datamusicata

Talking to a young songwriter the other day and she wanted to go right in and record the songs that she had written and she wanted those recordings to be her CD.

It got me to thinking about my own nascency as a recording artist.   My own first steps were baby steps in comparison.

Back then, few people had recording studios and they were very expensive.   Being able to get into one in off hours was my only hope when I was funding everything.

The first time that I was in there I produced some really pathetic recordings.  Those first songs were going to be my record.  I realized that I didn’t know everything and that I needed help.

I continued to record by any means possible and always considered the recordings as possible commercial releases.   I never went for demos.  I always had it in my head that whatever I was recording was going to be a master.

The thought process being, “I don’t know when I can get in here again, so I better make this count.”

But these days everyone has a recording studio of some sort.   And they all record and they all burn them to CD’s and put them out there.  There is no filtering system, so everything is getting released.   DJ’s are inundated with releases.  But that’s another column for another day.   Back to the demo question.

Once I had my own recording set up, I began to record songs several times, in different keys, at different tempos, even different time signatures, looking for the doorway into the song.

What I suggest to you is that you record your songs as you write them with just one instrument and one voice.  That’s a real song demo. Then listen for a while and see what suggests itself to you.

Don’t be afraid to make changes and don’t be afraid to leave it like it is.  Serve the song.

If you are presenting the song to someone else for their consideration, then the simpler you keep it the better, though there is another school of thought that you present the hit arrangement to the artist or producer and they fall in love with that and reproduce it with their artist.   That is a very rare occurrence.   Go with simple.

One other thing.   If you listen too much to your demo of the song, you may end up with a case of “demo-itis” that is difficult to get past.   You fall in love with what you’ve done and nothing else you record afterwards will do.

That’s when it helps to have some fresh ears give it a listen.   If the new person is not your mother and not enraptured, you’ve still go work to do.

I got a post from Belle at Sherwood  Music and she offered to write a post about guitar tablature.   As I am just learning it, I thought that it would serve us all.   Here is her post and all her contact info is at the bottom of the article.  

How to Use an Acoustic Guitar Fingerstyle Tab

Using an acoustic guitar fingerstyle tab is the short and easy way to play the guitar. It’s sufficient to help you master the basics and gradually move on to studying the more advanced techniques for guitar playing.

The Basics of Finger Picking

Before you can read and play any acoustic guitar fingerstyle tab, you need to learn how to fingerpick first. Acoustic guitar playing is mostly used for playing classical, traditional, and flamenco music. People also like to use it for playing ballads. The standard rules for finger picking will always apply, however, regardless of the genre of music you’re interested in.

Nails or Fingers?

Some guitarists prefer to grow their nails long and use them for plucking strings. Whether you prefer to use your nails or fingers is fine as long as you choose something that you’re most comfortable with using.

PIMA

This is the foundation of guitar finger picking and you’ll see it used in most – if not all – guitar tabs.

P stands for your THUMB.

I stands for your INDEX finger.

M stands for your MIDDLE finger.

A stands for your RING finger.

Now, you will use your P finger (thumb) to play the fourth, fifth, and sixth notes (D, A, and E). The middle finger plays the B note, the I finger is used for the G note, and the A finger is used for playing the E note.

Don’t be in a hurry learning this style. A strong foundation is the key to developing proficiency. You need to know this system by heart in order to play any music using your acoustic guitar.

Charts and Patterns

It is also greatly advisable that you have the necessary chord charts and fingering patterns right next to your sheet music. This will ensure that you don’t inadvertently get used to the wrong finger patterns or use the wrong combination of notes when playing a particular chord.

Where to Find a Free Acoustic Guitar Fignerstyle Tab for Practice

The Internet is a good place to find free guitar tabs for fingerstyle play, but the tabs you get to download aren’t completely guaranteed to be free from error as well.

Tablature Websites

These websites generally offer a wide selection of free guitar tabs. Some of them may have been written by pro guitarists while others may be contributed by well-meaning but non-pro users.

Tablature Listings

These are search engines specifically designed to help with your queries and give you a list of sites that are most likely to have the tabs you’re looking for.

Belle regularly contributes to (www.sherwoodmusic.org) , where she writes about how to www.sherwoodmusic.org/guitar/learn-guitar.php) bass guitar.  She's also a frequent writer forSummer Jazz where you can read her thoughts on (www.summerjazz.net/jazzguitarchords).

I was at the Durango Song Expo (www.durango-songwriters-expo.com) meet and greet the other night and there were many fine songwriters and musicians there.    I was talking with one of them about confidence and belief in oneself and realized that we haven’t talked about that much here at datamusicata.

Belief in yourself is the beginning of the whole thing.   You have to believe that you can do it.   You have to believe that you can and do bring something unique to the party.

Your journey as an artist is discovering that uniqueness and employing it in your art, but it all begins with belief.

And the belief doesn’t come from the audience, it comes from you.    The audience/public can certainly reinforce it once you’ve done the work but it begins with you and then it emanates out of you.

It begins in you.

And I believe that the way you create and sustain this belief, this confidence is to do the work.   You learn everything you can about your craft, your instrument, your tools and you work on it and at it more than you do anything else in your life.

The more you work on it, the more prepared you are to deliver it when the time comes.

I’ve talked about taking lessons before and I can’t stress it enough.  It doesn’t matter how old you are or how experienced.  Lessons will make you better, provide you also practice what you have been taught.

And you have to go out on that high wire.    No amount of practice makes you a good performer.   Being on the stage is where you learn to be on stage.   You have to play thousand different stages and situations and out of that will come experience and confidence that you can handle whatever shows up.

