Unfortunate Plateau

1st Impressions of Spotify

2011-08-24T17:14:00.000-07:00

Recently I've been hearing a lot of buzz about Spotify, the new in the cloud streaming music service.

The Good:

- High Audio Quality Streams
- Fast Streaming
- Pretty Good Selection

The Bad:

- the Queue / playlist

I'm talking about the general queue / playlist and not about making a playlist. This feature kind of drives me crazy. I hate how it won't just go through the list in order, it takes whatever song you just finished and adds it to the end of the queue. I feel this is completely unnecessary. When I go back to check my list after listening for a while, everything is all out of order. Also, I don't like how if you play something it doesn't automatically add it to the queue (like Grooveshark) unless you ask it to.

Multiple Tabs / User Interface:

If I search for something, and then tab over to another page, my search results are gone.. you either have to re-search or hit back. I also don't like having to go to a different page to see the playlist / queue. It would be much better if the playlist was across the bottom like Grooveshark or another pane on the side like for the playlist like Winamp / Windows Media Player. Basically I want to see the playlist at all times. There's really no reason not to have everything on the same page, there is so much space.

Artist / Song Selection:

Spotify seems to be just about as good as Grooveshark in terms of finding artists. It is seemingly better at finding more official releases. It finds some artists GS doesn't have but it's missing others the GS does have. It's missing a lot of artists in the electronic genre, and quite a few others from my playlists. But it balances it out by finding other rare artists, like Sophie Madeleine and her new record.

I do like how they organize stuff when you click on an artist, showing you all the albums and artwork and bio etc. That's better than GS.

It's missing weird stuff here and there. Like for Nirvana there is one artist page that has everything except Bleach... then another entirely different page that only has Bleach. Radiohead has a lot of bsides available... but no In Rainbows. A lot of Korn's stuff is there... but few bsides etc. Some artist pages get strange as well. Take Hum for example. Apparently there are several artists named Hum, and there's no distinction about who is who.

Having to D/L an Actual Program.

I think I see why they want to have an actual program available... but with their resources I don't see why they couldn't just make something that is completely browser based.

SUMMARY

Overall, I think it's a pretty decent service and a good competitor to Grooveshark. What would really seal the deal for a user like me though, is getting away from the Itunes Interface (I've always hated itunes). Fixing the user interface issues above... and really being able to offer me EVERY official release under the sun. If they could track down and organize all of a band's official albums, singles, bsides and compilations in one location in high quality. This would be ideal.

Top Songs 2010

2011-01-02T15:04:00.000-08:00

Here's a list of New Songs I found that I like in 2010

Top Favorite Songs of 2009

2011-01-01T15:14:00.001-08:00

Here's my playlist of songs that made me actually feel something in 2009.

On the Popularity of the Whiny Emo Vocal Style

2010-09-08T17:06:00.001-07:00

Today I was thinking about the whiny high pitched emo vocal style and how disproportionate the ratio of how much I hate is to how popular it became. I was trying to do some research into where it came from and why so many people just accepted it as the de facto way you're supposed to sing.... when luckily, I found this article that did most of the work for me.

http://www.spin.com/articles/whine-times

I've never been able to get into this vocal style. The farthest I can go is Cedric Bixler-Zavala from Mars Volta or Tom Delonge from Blink 182. I guess I can tolerate high, and I can tolerate nasally.. but I can't tolerate whiny. It's always stood out to me from the beginning as being a bit odd. I remember things slowly going downhill after blink 182 became popular in the early 2000's. Slowly, it seemed like every pop punk band that came out was a little bit more nasally, a little bit higher pitched, a little bit more whiny. It started to bother me at New Found Glory... but I knew something was wrong when I first heard A Simple Plan. "Ok", I thought. "This vocal style is just an extreme version of Tom Delonge, surely they will be relagated to the margins of this genre where they belong, this will just be a one off thing." Little did I know it was going to get worse. Much worse.

After I got to college in 2003 or so... whiny was in. Cartel, Yellowcard, Hawthorne Heights, All American Rejects, Story of the Year, the Used, Taking Back Sunday. At first I thought it was just trendy but it just kept going. What really didn't make sense to me was how little reaction there was against it. I pointed it out one day to some people... "hey, what's with all these whiny high pitch vocals lately?" and people would just stare at me funny. As if they couldn't hear it. As if that was the way it had always been. I knew it was really bad when I would see frat guys listening to it. That really blew my mind. Those are supposed to be the most macho douche guys right? And here they were listening to the cutest, innocent high pitched boy vocals on the planet, that was often pretty flamingly homosexual sounding as well. Weren't they supposed to be beating up kids that listened to this music? It made no sense. I still wonder why today it's not listed as part of the "gay agenda" that's out there to poison our youth.

The article linked above actually interviews many bands that have this style, and you get to see what their thoughts are on it, and attempts to summarize a bit of how it became a part of the cultural zeitgeist of the 2000's. Here are some highlights...

rejection of overly masculine vocal styling of the 90 alt rock and metal (and although not mentioned probly nu metal as well)

continuation of the punk DIY, where people who aren't classically trained should try to make their own music.

high pitched = more emotional / more tense - which fits in well with the point of emo... taking emotions to the extreme

appeals to teen girls/ teenage emotions

is a natural range for many men, but has not been explored very often in the past

Deftones Diamond Eyes Album Review:

2010-05-24T05:14:00.000-07:00

I've listened to the new Deftones album Diamond Eyes a few times now and I can honestly say I don't really like it very much. So far many reviews and comments are overwhelmingly positive, but I really don't feel that it is that well deserved and here's why.

