A Good Session Well Done

Just finished a little rehearsal for my show tomorrow night at The Perfect 5th in Taunton.

I was away at the weekend meaning I didn't practise once. When I played guitar yesterday evening, things weren't sounding as flexible as they usually do before a gig. I can usually perform well straight out of the bag, but I know that with a week or twos rehearsal, warming up my voice and focusing my mind on the task in hand, I can perform a thousand times better.

Thankfully after todays rehearsal I'm feeling much more confident. I sometimes find that if I pick up my electric instead of the acoustic, slow things down and really allow my voice to soar amongst the chords, the result is a strong and incredibly controlled vocal delivery. Excellent for gently coaxing my vocal chords into performance mode.

Hopefully tomorrow night will be a good show - I'm looking forward to playing back on home turf.

I will soon be starting work on my proposal for the Appledore Art Festival. I will be documenting every stage in this project both here, and in an audio documentary which will be available on CD, should the project successfully reach its completion.

The Clap

What a great night it was at The Porter last night. The atmosphere was exactly as it should be for an open mic night - relaxed, welcoming and light hearted.

I was pleased with my set, mainly due to the control I held over my vocal, allowing me to draw notes out and hold them better then I have done in the past. For some reason though, I didn't completely lose myself into the moment so my performance was more of a technical triumph then an emotional one. Still, I'm feeling positive about next weeks gig at The Perfect 5th and I'm really looking forward to performing some of my new material to some old friends.

Headline act last night were a trio called The Clap. I'm not sure if that is their actual name, you never can be sure when Duncan is introducing the acts, but they were absolutely fantastic - the first act I have sat and watched till the end and thoroughly enjoyed. Their sound was a blend of acoustic folk and rap with thought provoking lyrics and some well placed harmonies which really drew you into their performance. Their music had a refreshing level of maturity and sincerity.

I don't think there will be another open mic night like last night for a while. Once term begins, Monday nights will surely become a whole new beast. Still, should mean the standard will be raised and a fresh wave of creativity will descend upon The Porter.

Steves Song

This is the title of a new track I am producing for artist, and good friend, Steve Mahns new website.

Steve does the most fantastic pencil illustrations I have ever seen - I simply cannot describe the skill and talent that he has. He has asked me to produce some music to be featured on the website and I have wasted no time in putting together some ideas.

Although I am yet to receive a brief for the project, I have began working under the following, self suggested guidelines:

• The music should be subtle, verging on ambient so as not to distract from the artwork.
• The music should be focus on acoustic sounds with electronic sounds serving only to reinforce the lead acoustic parts.
• The production must be of the highest commercial quality that I can produce so that it appeals to a wide variety of listeners.
• The feel of the music should be fairly neutral, leaving the artwork to create mood and evoke emotion.

So far, I have began putting together a demo track which is sounding good. The biggest two challenges I have to overcome at the moment are to keep a neutral sound to the piece, but mainly, to smoothly blend various parts into one another to create that gentle ambient feel. Subtlety is the key.

In Summary - What Was Meant By My Last Post

The problem with such infrequent blogging is that ideas seem to tumble out of me, creating a mess of prose where my original point usually is entirely lost.

I am concerned that my last post may be read that I am attempting to champion some forms of music over others. I'm really not. Music is important to me. Sound is important to me and I need to be able to understand how various forms of music fit into their respective places, in order for me to fully immerse myself into a musical world. I can't simply listen to a song I like and hum along without wondering why it sounds the way it does? why am I listening to it through this particular medium? Why has it been recorded and produced in that way? With those instruments? That's partly where my enjoyment comes from.

So the point I was struggling to make in my last post wasn't that electronic music was now more superior or relevant to other rock/pop formats, but that in order to understand why people are making music in the way that they do, and how that style of music fits into the wider scheme of things, you need to assess the motivations behind the music. What has the artists set out to achieve?

As I said in my last post, I had lost sight of this as I started to question the relevance of electronic music when I heard how much emotion and skill was displayed through classic blues guitar music. Thankfully, the following morning I reminded myself of the above ideas and that electronic music executes a whole world of other goals.

