A new plan: Starting from next week, I'm going to do seven tracks per week for my Cinsorium project. Some of these might turn into tracks for other projects, since they often have traditional instrumental parts in them anyway, which will hopefully offset the fact that this will take up much of my music-making time, but...
Yes. Cranking out heaps of tracks. I've done a complete wipe of my music project directories twice now since I've started making music back in '06. The first time was after a significant buildup of .wav files and Cubase project files - I can't remember why I let them go (well, it was during a system reformat, but I could have easily backed them up), or how I got into the mentality that would allow myself to do it, but I hit the big red button and let 'em die, despite the festering, debilitating attachment I had to them.
Maybe the reason I performed this wipe initially was because I realised that so many of my tracks were constantly being tweaked and picked at well and truly past the point that they were 'done', if they could ever achieve that state when I'm their only audience - I don't feel that this could be the case anyway. I like reshaping music, especially the stuff I make, so this wasn't a problem, but it consumed a huge portion of my life when I could otherwise be exploring new tracks from the ground up.
Then again, maybe I just wanted to reach the idealised state of completion more often because I had this idea in my head that, if I wanted to present the tracks to others, I'd have to give those people something 'complete'.
By hanging onto Cubase project files of tracks that I'd just keep re-opening, this wasn't going to happen.
Naturally, I did save the .mp3s of many of the projects that I liked to listen to as tracks, but they only existed as single files that can no longer be broken down into the individual elements that made them, preventing any likely manipulation.
After a few changes to my living arrangements, my gear's mostly not set up - the kit's sorta everywhere and my pedals are all over the place. I'll be spending some of the weekend putting my room back together.
I'll be recording sounds and going nuts with digital manipulation. I'll be spewing forth a track for each day of the week and putting them into an allocated folder. The best of these tracks will make it onto a website somewhere, maybe, but I'll certainly bombard friends with them. Do people even check MySpace any more? I think it died when I finally jumped on board.
Hopefully this'll help me write songs for the bands that I'm in, because for those projects, completion of songs is a goal and it's something I need to improve on.
I'll keep this up until the end of the year, so that's basically six months of crankin' shit out.
Something's gonna change if I achieve this goal (or even give it a good go).
Good Compromise?
The Band has broken up...
...into two bands.
Makes sense, since there's two drummers and putting them into the same practice space together is proving to be a bitch.
Now it's three members to one band and three to another. I have Lucas drumming and Ellen playing stringed things in my baby, while a new band has spawned for Rhys, Tim and I. If a little bit of cross-jamming happens between members of each band, well, no harm done.
May help with motivation, since I've put the ball into a certain bass-player's court to form the basis for songs in the Other Band - until that happens, I won't be playing anything at all in it. Hopefully this will give him the kick he needs - he didn't seem to feel at home playing bass in my band anyway - the style was a little too strange for his liking. He was the only one who didn't really like the crap I was playing. Now, he gets the opportunity to write the majority of the material and sing if he wants to. I'll just be throwing in a few textural guitar parts here and there, but otherwise turning it into an excercise in minimalism and restraint. Heh.
This means that there'll probably be no bass for They Came And Ate Us: The Musical*, although it frees up my guitar's range a tad, so I can explore the lower end a little bit without worrying about bumping into any other instrumentalists' noodlings towards that end of the frequency spectrum. Now I just need to make sure that Ellen's comfortable playing whatever she's playing and that I stay out of her range. This will be the band where I put my loopers and delays to the most use, so I must keep it from getting too messy. This'll also ensure that Lucas has as much room to move as he likes without worrying about making room for another drummer down the pipeline.
Now the problem is that I'm in two bands and I'm not playing bass in either of them. Nrrrrgh. Well, I'm discussing a design for a baritone guitar with a luthier who's willing to build it and it'll mostly be for songs I write for They Came And Ate Us: The Musical, so maybe I can settle for a middle-ground, since its dynamic range'll be between a guitar and a bass.
Hopefully this whole situation can be summed up with the line "Good compromise; Russia wins."
...
Hopefully.
*Pfft. What do we need bass for, anyway? If it can work for The Dirty Three, it can work for us!
...into two bands.
Makes sense, since there's two drummers and putting them into the same practice space together is proving to be a bitch.