MELODY:

The Deftones have always had two sides to them. On the one hand they appeal people who love heavy riffage and screaming vocals. And others who like the dream dream pop vocals and strange ambience. I've always been a fan of the songs that dream pop vocals and bizarre moods than just the ones that seem to be mostly just about heavy riffs. I'd rather have both at the same time though, but they don't seem to always combine them very well. My favorites are songs like Change In the House of Flies, My Own Summer, Minerva, Be Quiet and Drive, Back To School (Mini Maggit), Pink Maggit, Digital Bath, Hexagram, and Anniversary of An Uninteresting Event. This album certainly has lots of melody, and the screaming takes a back seat, which is fine by me. But this record Chino's melodies are all over the place. The melodies feel convoluted and unsure of what they want to do.

Chino loves to jump out of key and into strange areas which has worked very well on other albums. But on this album it seems like it's a crutch. It as if when he's just about onto to a good hook he goes and jumps off in a weird direction killing it. It reminds me a lot of George Harrison whom I felt had the same problem. An example of this would be his song "Beware of Darkness". While the jumps out of key are certainly interesting they just feel like they don't always serve the song. It kind of gives the impression he was trying to cram melodies over guitar parts, perhaps instead of changing the guitar parts to fit the vocals.

These odd melodic shifts are often typical of dream pop, but for an example of something that works better... listen to "Only Shallow" by My Bloody valentine (an influence of Chino's by the way). The verses keep popping out of key and have weird shifts, but it all works together and becomes part of why the song is interesting.

But when the Deftones do it on this record, it comes across forced and doesn't serve the song. It also comes across as half baked, like the ideas he came up for the melodies where still rough drafts and that he was going to go back and finish them later. I have read that the band will often come up with the music first and then Chino will come in separately to put vocals in over it once it's done. This always seemed like a silly idea to me to write an entire song without the vocals present at all to help shape the song, when they are such an important part of the songs. What if he can't think of anything good over the riffs? Are they just gonna keep it anyways? There's no checks and balances there for the Vocals and accompaniment. I wonder if this has happened here.

RHYTHM:

Drums

The drums on this album are fairly typical for Deftones songs, they usually play a supporting role and usually never jump out at me and make me say "wow that's a sick drum part". They do play a role in creating a sonic texture for the band, and the drummer definitely has a signature style. He has a more reggae / ska sounding kit, much like 311. On this record I feel like the drums are doing their job, but nothing much more beyond that, which usually isn't a problem in their better songs. On this record it's like if the guitars or the vocals aren't doing something interesting, the drums might as well be. It feels a lot more apparent that the drums aren't doing that much when everything else is less interesting on top of them.

Bass

The bass also plays the supportive role in the Deftones. Mainly just following the guitar, but having it's moments here and there on certain songs to stand out. But the same thing kind of goes for bass as I said about the drums. If the guitar is just gonna be boring, the bass might as well not follow it and do something more interesting.

Rhythm Guitar

As for rhythm guitar riffs, I have to set the bar at My Own Summer. If I set the bar for rhythm guitar at that, they fall well below it on this record. A riff like that is very unique and very catchy at the same time. But really most of their records don't live up to that so I won't make that big of a deal out of it.

The riffs are meaner than the last few records, but kinda stock for metal riffs in general and not really anything that unique that you'd want to write home about. And that's fine if they are in a supporting role, supporting something more catchy and important. But a lot of the songs give the impression that the guitars are supposed to be more of a central focus. I will give them props though for setting a more menacing atmosphere during many of the verses which I like. Really the verses are where the guitar shines through on this record. Things work well on the verses of songs like Diamond Eyes, and rocket skates. CMND / CNTRL has one of the best riffs in it's chorus on the record.

HARMONY:

Guitar

While the verses the guitar is doing it's job well, in the choruses either the vocals need to change to support the guitars more or the guitars need to support the vocals more. It often seems like they are each doing their own thing. The harmony definitely doesn't feel in the pocket enough on the choruses. A good example of this is CMND/CNTRL. That riff during the chorus is very interesting, but Chino throws a mediocre drifting melody over it and we're left with something where the melody doesn't help bring out the best in the riff and riff doesn't bring out the best in the guitar.

Keyboards

There are keyboards all over this record and they are actually pretty creative, when you can hear them. They aren't creative in an overt sense but more of a subtle sense. They pretty much totally support the guitar and fill out areas you don't realize are there till after you listen a few times. Then you suddenly realize
he's doing all this different stuff and using all these different sounds. I really don't understand how he's able to do so many different things yet also remain so subtle. It would be nicer if he was more in the forefront though.

TEXTURE:

The texture of this record remains fairly consistent throughout, only really breaking to do Prince and Sextape. Texture doesn't feel like an especially important element for this record. There's no real other textures beside the standard drum / bass / guitar / vocal setup. The keyboards are there but they sit inside the guitar and vocals so perfectly and the way they are mixed makes them feel as if they are barely
there. There are a few sparse electronic elements here and there but it's very subtle. It's not a very big issue for me, but it would be nice to have more variation to break things up and enhance the mood.