That being said, you can’t get there without the belief inside you that you can do it.   That’s where it starts.

And how do you believe in yourself?    I don’t know.

How do people believe that there’s a God and a heaven; Allah, the 86 virgins for martyrs?   Folks just do.   They decide to believe it.

If you can believe in that, you can certainly believe in yourself.   Make the commitment to yourself.   Say it out loud.  Write it down.   Put it up on your bathroom mirror.   Do whatever it takes to make that belief grow inside of you.

And it the words of Winston Churchill, “never, never, never, never, never give up.”

This sounds like a come on by a con man, but there is a way to do it and you can do it too.  The steps are simple and obvious once you think about it, and while they don't guarantee success, not trying will guarantee failure, so...

Of all the shows on TV, there is some program that uses music that is not unlike what you compose.   So your first assignment is to find that TV show.

Secondly, watch the show until you are familiar with the style, the characters and the atmosphere created by the musical score.

Next write some music that would fit that TV show.   Once you have nailed the style, record two or three pieces of various emotional content.

Now read all the credits until you find  out who wrote the music for the show and who was the music director of the show.   These credits are always  there at the end of every single show.   If it goes by to fast, record it and slow it down, but find out who actually controls what music goes into the show.   Even write down who the editor is, because oft times, the temp music that the editor uses becomes the actual music used in the broadcast.

Google the music director, the composer and the editor, and while you are at it also google the production company and the producers.   Somewhere in your search you will come across mailing addresses and phone numbers.

Contact these people in the most gracious and sane manner you can and explain that you would like to submit some music.   Tell them that you realize that many people accost them with this request, but that you would still like to submit some music to the show.

You have to create some kind of connection with someone in one of these positions; some kind of relationship.  

This is not easy and may take several phone calls, letters and/or emails, but at some point, one of these folks will let their guard down and tell you how, who and where to submit.

Now make certain that you only submit two or three cues, and no more.   And further, make certain that these cues are the very best things that you have ever done AND that they are competive with what is on the show.

You are only going to get this one chance with each Music Director, Producer, or Composer.   If your music isn’t up to snuff, they will never listen to another thing from you.

And don’t pester them, if they like what you have submitted, they will contact you.

But don’t give up and don’t stop submitting.   Remember, Diane Warren has a career, so you can too.

Forbidden Fruit – It Didn’t Work For God

Just listening to the NPR report on the drug wars in Mexico and it came to mind that this is the same kind of thing that was happening in Chicago in the 1920’s, during prohibition.

They made drinking illegal and, because people are people and will only follow laws that are just, created an underworld where the profits were high enough to warrant the risks of death and imprisonment.

During the prohibition, people actually went blind from drinking bathtub gin.    Once booze was legalized and controlled, that stopped happening.   Yes, you have alcoholics, but you would have them anyway.   Forbidding booze doesn’t make someone stop drinking, it only stamps the romantic lure of the forbidden on it.

Think about the Garden of Eden.   A paradise where everything is provided and all both of the people are healthy and happy and naked.    With one caveat.   Don’t eat the forbidden fruit.    If you don’t eat that fruit, I will take care of everything else, God said.

You KNOW what we did.   Apple pie, apple stroodle, apple juice, apple sauce, apple computers, etc..

If it didn’t work for GOD, why do we think it’s going to work for us?   

You cannot stop something by forbidding it.  It has never worked and it never is going to work.

Before  the Prohibition Act, no substance was illegal.  It was society that imposed the boundaries on substance use and abuse.  

Opium eaters were held in little regard, drunkards and drug addicts didn’t hold an elevated place in society, but none of these persons were imprisoned for doing what they wanted to do to their own bodies.

Then with the Prohibition Act, came illegal stills, speakeasy’s, and organized crime.   And it came because now that these substances were illegal, their scarcity increased their value.   Not to mention the fact that no taxes are paid on illegal earnings.

The same thing is happening again.  

It would not be economically feasible for these drug cartels to exist if drugs were legal.   One could purchase any grade of any drug and no exactly what they were getting.   There would be no more accidental overdoses, because people would know what they were ingesting.

Overdoses occur when someone thinks that they are ingesting a specific amount, but because there are no controls over the manufacture and distribution of these substances, no one knows for sure how much they are taking.

Now that booze is legal, you can see right on the label how much alcohol you are taking in.   It’s written right on there.   If you get drunk now,  it’s all your fault.    It would be the same with legal drugs.  If they overdose, it’s because they wanted to keep going, keep getting high.  

Further, with drugs legal and available at market prices, the crime that exists just to feed the expensive and illegal habit would also atrophy. 

Many people find my position untenable and say that I have no concern for the weak people that are addicts.   Not so.

I have concern for my fellow man, and I believe that tough love is part of that concern.   Personal responsibility is big in my world.   You make a mistake, you own up to it and you pay for it.

When Reagan was president, they did a big expensive study to determine the best way to deal with the war on drugs.   They determined that the legalization of drugs was the only sensible answer.   They elected to not release this information for fear of losing constituency.  Regan ( the president’s appointee to head the committee) came forward—after he was no longer in government service—and spoke at length about it.   Google him.  You’ll find the quotes.

We are our brother’s keeper, but we can’t go to the gym and work out and expect our brother to suddenly get muscles.  

Making drugs difficult to procure is not going to stop people from taking them and is not going to teach them the effects of drug abuse.   If folks want drugs, they’ll find them.   If the drugs are legal and available at pharmacies, then the addicts will know what they are taking and what happens after that is up to each individual.

Personal responsibility.    It’s the only way society will work.