we could all do with a think

howies make clothing. they are totally forward thinking in their approach to business and life.

wasted

the other morning at work i received a package consisting of - the package, a large brown envelope and an A4 sheet of white paper addressing the package to me and detailing when it was sent, by whom and why.

without giving it much thought i threw away the top sheet and continued with my work.

now why did i need to throw away that top sheet? that clean, white, A4 sheet of paper with only a few lines of text printed along the top.

its just an automatic thing we do. we have no shortage of paper so we can afford to use it once, then throw it away. next time we need some paper to write a memo or something, we simply pull a fresh, clean sheet from a pile. this sheet will also find its way into the bin once it has served its single-use purpose.

i made a decision yesterday - this is almost an experiment - im not going to throw anything away until i am sure i cannot use it again. even if i only find one other use for it, this is better than simply throwing it straight into the bin.

this isnt so much an environmental thing. i dont really know enough about the processes and costs involved in recycling to argue either side of the debate. this is about consumption. needless consumption creating needless waste.

today i have forgotten my lunch again so will have to go to the shop and buy a sandwich.

what the hell can you re-use a sandwich box for? those triangular plastic, or card, boxes.

some things are going to require a little bit of imagination, especially whilst companies are dressing their products up in needless packaging. in the meantime though there are plenty of simple products that score high on the re-usability scale, one of which is second hand woolly jumpers from charity shops which come with the added bonus of helping the needy.

drip drip

i am very relieved to see that mp3unsigned has managed to overcome whatever issues it was having at the the weekend resulting in me not being able to access the site. unlucky for me it timed perfectly with me posting a link to the page on the sound on sound forum so it also meant no one from there could view it either. but thankfully normality has now returned.

my musical sketch pad being offline was a direct threat on my drip drip way of living and i actually found that kinda scary.

my drip drip lifestyle is almost entirely inspired from reading a blog by seth godin, a marketing expert from the states. its based on the idea that things need to be built upon solid foundations. these take time to build but once they are there....

it is possible to grab peoples attention with one brilliant performance, with one great track, but if you consistently perform solid sets, regularly release good music and keep your site updated with new and current info then you will go beyond grabbing peoples attention and they will become fans. they will recognise who you are and will trust you when you deliver something new because you have demonstrated consistency.

you need to give your audience the attention you expect them to give you. i have been blogging here for a few months now. i dont really promote the blog and someone once asked me why i bother to post with apparently no readers. a few weeks ago i saw that someone had been reading my blogs and had taken the time to respond to the post with a comment. proof perhaps that the drip drip lifestyle pays off.

my musical sketch pad, this blog and my butterscotch world profile are part of the drip drip lifestyle, fighting the notion that something that doesnt gain instant recognition should be abandoned in favour of instant gratification.

3 good things

a little while ago i posted this blog.

another tuesday lunchtime another whinge about last nights open mic.

i was going to post a very long technical report of last saturdays recording session but i think it will be much more useful if i post three things about open mic night that i actually enjoyed.

• keiths set with joe etc. the sounds just worked together really well and keiths vocal performance was relaxed and sounded smoooth.
• joe playing crunchy blues on his gibson. he is easily the best guitar player to attend the night - he knows exactly when to play and when not to - gotta leave the spaces in between the notes.
• garys set. he doesnt play very often but like joe, he knows how to play as part of a group and i do enjoy his covers of old rock n roll tracks.

there are good things about open mic night, however, for every good performance there are usually two of three bad ones, not because of lack of skill, but lack of judgment, lack of effort and lack of respect for the audience.

musical sketch pad

i now have a musical sketch pad where i will be uploading new music.

i am very keen to keep my butterscotch world page for finished pieces - an online portfolio of my best work. my musical sketch pad is going to host works in progress, demo tracks and experiments.

i currently have one acoustic track uploaded - i hope you enjoy it.

please dont buy me a vintage guitar

a shop in bath that sells vintage guitars

some of these guitars are absolutely beautiful. i can imagine they have great tone and feel really superb to play.

but imagine taking one out gigging. even playing it at home - accidental knocking it against something and chipping the wood, breaking a string or some other minor accident.