ALBUM COHESIVENESS:

The record feels very cohesive, but this works against it. Many of the songs seem like they are following a similar formula and feels too homogenized. There's no real stand out hits. There isn't much in the way of dynamics within the themselves and listening to the whole record it's one song after the other that sounds very similar. You don't get big shifts in the style of songs like how White Pony has Back to School, Teenager, Digital Bath, Change In the House of Flies. That record is able to remain diverse, yet the songs still feel like they belong together on a record. One thing that becomes very apparent is that there is a lack of "heavy" choruses, and here I will define heavy as sounding mean, aggressive, angry, and / or threatening. Many of the verses have a threatening vibe while all the choruses lift into a positive /spiritual / religiosy / dream pop vibe. This type of chorus is great for songs like Minerva, but here it doesn't often feel right, especially when almost every single song has this same formula. For some songs it
definitely kills the vibe, instead of taking you on an interesting detour. Many of the choruses don't really serve the song, and they seem like they were just thrown in there to take up space. Often they come across as watered down and half baked. It has been a trend for many bands of late, to write simple happy choruses with heavier verses (as apposed to the 90's lighter verse and heavy mean chorus) and I don't quite get why you wouldn't want a mean chorus. It's something I don't like about this record. I would like to give props for the cover artwork. I feel like it captures the mood of the title track in the image very well.

LYRICS:

The lyrics on this record are okay. Chino said he wanted to return to "painting pictures" and being more abstract than doing the typical nu metal thing where he's writing about how much he hates his abstract personal demons. But he hasn't really done the outward hatred thing very much since Around the Fur. In fact their last record kind of did the abstract painting pictures thing a lot more and it was more poetic.

On their first two records the lyrics were abstract and vague but they were much more about directing aggression outward at problems or people. During Around the Fur he started his trend combining sex with violence and murder subject matter on a few songs. On White Pony things became a little less cryptic line to line and the whole song would start revolving more around a central theme and told a bit of a story while keeping a certain level of vagueness. Examples include Feiticeira, Back to School, Knife Prty. White pony really started pushing the sex / violence thing to forefront which would be less important on the Self Titled album but make a large return on Saturday Night wrist.

On Diamond Eyes it's there but not as in the forefront as previous records. The lyrics do paint pictures but not as strong as past efforts. It avoids being cliche but there doesn't seem to be as many memorable lines and much of the language is very simple and straight forward, much like their first record actually. But the
subject matter is very different. Line to line and when viewed as a whole it can be very cryptic, but things aren't nearly as deep or poetic as they have been in the past. One thing I don't like is that when there needs to be a concrete line during a musically emphasized point it falls flat. Like on Rocket Skates, the music suddenly shifts from metal to some sort of dreamy thing, and he says "You're Red Soaking Wet" I think I see what he was trying to do there... by suddenly shifting gears and depicting a murder scene or something but feels like it falls flat and either the music or the lyric should change at that point. They don't seem like they support each other well enough.

One thing I found pretty creative was the song titles. I've always kind of liked that about the Deftones. Some songs can take on whole new meanings because of them and it can add a lot of depth. For instance on their self titled record it's unclear what Minerva might be about, but doing a bit of research you find that
Minerva was the Roman godess of music and poetry, and suddenly the whole song is cast in a different light and has a new depth. Similarly Knife Prty, from reading the lyrics you think it could be about heroin or something but it turns out to be actually about a fetish knife / sex party, which I thought was pretty creative. Sometimes their titles are often more creative and interesting sounding than the songs end up actually being lyrically. This is especially true for this record and Saturday Knight Wrist, which also had some of their wilder song titles.

I do enjoy the juxtaposition of say Sextape, which you'd think will be some sort of torture porn adventure like Feiticeira but you find it to be a positive dreamy song about what sounds like being in love, yet it's called Sextape. I kind of dig that combination.

PRODUCTION:

Overall is fine but it does sound on the cold side though. It could be warmer overall. I'm a big fan of huge distorted guitars. While this album has them, they feel a bit too tamed and pulled into the background. This could have something to do with Stephen Carpenter now using an 8 string guitar for much of the riffs, which reduces the fuzz and trebly-ness produced in a normal guitar distorted tone. The 8 string tone is kind of cool at times and reminds me of Meshuggah when he plays single note riffs. One other issue I have is that the keyboards and electronic elements were mixed so far into the background I didn't even realize most songs had keyboards on them till I watched a live version of the album, which is a shame because some of it is very interesting.

SUMMARY:

If the goal of this record was to create an emotionally deep engrossing work, I think it has failed. If it was to make a commercially viable homogeneous work that creates a nice fridge buzz in the background while you play video games they might have very well accomplished this. The Deftones have at the same time created a record that was heavier, but more mainstream and digestible while simultaneously not having any stand out hits. The chorus of the title track Diamond Eyes is a great example. The verses have heavy riffage, but the chorus has got a typical bland swaying 4 chord chorus that is very popular right now . It is very much like what Green Day's 21st Century Breakdown did. It's not in a similar genre at all, but overall the record is more neutral and less emotionally engrossing song to song, and more homogenous over all. It feels like it plays to and encourages their more average filler songs, than it does to their more emotionally unique hits.

A lot of reviews and comments say that this record is a "return to form" of their first two records and "just like white pony". It does bear a certain similarity to their first two records in a sense that the albums feel more cohesive and don't have as many stand out gems. It's definitely not like White Pony however,because there are no stand out hit tracks that make you really feel something deep, ala Change in the House of Flies. And it Defintiely does not have the dynamics or the variation. The main thing I feel they have in common is the dream pop vocals. But Saturday Night Wrist is almost all dream pop vocals throughout all parts of the songs. To me it sounds like they took some of the filler tracks of Around the Fur (while taking a
more modern Meshuggah like approach to the guitar riffs), and used that for the basis for the verses while adding in the melodic themes and positive upliftingness from Saturday Night wrist into the choruses.

All in all I give this Record a 4 out of 10 based on the below specifications.

