jamendo

Tonight I wasn't really feeling that creative.  I need to write a few parts to round out some of the songs I've been working on, but haven't been able to think of anything lately.  So, instead of just wasting my time not getting anything done, I spent some time listening to some new music.  Some stuff was new music, some stuff wasn't.

I spent a while listening to stuff on this site called Jamendo for the first time.  It's a free music site that was being advertised on the internet radio stations I'm been listening too. It's a surprisingly large site for an all free music place.  I didn't look into it too much, but I think that some stuff you can download some you have to have a subscription to download, or all of it you can download and some you can't use in other work without a subscription.  I'm not sure, but all of it was free to research and listen too.

I pretty much just clicked on most popular songs and went down the list listening to things that had tags I thought were interesting.  Electronic, metal, ambient, were mostly the ones that I was browsing through. The sort of genres I might be a part of eventually.  I know that there are so many artists out there that you can't really get a sense of everything that's going on, but even just browsing through stuff once in a while gives you a pretty good idea where people are at.  I know that's going to help me more than staying isolated.  It also gives you a chance to sorta change your mindset for a bit instead of just staying stuck.

internet radio

Today, I have decided that I shall be talking about internet radio.  For those of you out there rich enough to simply buy an XM radio and subscription, good for you.  But I do not have an XM subscription (which I have heard is quite nice).  Instead, I've been using the internet radio directory that is built into the VLC media player (I think winamp also has a good internet radio listing, but I've never looked).  Basically, there's just this list of thousands of radio stations.  You can do a keyword search or just browse through all the stations by hand.

A little while ago I spent a bit of time going through the stations and saving some of the interesting sounding ones into vaguely sorted lists.  For example, I have three metal stations that are slightly different in their song selection, but fairly similar.  I suggest saving a few more stations than you would think that you might need since I don't think that most of these have the funding that most larger radio stations have.  The commercials are about the frequency you'd expect from any radio station, about three for four songs then a commercial.

I've found that I get an unexpected amount of use out of radio on my computer.  While I'm reading or working with a music program are about the only times that I can't really listen to internet radio.  I think my favorite part is my ability to think of a genre of music that I like and put on that radio station.  The actual quality of the songs played varies between stations, but I think it's slightly better than what you'd find on cable radio stations or something like that.  I also find it more convenient.

internet archive

I'd just like to say that ebooks are not as good as actual books.  Yeah, I do a lot of things on my computer but reading books is usually not one of them.  The Internet Archive is one of my new favorite places.  The thing that I like the best about the internet archive is that most of the books that that host have a sponsor.  Even better than having a sponsor like, the guy down the street, they have sponsors like MSN and Google (although I think Google mostly links to it's own stuff).

I like almost everything that I've seen from the Internet Archive so far.  The books that I've downloaded are all in convenient PDF format.  I think that out of all possible formats, PDF most closely resembles an actual book, and for me, that's sort of the point.  I get to keep all of the PDF books that I've downloaded.  When I'm reading I keep a bookmarks file near the PDFs so that I can record what page I left off on and when I start reading again I just type the page number into the top and there I am.

There was even an incident where I was reading a book that had some missing pages and was handled quiet well.  I went to their forums, started a thread with my complaint, and I think in less than a day someone that worked at the site or helped there (I didn't ask) emailed me back with a suggestion.  I had already picked out a new copy and didn't listen to them, but it made me feel better as a customer to know that someone actually heard my complaint.  Even if they don't bother to fix the mistake, an actual person at least had to make that decision.

office work

Today I didn't get much exciting accomplished, but I did manage to get some things done that I needed to do.  I took the poetry I've been working on and compiled it into a text document that I will later convert into a PDF file.  All of the appropriate titles are in place and the sections have neat little pages of their own.  At the moment I have I guess a decent amount of writing, about one hundred and fifty pages or so, although that number's a bit misleading.  There are a lot of pages that just have a few lines, the end of a longer poem or a very short piece of writing.

I don't have a reason for making PDF files out of my writing but I think they're good to have around.  I can think about how what I am doing is going to look as a complete work.  Going through the overview I can see how all the pieces fit together.  If I were ever to think about publishing work or letting other people see it, that is what I would want them to have.  I already have a blog that I haven't made public yet, but it doesn't really focus as well on the writing as a complete work.  I posted in a way that they are in order, but blogs aren't really thought of in the same way as a PDF file.  And people aren't going to download a blog.  If you were trying to read all of the blog entries you'd have to keep track of your place which just isn't as easy as it is with a file on your computer.  I know when I read a blog, I tend to think of the posts as separate from each other even if they aren't.  I don't really think of a PDF file like that.  I feel good about what I was able to accomplish.

I'll probably just be doing some reading for a while.  I've done all the editing I want to do for a while and I haven't thought of any new material.  I need to decide whether I'm going to talk about reading or not.  I could do a discussion/book review kind of thing, but I don't know if that's what I really want to do here.  I probably will if I end up spending enough of my time reading.

decisions

So, those two tracks that I thought were too similar are not.  Completely different tempo when you listen to them next to each other.  When I acutally release something they aren't going to be anywhere near each other so it will be even less noticable.  The only reason I heard it was because I was listening for things like that.  I actually really like the variety of the two songs when I hear them played side-by-side.

