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Showing posts from November, 2018

Poetry as lyrics

More often than not my songs are written to be abstract, so I write lyrics that carry a lot of meaning in vague ways, allowing listeners to take away what they hear as the truth of my words. The method of writing lyrics I typically choose is poetry. The ability to structure words visually helps to visualize the rhythm they should be sang or spoke. In many of my songs the chord progressions are somewhat dissonant and move around a lot making spoken word a more fitting choice of deliverance. using this style of lyrics makes it easier to express the words with more emotion. A word is no longer restricted to the key of the song meaning more tones are available. I've found that this widened range of chooses adds more nuance and expressive qualities.

Perfectionism: Pros and Cons

     I am a perfectionist when it comes to music. so much so that I am often displeased with minor details in my work. this can hider my enjoyment of when listening back. I know that getting hung up on the small things can distract from the big picture, which is what's important. An example of this is on a  when I hear a few spots in my recent album where my vocals were a little rough, my throat tenses up. But when I take a step back and think, when I listen to Artists like Dave Matthews and Pavement I don't listen the imperfections, I listen to the music, for its imagery, its words, its feelings. Anne Lammot has a quote that effectively expresses the biggest downfalls of this attitude, "Perfectionism is the voice of the oppressor, the enemy of the people. It will keep you cramped and insane your whole life, and it is the main obstacle between you and a shitty first draft." letting small things hold you back will prevent the creative process from being a free flowing

Passenger Pigeon: the self titled album

Im proud to say that my band Passenger Pigeon finally recorded a full length album and released it on most platforms. we've been together around four years and have grown to be an incredibly tight crew of dudes. through the process of creating the album we learned many valuable lessons. the first is time management; we had tried recording several times before but since we had not created a mission statement we fell short and never followed anything to completion. a lesson that Anne Lammot teaches in Bird by Bird in the early chapters is, learn from your shitty first drafts; we had recorded a song called Ibn Battuta three times only to be discouraged by the end result. however each time was better than the last. we learned from the mistakes of these shitty drafts and finally recorded an excellent track. one of the most simple, yet profound lesson Kenny (bass and vocals) and I learned was patience. this was hard for us because as artists we were incredibly anxious to release our musi

Plug-ins

plug-ins are pieces of  software that are used to process and manipulate audio tracks in a daw. a compressor is a popular example of a plug in. they set a decibel threshold to prevent level peaking and bring out quieter parts in the mix. knowing what they are and how to use them is a crucial part of being a recording musician. without plugins a mix can easily sound thin and weak. I learned this the hard way. my first EP was originally released with only a few reverb plugins. no serious mixing was done and as a result it sounded very unprofessional. I recently spent time learning about daws with my good buddy James McConnell and used the acquired information to remix the EP. The result was a much smoother and professional production. if you are at all interested in recording music do yourself a favor. learn from my mistake and learn about plugins before you start. if anyone is curious and wants to learn more just shoot me an email and I'd be happy to provide info and recommend some

Cup of Collision

I'm proud to announce that my LP Cup of collisions has been released. It's not perfect but I had an amazing time writing and recording it. each song holds a lot of meaning to me. but my work is not done, it never is. Releasing music is great but there is so much more to it than recording and releasing, promotion is an absolute necessity. promoting can be done with live shows, social media, and word of mouth. I cannot do live shows currently because I don't have a backing band, but social media and word of mouth are methods I can use. an enormous number of people use social media everyday. the goal is to reach the crowds, but doing so is not simple and by no means easy. Instagram is my personal preference, it is set up well for musicians and artist. with an image based interface it is important to create aesthetically intriguing posts regularly to keep your audience engaged. for this LP I posted frequently in the days leading up to the release and it paid off. the drop rec