1-Sad, hardly can be considered noise
2-Horrible, better off never recorded
3-Mind numbing, less than mediocre
4-Basic, mainstream machine
5- Alright, low expectations
6-Good, but has a few flaws
7-Well-done, deserves to be acknowledged
8-Excellent, stands well on its own
9-Amazing, always a great listen
10-Perfect, life changing work of art

It's not mainstream in the sense of what's popular right now, but mainstream also means closer to the average..and this record is very average, if not below average for the Deftones. Nobody on this record is doing anything special or surprising compared themselves or anyone else, with melody, harmony, rhythm, texture, production or otherwise. I'm not saying they have to be complicated, just interesting and emotional. None of them are very deep or make me feel anything special either. I'm very interested in hearing what their original record "Eros" sounded like before they scrapped it in favor of this one.

Miley Cyrus In A Nusthell

2010-05-20T16:15:00.001-07:00

In this vid Miley Cyrus is being interviewed about her song Party in the USA. Not only does she readily admit she didn't write it and has no idea about what's going on with the music in it, but also that she doesn't even really like it and she doesn't even like or listen to "pop" music. Which is surprising....since her entire career involves being a part of the pop music industry.

On the one hand I am disturbed by her nonchalance about not knowing or caring about her own music and admitting that she pretty much does things just for the money... but on the other hand I'm kind of glad she admits to not liking it. It shows she has a certain level of sanity.

I think this says a lot about her and the people involved in the pop music world.

Rebuttle to Staying Naive

2009-08-04T17:48:00.000-07:00

Often when I try to learn something new, like a piece of music, a mixing technique, or a vocal technique... and I specifically want to sound similar to something that already exists, I find that there are a few certain opinions I consistently run across. Often when reading forum posts there is at least one person out there who starts a long post about how you "needn't worry about sounding like someone else, just sound like yourself."

They usually go on to name a few points like:

"finding your own style is the most important thing you can do, once you do that you usually end up finding success"

"whenever anyone tries to copy others it's unoriginal and loses heart"

"try to stay naive about your instrument / technique/ songwriting so you'll happen upon mistakes and do things that the "experts" would overlook"

While I will agree with all these things in certain contexts, for me I find most of them to be untrue.

Take the first point. I personally agree that you should strive to be original and go off into uncharted territory and find yourself, but at the same time, that is clearly not everyone's goal. It depends on how you define "success". If your goal was commercial success, right now in the pop music industry originality is NOT selling. Everybody is trying to copy everybody else who's popular and deviating from things that are known to have been successful in the past is risky. The originators of a trend usually get the most glory, but with every trend that has ever come out, there are always followers and complete ripoffs that end up taking a slice. There are examples of rip offs who have become more successful than their more original counterparts. Just look at Elvis. So being original may make you the most successful commercially, like Beatles and Michael Jackson, but how often do one of those come around? Very rarely... yet we seem to still have millionaire rock and pop stars every year...

What bothers me most about the next two points is that I feel like they want to keep you ignorant and want to discourage you from learning new things.

"whenever anyone tries to copy others it's unoriginal and loses heart"

This is not entirely true either. I agree that when people copy other people it's really kind of lame. But a lot of people who do are putting out finished songs. It doesn't mean you shouldn't try to sound like someone for learning purposes, or to see what might happen if you tried. Take the Nirvana song "About A Girl". This song was written after Kurt Cobain listened to the Beatles all day and then tried to write a song in a similar style. At first glance it might not jump out at you as being heavily beatles influenced, he definitely found his own style and applied it. But had he listened to the above statement, he might not have ever attempted it, and we'd have missed out on a great song. In his attempts to sound like somebody else, he found his own way of conveying himself.

"Don't do things by the book, or you'll just retread old ground. Try to stay naive about your instrument / technique/ songwriting so you'll happen upon mistakes and do things that the "experts" would overlook"

For me this technique has almost never worked. But for some artists it's essential to their style. I seem to just run around in circles of mediocre ideas until I try to learn something that's really outside of my comfort zone, then I seem to get a jolt of creativity that results from it. For example, on more than one occasion I've tried to learn something comepletely different than the style of song I was trying to write, and it ended up helping me write a better song. (see my post on my compositional technique the Mozart Effect) For instance, I was trying to write a pop punk song, and stopped and went to go learn some speed metal stuff. It made something click and ended up writing a better and more inspired and robust pop punk song. I seem to need to consistently learn new things and find new catalysts for inspiration. If I just ignore the outside world and try to listen to only myself, I eventually just seem to return to my comfort zone and things start to become very average. Everytime I learn something that is unlike what I want to be I somehow seem to find myself more. And the more I learn and the more skills I acquire, the more I feel like I can see between the cracks of music and see what people haven't done before.

I do admit, making mistakes is huge part of creative process. And putting yourself in situations where you might just stumble across things you would have never thought of is important. But disregarding learning new things just so that I might by chance make a happy accident every once in a while from not knowing what I'm doing just isn't a good enough trade off for me. For instance I recently just realized a new way to think about constructing melodies, whereby I pick out a few points of a riff or chord progression I want to emphasize and then just try to connect the dots. I never thought about it that way before, and now I'm able to visualize melodies over riffs I was never able to think of anything over before.

It's unsure how long it would have taken me to derive that for myself if I hadn't actively tried to pursue it, instead of sitting around by myself isolated from the world just winging it. It was something that may seem obvious to other people but it wasn't to me for some reason, even though it was a very simple idea. I really feel like those who don't learn from the past are condemned to repeat it, although there will always be exceptions.

