'If this is work, you're doing it wrong'.

I recently heard someone at my school make a statement to this effect:

'I don't really listen to music. I have maybe 10GB of music, and probably half of that is stuff I worked on, different versions of mixes and whatnot. I don't really acquire music; I work on music all day, and for me getting music is like working in an office all day and stopping by Staples on the way home to browse office supplies.'

Let's start out with the fact that this statement is a logical fallacy - in fact it is several. We're assuming that the cause of stopping by Staples on the way home to browse office supplies is the unstated reason that we work with office supplies all day. What if, for example, your home printer was out of paper?

Stepping back from the logic of the statement, let us look at it's implications for those who are preparing themselves to work in the music industry, even as engineers and producers. I personally find the statement rather horrifying. First of all, as an engineer and producer, I believe it to be one's duty to familiarize oneself with as much music as possible, in order that one might better do one's job, regardless of the band or situation one is presented with. If one is dependent on reference material when working on something, then one forgoes the possibility of bringing anything new to the process. Perhaps that is what is desired, but then what exactly *are* you bringing to the process? The knowledge of what this compressor does, or what that plug-in will do? If the sound is pre-determined like that, then you're really just the trained monkey, pushing buttons to make things happen.

(For you non engineers out there, reference material refers to, say, mixing a country singer who says 'I want this to sound like the new Taylor Swift album' so you listen to the new Taylor Swift album (you poor bastard) to get the sound in your head, to analyze it and make what you're working on sound as much like it as possible.)

I once heard someone say 'If music is work, you're doing it wrong'. While I do not feel quite that strongly about it, I agree with the sentiment. There is always a certain level of work involved. Maybe you have to play some music you're not that fond of, but it pays the bills so you can play the stuff you like. Maybe you write musicals because that's what you enjoy, but you have to write commercial jingles because it's what pays the bills. The point is that you should still enjoy the music. If the music isn't the endgoal, then what is? Some pretty sounding audio that you made sound cool with the newest gear? If I, as a musician, was working with a producer and I asked him what the endgoal was of the process, and his response was 'making some kickass audio' I would probably (contract allowing) pack up my stuff and walk out then and there. I'm glad you want to make some kickass audio. But if you're just thinking of the music as audio to be manipulated, then you're missing something. Let me elaborate.

One of my favorite albums of all time is Jackson Browne's 'Solo Acoustic, Vol. 1'. When I got it, I was already a fan of Browne's music, and greatly enjoyed it. But when I listened to this album, all of which consists only of Browne and a piano or guitar, I suddenly realized how beautiful so much of his music was, how well written the lyrics were and how much feeling was in so much of it. Even albums such as 'Lawyers in Love', which I previously had regarded with a sort of vague disregard as 'well, it was the eighties, y'know?' suddenly warranted a second hearing, and I have discovered new and great things about them. But as great as these well produced albums are, with all the work that went into making them sound incredible, the one that grabs me as the great one every time is the one which lacks almost any production at all. The guitar has that slightly bright unreal quality that acoustic guitar pickups so often do, the piano is rough and at times, feels distant, and his voice is clearly being recorded through something like an SM58, with minimal warmth or breadth to it. But it's the music that brings me back every time.

On the other hand, I know that a hell of a lot of production went into Missy Higgins' second album, 'On A Clear Night'. The whole thing is incredibly well produced, and sounds quite nice. All too much of the music on the album, however, is fluff. Do not get me wrong, there are a few good songs on there, but I find that overall the album feels like a lot of repetitive fluff wrapped up in a bunch of, well, pretty audio. And I wish that a lot more time had gone into making the music good then into making it sound good. I'd rather go listen to the rough tones of Jackson Browne playing an acoustic live show, with all its' feeling and power, then to the pretty but too often boring tones of Missy's second album.

I have no illusions about making massive quantities of money in this industry. I have no plans to strike it rich. I'm in this for the music, because the music is what lets me keep moving every day. If you don't really care about the music, then why work with it all the time? And don't say 'I care about the music, I just don't want to listen to it all the time and think music all the time. I'll work with it, but it stays in the office'. That's not care, or love, or craft. That's a hobby. That's a job, and that's not how you get successful. I walk past the Securian Center in the cities every day, and I see the young financial guys going in and out. And the ones who're successful, who're wearing the three piece suits and carrying the nice briefcases, are the ones who go home and think about their work.

I'm not saying I spend all of my waking moments blasting music out of my computer and iPod. But I listen to music. Occasionally I'll even sit down, make myself some tea, and just listen to an album be it Missy Higgins, Jackson Browne, Pink Floyd, Dessa, Jethro Tull, The Eagles, The Killers, Poets of the Fall, Queen, Nirvana, Deadsoul Tribe, Allen/Lande. The music is why I'm doing this. And the day it starts being work that I leave at the office, or just the way I pay the bills, is the day I say 'Time to move on'.