with a new guitar you know that if you completely destroy it, you can still buy the very same model from any guitar shop. with a vintage strat from the 60s though - they dont make them anymore.

i made a decision yesterday that i will not buy myself a vintage guitar until i am so rich that i can afford to find and buy another one from a secret auction or something. otherwise i would be too scared to even touch it.

supply and demand

does supply fuel demand? or does demand just always find its supply?

i used to like open mic night for its subtlety. singer songwriters testing new material, gaining experience for their own shows, amateur performers simply covering their favourite artists songs and the occasional jam session between a few (sometimes skilled) musicians.

it seemed people were happy with this format. a new performer would generally get peoples attention and then as they became a regular feature people became familiar with their songs and simply relaxed with friends and enjoyed a conversation, the music being a background accompaniment.

over the last few weeks though the tone of the nights has shifted. many of the artists at last nights gathering were what i describe as glory hunters. they are not interested in testing new material but in playing crowd pleasers, the same songs every week played in exactly the same tried and tested way. bands are taking to the stage and playing fully electric covers complete with guitar solos - it is no longer possible to have a conversation with the people sat around you - my ears were actually ringing when we left.

and it seem that people are happy to spend their evening listening to this type of performance. perhaps because taunton doesnt really have a live music scene so this is the only time when people are exposed to this type of music.

have these acts been increasing at the events because the audience are crying out for a more rounded, fuller sounding, attention grabbing act, or is it that the acts are forcing themselves upon the public who feel they have no say in the matter so are simply accepting the change?

doing the pointless

what a productive weekend.

when your in a school or college, you spend a lot of time working on, perhaps, seemingly pointless tasks that are over and done with in a week and never lead to anything worthwhile.

in my case as a music technology student, you might walk into a lesson and be presented with a set of technics, some drum and bass records and be told to record a mix. or one afternoon you will be handed a guitar and will record yourself playing with a drummer and bass player in a little jam session. the recordings will never be used and you will never play again in that small formation. a pointless task perhaps.

but its these short, pointless tasks that often teach you the most important things and more importantly, they inspire creativity.

i am hopefully soon undertaking a small project with a local hip hop artist to re-mix some of his acoustic work with some beats and (my signature) synths.

i have never worked with hip hop but am really excited to try my hand at something new and explore some new ideas. i am not expecting to sell the track, for it to recieve any air play or for it to lead to some kind of production contract - it is purely an excersise and an opportunity to try something i have never done before.

i hate modern hip hop. well i hate the stuff that gets played on radio 1 and that twats dance to in tauntons clubs, so it is really important to me to retain the roots and feel of daves (the artist) work and this means avoiding digital, programmed beats and using some funky, old skool samples.

if i were in a top commercial studio, producing a commercial - even underground to be honest - urban track then time and money would be against us. the arrangement would be created using the biggest, most powerful software drum machines available. for a more authentic sound then the very latest sample CDs would be available to me so i could simply pluck some pre-prepared loops and drop them into the track. instant radio friendly hits.

i do not work in a commercial studio and am not producing a commercial track. time and money is not against me which is why i dedicated an entire day on saturday to sourcing, playing and recording 60s and 70s soul, funk, disco and motown records.

hopefully there will be some useful drum breaks i can use to create an arrangement. maybe not. either way it was a brilliant way to spend the day. my creative juices are flowing and i am full of ideas for this upcoming project and others.

a lot of people who i meet are very career minded. they will only do something if they think it will take them a step closer to their dream career. i too am often guilty of this.

theres more to life then that. there are better ways to spend your time. better things to occupy your head.

next weekend, when you are trying to decide how to spend your saturday, forget the project you are currently working on, forget starting your next big project - set yourself a small challenge for the day, a simple pointless excersise and have some fun.

in order of importance

• finish the two songs i have been working on
• finish the track i have been working on with martin *
• record full arrangement of one of the songs mentioned earlier
• spend some time recording and arranging 'found' sounds to create some percussion loops
• begin work on production for dave marrow hip hop track
• continue building portfolio for publishing and library music (ongoing)

i explained to martin at lunch that i needed to focus on one long term goal. to stop taking up small projects that didnt have any future to them.

i have now decided that this was a stupid idea. i am 19 and everything that i do does not have to be leading up to any form of career. i should be undertaking any form of project that comes my way, no matter how small and pointless. its all good experience.