I think a lot of this fear of trying to do things by the book comes from a very old school way of teaching music that said "this is the only way things are done" and "this is what good music is, and this is what bad music is", when music had to be more intellectual instead of for pure enjoyment. But much of the 20th century was about breaking down all those barriers in the art world. This thought black and white process for music instruction and art has been largely abandoned. It's widely accepted now that pretty much anything goes, and it does. In the internet age you can pretty much find an audience for anything, anything is valid. Yet these fears of an elitest music teacher telling people "this is the only way to do things!" is still out there. And it's getting old. Where are these elitist teachers keeping everyone down? Forcing theory down everyone's throats. They just aren't there.

People seem to think what's good for one person is good for everyone. But people need to realize that it all depends on what they want to do. If someone wants to be an opera singer, they are going to need to do things a little bit more by the book, because that whole style is built upon years of rigorous training, and following specific guidelines and tradition. And if someone wanted to be a DIY 80's punk rocker then they should probably just learn 3 chords and just wing it, because that's what that style calls for. But the Punk Rocker can't tell the opera singer "sight reading and learning music theory is bullshit, I don't use any of that stuff" because the opera does need that stuff to be successful. And the Opera singer can't force theory and sight singing and all of that down the Punk's throat because in that style it's unnecessary for success.

Compositional Technique: "the Mozart Effect"

2009-08-04T17:32:00.000-07:00

This technique I call the mozart effect. It's named after this study that showed listening to classical music before taking a test improved your ability to solve certain types problems for a brief period of time, roughly about 15 minutes.

I get a similar but more powerful effect when I listen to something complicated and try to learn how to play it. I seem to get a jolt of creativity that lasts for a short amount of time. I feel like I can see things in a new light and recognize patterns I couldn't before with my compositions. It feels as if a dam has burst and I have a lot more of the answers, or a new understanding. I feel as if I have been "calibrated". The effect seems to work better the more the piece I am trying to learn is outside of my comfort zone.

I use it often when I have the urge to write something, but I can't seem to say what I want to say. I will go learn something complex, and it can sometimes release the pent up creative energy inside.

The effect unfortunately seems to only last for a short period of time. Anywhere from a few minutes to a few days. What's also interesting is that you don't even have to learn the whole piece. You just have to attempt to learn a part that is complicated for you to understand, without even actually ever accomplishing playing it properly.

Something else that is very bizarre is how the feeling of understanding fades away. You feel like you really learned something, that you really got it and you can't imagine not knowing this information in the future, but after a while it fades away it feels as if the experience never happened at all. Everything returns to being very average, and you can't see things the same way as before.

I think this is very similar to "shocking" your muscles when working out. You jump outside of your comfort zone to keep your muscles off guard so that they don't get too comfortable and continue to grow.

The effect works well if you are trying to learn something similar to what you want to write, but it also seems to work just as well if you try to learn something in a completely different style than what you want to write. For example, if I'm trying to write a pop punk song, I might go learn a bunch of speed metal, or classical or something. It can really unlock some doors so that when I return to the pop punk song, it feels a lot easier to write and I usually end up writing something more robust.

What Does "Playing from the Heart" Actually Mean?

2008-11-20T20:24:00.000-08:00

Talk to people very long about how to write a good song and you will surely hear the phrase "You just need to play from your heart". A phrase that has been repeated so many times that it's now a cliche. What does that even really mean? Why is it important? And how exactly are you supposed to do it? And if it's so easy and self evident, why do so many people have such a hard time doing it?

How can we define "playing from the heart"? When most people describe playing from the heart it sounds like they are describing the perceived level of sincerity of the artist and his message, musically, lyrically, both or otherwise. The word "sincere" is defined as "lack of deceit, hypocrisy, or falseness; earnest" or"pure; unmixed; unadulterated" or "genuine". So we can say when an artist is being sincere, the artist is actually feeling or it is perceived that he or she is actually feeling the emotions conveyed in his song (much like an actor). When an artist isn't really feeling the music he or she is writing, then he or she is no longer playing from the heart. I think this sincerity can also be described as"keeping it real".

So now that we have a working definition of what "playing from the heart" is... how do we do it? And how do we know that when we do it, people will still like it? Is all music that is "real" and "genuine" necessarily good music? To do that you must define what "good music" actually is. And that can only be done on a case by case basis because it is so subjective. And from there you must determine how much of the "good music" is being sincere. This is starting to get complicated, if not impossible.

Perhaps instead we can start to figure out how to be sincere then. I guess the simplest definition of this would be to make sure you feel or mean every note that you play or write. Ok that sounds simple enough. So why doesn't everybody just make sure they feel what they play? Perhaps it is difficult for people to understand what they're feeling, and then find something equivalent musically to represent it. Well what could you do to improve your ability to capture those feelings? (For a detailed explanation of this read my ASR theory article) You could do exercises that involve taking what's in your head and bringing it into the real world. You would want as little as possible standing in your way from getting those feelings into tangible notes. So you'd have to make sure you know the "language of music" well enough to communicate your message. Otherwise, it'd be like trying to write anovel or give a speech without first knowing how to communicate in the language. A great speech won't sound rehearsed, it'll sound like the speaker is making it up as they go along delivering the message straight to you. This would first most likely involve ear training. Knowing your notes back and forth and up and down so that when you hear something in your head you automatically know what it is and can quantify that into the real world. Be that on paper, in your voice, or on your instrument. Going along with this you'd also want to practice improvisation at the same time so that you could get your fears and inhibitions out of the way from letting your thoughts come clearly to you. From there you would have a solid connection to the music in your head, and you could further your studies onto form, composition, specific techniques and then any area you wish from there.