Now it's three members to one band and three to another. I have Lucas drumming and Ellen playing stringed things in my baby, while a new band has spawned for Rhys, Tim and I. If a little bit of cross-jamming happens between members of each band, well, no harm done.
May help with motivation, since I've put the ball into a certain bass-player's court to form the basis for songs in the Other Band - until that happens, I won't be playing anything at all in it. Hopefully this will give him the kick he needs - he didn't seem to feel at home playing bass in my band anyway - the style was a little too strange for his liking. He was the only one who didn't really like the crap I was playing. Now, he gets the opportunity to write the majority of the material and sing if he wants to. I'll just be throwing in a few textural guitar parts here and there, but otherwise turning it into an excercise in minimalism and restraint. Heh.
This means that there'll probably be no bass for They Came And Ate Us: The Musical*, although it frees up my guitar's range a tad, so I can explore the lower end a little bit without worrying about bumping into any other instrumentalists' noodlings towards that end of the frequency spectrum. Now I just need to make sure that Ellen's comfortable playing whatever she's playing and that I stay out of her range. This will be the band where I put my loopers and delays to the most use, so I must keep it from getting too messy. This'll also ensure that Lucas has as much room to move as he likes without worrying about making room for another drummer down the pipeline.
Now the problem is that I'm in two bands and I'm not playing bass in either of them. Nrrrrgh. Well, I'm discussing a design for a baritone guitar with a luthier who's willing to build it and it'll mostly be for songs I write for They Came And Ate Us: The Musical, so maybe I can settle for a middle-ground, since its dynamic range'll be between a guitar and a bass.
Hopefully this whole situation can be summed up with the line "Good compromise; Russia wins."
...
Hopefully.
*Pfft. What do we need bass for, anyway? If it can work for The Dirty Three, it can work for us!
Productionary Museness
I like the idea of viewing a studio and its use as an artistic device, something that's probably equally important as an instrument or a bunch of words formed into song lyrics. It's why I'm such a fan of bands like BOC, Radiohead, Squarepusher and to a lesser extent, groups like Botch, Deerhoof, Battles and Minus The Bear. All these little tricks that are used after the physical act of playing notes on instruments in order to shape the sound further seems to alter the character of the song from a group of seperate parts to something that sounds more complete. Simple things like EQing vocals, or panning two seperate guitar takes (one for the left channel, one for the right), or even messing with live drumming by adding delay or reverb for a couple of beats*, or even the entire take.
I often apply this to my own sample-based music, which I've started making again (yeah, the Cinsorium MySpace shall be updated with it soonish). It's basically one of the main ideals that I keep in mind when I make that kind of music - no rules whatsoever. If I can record it and make it sound interesting, then it's a Cinsorium track. Field recordings, white noise, manipulated sine waves, you name it, and if I haven't already done it, then I probably will.
I was pretty much not going to record They Came And Ate Us: The Musical tracks for public consumption - well, the idea in the early stages was get as many gigs as possible but don't put out any CDs. It was mostly an experiment to see how successfully we could develop a reputation without recorded material existing.
Things are a little different now. It took a while, but the obvious finally struck me by way of various band member fists: We'll at least have a Myspace/Facebook/Website. We'll need some recorded medium up there.
I've recorded my parts for all of our songs so far - some are better quality than others, but they're all intended to be working demos to help the rest of the band come up with stuff when they're not here and me to go over ideas when I'm not at home. I'm going to start recording the rest of the peeps as soon as they have stuff they're happy with, just so we can more easily remember our parts. It'll also help us get a more abjective*** idea of how we sound with the rest of the band when we have to actually listen back to our own playing.
Anyway, my point is that I may use these as demos to put online for folks to hear. I believe that I'm going to refrain from giving more than a cursory spit-and-polish and just leave tracks as they are - in order to keep the band sounding as it does, rather than tweaking things too much, accidentally bending reality in the process.
I think that as much as I respect production & engineering that gets creative, it detracts from the band's importance, and the focus shifts to the process that takes place after the music's been played. Unlike Cinsorium, we are a band who'll be playing live. If the recording/production process is as simple and as to-the-point as possible, then the focus will more likely be on the people playing. Simple, no?
*Squarepusher's a good example of this, and examples are especially blatant in tracks from Just A Souvenir. You'll find fragments, just a few notes, of reversed guitar or drums among an otherwise normal take on many occasions.