* i need to post a short version of this track online in order to receive some feedback on the production - i will need to edit the track, get a copy to martin, get him to upload it to butterscotch world, and then post a link to it from the sound on sound forum.

making of a hit part 3 and a bit.

so there has been lots of development in the track since i last blogged an update.

martin was unhappy with the original recordings performed at his house since he had a cold at the time and felt the end result reflected this too much. i couldnt remember thinking that when we recorded the takes but often these things only really become apparent when you listen back to the track and i have to admit, i never got round to doing that.

so we arranged for martin to come over to my place and re-record the vocals. an extremely productive session with him performing excellently practically first time. he went to the pub, i went for a jog.

the next night i listened back to what we had recorded and dropped a few samples of the vocal in with the track, purely to get a feel for what it was sounding like and so that i could plan how i would complete the project with all the vocals. i purposely didnt begin editing and arranging any of the audio until i had a strong idea of what needed to be done and how i would go about doing this. i just felt that i would get a much better result if i took a step back rather than racing head first into the track, making up the process as i go along.

and i havnt really got much further than that.

about a week or so ago i drew up a mix down plan. i simply made a list of everything i needed to do to get the track from its current state to a finished, club ready piece of music. i also included notes of things i specifically wanted to try and any extra ideas i had for sections.

on saturday me and martin met up and put phase one into action - finish all sound design and melodic arrangement of track so that i could bounce the many synths, drum machines and effects down into short loops to save processor power, but also to tidy up the arrange page.

two important lessons learnt from saturday:

1 - dont get drunk the night before a mix down. mix downs are boring and require tons of concentration on tiny, tiny details.

2 - if your partner is really hung over and asleep on your sofa, they probably wont be very helpful during a mix down and winding yourself up, trying to get their input will result in neither of you being able to focus on the task in hand.

i can see from the weekend that i have issues with being the producer. i just get such a clear vision in my mind of where i want to take the track and find myself enforcing military like rules on the session - some may see this as a good thing, when the creative part of making a track is over then you need this attitude to finish what you have started, however when you want to encourage the input of another person who perhaps does not share your desire for efficiency then things can start to become stressful.

all that aside, the track is now in a more workable state and i have a very clear idea of what i need to do to it this week before i feel i am ready to arrange and mix in the vocals. and distorted bass does sound sweet.

this blog, and others, can also be found on the butterscotchworld blog.

dont stop the pop.

as i sit here running my hands through my hair, two thoughts are circulating my head.

firstly, i should probably have made more effort to do my hair this morning. i look like something from the 70s and not in a cool retro way.

but mainly im thinking that i havnt posted a good blog in a little while. i havnt really had any big concepts that iv wanted to discuss.

however, the issue isnt that i havnt been thinking about things, but that i havnt been able to make any sense of the discussions iv been having with myself whilst sat quietly at my computer. at this moment in time, i am struggling to structure my thoughts into any form of writing.

(i am aware that by writing this blog now i am kinda contradicting what iv just said)

getting to the point - i have been wrestling this week with these two questions:

what makes good pop songwriting?

and when does pop become alternative and when does alternative become pop?

after watching a robbie williams DVD i have become fascinated with songwriting for the pop genre, and have been working hard, attempting to write my own 'pop' songs.

i consider myself lucky that i am able to write good songs. they only come around every few months or so but when they do they just seem to work so i figured that writing for the pop genre would be pretty easy. just a case of sitting down and working, picking up the guitar and putting pen to paper.

wrong.

in my opinion, what makes a subject 'pop' is that it appeals to, touches the hearts of if you like, a wide audience. perhaps the reason you see dance floors full of girls singing along to kylie songs is because each one of them feels they can relate to whats being said, even if they all live very different lives.

so many pop songs become timeless classics and why? because human emotions never go out of date. politics and fashion does.

in 20 years time people will still be singing angels and knowing what every single word means.

this is what im finding so hard. coming up with a topic, a concept, that a mass audience can relate to and structuring this into a 3 minute song complete with a catchy chorus and perhaps a key change here and there. oh and something that doesnt just sound cheesy as well.