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Today I was working on a film web site I’ve been working on for the last 6 months.  It’s going to be awesome when we finally launch it.

Anyway, I was IMing with its producer Lorie Marsh and enjoying our collaboration.  Then I thought, “gee, won’t it be great if someone demanded me to work on my own music?”

I envy who ever gets to work with Lorie the producer.  She is the person who makes a business out of a film, by finding investors, building web sites, and promoting the films once they are done.  In the music circles that person would probably be called a manager.

But really, the biggest hurdle for me, and for many other musicians, is the fact that while we may have fans, nobody is demanding, nobody is holding us accountable to work on our own stuff.  I’m great with deadlines, so when someone tells me “this gotta be done by this day” I get it done.

I guess I’m not as disciplined as I can be, but that’s not the whole picture.  The collaboration that happens between a client and service provider is different from, say, between band members.  There’s certain tension and boundaries here that keeps us on our toes.

Don’t get me wrong, I am making progress on my own stuff.  But I dream of finding a Produer or a Manager for my own stuff one day — someone who can make a business out of it and demands me to produce.

Then I’ll be real productive.

In just about every other areas of music instruction, they encourage students to analyze, learn and steal from the greats.  Guitar students start out by playing along to their heros.  Singers sing along.  Classical music students analyze Bach, Mozart, Beethoven and likes and learn what stylistic elements identify their compositions as their works.

Rightfully, this is a tricky topic with songwriters, because we’re so afraid of plagiarism.  Even if you don’t end up in court, being accused of plagiarism, being a copycat, is a major insult.  And I’m not advocating that plagiarism is acceptable — it’s not.  But learning from the greats is still the most effective way to learn a craft.  What you do is instead of copying bits of music — though that’s where everyone must start — you analyze songs and learn the system that makes the great songs great.

And this also extends to the art of record producing — great arrangers, engineers and producers are constantly analyzing what they hear in recordings.  Instrumentation, mix, types of reverb used — all that information is available to those who know how to listen.

Once you start analyzing, you’ll discover that each piece of music/recording contains an amazing amount of information.  It’s packed full of techiniques that you can employ into your own songwriting and production. Below let me identify what you can glean from a recording, so that you can start developing the skill of listening critically. (continue reading…)

Contrary to popular belief, you don’t need a million-dollar studio to produce a recording worthy of public consumption — or even mass success. There are times and occasions where it’s good to spend money, go to
a studio and let others worry about the recording end of things, but I
generally encourage musicians, particularly those who aspire to be Self
Sufficient, to learn how to record themselves.

Studio engineers tend to obsess over this gear and that, and they endlessly debate the merits of sonic difference only discernable in the very best of listening environments.  Sure, we’re making art — but music is also a communication.   The role of tools is to make Good Enough recordings so that imperfections are not distracting. Once that’s achieved, everything else is a marginal benefit at best.

That said, there are some fundamental competence you must master as a producer of a recording in order to have your recordings compete in the market place.

I’m going to discuss these qualities more in abstract here — there will be more focused articles that give practical tips on how to achieve these qualities. (continue reading…)

It took me 13 years since graduating from college to become a full-time musician.

Does the depress you or encourage you?  Why did it take me such a long time?

Well, there are many reasons.  But one of them is because it took me that long to figure out exactly what I wanted to become.

There are many forms of musicians, and I tried being many of them.  Below I’m going to list all the careers I’ve tried, and my own take on their pros and cons and what’s needed to really pursue them.  Hopefully my real-life tales will help you determine which direction you’re drawn to. (continue reading…)