely taken a few steps forward. I hurt my index finger on my picking hand a couple years ago and started using a thumb pick while it healed up. Working on it for a couple years now, using a thumb pick and doing some finger picking has become a thing. There are definitely some advantages to doing so. It's nice to not have to hold the pick and then have your hand free to work a whammy bar. I found a nice thick thumb pick and cool thing about this one is that I can use the index to use it to flat alternate pick quite well.

Working on some banjo rolls and claw picking a bit is a bit of a humbler and I can really appreciate how much of a mutant guitarist that Jerry Reed was in his day. You got to be a machine to really keep that stuff going.

The other angle that has been cool is that there is so much good lesson stuff on Youtube. I've been concentrating on triads and their inversions and working on them running up major and minor scales with the chords. Working on that and some shell chord shapes in scales is opening up the neck and I'm beginning to hear some things I did not get before. Been good to be this good when i was in my early 20s but alas I was a lazy fxct and could not understand this stuff back then. Oh well.

Rock on earlnash

Ha that's how I feel, would have been nice to have been good and comfortable (and to have had Youtube) when I was young and actually playing jazz gigs all the time. Oh well.

I don't even play drums but I love watching drummers doing those vids showing drummers licks, especially jazz ones. It kind of gives a visual to some grooves that I have never seen in person.

I also like watching stuff where people get into harmony and progressions by piano players.

Even if you don't play jazz itself, there is a boodle of information from people that are good at teaching out there in videos. They do the creators work.

Yeah, there's always something to be gleaned from the good ones. It was funny, I was scrolling on instagram yesterday and after some genuinely inspiring stuff from drummer Dan Weiss, a JD Beck video, and this woman who breaks down James Brown guitar parts, I clearly hit the end of my feed. It started showing me random shit like a girl playing along with an uptempo Charlie Parker solo on a keyboard while sipping a drink with the other hand to show how easy it is for her. Like, ok, that's the worst version of social media muso culture, chops without adding anything new or placing it in any kind of context.

I started recording drum breaks for a new sample pack yesterday and I forgot what a headfuck it can be. I'm going for something perfectly loopable with just the right tones and sound, so nothing else makes me put my own playing under such a microscope as I'm playing. Way harder than recording songs imo. The dynamics of each limb, hyperaware of any hit that's a little behind or ahead, etc. And then when I'm sifting for the gold later, it's funny that the parts where I remember really feeling like I had the flow and swagger aren't necessarily the ones that sound the best. Lots of good lessons there!

i've been taking a songwriting "class" (really more of a workshop) for a few months and i'm really enjoying it. bc of who is offering and teaching the class, it's pretty focused on traditional folk/pop/rock songwriting and not very understanding of more abstract song forms/lyrics so i take all feedback with a grain of salt. but it has been very useful in terms of forcing me to write something every week and allowing me to write songs that don't have to fit into the styles that i usually play.

that sounds fun and challenging!

this woman who breaks down James Brown guitar parts

Who is this woman? The link isn't working for me.

https://www.instagram.com/ella_rae_feingold/

I took my kids to a Kwanzaa celebration today and got up to sing “Deep River”. Afterwards, one of the band members asked for my number so he could contact me for possible tv/movie soundtrack gigs.

!!!!

that's awesome!

Wow, DJP, I wish the best for you.

Me, I had a nice moment tonight at the local bar where I did a Shane McGowan tribute (because I had to), "Navigator." My mother and sister were visiting so we did a John Dnevr song ("Today"), for sentimental reasons. Then I yielded the stage to my daughter who did a song solo. Three generations of puffins on stage at once. A first.

hell yeah djp

thanks to the songwriting class mentioned above, i have a glut of new songs that will probably not be recorded by my recording project, since we move pretty slowly and have three people writing songs. i might record some of them for a solo thing, but i also miss playing out. i was considering doing some open mics to feed this need, but i'm not sure it's right for me. i'm not big on performing just me with an acoustic guitar - i've done it a couple of times but i'm less interested in that. also i imagine that at open mics you're mostly playing for the other people waiting to play the open mic. but they probably all have different vibes.

nice DJP!!! that's awesome

I'm working on finishing up the tracks for an EP for this project I have called Renegade Priests (beat/sample/drum machine based post punk thing)

I'm also in a band again, playing bass, no band name yet, digging it, most trad thing I've done in a while very classic 80s jangle, early REM, New Zealand, etc etc

that band sounds rad ums!!!!

vocal parts/lyrics almost all figured out for f/v lp2, we might start recording with all the songs completed for once. we also figured out the title and the direction of the cover art and i’m so fuckin hyped about it. i wrote lyrics for 6/10 songs and they’re the best i’ve ever written imo. four agonizingly long weeks until i’m in the studio

Nice DJP. And NA, maybe you should host your own open mic/songwriting workshop with friends?

thanks ivy! it's been fun, i really like the songs they have and that type of stuff is a cool challenge on bass, trying to do little inventive things but you can't go ham and overwhelm stuff. the guitars/singing will always be the most important part of a band like that.

https://renegadepriests.bandcamp.com/track/i-dreamed-i-lost-my-hat

this is the best renegade priest song (for me) - ilxor cbesinger is the other member he does all the lyrics and vox, great lyrics imo which i cannot take any credit for

(uncleared and awkwardly edited fleetwood mac drum sample is me haha)

Had a real burst of creativity over the Xmas period and finished a bunch of things that had been floating around, unloved, for most of last year. Quite happy with the results - https://nowherians.bandcamp.com/

Last year I:
* replaced my old shitty synth with a Korg minilogue and i love it
* got a new gong
* played one show (solo, at a library, fairly well-attended!)
* continued practicing w my dad band and word has it that we have 11 songs now, hope to record properly in 2024
* this is not a lot but it's pretty good considering the pandemic/life stuff wiped out my musical life around Oct 2021

I made a playlist of songs I recorded last year, including a group jam w my campers/drum students from the summer, some songs that indicate I am dangerously headed toward Vangelis/MST3000 theme song territory, and what I think is a dungeon synth track in which I try to establish the microgenre of cronecore. Maybe I'm back?!?!!?

https://on.soundcloud.com/DfxFA

oh also celebrated my 10th birthday as a drummer

the playlist is the "good" songs (scare quotes intentional) -- i record them almost every time i practice. i think i am addicted to the instant gratification of hearing something immediately after making it.

I've thought about buying a Minilogue, would you recommend it?

lol cronecore. That's great LL!

I am very much trying to make cronecore happen, ngl

xp I love it! I am still figuring out all of the features/how to edit my own presets, but it's versatile, easy to use, and fun. I really like the visualizer display -- I didn't realize I wanted to see what my sounds were shaped like until I saw them. I bought a "pre-owned" (lol) one for $200 less than new too, and it showed no sign of any wear/tear.

Cool, thanks.