what is going on in your musical life

Band played a show last night for the first time in 26 months. Went pretty well, although I vastly overestimated my general stamina & ran out of gas before the end of the set, leading to a massive cock-up on our Big Number. Ah, well.

I had donated blood earlier in the day, like a fool*. You’re not 30 anymore, mister!

*Obv donating isn’t foolish, but the timing was.

Played Bartok's "Merriment" on piano at a recital for my teacher's students a couple of weekends ago; it went as well as I could have hoped (and better than some recent guitar performances, heh).

I got my band's new single done. It is probably going to be going out to the SAFF for some sweet mastering sauce.

I'm pretty jazzed about the drum sound, it is raw but it's probably the fattest sounding kit sound I have gotten. I've got some sweet cut up and single shot samples to come out of this session. I'm going to try to build up my own kit from the sounds. There are also break beats and way we cut the drums, there is zero bleed. Curious to see what I can do with some of these things, recording was built on the click so it is definitely could be cut to a loop pretty easy.

As for the tunes...well, I think we have one that sounds like what a motorhead cover of little feat might have sounded like. It's also got a dicky betts sitting in with the minutemen string refrain part. The other one is I guess kinda grunge with a wah wah riff and some southern rock guitar army soloing. It's all sat to this mitch mitchell fatback beat. I'm happy how it turned out as I have had it written for years and never got a chance to work it up. I demoed it up a couple times with a drum machine.

Nice! Share bc links as soon as you have em, pls.

Nice, I wanna hear those drums

I’m going to release some ambient stuff in May. Can anyone point me to to any sites or blogs that specialise in reviewing that kinda thing?

emil.y, I see Slum of Legs is playing a show with one of my pals tomorrow: Samantha Savage Smith. Wonderful band; the drummer Chris is an absolute gem of a human as well as a monster player. Hope the gig is a roaring success and you all end up as friends. It is indeed a small world.

over the past year or two I've managed to build up a pile of half-finished techno tracks, so now I'm making a push to get some of these actually finished, here's the first one:

https://soundcloud.com/moodlesmix/dark-water

Bangin' stuff, Moodles.

I set myself a target of finishing a track every two weeks. Which may or may not be feasible for me. Anyway, here's a new jam:

https://foundriver.bandcamp.com/track/lofty-pines

Here is the new single. I'm pretty happy how it all turned out.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KWJEIjlnfg4

This was the previous one.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K5OkHaJqZeM

The ambient jail door slam and the drum machine loop a bit of a nod to the very beginning of 'eminence front'.

I've been going to the weekly jazz jam session for the first time in many years, because I hate sitting in and I'm bad at it.

I've been shedding a ton, my hands are feeling more relaxed than ever and soloing is more fluid. When I'm on one of my own gigs on my own kit, I feel relaxed and present.

But when I sit in on someone else's kit without warming up and feel the pressure to show out, I'm still prone to tensing up mentally and physically, after all these years. So I'm making myself go to see where the bottom line of my playing is. I'm definitely not where I want to be yet (i.e. able to sit in and calmly play the same way I do in my basement), but it's good to know that at least some of the things I've been working on come out when I'm on the hot seat.

Some players are the same way with recording. I've played more with a drum machine and a recorder than with a band, but I have seen musicians that are way experienced in playing live just wilt with red light fever even just doing some basement recording.

I get f'ed up trying to record myself singing. I got to think if I did not have to engineer and record it might be a better situation, but I always think my recorded vocals are not as good as I have done just playing with a group.

Oh yeah red light fever is real. I've noticed while practicing that I can trick myself into that mindset, like "imagine you're recording" or "imagine that so and so is watching and you can't stop and start again" and it's a helpful exercise.

i had no idea that was the name for it. I get that really bad, esp as a singer, when I'm a much looser singer live.

My trick as a recorder with overdubbing lead guitars with people is to just "hey let's roll through it and just practice and work something out." I then just go ahead and record the 'practice one' anyway and sometimes it really works out as you get their idea as it happened. Of course, sometimes you try to then take a solo idea and then do it again with something else and it just cannot get back to the 'live one not thinking'.

My old band we often recorded the band while we practiced and quite a few cuts on our couple CDs the solo (along with the take) was live. Being able to have it setup and keep it setup really helps in that way, but sometimes you end up with a killer take that the snare mike was off center a bit.

I was planning to record some hard hitting tracks but ended up making some chill balearic techno instead. Pretty happy with how this came out and the process was about as painless as I've experienced lately.

https://soundcloud.com/moodlesmix/galactic-dancer

My and my buddy recorded this live the other night. He's got a pretty nice modular rig, and I was using my Peak, Streichfett, and Minilogue. Dunmurry is a Belfast reference since the arpeggiator reminded me of that Orbital track.

https://soundcloud.com/balboa-park/dunmurrry

Spent the last week teaching drums to 4 campers/girls/gender-expansive youth aged 12-16 and it gave me so much life. Their showcase performance was today and seeing them play (and hold their sticks properly) def highlight of my summer. So proud of them! And me tbh.

