Category Archives: creativity - Page 6

The Recording Devil

Posted by on April 27, 2010 2 comments

This past weekend we had the great pleasure of hosting my good buddy Astra. She and I have been sending recordings back and forth for a while now and it seemed like a good idea to import her from her native land of Canada for a jam session and to hang out in general. She’s a lot of fun and aside despite having my son fall in love with her and follow her everywhere she went, we got some recording done. The best part was that we were able to get together with my buddy Jason of Cloxco fame (if there is any fame there…which there isn’t, but it’s my blog and I make the rules). Having two great singers in one room was an amazing experience. There’s nothing like the exquisite pleasure of making music with good friends who happen to be very talented musicians.

CHICKENS!!!!!

The way that Jason and I work is simple. We have two rules: three takes maximum for any track and nothing is allowed to be perfect. We’re really good at adhering to both of them. Astra did a great job of hanging with us on that.

What I find funny, and what prompted this line of thought, is that the three of us are pretty good with the whole performance thing and yet are so very self-deprecating. It’s difficult to listen to yourself and not be incredibly critical. I’ve done it for years. There were hours and hours spent recording myself in front of my little pocket tape recorder and listening to the playback so that I could get some idea of how I sounded so that I could improve. It floors me that today I could use my iPhone and get 100 times the quality and recording time out of it. Hell, when I was in college the idea of a cell phone for regular people wasn’t real yet. In any case, those recordings were a way to get better. They were a way to be critical of my performance in a positive way.

The recordings we made this weekend captured something that has never happened before and might not happen again for a long time. It’s impossible for me to treat it as a musical recording in any critical sense. It was our first exposure to the material and the first time we’d all been in the same room together. Great things happened and I’m very happy that I captured it. The recordings are documents. It doesn’t make them devoid of musicality or immune to criticism; that would miss the point entirely. What it does is imbue them with something special. Something extra. The feeling that fingers slipping around or missed down beats are unimportant in that context. The recordings capture an energy and a moment.

By all accounts we had a great time. The resulting recordings are awesome and the future work that will come from them has me bouncing with excitement.

making things

Posted by on April 22, 2010 No comments

I took last week off and spent it with my family. We camped for two nights and that was fantastic! We also made a trip to Austin to visit friends and family (they can be the same people, you know). I spent the time when we weren’t traveling in the garage working on my newest guitar. It’s another OM style instrument. This one has higher quality materials and I’m certainly paying more attention to the details since I know where they are now. I think it will be a better instrument overall and is moving much more quickly toward completion than its predecessor.

Building the instrument has brought up a number of issues for me, not the least of which is the question of the artisan and quality. Easy credit and over-consumption has done horrible things to our culture. Everything is a commodity. As a result, there is little to no attachment between people and the things they own. I find that disturbing. Not only do we own too much stuff, we don’t care about any of it on a more than superficial level (how much money and time will it take to replace?). That’s sad. Now, I don’t much care about the perception of others when it comes to the things I have, but I care about my perception and relationship to the things. If I have something that I use every day, I want it to be of high quality and meet my needs in a way that is better than just getting something done. Isn’t it better to buy a hammer that will last a lifetime than to buy one every two or three years?

clamped!

It’s also starting to sink in that objects made by artisans have two relationships that are more and more important to me: the relationship between the creator and the item and that of the item and its final owner. This is a small part of why I drool endlessly over the Saddleback Leather bags. They are handmade by artisans. They are of high quality. They will outlast me. That last bit may be a part of why it’s important to me to build a great instrument. I have the hope that someone will enjoy it after I am long gone. The hope that it will persist. This could appear to be very romantic and silly, but if we don’t have a relationship with the things we make and use, there is less depth and ritual in their use. Is that important? Yes!

An instrument that feels good, sounds good, and looks good can inspire a player. There is a certain characteristic of an instrument that draws a person to play it. There isn’t really any good way to quantify that and we shouldn’t try. What works for me will not work for someone else and, frankly, I don’t care. That give and take is unique and beautiful. Whatever it is in that instrument that inspires joy and literally forces someone to make music doesn’t have a suitable word in English (that I know of) and is more important than the monetary value attached to it or the fashion of the day.

I’m looking at the things in my life and trying to simplify them. I need less stuff, but the stuff that I have needs to be more than just stuff off of some assembly line. I would rather pay more for the character and experience. It comes down to this: if what you’re doing matters, then what you’re doing it with has to be seriously considered. Surrounding myself with inspiration is the surest path to results that I know.

writing and writing

Posted by on April 6, 2010 No comments

One of the funny things about creative work is that the idea in the head can often run counter to plans. That’s why plans are so wonderful. They provide a direction in the event that the next step isn’t clear. But that doesn’t mean that a plan is The Plan. The last two weeks have been a painful reminder of this fact.

In my head when I’m moving through my day, there’s a bit of music that repeats itself. It’s something highly processed. Very soft and amorphous. More of a texture than a melody or harmony. It sits just at the edge of my hearing. It’s very attractive. I’m more and more moved by it.

But that’s not what I’m doing in the studio.