Process Planning? - LyricsLyricsLyricsLyrics

After last weekend spent working/socializing with the better half of the band, we now have shape for the entirety of what is hoped to be the upcoming album. I say shape, because what we have is the basis for a lot of the songs. The musical basis. The lyrical basis exists for several of them, and is... 'in potentia', shall we say, for the rest. I've spent a certain amount of time talking to people and generally thinking about this lack of product on my part (I am the lyricist/writer of the pairing).

The other night I attended a concert/Q&A session with one of the songwriting/composition Prof's at McNally Smith College of Music, and was amused when he refused to share his songwriting 'method', citing it as rather private; that I completely understand; the process of writing a song can be extremely personal, and privacy is a nice thing to have, both in the moment and in the general sense. The piece he did feel capable of sharing was that it starts with doing everything possible to do other then write a song.

This got me thinking about my own drive for writing songs, and especially my specific area for the moment, lyrics. I have only, to my memory, managed to actually sit down and completely write a song in one sitting twice (not including revisions). Normally a song is a fairly pained affair for me, with lots of scribbling on pads of engineering paper (an affectation left over from my days as an engineering student), a great many cups of earl grey consumed, and lots of cursing of out of tune guitars, my personally poor piano skills, my lack of inspiration, my sudden lack of pencil lead, batteries for my tuner, and especially cursing of that greatest of drains of productivity: The Internet (with video games coming in a close second). Also involved tends to be lots of digging around in old notebooks from highschool, and in my 'random writings' folder in which lie many sheets of bad poetry and random metaphors and similes which occured to me in the middle of the night (or in the middle of a calculus class). I tend to write things, then start working on a song, and when I run out of inspiration I start flipping through the folder; the lyrics for at least one of the songs we're finishing up is pulled together almost entirely from about six different sets of poetry, random lyrics for songs that never happened, and in one case, a rather bad short story involving some random and rather tasteless linguistic play; (un?)fortunately, the linguistic play wasn't what made it into the song.

When I get really beaten down and can't find any inspiration, I flip on the playlist on my computer made up of all the stuff I've listened to over the years which has suddenly inspired me to write stuff; Leonard Cohen, Missy Higgins, David Bowie, and Mostly Autumn all turn up and I sit down and just write.

When even that fails, there's still one option left: Go to a concert.

Now, that seems rather contrary to many people; normally one goes to a concert to listen, not to write. But for some reason, certain concerts cause me to just become inspired. George Maurer, Storyhill, Cliff Eberhardt and Lucy Kaplansky just to name a few, have all been concerts which have made me suddenly dig around for scraps of paper and pencil. The most recent, a sadly rather less well attended concert by fledgling but already extraordinary singer-songwriter Allye Gaietto was single-handedly responsible for completing sets of lyrics on two songs (one of which, unfortunately, is not slated to go on the album, due to complete narrative discord). Still, these sudden spurts of productivity are incredibly useful. Now if I could only isolate a real cause for them, and somehow utilize that elsewhere.

In any case, progress is slooooooooooooow but steady. This whole writing music via e-mail thing is working, though. And sooner then I probably think, King Arthur and the Bearded Lady shall ride forth and shall (metaphorically) give birth to what shall likely not quite be a magnum opus, but should hopefully be an interesting and somewhat philosophical good time, if not for anyone else, then at least for us.

A Short Explanation

When I made the decision to start this, it was with the knowledge that it would mostly be a forum for myself to post my own breakdowns of albums, mostly as a critical exercise for myself as I attempt to put together my own groups first album, but also because I enjoy it. So there are likely going to be a number of albums here which are neither new nor particularly mainstream. But I might actually have a reason for talking about some of them. Maybe.

New Things

As we head into the new year, I have for some reason decided to obtain one of these infernal things which I have much railed against in the last few years (not as much as I've railed against twitter, mind you, but still railed quite a bit). I have often spoken (sometimes at length) about blogs and how annoying they are, etc etc etc.

So, the question one finds oneself suddenly asking is: Isn't this a little hypocritical?

Well, yes.

But that's not the point. Or rather, it is the point, but it's one I'm going to try and cleverly distract you from over the next few posts with song and dance routines about various albums from the last few decades, from classic rock to modern pop, a little personal ranting, likely as not, and just some random late night wondering. Shockingly different, I know

But, I guess we'll find out. This is kind of a rudderless ship; other then a few music posts, I have no idea where this will be going, so I guess all I have to say about this is: Read With Caution - Bard At Work. Unpleasant ideas, probably unpopular thoughts, and much brouhaha may result.

But that's not all bad, is it?