**Bribery/blackmail FTW
***Had to slot that in there. How could I not?
I often apply this to my own sample-based music, which I've started making again (yeah, the Cinsorium MySpace shall be updated with it soonish). It's basically one of the main ideals that I keep in mind when I make that kind of music - no rules whatsoever. If I can record it and make it sound interesting, then it's a Cinsorium track. Field recordings, white noise, manipulated sine waves, you name it, and if I haven't already done it, then I probably will.
I was pretty much not going to record They Came And Ate Us: The Musical tracks for public consumption - well, the idea in the early stages was get as many gigs as possible but don't put out any CDs. It was mostly an experiment to see how successfully we could develop a reputation without recorded material existing.
Things are a little different now. It took a while, but the obvious finally struck me by way of various band member fists: We'll at least have a Myspace/Facebook/Website. We'll need some recorded medium up there.
I've recorded my parts for all of our songs so far - some are better quality than others, but they're all intended to be working demos to help the rest of the band come up with stuff when they're not here and me to go over ideas when I'm not at home. I'm going to start recording the rest of the peeps as soon as they have stuff they're happy with, just so we can more easily remember our parts. It'll also help us get a more abjective*** idea of how we sound with the rest of the band when we have to actually listen back to our own playing.
Anyway, my point is that I may use these as demos to put online for folks to hear. I believe that I'm going to refrain from giving more than a cursory spit-and-polish and just leave tracks as they are - in order to keep the band sounding as it does, rather than tweaking things too much, accidentally bending reality in the process.
I think that as much as I respect production & engineering that gets creative, it detracts from the band's importance, and the focus shifts to the process that takes place after the music's been played. Unlike Cinsorium, we are a band who'll be playing live. If the recording/production process is as simple and as to-the-point as possible, then the focus will more likely be on the people playing. Simple, no?
*Squarepusher's a good example of this, and examples are especially blatant in tracks from Just A Souvenir. You'll find fragments, just a few notes, of reversed guitar or drums among an otherwise normal take on many occasions.
**Bribery/blackmail FTW
***Had to slot that in there. How could I not?
I can barely remember why I decided to take a purely improvisational direction with this group. I only remember that it had something to do with me being too lazy to arrange songs in the form that I had in mind.
Either way, I'm glad that we're writing songs now. It seemed a unanimous decision when one person piped up in frustration during a jam, then everyone else voiced their agreement, including myself (surprising myself as I did so).
Anyway, I have a clearer idea of how to not only arrange my own parts, but how to arrange my gear as well - manipulating switches, twiddling dials and things, as well as routing things differently.
I will be writing by myself and with other members and rehearsing with the full group when we have enough stuff to go over in a session. Writing with different people should produce a pretty diverse range of sounds.
Another thought: I have been thinking about who I want to interest with what we play and have decided that it'll mostly be other musicians. I guess the decision was arrived at unconciously. I'd like to say that we'll ideally entertain anyone, but that's not realistic - somebody will be put off by what we're doing, regardless of what we do, especially if we write music that's not reliant on contemporary mucial conventions.
I'm hoping that we can steer away from lyrics for a while. I think that this may not only distract from the music, but also give people something to sing along to - I feel that this might be talking down to the listener in question. Three of us would be willing to sing, but the vocals would have to be purely musical. I have thought about covering some songs, a few of which have lyrics, which I'd have to sing. Personally, I have no problem having my voice mixed as far back as possible and possibly have what I'm singing garbled beyond lyrical coherency by various effects.
That isn't a new thing to do, but in the context of the songs I'd be singing...I think it serves to completely change the focus of the song.
Either way, I'm glad that we're writing songs now. It seemed a unanimous decision when one person piped up in frustration during a jam, then everyone else voiced their agreement, including myself (surprising myself as I did so).
Anyway, I have a clearer idea of how to not only arrange my own parts, but how to arrange my gear as well - manipulating switches, twiddling dials and things, as well as routing things differently.
I will be writing by myself and with other members and rehearsing with the full group when we have enough stuff to go over in a session. Writing with different people should produce a pretty diverse range of sounds.
Another thought: I have been thinking about who I want to interest with what we play and have decided that it'll mostly be other musicians. I guess the decision was arrived at unconciously. I'd like to say that we'll ideally entertain anyone, but that's not realistic - somebody will be put off by what we're doing, regardless of what we do, especially if we write music that's not reliant on contemporary mucial conventions.