Speaking of variation, I think that my bass tracks are starting to get too similar.  Alright, I kinda did this part on purpose, but I'm debating whether it's a good idea or not.  Originally I had one 10 minute long song, but that's just unnecessary (at least for where I'm at).  So, I split the song into two songs.  I really liked one of them and didn't like the other at all.  I rewrote the one I didn't like twice and ended up keeping all three versions (for now).  The original version is just a loop basically, no real chorus or bridge.  The first rewrite is the exact same thing, except the chorus is double time (with no other variation).  This actually sounds suprisingly good.  The second re-write is the loop backwards with a single chrous that is new.  I really like the transition from the chorus back to the verus, but it sounds a lot closer to the original version than I expected.  I kinda thought that playing the loop backwards would somehow make a difference, but it does not.  I'm going to wait on this for a while and hopefully it'll sound better like the computer stuff when I listen to it again later.  I will add in other tracks for variation.  I think that if I do it right I'll be albe to keep all of the tracks, but at the moment I don't have any ideas.

early recordings

I finally got some quality time in the studio today.  I was able to record a few tracks that I think turned out well.  My recording quality is still hindering my progress, but I think that I'm starting to work around that.  I should look into this, but when I was adjusting the levels, I noticed that I couldn't mix my track as loud as I would like.  I'm sort of a beginner to recording equipment, but I do know that if the input is too loud it'll start to peak and crack.  But I know that I can turn up the volume on my headphones and the track sounds good.  Why can't I do that in the recording program so I don't have to turn up my headphones so loud?

Yeah, I guess that's a homework assignment I'll have to get to at some point. Although, since I don't have any money for buying new equipment, I imagine the answer isn't going to be what I would want.  So, I'll probably just ignore that for now.  I also need to do more work with the measures within my tracks.  I haven't quite figured out the notation in the program, so I just kinda do whatever sounds decent.  But I know that if I figure out the math, it can work more like sheet music.

And lastly, I should mention that while going through my catalogue of music, I found that some songs were more similar than I would like.  I don't need or even want to have my music just all over the place.  You have to have a theme or style of some sort to keep people's interest and not alienate fans that only like some stuff.  But I can't stand when I do something really obvious and don't notice it when I'm writing. Like, the songs were different enough to say fine, I could get away with that, but I just didn't like how similar they were.  I mean, I didn't do that on purpose.  I don't wanna just make mistakes and pretend like I meant to.  Yet, now that I'm thinking about it, I feel like I have to listen to the songs more closely to make sure that's actually a bad thing.

practice

More practice needed.  I think that for now I'm going to settle for posting my soundcloud account.  This is where I posted some very basic stuff that I did, but it also proves that I'm actually competent with an instrument (loop1 more so than loop2).  These songs are just ten second clips that were smoothed over to avoid that annoying popping sound that loops sometimes make when done poorly, then repeated to the length of a song.  I do not plan to ever use either of these songs, but for now they will be a sort of demo.

I don't think that I'm going to officially post any finished songs yet.  I like where I'm at.  I don't like how my songs sound when I think about selling them.  Listening to the radio and other music I've purchased, I probably wouldn't buy most of my stuff.  I might in the right situation.  I think I either need to wait for the right situation, or simply practice more.  Since I don't have an enormous fan base demanding the release of new material, I can do things like that.

Maybe for a while I'll just write about listening to music.  Sounds kinda awkward though.  Except that's what I'm going to be doing, and that is the point of this blog.  Today I spent listening to my own music.  More on that tomorrow!

blogging

I think I'm blogging too much, but I can't tell.  Kind of a stupid question to ask since I'm still able to post every day, but it's only been a few days so far.  I wonder if I'm going to have enough things to think about months from now when I have close to a hundred posts.  That's a lot of thoughts about things.  I know I can't just think of new stuff to write every time.  I guess I could start thinking about shorter posts, possibly more summary oriented stuff.  But wasn' that what I was already doing?

Maybe I just won't bother to notice if my opinions overlap or confilct with each other.  I mean, I'm a person, I have lots of thoughts all the time.  According to reasonable logic, I probably won't keep writing the same thing anyway, without even trying.  I mean, I guess if I stop practicing and/or creating new material then that would be more likely.  "Oh, you should have seen that song I wrote 5 years ago."  But why would I keep writing this blog, wouldn't that be depressing?

Well, I guess now that just means I'm thinking too much.  Oh no, more problems!  How strange things are.  But I still managed to accomplish something today.  I guess at some point I might even accomplish actual things, but things seem to be going pretty good for now.  I gotta make sure I actually like this whole blogging thing before just running all willy-nilly into the advertising space. Oh yeah, and I need a following to sell things to.  Also that.

accomplishements

Today was about getting things accomplished.  I put some effort into creating unreleased material.  The new album can go in one of two directions.  I can either continue my current pattern, or I can try creating things that are maybe less compatible, but more oriented towards using all of what I have to offer.  I think that this idea will be important for how I write music in the future.  Although, maybe not.  Sometimes I just write things because I think of them.