Let's back up for a second and take this in reverse. So what would it be like to not be sincere when you are writing? It sounds like you could divide it two ways. Either don't know you aren't being sincere / don't know how to be, or you do know that you aren't and are still writing anyways. For the people who don't know or don't know how to be sincere...perhaps they are feeling a certain way but don't understand how to capture it,so they settled for something else that they didn't really like. Perhaps they aren't feeling the notes at all, but just putting learned patterns together in rational ways. Perhaps for some music is more of a puzzle, rather than an expression. Perhaps they are writing not for themselves but trying to write for what they think others will like. (this could also fall under the people who do know they aren't being sincere category as well)

For the people that do know they aren't being sincere but still do it, they must be writing for another reason besides expression. For example they are obligated by contract to produce music, even when they aren't feeling it. Perhaps they feel obligated to themselves or others to produce even when they don't want to. Or expression is just not important to them to begin with and music is just a means to an end. They are being reinforced to continue for other reasons such as money, women, fame etc.

So after going through all this trouble to try and be sincere, can we really be sure that it is truly even important to play from the heart? Do we really know how many artists achieve "success" by playing from the heart opposed to those who don't? We may never know. If we defined success by money, fame and fortune surely there have been many pop songs created that are not sincere that have made tons of money. And there are surely artists writing songs that are sincere that remain unknown and penniless. One can see now that there are so many reasons people write and perform music that artists that are playing for self expression purposes only is only a portion of overall music. And of that there's probably only a portion of that who are truly expressing themselves to their full potential. So are we now just left with a bag of opinions?

I think now we are left at a crossroads. We must decide what are goals are musically. And also how we would define sucess. If your goal is to express yourself clearly and success would be to write songs that carry what you need to say, then playing from the heart is most likely in your best interests to achieve your goals. Fame and fortune may be a by product of this if other people like it, but if not at least you met your goals. If your goal is to write music for other people or things like film, playing from your heart may not be in your best interests, because you must convey what other people want, not what you truly believe in.

So the next time you hear someone say "Just play from the heart", respond with "how exactly do I do that?" or "Why should I do that". See what they say. Then send them a link to this article.

The Evolution of Alternative Music

2008-09-04T07:18:00.000-07:00

Found this awesome picture the other day. I think it pretty much sums it up, but I don't like how they are implying that bush was a watered down Nirvana or trying to rip them off, I always thought their vibe was going in a much different direction. Either way, enjoy!

Songs That Sound Like Other Songs Part 2: Hey There Delilah & Dancing Through Sunday

2008-07-25T13:35:00.000-07:00

When that Plain White T's song "Hey There Delilah" came out I couldn't help but feel I'd heard the chorus melody somewhere before. This one took me a while to figure out but the "Ooh it's what you do to me" line sounds pretty similar to the melody "Oooh we dance in misery. . . " chorus part in A.F.I.'s "Dancing Through Sunday". Even though the rest of each artist's respective songs really don't sound anything like each other, I thought I'd post it anyways since it's such a dominant hook in each song.

Here's Plain White T's "Hey There Delilah"

And Here's AFI's "Dancing Through Sunday"

Check them for yourself. . .

Compositional Techniques: Attack Sustain Release (ASR) Theory

2008-07-07T15:02:00.000-07:00

Over the course of the past few years I've been trying to improve my ability to write "good" music, or at least music that I personally find impressive, interesting and / or enjoyable. But I've been worried that I might hit my peak and at any moment I could start going down hill. Pretty much all artists seem to plateau or hit a point in their songwriting where it's not getting any better and most of the time they usually continue to get worse. When I've talked to people about why a certain artist is getting worse I just hear the same few phrases "Well, they're just getting older. . . " or "they're just losing their edge", or "they are just selling out, man / all they care about now is money". I've always thought there must be much more to it than that and there must be some sort of way to maintain your creative edge or at least prolong it. So I've come up with a compositional technique /theory that may help this out.

I find that my focus keeps coming back to three areas, and how they integrate with each other to push you further down the path of creativity. Developing a balance in each area seems to help you continue to progress in your creativity and avoid plateauing.

I've named this theory the Attack Sustain Release (ASR) Theory after the ADSR envelope used to describe how a given sound will change over time. For instance if you hit a note on the piano in an otherwise silent room suddenly the volume will increase from no sound(attack) the note's volume will then begin to decrease,(decay) then stay at a steady rate for another amount of time,(sustain) and finally decrease back to zero.(release)

I find this is most analagous to the way creativity works as well. Suddenly you have an idea that pops into your head from nowhere. (the attack) Then you begin to develop the idea, and begin to try to bring it into the real world by recording and / or just writing it down. (sustain) And then at some point the creativity will stop, and you will stop thinking about creating this idea and move on to something else. (release)

A weakness or imbalance in any of the three areas will affect the other two, and in turn your quality of music as a whole. It is therefore important to develop each area individually, and then try to integrate them together to achieve a balance.

ATTACK

The attack portion of your creativity is your ability to open up to and tune into that creative energy and let it flow through you without getting in it's way... basically your ability to improvise. "Improvisation is the Genesis of Composition". Becoming better at improvising will help you generate ideas that are better,faster and clearer and make them sound more "alive", "fluid" and emotional. You can develop this area by doing ear training, jamming and meditative style techniques involving stopping yourself from thinking. (I'd highly reccommend the book The Inner Game of Music for more information on that) It's all too easy to let your doubts and fears creep in and affect your playing. It is very important to "not think" as much as possible when developing this area, in order for you to be able to tune into your idea as strongly as possible. Currently this is my most overdeveloped area. I can improvise some really great stuff but when it comes to writing it down and fleshing out the idea I pretty much always get stuck.