I'm hoping that we can steer away from lyrics for a while. I think that this may not only distract from the music, but also give people something to sing along to - I feel that this might be talking down to the listener in question. Three of us would be willing to sing, but the vocals would have to be purely musical. I have thought about covering some songs, a few of which have lyrics, which I'd have to sing. Personally, I have no problem having my voice mixed as far back as possible and possibly have what I'm singing garbled beyond lyrical coherency by various effects.
That isn't a new thing to do, but in the context of the songs I'd be singing...I think it serves to completely change the focus of the song.
Loopy
So, Ellen's interested in playing violin for They Came And Ate Us: The Musical. At least, part of the time.
She feels that there's a lack of variety in the stuff we play and it's not helped by what she's contrubuting. Not only that, but she mentioned that she kept hearing violin riffs while she was guitarring, so that's quite promising. I have no idea what she has up her sleeve, but it should be interesting.
Meanwhile, Rhys and I have been jamming continuously. He's still not listening to loops sometimes, which means that he gets out of sync with the machine, but nowhere near as often. It got me thinking - none of us five has learned to play to a metronome. Probably ever. I sure as hell haven't.
I've been thinking about why I choose to loop some phrases and not others - opting to repeat the phrase myself. I think that sometimes I intend to change the dynamic of what I'm playing ahead of time - if it's a loop, it obviously ain't gonna change, unless I fiddle with the volume of it, which isn't the same as playing a guitar gently vs. bashing on it.
I'm not as sure as I'd like to be that this is the case, though - I'll have to pay more attention to what I'm playing and what I plan on playing afterwards, I think.
She feels that there's a lack of variety in the stuff we play and it's not helped by what she's contrubuting. Not only that, but she mentioned that she kept hearing violin riffs while she was guitarring, so that's quite promising. I have no idea what she has up her sleeve, but it should be interesting.
Meanwhile, Rhys and I have been jamming continuously. He's still not listening to loops sometimes, which means that he gets out of sync with the machine, but nowhere near as often. It got me thinking - none of us five has learned to play to a metronome. Probably ever. I sure as hell haven't.
I've been thinking about why I choose to loop some phrases and not others - opting to repeat the phrase myself. I think that sometimes I intend to change the dynamic of what I'm playing ahead of time - if it's a loop, it obviously ain't gonna change, unless I fiddle with the volume of it, which isn't the same as playing a guitar gently vs. bashing on it.
I'm not as sure as I'd like to be that this is the case, though - I'll have to pay more attention to what I'm playing and what I plan on playing afterwards, I think.
They Came And Ate Us
The thought of how I want this kind of music to sound has been bouncing around in my mind for months now. New ideas keep entering my mind, sometimes pushing old ones out, but often, disturbingly enough, merging with what's already there.
In case I need to tell you, this is not necessarily a good thing.
Think of someone very impressionalistic with a high degree of irreverence towards social norms who is currently making a wedding cake for a friend's wedding and seeing a bunch of onions and a jar of mustard in their peripheral vision. Disaster is bound to hit.
But then, how are new foods created? Just by making minute changes to existing dishes? Sometimes, but only gradually and you can't really make any drastic changes without making huge leaps of faith occasionally.
I'm sure it'll all work out - as long as we don't tell people that we're making a cake, they may find it passable if not palatable. But what do we tell them we do, if they ask? (and they will ask)
Here's where my issue of marginalising comes into play - I'd settle for calling us an experimental rock band. I'd have to if I were to try getting paying gigs at music venues.
"MY GOD! What the hell are they doing? Why are there two drummers playing two different things? And why are there two different riffs playing to each drum kit? And what's all that awful feedback? Why the hell is the bass player dancing around like a freak?"
"Oh, it's OK - they're an experimental band"
"Oh. Alright, then! :-D"
I have an idea that we're humans playing along to numerous machines. The idea is that we'll be watchable. We'll be painting a picture along to a sequence of generated numbers which may or may not be associated with specific colours (if anything's to be certain, whoever's watching us will not know for sure). Each member will be painting his or her own thing at once and it'll come together into a cohesive whole. That thing probably won't make sense to anyone watching unless we deliberately take on some qualities that they're familiar with. A riff that sounds like a Nirvana song, or a beat that is often heard in 90s pop music will surface. Sometimes it'll be due to an influence that one or two of us will wear on our sleeve, sometimes just through chance. And that will also depend on who's watching.
