It’s the time of year for holidays… and vacations!
Songs and Sonics is also taking a vacation. Happy holidays, and see you in a bit!
-Jeff
December 21, 2011
December 20, 2011
Trick #64: Start a musical daybook
It’s a new year, a new beginning. You’ve got a clean slate — what are you going to do differently this year?
My suggestion is to try making a musical daybook this year.
What’s a musical daybook?
Think of it as a diary where you can work out whatever musical or artistic issues you’re grappling with.
It can be a place to store little technical tricks that you might use (or reuse) in the future. Or reminders of things that worked. (How you got that perfect guitar tone, for example.) Or a place to store how-to information from web sites, books, and magazines that you’ve come across. Or a mish-mash of all of the above.
If you’re ever feeling a bit creatively lost, or if you want to see how much (or if) you’re growing as an artist, it can be illuminating to look back at older entries.
Besides, after keeping a musical daybook for a while — like, say, ten years — you never know if there might be enough material in it to turn it into a blog one day. (Hint: you’re reading it 
)
December 19, 2011
Interview: Gabrielle Aimée
Pop singer/songwriter • actress
What are you up to right now, music-wise? Current or upcoming recordings, top secret projects, etc.?
Well, I started learning guitar this past May and since then, I’ve been writing a ton. I’m writing on my own and the music I’m working on is all vocal and acoustic guitar based. The music will be on my next record, which is being produced by Wheatus frontman Brendan B. Brown. We’ve already started experimenting in the studio with different mics and I’m sooooo excited to record these songs. I’ve also started playing guitar at my gigs, which is mega-stressful. I love it but the stress is exhausting — I keep wondering, why am I doing this to myself? But I can’t stop.
I also just released my first record, which was produced and co-written by the awesome Leo Sidran. It’s available on iTunes and Amazon and I’m really excited to finally have it out in the world. It was a long time in the making!
Does your best songwriting come from active, conscious thinking about what a song should say?
No, I wouldn’t say that it does. My ideas can come at any time, but usually they come in the morning, sometimes before I’m totally awake, and sometimes while I’m still sleeping. I always have a dictaphone and a pad handy so that I can record my ideas whenever they come. I could get an idea for a lyric or melody while I’m on the subway, or even watching TV. Sometimes I sit down with my guitar or at the piano and some chord catches me. I try not to involve my conscious mind until after the initial creative impulses are out. I feel like if you have to plan what a song “should say” it’s probably not as true as what would just come out when you’re not looking.
What are some of your likes outside of music?
I’m an actress. I love dance. I’m also a very enthusiastic foodie. I love Food Network and when I have time, I’m fairly awesome in the kitchen.
Could you provide a little bit of context to your featured song?
“It’s You” is a song on the self-titled record I just released. It’s one of the few songs I’ve written on piano and I think it is definitely influenced by the jazz standards I listened to growing up. It was also recorded the day I broke up with someone. It was a pretty raw day, but I think that was a good thing.
Listen to the featured song!
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December 18, 2011
Trick #63: You DO care
“Any artist who says, I’m gonna write and play what I want, and I don’t care if anybody likes it, is full of s**t.” -Quincy Jones
If you’re honest with yourself, you DO care if anyone likes your art.
It’s OK to admit that. It doesn’t mean you’re a sellout.
Marc Sirdoreus said a similar thing on this blog back in September:
You see, I understand to an extent when people say “I made this music for myself, and I could care less if you like it”, but that begs the question: “Then why did you go through the trouble of mass producing it”?
I can see that it was fun to write the song in those situations, and it was probably fun to make the demo, too. But why’d you bother showing it to anyone? Wouldn’t it have been more effective to make the creation and hoard it if you are unfettered by anyone’s reaction to your art?
December 17, 2011
Trick #62: Interesting to make != interesting to listen to
One way to determine if a slightly off-kilter idea might be artistically successful is to find a similar idea and ask yourself, “How does this make me feel?”
For example, let’s say I have an idea to make a mix CD for someone, but it’s not an ordinary mix CD. (I admit — I came up with this trick years before it was passe to make mix CDs. Just bear with me for a moment.)
This mix CD has segues, overdubs, and weird transitional effects. Not quite a DJ mix, but something similar structurally.
And I decide to provide no song titles (so the listener can’t prejudge anything), no silence between tracks, and no complete songs — only snippets and abbreviated versions.
On one hand, something like this could be fun to make.
But what if you were the recipient of such a CD?
Would the style/format frustrate you?
Note the difference/gap between something that would be interesting to make and interesting to listen to.
The ideal project should be both.
December 16, 2011
Stocking stuffer: Korg Monotron
Here’s a nice stocking stuffer for the synthesizer geek — a Korg Monotron!
They can be found online for around $30. I’ve not used one, I don’t have a need for one, and I have no affiliation with Korg — just thought this was a cool little gadget.
December 15, 2011
Trick #61: Create the world you want to live in
Create the world you want to live in.
Do it through your music.
For example, I’d written a song called “Hey Lancaster”…
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…which was inspired by some old friends I had lost touch with — and missed.
A few years later, they were serendipitously back in my life. I’m not even sure how it happened.