Tardy Blog 1

Up until last night, I don't think I've picked up my guitar all week. Most evenings after work I've been busy honing my mixing skills on Robbie's CD decks - I'm actually starting to get better, beginning to understand how to really listen and beat match, then balance the mix as you filter in and out various elements, moving from one track into the next.

But sat in Dan's flat last night, watching youtube footage of old blues guitarists, I realised that the guitar can allow a musician to express something the DJ and their decks never truly can - human emotion. A guitarist can hold back notes and bend them into one another, carrying the listen on an intimate musical journey, the sound is a direct link to the guitarist soul. Can an electronic musician ever display that intimacy? Sure they can create soundtracks that evoke particular emotions, their music can paint pictures for us as we dance the night away, but can they ever really have that instant connection, that control over the inflections of their sound which makes great music what it is?

Last night, I felt myself siding with the 'real musicians' party. Death to all this new fangled, boom boom boom electro nonsense!

But then this morning, it dawned on me - Electronic music offers something that traditional rock and blues rarely does, perhaps is unable to.

When I write a piece of traditional music using a guitar and my vocal, I am seeking to create a particular emotion, to tell a story using the way I play and the words I sing. When I'm writing a piece of electronic music, I'm operating in a completely different space. I'm aiming to take the listener into another world using texture, creating a new sonic landscape for the listener to be absorbed into. It's about pushing forward, presenting people with sounds they've never experienced before, creating structures and timings that pull in other directions to traditional music. Electronic music is refreshing, it's exciting, it cuts through everything proceeding it like lightening.

That's what it's all about - FUTURE MUSIC.

Bonde De Wolfe Promo Shots

Went to Clevedon today. It's really nice there.

The promo shots will be used for some up coming shows I have, the first of which is at The Perfect 5th, Taunton, on the 30th of September.

I also have a headline show in Bath but that's a little way off at the mo.

Shifting Patterns

I've been greatly inspired by the ideas of layering sound upon sound, texture upon texture, and just allowing waveforms to naturally develop. Letting sounds phase in and out of time with one another.

I abandoned the track I started work on tonight and thought I'd revisit an idea I played about with a few months ago - creating a track that ignored conventions of rhythm and timing and just allowed melodies and sounds to be placed anywhere within the track - I remember liking the results.

Whilst composing away, I realised that I was inadvertently creating the type of music I had been thinking about all week. Certain melodic patterns were sliding over others, hints of rhythm were creeping out of the mix before a new blend of textures pushed it aside as they spiralled their way into other directions.

The music can never become stale or repetitive since their is no repetition - every phrase is slightly different from the last, new textures can be dropped in with atomic effects, yet as a whole, the track remains a cohesive piece of music where every sound, no matter how randomly placed, sounds absolutely perfect - like it couldn't possibly belong anywhere else in the mix.

Bonde De Blog and Tapper

There have been issues with my connectivity these past few days thanks to a mix up with O2 and direct debit. Hopefully sorted now though.

I've been getting withdrawal symptoms from lack of blogging. Since the move I haven't dedicated enough of my time to writing and that's something I want to start addressing. I'm thinking that I want to move this blog into a bit more of a journal type thing - increased frequency, reduced content - but not reduced quality (I hope).

I'm going to see how a short post every two days or so goes for a while.

Today I have still been riding high on a sense of satisfaction from my gig last night at The Porters. Once again, practise makes perfect. I would say that I put in one of my best performances yet, playing my strongest set of songs as well. It was really heart warming to see some friends from Taunton make the journey to support me on the night so I hope they enjoyed it and felt the trip was worthwhile.

I'd been building up to last night for a little while so I'm kind of feeling a sense of relief that it's happened - I feel like my mind is now a little clearer so I can begin to focus a little more on some other projects, the first being 'Tapper'.

Tapper is the working title for a big new idea which still has a lot to be worked out before I can fully announce what it will consist of.

I do want to reveal however that Tapper will be an ongoing, collaborative project with a key theme of 'future music'.

Every time I put in some preparation for the project I get an immense flood of excitement and my head will be buzzing with new ideas for days.

I'm hoping that over the next few weeks, the project will start to come together.