I'm steeped in the post-rock thing and Battles and Don Caballero (actually, are they post-rock? Or aren't they?) at the moment and there's a very clear mimickry (to me, at least) of post-rock stylings when I play guitar conventionally. When I play keys and tap crazy crap out, it sometimes starts sounding a little more Battlesey. Sometimes I think it's because of the gear I'm using - machines are designed to be used in a specific way and I'm not sure that I'm using mine creatively enough to fight against being bottlenecked creatively by them. The purpose the machine is imbued with is the purpose I end up fulfilling as I embody the machine's logic - unless I fight against it. But then, I might have to fight against the logic of musical parameters as well.
Then, it's no longer the audience I have to convince, but the other band members. Will I be bastardising what I'm doing if I tell them when/where I'm experimenting, or should I leave it unsaid?
Anyway, any issues with influence should be fine. The people we'd be playing to, ideally, won't have heard of these groups and probably won't even notice that we're improvising everything (so to them it'll just look like we suck).
Lucas, Ellen, Rhys and Tim will each be influenced by things entirely different to myself. Sure, I make the most noise (both in the band's idealogical direction and in raw decibels and frequency), but collectively it hopefully all balances out.
In case I need to tell you, this is not necessarily a good thing.
Think of someone very impressionalistic with a high degree of irreverence towards social norms who is currently making a wedding cake for a friend's wedding and seeing a bunch of onions and a jar of mustard in their peripheral vision. Disaster is bound to hit.
But then, how are new foods created? Just by making minute changes to existing dishes? Sometimes, but only gradually and you can't really make any drastic changes without making huge leaps of faith occasionally.
I'm sure it'll all work out - as long as we don't tell people that we're making a cake, they may find it passable if not palatable. But what do we tell them we do, if they ask? (and they will ask)
Here's where my issue of marginalising comes into play - I'd settle for calling us an experimental rock band. I'd have to if I were to try getting paying gigs at music venues.
"MY GOD! What the hell are they doing? Why are there two drummers playing two different things? And why are there two different riffs playing to each drum kit? And what's all that awful feedback? Why the hell is the bass player dancing around like a freak?"
"Oh, it's OK - they're an experimental band"
"Oh. Alright, then! :-D"
I have an idea that we're humans playing along to numerous machines. The idea is that we'll be watchable. We'll be painting a picture along to a sequence of generated numbers which may or may not be associated with specific colours (if anything's to be certain, whoever's watching us will not know for sure). Each member will be painting his or her own thing at once and it'll come together into a cohesive whole. That thing probably won't make sense to anyone watching unless we deliberately take on some qualities that they're familiar with. A riff that sounds like a Nirvana song, or a beat that is often heard in 90s pop music will surface. Sometimes it'll be due to an influence that one or two of us will wear on our sleeve, sometimes just through chance. And that will also depend on who's watching.
I'm steeped in the post-rock thing and Battles and Don Caballero (actually, are they post-rock? Or aren't they?) at the moment and there's a very clear mimickry (to me, at least) of post-rock stylings when I play guitar conventionally. When I play keys and tap crazy crap out, it sometimes starts sounding a little more Battlesey. Sometimes I think it's because of the gear I'm using - machines are designed to be used in a specific way and I'm not sure that I'm using mine creatively enough to fight against being bottlenecked creatively by them. The purpose the machine is imbued with is the purpose I end up fulfilling as I embody the machine's logic - unless I fight against it. But then, I might have to fight against the logic of musical parameters as well.
Then, it's no longer the audience I have to convince, but the other band members. Will I be bastardising what I'm doing if I tell them when/where I'm experimenting, or should I leave it unsaid?
Anyway, any issues with influence should be fine. The people we'd be playing to, ideally, won't have heard of these groups and probably won't even notice that we're improvising everything (so to them it'll just look like we suck).
Lucas, Ellen, Rhys and Tim will each be influenced by things entirely different to myself. Sure, I make the most noise (both in the band's idealogical direction and in raw decibels and frequency), but collectively it hopefully all balances out.
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