When I go into the sanctuary that is my studio, I get distracted. I pick up a guitar, recently it’s the one I made as it’s more and more my only instrument, and strum. Or pick. Or just noodle a bit. The next thing I know, the framework of a more traditional song structure produces itself. In fact, this has happened probably 8 times in the last two weeks. Good ideas are flowing from the stream that I’m not as excited about. Or so it would seem. But I’m not one to buck the muse. When things are working, they’re working and that’s so much better than when everything goes dead silent.

So the notebook is filling itself with chord progressions and snippets of melody. Alternate tunings. My own brand of notation. The pages become overrun with ink and I hurry to record a stable version for future reference. All is well. When this storm dries up, I can go back and rework some things. I’ll have a bed of material to get things moving again and new inspiration will strike. And eventually I’ll get to write the piece that’s sitting just out of sight.

teaching myself

Posted by on March 30, 2010 No comments

When there’s a clean slate in the studio the first thing I do is pick up the nearest instrument and make some sound. I’m never really sure where it will go, but it starts with a sound. Sometimes, like last night, a curious thought will occur and I’ll follow it for a while. See where the thread leads, if anywhere. My computer soaks it all in and I can sort it out later. I’ve probably learned more from myself by listening to these recordings than I could have from any number of teachers. When I’m alone, I behave in a unique way. I do what comes naturally and it points out my strengths and weaknesses. Most importantly, it’s what I do when I’m alone in the studio that is presented as my work. So this practice of recording brings me quite a bit of good information. From this exercise I have learned:

  • I love the six string guitar.
  • I prefer to play fingerstyle at all times (electric guitars included).
  • If there is no instrument at hand I will torture any recordings I have with piles of processing and ruthless edits.
  • The sound of open strings thrills me.
  • An out of tune instrument can be interesting but is annoying more often than not.
  • Patterns are fun in moderation.
  • Mistakes become beautiful with a change of context.
  • Practicing a part and getting it right kicks ass over editing every day of the week.
  • Improvisation is at the center of life.

I’m sure other people do this. I know they do. I’m not as certain that everyone analyzes things the way I do. Maybe some are pickier about it. Maybe folks don’t listen repeatedly after the fact. What I do know is that this is really useful:

  1. Capture it.
  2. Wait 6 or more hours.
  3. Listen to it.
  4. Think about it.
  5. Listen again.
  6. Repeat.

The procedural aspects of the process build habits. The repetition brings results. It’s a practice.

a place to resist

Posted by on March 29, 2010 No comments

Reading has been a fundamental part of my life for as long as I can remember. It’s something that has always been stressed as a noble and necessary activity for enlightenment and pleasure. My family of origin is loaded with readers and as such book are a good common ground. One of the side effects of this familial bond is an interest in how the sausage is made. I like reading books about writers but more than that the good interviews that one so seldom sees. That urge coupled with a weekly trip to the periodicals section of the only bookstore to which I have access put “The Paris Review” in my hands this past weekend. It’s been a brilliant read and brought to the front of my mind something that has been bubbling for a while now.

I’ve mentioned a million times how tough it is to be creative in this era. There are no more rules. There are moments of fashion that come and go with the twitter stream and because they are so ephemeral, it’s hard to imagine being out of sync with the world for two weeks is going to be the end of a career. In the absence of rules and standards and schools there is no room for rebellion because everything and nothing is a reaction to the atmosphere. That’s a hassle.

my notebook right now

In several places I have heard about a recent trend in literature toward eschewing the “confessional narrative.” My first brush with this change in the wind was on a poetry podcast. But then I saw it on a book blog. And now in “The Paris Review.” It must be true! Writers and critics are pushing against something! It makes me jealous.

The brief analysis I’ve done (which consists of reading a blog or two in my RSS feeds and hearing a podcast) leads me to believe that it will be short lived but not without some noise. Sounds more to my untrained ear like kicking the “I” of the world that resonates in blogs and bad poetry. It doesn’t matter. It is a reaction. Something has been found for authors to push against. Maybe it sounds silly to make such a big deal about it but I’ve been pushing this brick wall with my forehead for years now with no motion at all. Musically anyone can do anything. The “innovations” are mostly tricks of technology whose novelty, if there is any, is assimilated so quickly that we forget its origin as quickly as the taste of an onion in a pot of chili. You know, like that one YouTube video of that woman who has the loop pedal and plays all of the instruments? Wait. You mean the looping thing has already come and gone? Huh.

(NB: The music produced by KT Tunstall is wonderful. I don’t mean this disparagingly in the least.)

It may sound as though I want something to exist simply for me to tear down and that’s so true. How many pages of history are devoted to those who did something new by flying in the face of the known? Perhaps I could start a movement with the expressed intent of destroying it. But that would probably be labeled as a repeat of Dada-ism. Or worse, would be called “Dada Two-Point-Oh.”

Picking up this scent has put me into a mind of finding a similar something in music. With music criticism dead and relegated to the 1 to 5 star ratings on iTunes it won’t be easy. Sorting fashion from criticism with a longer view takes work and most of what I see bubbling here and there falls more into line with quick reactions to particular pieces or albums. But I have hope that there’s something out there.