So, you'd think not a lot was accomplished during a day of mostly thought work.  Although I think I went in a decent direction with my computer work.  I was trying to create something that was a little more consistent, yet had some possibly more complex layers.  Even when you do not have that many layers, it is important to consider your ability to comprehend how they all interact.  As you gain the ability to view more pieces of the whole, the parts begin to fit together better.

As part of my overall album work, I think that I am where I'd like to be right now.  Releasing what I have is starting to look like a better idea.  I do have more important decisions to make, regarding things like the actual work that I'm accomplishing.  I will have to decide what direction I will be going.  I also want to make a decision about how much time I'm going to spend going over the smaller details of some of the sound work/layers in the current releases.  Some stuff I'd like to change, but I like spending time on new material.

bandcamp

Today I needed to think about what to do with my bandcamp account.  I could release what I have now, but I know that some of the songs are going to change.  I know that I would like to have much better recording equipment at some point.  If possible the recording quality of many of my songs is going to change.  I know I also have a few ideas for changes to some of my songs, but that's not going to be much.  Yet I do have enough material to be released.

There's a chance this won't be a big deal because I feel that enough of the songs are decent that people will like them if they're going to ever like them at all.  But since I don't have an official following, I'm not sure how I feel about selling material that I know is going to change.  I could offer upgrades on request(the sort of thing where if i mention in my blog that something has changed, I could send them the new version), but that could easily get out of hand.  I don't know how to offer a free album to just one person online, and I doubt I'd want to manually send everyone a new copy.  I could though.

Releasing an album is also going to mean that new material will be written for a different album.  It's a big decision to finish working on any album.  I might even need more unreleased material so I have some idea where I'm going next.  I can't really take myself too seriously, but I don't want to seem unprofessional either.  I think I'll have the most difficulty finding people that will keep buying my albums if I don't give them the impression that I'm creating a serious release.

I think that finding an audience for this blog might need to be considered in the more imediate future.  I can create entries for this blog very quickly, so this will be the most interesting going forward.

paperwork

Today, along with most of the rest of this week has been filling out forms and doing other financial related tasks that one usually does not wish to do.  But, like everything else that is healthy for a person, sometimes one has to do these things.  If I don't create a blog with ads then how am I going to create a source of income?  Also, how the hell do I promote my bandcamp?  Sure, there's always facebook.  But, I could just ask most of them for money personally.  Marketing sucks and is stupid.

Fine, doing the album cover art and giving the albums a name was kinda thought provoking.  Kinda.  I won't be writing any new songs from the album cover art though.  And the name kinda puts me in a hole, I mean, now I gotta figure out where I go next.  Like, the name sticks around, so now I have a name history.  And I'll eventually need to make more album cover art.  It's just not what I do, I'm sure someone reading this will find this complaining insulting because sure, some people enjoy doing that stuff.  I do not.

And what are my options for promotion anyway?  Spam chat rooms and forums?  I'd get banned the second or third time easily.  And if that worked, everyone reading this would then do that.  I better just personally like every single person that views my page.  I guess I could always hand out flyers at the supermakert.  I hear that's what some people do.  Imagine if everyone did that.  I'd start getting my groceries delivered.

intro

I started playing the trumpet in the 4th grade.  I had my first piece of writing published in 5th grade(it was a homework assignment that the teacher published without asking me).  I started playing bass senior year of high school in a band that I knew.   Some of my musical influences include: Primus, Slipknot and Radiohead.  Some of my favorite writers include: Ginsburg, T.S. Elliot and William Blake.

I have been recording songs with the instruments: bass, turntable, mixer/ipod, computer mixing, and cowbell(kinda).  For songs that focus on complex basslines, I use the turntable as high end percussion and cowbell for low end percussion.  For stuff that is focused on the turntable, I record a track that contains turntable scratching with ipod mixed in via the mixer.  This does not directly sample original work in any way since the mixer manually scrambles the ipod input.  After the track is recorded, I play it back and record a simple bassline over the turntable/ipod/mixer track.  The other stuff that I have is one long track recorded from different turntable sounds.  This track is sliced into tiny pieces, given a melody and sound effects (or beat if done for low end sounds) and put together with several other tracks done like this.

My writing is usually done from observation.  Some of the longer pieces are done as part of lager events.  Typically, the longer pieces will be written all at once, then edited down later.  Much of the editing is getting the diction to be more thoughtful.  The medium sized pieces and the more abstract smaller pieces are usually a mix of several smaller pieces.  These pieces will usually be collaged together in a sort of story form.  All the pieces are then ordered in the form of a book, and the books are ordered in a series.

Artwork is minimal at best, although I have spent time doing graphiti.  The videos should be my most performable material.  The current set was made into a four part series.