Right on!

impulsively bought an arturia minilab mkii on craigslist, been messing around with synthesizers on ableton live and learning music theory properly (i.e., by watching youtube videos) for the first time after 2 decades of being a punk doofus with only a rudimentary understanding of blues scales and the cycle of fifths acquired in adolescent guitar lessons

hell yeah

That's great LL! I've started teaching a few students, and while the lesson schedule has been very sporadic (hard to coordinate schedules + covid), it's been pretty rewarding so far.

I also took my first drum lesson in many years, focused purely on hand technique/mechanics (from Dev1n Dr0bka), and it was shocking useful. So nice to find someone who's both a great drummer and can also really break down and articulate those things, and it also really confirms that despite the glut of drumming videos on youtube/insta, there's really no substitute for an actual lesson with someone who can see what you're doing.

I'm receiving weird fan messages in my Soundcloud inbox from a person who is extremely familiar with my work, over the top fawning and uncomfortably personal

not sure if/how to respond

Ask them for $400

as I lay awake in an uncomfortable couch bed for two hours last night trying to get my kid to fall asleep I remembered that my wife has a saxophone somewhere from high school band and decided that I'm going to learn to play "careless whisper"

Wow

my band has been practicing and playing shows on and off through the pandemic, but we're about to play a show where we debut two (!!!) new songs saturday. v excited, one of them is my favorite song we've ever written. hopefully gonna record an ep this fall

Beware: I think there's a note in the "Careless Whisper" sax solo that is technically impossible, yet it exists. That is, the highest note in the solo is normally outside the usable range of the instrument, and the saxophonist and engineer worked out some trickery.

There's an episode of https://strongsongspodcast.com/ about this. I forget the details but it involved either a different sax or speeding up the recording or some such. Maybe both.

Meanwhile I got two new instruments last week (coincidentally on the same day): a mandola and a 10" snare drum. I played both in open-mic settings over the last couple nights. The mandola is fun. I don't have a good enough ear to transpose on the fly, so I haven't yet had the courage to tune it to the correct CGDA, but it works fine as an octave mandolin, so I'm doing that. It's way better at that than my bouzouki is. Just a much more comfortable scale length for my chordal style.

The 10" Pearl M-80 (Short Fuse) snare is hilarious. I have it side-mounted on my hat stand and it is just so fucking cute. Saves setup time and weight. Tuned low with a Powerstroke 3 it gives tremendous snap. I am in love.

i have definitely considered buying a very cheap saxophone and trying to learn how to play it. probably not realistic given that i live in an apartment, i know the sax is very loud

speaking of living in an apartment, i've been recording vocals for some songs and i've been working on sounding more energetic in my vocals. it's so embarrassing recording "energetic" vocals when i can hear my neighbors walking around upstairs. like i'm down here trying to get into a rockin frame of mind and meanwhile i can hear their floorboards creaking.

re: "Careless Whisper": Found it! The note in question is a high F#. Steve Gregory's tenor sax did not have a high F# key. So he actually played it a half step down, and then they pitch-shifted it up.

so I went in the studio I tried to do it and my saxophone is an old Selmer (tenor sax) from about 1954 or something and I didn't have that top note. I didn't have a proper note on my saxophone, I had what we call a fake fingering I had to do to play it. So it didn't really sound that smooth. It didn't sound that great. And so having been around for a while, having had a bit of experience, I suggested to him, I said, 'look, if you took it down by a semitone, a very small amount, I'd have all the proper notes on my horn and we could see how it sounds. So that's what he did, he sort of did his calculations and took it down a semitone, so I went out again and I played it in a lower key and when after I finished it I went back into the control room and he played it back and he put it back up to the proper speed, and as he was playing it back, George walked into the studio, and he said 'Oh, I think we got it!'

The relevant Strong Songs discussion is about 46 minutes into this podcast https://strongsongspodcast.com/episode/clave-chorus-careless-whisper

not sure where else to put this, but i just read this quote from brian eno in his promo for his upcoming solo album, and i think it captures some things about the meaning of making art

It took me a long time to embrace the idea that we artists are actually feelings-merchants. Feelings are subjective. Science avoids them because they’re hard to quantify and compare. But “feelings” are the beginnings of thoughts, and the long term attendants of them too. Feelings are the whole body reacting, often before the conscious brain has got into gear, and often with a wide lens that encompasses more than the brain is consciously aware of.