SUSTAIN

The sustain is your technical ability to capture your initial idea, develop it and bring it into the real world. It uses a completely different part of the brain than improvising does. Developing this area would include doing things such as learning music theory, anaylyzing song structures,learning to be able to write down music that you hear accurately (on paper or computer) as well as being able to play music that already written, actually learning how to play your instrument well, and most importantly taking your own ideas and trying to develop them.

For many musicians it is this area that is the most out of balance. Trying to take a purely technical analytical approach to music is somewhat justified (because it is really the most objective area of music) but it is ultimately foolhardy. That part of the brain / mind cannot fully understand the improvisational / emotionaly aspects of the music, it can only observe them.

However, even though overdeveloping this area can be dangerous it is still vitally important to develop it for several reasons. One is that there will be less in your way of getting your original idea into the real world, you won't have to spend time and energy trying to figure out how to write it down or trying to figure out how to play it, you'll automatically know what to do and you'll have a decent roadmap of what your options are for the next step. The next reason is that you can manually force yourself to break out of the box. By analyzing what you normally do, you can pick up on patterns that you repeat often and avoid them. For example, I was listening to a lot of the ideas I had been coming up with recently and was trying to figure out what it was I didn't like about them. I began to realize I was tired of writing melodies that fit neatly on the downbeats and that I wanted to write melodies that came in on the 3rd beat and continued onwards past the ends of the measures. Sure enough when I looked at songs that I found had a "fresher" quality towards their vocal melodies, this is what they were doing. I find it is best to develop your Improvisational and technical abilities in conjunction with each other, at the same
time so that you get used to having to use both at the same time and having them work together, making sure that neither gets disproportionally further along than the other.

RELEASE

You may be asking yourself, "Why is this a category?". Release is a much more subtle factor in all of this but equally as important. While devloping your Attack and Sustain skills it is very easy to get stuck in a pattern where you are no longer enjoying yourself and you aren't progressing. Sometimes you can become too close to a situation and no longer see things from the proper perspective, other times you can become frustrated or uninspired which will also cloud your creativity. Sometimes the best thing you can do is just completely walk away from it and forget about it. Otherwise you can get burnt out, leaving you uninspired and increasingly miserable. And once that happens you may not want to return to that situation again.

For instance, I was once working on a song and I didn't quite know what I wanted but I was frustrated and determined to come up with something. I worked on a chorus part for it for nearly 2 and half hours before I became completely frustrated and quit. I have not been
able to return to the song since (which has been almost 2 years now) because of all the pressure and trauma I created. I no longer have any desire to work on it, and I no longer remember what my original intent for the song even is anymore.

Another example would be John Lennon. As the Beatles became more popular John started to
become more and more frustrated and burnt out and began to lose sight of why he was a musician to begin with. After they broke up he found himself at home out of the spotlight
raising his family without writing for nearly 5 years. When he began writing again he found that without all the pressure and obligations he was free to write when he wanted and because he wanted to. He was able to write an entire album in a few days. He said it was like writing during the period before the Beatles were popular, he was free to write whatever he wanted and it didn't matter if he failed or not, he was out of the spotlight.

Developing your ability to release or let go is very important in order to stay fresh. You can develop this area by going for walks, meditation techniques or simply "getting out" and
enjoying life and taking a break. On the other end of the spectrum you can overdevelop this
area and become too complacent in your songwriting. This seems to happen as musicians get
older and or famous. Some musicians as they become older and / or famous they just want to take it easy and have a good time. This is important but if you don't continue to challenge yourself you will begin to become predictable and just use the same old bag of tricks.

THE BIG PICTURE - HOW THINGS BECOME UNBALANCED

If you think about what an artist is doing during the time when they are considered to be writing at their peak I think you'll find that they are automatically doing ASR. When an artist is up and coming, usually they are still learning new material, they are writing and perfecting their technical abilities, and writing without pressure. They don't feel like they have to write or top themselves, and they are living in the real world and putting that back into the music. After artists become successful and / or just older the ASR can begin to go out of balance. Artists begin to overdevelop one area or overcompensate for a lack in another.

The attack can become stale because you aren't inspired because all your problems are taken care of, or perhaps the pressure of having to write things when you aren't really inspired starts getting to you, and causing you to put out mediocre material to fufill a contract. Or perhaps you've written so much material you are now finding it difficult to find something new to say. A lot of people who are are more naturally talented seem to find it dificult to recover when they hit a dry spell in regards to their attack, because they've never had to think about what they were doing and they've just taken it for granted. It's just "always been there". They may find it more difficult to anaylyze what they are doing and become succeptable to accidently overdeveloping another area. For example, an artist could write several great songs or albums and not think anything of it. To them they just "wrote themselves", they just came about naturally by the way the artist was living their life. But then one day the songs aren't writing themselves they might think back and say "well how did I do that?". And what tends to happen is one of two things they start using their sustain / technical skills to try to figure them out and construct new ones, and start overdeveloping it and not realizing it. Or the artist may continue to try to keep doing what they were doing thinking well "whatever popped in my head before was good, so now I'll just keep doing the same thing because that must be right as well"... not realizing other factors in their life that were probably inspiring them along.

The sustain can become affected because as you get older you tend to stop learning new things. You are more inclined to keep things the way they are, after all your bag of tricks has gotten you this far, why stop now? Has Eric Clapton or Kirk Hammet been sitting around learning new solo tricks and techniques and been practicing new ways of composing them over riffs the past few decades? Probably not.