I credit the song.
December 14, 2011
Giving it Away: How Free Music Makes More Than Sense
I’m not a fan of Spotify because I can’t see it being a part of a sustainable business model for non-touring recording artists.
Songwriter Derek Webb articulates this position in a must-read blog post, Giving it Away: How Free Music Makes More Than Sense.
What do you think? I’d love to hear your thoughts below.
December 13, 2011
Trick #60: It’s not about you, it’s about your perspective
While you’re not writing about you, write from your perspective.
How do you find your perspective?
Carry a notebook around all day and jot down all the weird fleeting thoughts that go through your head. Those thoughts point towards your own unique perspective.
And if you can translate the attitudes of those thoughts into a song, you’ve created something that is uniquely yours.
Except you’re not actually writing about you — you’re writing about your audience, but from your own skewed perspective.
Get it?
December 12, 2011
Interview: Tom Stuart from Cold Blood Club and Radio America
Alternative songwriter • guitarist • vocalist
In your experience, do the best-written melodies seem to be generated by an instrument or separate from one?
Separate! Always separate!
I find that any time I venture to write a tune (whole or in part) while staring down at an instrument all I see are notes and scales that I have seen before. Confronted with that — even just the muscle memory of playing chords — I find that I never get too far. At best, anything I’d write with a guitar in my hands or at a piano ends up turning out as derivative as I would fear.
Instead I prefer to collect melodies in a sort of undisciplined way. For some reason or another, something might pop into my head walking down the street (this is my favorite sort), in the shower, during a film, etc. If it seems to have merit then I find it’s not hard to remember it and so I sort of set aside all of these melodies for a rainy day. Then, when I feel like writing something — e.g. maybe I come up with a lyric or maybe even a title I like — there’s a slew of melodies in the back of my mind that I plow through to try to find one that seems like a best fit. Sort of like picking out the right suit for the right occasion.
Do more songs come from sitting down and working out your craft or from a flash of inspiration?
I generally don’t ‘try’ to force myself into writing anymore. At least I haven’t for a long while. And I don’t really ask myself where the ideas (melodies/lyrics/dynamics) come from. I couldn’t care less, to be honest. It’s enough for me to know that I hear music and enjoy making art and that that music is just sort of there, like an imaginary stuffed elephant best friend is to a toddler.
Actually, I was watching the FX series ‘Wilfred’ the other day and I couldn’t help but thinking that I identified with the character in a kind of uncanny way. The talking dog thing is a pretty good metaphor (or is it allegory? — I can never get that right) for that kind of internal, creative voice. Whether or not you choose to interpret that voice constructively or destructively… that’s on you, I suppose.
As for craft? For me that’s another side of the equation entirely. Inspiration comes and goes. Craft, to me, is what I talked about before when I was like, “Hmmm…how do I marry these lyrical concepts to this beat I have in mind and with whatever melody I have in the kitty…” Putting that all together feels like craft to me. It’s applying a million little lessons you’ve learned over the course of trying to write every piece of music you’ve ever tried to write, or more often, heard and loved and dissected. Whether you’re building a chair or cobbling together a pop song, I think craft is about the application of knowledge to art.
How autobiographical are your songs?
Meh.
I’m not sure that I am too interested in autobiography. At the same time, I only really can make good music out of things which I feel passionate… so I find that I inherently write ‘what I know’. So I guess I feel like the songs — the ones I finish and bother to perform — are personal, but personal to me without having real narratives. Narratives kind of bore me; which isn’t to say that I don’t think narrative songwriting is bad, but it’s just not my jones I guess.
Every so often I will look back over a lyric sheet or hear a tune that’s been recorded by one of the bands I’ve been in and I’ve written for, and think “Holy f**k, I was saying [x] and being very deliberate about it, wasn’t I?” But that stuff only ever seems to really hit me in hindsight. Because while I’m in the trenches trying to finish a song it’s all about a “whatever it takes” mentality to finish it. Some things are done in haste and others in a kind of fog of war/inspiration and there’s no time to think or worry about why. Because I hate having unfinished s**t; I just want the song in question to be done. Then I can move onto the next song and want that song to be done.
Where did you come up with the idea for your featured song?
This song is called “Ladies & Gentlemen” and it was the first song I wrote on purpose for my new band, Cold Blood Club.
I wanted a tune for my friends Kendra and Brad to sing together so they would be able to hit the ground running as the two frontpersons of the new group. So, the thinking was, “OK, let’s make sure it’s (a) kinda big so they can get really excited to sing it, (b) let’s have it be explicitly about New York which is where we all live and shared our time together as friends, (c) make it not suck, and (d) make sure it’s in a key so that they can both sing it comfortably in opposing octaves. Later, as the rest of the band came on board, they helped shape the dynamic and sharpen things (especially in the bridge). Additionally, our friend Jason (Finkel) came on board as producer and you can really credit him with adding a lot of sizzle to the choruses. Sonically, he’s a savant.
Anyways, it’s my favorite song I’ve had the pleasure of recording in some time and I am excited to send it along to the internets, and by extension, the world.
Listen to the featured song!
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