Art is where we start to become acquainted with those feelings, where we notice them and learn from them—learn what we like and don’t like—and from there they start to turn into actionable thoughts. Children learn through play; adults play through Art. Art gives you the space to “have” feelings, but it comes with an off-switch: you can shut the book or leave the gallery. Art is a safe place to experience feelings—joyous ones and difficult ones. Sometimes those feelings are about things we long for, sometimes they’re about things we might want to avoid.

I've picked up my guitar for the first time in ??? and feel like I've lost all but the most basic basics - do any of yous have recommendations for not-quite-but-basically-beginner youtube lessons? Really I just want to be able to get my head around chords and scales and such without finding myself being forced to do blooze soloing and/or play Hey There Delilah.

I’ve started writing songs on my guitar and it’s hella fun

everything I write sounds like I stole it from Iron Maiden but fuck if it's not fun anyway

Ask them for $400
haha, thanks Karl, that's not bad advice

recording energetic vocals at home can be super weird indeed, sometimes I drink a beer or two to loosen up, but mostly I just have fun imagining what the neighbours must be thinking

incredible careless whisper trivia, much appreciated

emil.y, I see Slum of Legs is playing a show with one of my pals tomorrow: Samantha Savage Smith. Wonderful band; the drummer Chris is an absolute gem of a human as well as a monster player. Hope the gig is a roaring success and you all end up as friends. It is indeed a small world.

― war mice (hardcore dilettante)

Sorry, I haven't been on this thread in ages so only just seen this! The show was a really great one, and the SSS band were super-lovely people, it was a damn good time. Say hi to them for me!

Not much is going on in my musical life right now, tbh. I fell out of doing solo work during the pandemic, just had no motivation and I'm struggling to get it back. Being in a band is much easier that way, b/c even when you feel like you don't want to do it you have to pull yourself together for the sake of everyone else.

I have one idea that I really want to do but it kind of involves creating an entire new instrument and I have no skills in programming/making things. (NB when I say 'entire new instrument' it's more a case of doing something like creating a raspberry pi-based sample triggering system in a unique shell, but that's still wayyyy beyond my capabilities).

I have one idea that I really want to do but it kind of involves creating an entire new instrument and I have no skills in programming/making things.

I sympathize heavily with this. I tried to do it and completely fell on my face with it, with a small dose of public humiliation. I’d probably do it again! It’s good to take chances :)

I fell into some commercial/spec work with a, like, really huge client. Trying not to think too much about actually winning the job or not, but it's interesting to get a view of this world.

It seems like synchronicity that I'd recently been spending time aimlessly recording my drums to cassette and trying to chop and mix it into good-sounding breakbeats, which turned out to be exactly what I need to use on this project.

thats nice!

Work in the kitchen changing some stuff out pretty much has had my home studio in a wreck for a few weeks. I have not had my guitar amp on in almost 2 weeks, which is pretty unusual.

Two weeks ago I helped my bud in Louisville move to a new place and this house is going to be like going to record at the Power Station to make music after his old basement, which kinda had a bit of Buffalo Bill ambience going on. Supposed to go up next weekend to either do the vocal and guitar overdubs on the 3rd single or if the drummer is available, record the basic tracks for the 4th single. If the drummer can play, we go that way. We have played 3 days with him and have 3 singles recorded over the past year.

Wow fantastic news Jordan. Tell.

Thanks! It was a wild week of horn recording, many revisions, and not much sleep, but I'm proud of what we came up with in the end.

I definitely wouldn't want to do this on the regular, given the amount of work vs the demo fee and presumably very stiff competition. But it was a great challenge. Apparently it's getting presented to the client today (can't say who of course), so cross all your fingers for us!

Fingers crossed!

How did it go?

It was submitted and presented, but we haven't heard anything yet. Not sure if no news is good, bad, or just no news, but we're trying not to get our hopes up since I'm sure the competition is very fierce. It must take some real mental gymnastics to do this frequently -- to work as hard as you can on something, and then instantly detach from it.

So I'm back to prosaic concerns like drum technique, which I'm pursuing more systematically than I have before. Now that I can feel a real difference in my hands after applying some things from that lesson, I started a daily practice where I'm doing continuous 16th notes with my non-dominant hand (straight and accented) for a minimum of 1 minute. Started at 72 bpm and I'm trying to go up 1 bpm per day, I've got a spreadsheet and everything. It's amazing how much more valuable 5 minutes of super-mindful 'micropractice' is than just messing around for much longer, and only playing what feels comfortable. It really feels like a weightlifting program (or I imagine it does, having never done one).

The practice diary thing I'm sure is boring to everyone besides me, but the "do it continuously for 1 minute" thing has been revelatory. You can get away with bad technique for shorter bursts, letting tension creep in at the end, but doing it for that long really reveals any flaws in the motion. So cool to actually see improvement.