They've gotten to a point where they are good enough they probably only need to play a bit
just to keep their skills where they are at. Life can get in the way as well. As you get older you may choose to get married or raise a family and that takes a lot of time and effort. Usually both of those things have a huge impact on your outlook on life, ephasizing stability and consistency over spontanaity and creativity. No more highs and lows all the time. All the while your release is becoming overdeveloped. Sometimes with everyone giving you an opinion on your writing you begin to lose perspective, perhaps they are all telling you it's great and it's not.

Perhaps you know no matter what you write "it'll all be okay" and you just want to relax and enjoy yourself. It gets much easier to become complacent. You can feel like you don't want to "climb that mountain" anymore. Sometimes the way people write things when they were younger was stressful and arduous and you don't want to go back to that when you get older.

The Most Cliche Lyrics Ever

2007-10-31T20:41:00.000-07:00

A delightful masterwork of cliches brought to you by Simple Plan, called "Welcome to My Life".

It's exceptional for covering such a large amount of cliche topics in one song. Welcome to a life that never matured beyond age 11. See lyrics below.

Do you ever feel like breaking down?
Do you ever feel out of place?
Like somehow you just don't belong
And no one understands you
Do you ever wanna run away?
Do you lock yourself in your room?
With the radio on turned up so loud
That no one hears you screaming

No you don't know what it's like
When nothing feels all right
You don't know what it's like
To be like me

To be hurt
To feel lost
To be left out in the dark
To be kicked when you're down
To feel like you've been pushed around
To be on the edge of breaking down
And no one's there to save you
No you don't know what it's like
Welcome to my life

Do you wanna be somebody else?
Are you sick of feeling so left out?
Are you desperate to find something more?
Before your life is overAre you stuck inside a world you hate?
Are you sick of everyone around?
With their big fake smiles and stupid lies
While deep inside you're bleeding

[pre chorus]
[chorus]

No one ever lied straight to your face
And no one ever stabbed you in the back
You might think I'm happy but I'm not gonna be okay
Everybody always gave you what you wanted
You never had to work it was always there
You don't know what it's like, what it's like

[chorus ] x 2

Songs That Sound Like Other Songs Part 1:

2007-10-30T23:59:00.000-07:00

All the time nowadays when new music comes out and I hear it for the first time, I often find myself saying... "Hey that sounds like that other song!". This series of posts will be dedicated to pointing out songs that sort of rip off melodies from other songs.

My Chemical Romance - "Teenagers":

Sounds like a combination of Billy Ray Cyrus's "Achy Breaky Heart" and the song "Yellow Polka Dot Bikini".

Public Service Announcement

2007-10-30T23:53:00.000-07:00

Just thought I'd let you know. . .

"Hot Topic Is NOT Punk Rock!" by MC LARS

Quite Possibly the Worst Rap Song Ever?

2007-10-30T22:40:00.000-07:00

During my last post you will recall I was watching one of Fuse's top video shows and caught a terrible cover of "Kiss Me" by Six Pence None the Richer. To really add insult to injury what immediately followed that video happened to be the video below. . . which in turn became a catalyst for me making this blog.

Soulja Boy - "Crank That (Soulja Boy)"

Now I don't really listen to all that much rap / hip hop music but I thought rap was supposed to be about sick beats , awesome lyrics and delivery. This really doesn't have any of the above. I knew things were getting bad on the hip hop side of music just as much as the rock side but wow. I think this quite possibly the worst rap song I've ever heard.

The whole song sounds like a bunch of random samples put together. It's very confusing. Each sentence seems to be cut off with "whoah's" and "you's", and you keep thinking the song is gonna go one way and then another. After two minutes or so of the same thing it becomes pretty disorienting.

In most bad hip hop usually there is just really weak lyrics and bad rhyming (i.e. 50 cent) but they've found away to get beyond that. In this song they barely even have sentences that rhyme together and when they do it's just kind of odd.

For example:

"Yes I Crank It Everyday
Haterz Get Mad Cuz
I Got Me Some Bathin Apes"

(Unfortunately I found out "bathing apes" was a type of shoe so this line actually makes sense)

Well here is another exampe:

"Soulja boy, I'm the man
They be looking at my neck
Saying it's the rubber band man (man)
Watch me do it (watch me do it)
Dance (dance)"

After watching it for a while I didn't really understand what was going on anymore. I guess that's the point. I wondered what went through the artist's and producer's heads when they made this. I tried to find some interviews or anything that might give me a clue but I came up empty. All I could find was Soulja Boy's website which had the most advertising on it I think I've ever seen. Well I guess that's a clue right there. . .

The Kiss of Death, Terrible Cover Song

2007-10-30T16:33:00.000-07:00

So I was watching Fuse for some reason the other day, and I started watching some sort of top 10 or 20 video's out right now thing they had on. All the sudden, I hear the opening chords of "Kiss Me" by Six Pence None the Richer . I was like wtf is this doing on here? But I soon realized it wasn't the beginning of their video.

I waited for Leigh Bingham Nash's lovely voice to come in and charm me with it's sweet melodies when suddenly I was assulted by a high pitch whiny male voice that seemed eerily familiar. For the first second or so I sort of busted out laughing at it but then this quickly turned into nausea. Now disgusted by the initial sound I continued to torture myself by watching the rest to see who just ruined this song. It was none other than New Found Glory. I thought I had been rid of them. I hadn't heard anything from them in a few years, and it seemed most pop punk bands had fallen off the radar or morphed into some sort of Emo band.

Alas it was true they were back (which is offensive enough) but then they had to kick it up a notch and go and butcher "Kiss Me". Turning the once cute and likeable song into a heap of whiny modern garbage.

New Found Glory - Kiss Me

Six Pence None the Richer Version