2013 Retrospective

When I think of what musical stuff I did this year, I feel that while I've certainly progressed, I've only started to really do stuff.  Mostly, this is in terms of writing and engineering.  During 50/90 this year, I wrote two pieces that - if they aren't fugues by definition - certainly have some fugue elements in them and an-other piece that's sort of close to a string quartet.  And since I've been recording at least two songs a week, I've become more familiar with Cubase.  I've been writing more complex pieces, and I'm getting better at recording them.

At the beginning of the year, I gave myself four goals - although I don't think I ever really announced one.

• Note Continuity - every song I recorded would start on at least one of the notes that the previous song ended on.  I actually did accomplish this, but now that I have, I think it's sort of a stupid idea.  As far as sequencing, I think it has its merits (and I'm working on a project that employs it), but it gets sort of frustrating when it's the factor that dictates what song you'll record next.
• Alternate Audio - because I can't think of any good music video ideas and wouldn't have the means to do them anyway, I just film myself playing the parts at the same time that I record them.  I had the idea to take the audio that the camera picks up and use it to do an alternate mix of the song.  This lasted until about mid-April.  Like Note Continuity, I think it's an interesting idea, but this wasn't the right context for it.  Especially since a lot of the songs I was recording at that time included only one or two instruments.
• Complex production - I had had the idea to write complex arrangements for my songs, but I'm not sure this goal ever really got off the ground.  Some of the songs I recorded this year would apply, but I certainly wouldn't say that I achieved this goal with everything I did this year.
• Post two songs a week - this I actually did, as long as you don't count this last week of December (it's only three days!).  Every week, I posted a regular song on my YouTube channel (although many I took down after I re-did the song), and I posted a hymn for Hymnal Habitation on my tumblr.

While it wasn't as broad a goal as the four above, for FAWM this year, I decided to forgo using any string instruments.  A lot of the songs I wrote aren't the best, but it was a good experience, and I learned more about keyboard instruments.  I even started using harmonica and trombone in my songs.  I started playing around with open D tuning in January and really got into it in starting in June, and during 50/90, I started experimenting with slide guitar.  Using open D tuning also led me to experiment with inverting guitar chords and playing around with chord voicings.

I'll have an-other post that details my musical goals for 2014 (most of those goals are projects), but I do want to talk a bit about posting two songs a week.  I feel it helped a lot as far as my finding my way around production.  If you do something for long enough, eventually, you'll start to get better at it, and I feel that was my experience.  But it's also rather draining (the video element in particular is time-consuming), so I won't be doing it next year.  I'll still be doing Hymnal Habitation weekly, and I'm going to try to post videos with some frequency.

Along with all of the music that I created this year, I also listened to a lot.  I even started a blog to catalogue (almost) everything that I listen to.  With one exception, I listened to the Zombies' Odessey and Oracle every Monday, and I listened to the Moody Blues' Days of Future Passed every Tuesday.  I listened to all of the Funk & Wagnalls' Family Library of Great Music LPs in May.  With one few exception, I listened to all of my Zombies albums every week in June, all of my Colin Blunstone albums every week in July, and all of my Argent albums every week in August.  And from around April to the end of September, I had particular albums that I listened to every day of the week.

I've been getting into more classical music too.  At various points in the year, I was listening to a lot of Vivaldi, Bach, Schubert, Mendelssohn, and Saint-Saëns.  I even learned a bit of Schubert's Octet in F major D. 803 and Mendelssohn's String Quartet in F minor No. 6.

And I started "auditing" music classes by watching all of the video recordings of lectures that various universities have posted.  I went through all of Yale's MUS 112, and I have about a third left of Missouri State University's MUS 241.

I still haven't been getting much attention in what I've been doing; I released three EPs and two singles this year (some of them for free), but no one's bought any.  Still, I feel like I'm getting closer to actually achieving something with my music aside from just personal satisfaction.

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Classical Music Is Not for Relaxing

Finals week is next week, so this week has been mostly review week.  In my history class to-day, my professor told us to work on our study guides, and he turned on some classical music station on Pandora.  Near the end of class, he asked if it helped.  I didn't hear if anyone answered, although I guess somebody must have said something because then my professor said that that's why classical music is good to study to - you don't know any of the songs and you can't sing along.  Of the pieces that were played, the only one I was even sort of familiar with was the fourth movement of Mendelssohn's Symphony No. 5 (I had to listen to the whole symphony afterwards to find what specific movement it was, which was only the second time I've heard the whole symphony).

I don't think he's wrong about people's not being familiar with classical music, but I sort of want him to be.  Not because I want to see his being wrong but because people should be familiar with classical music.  Because it's great.

Recently, I've started to get sort of annoyed with this premise - that classical music is good only for studying or relaxing.  I think it's a stupid view.  People didn't write this music just so that you would have something to listen to in the background while you're studying for your finals.  Relaxation probably wasn't the highest priority they had either.

This may be where my rôle as a writer/composer supersedes my rôle as a listener, but I think that if you look to classical music only for relaxation, you're missing out on a huge part of it.

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The Magna Carta Exercise

I listened to a greatest hits album of Chicago (the band, not the city) to-day, and because I hadn't listened to Chicago for a long time (I think this is the first time I've listened to them this year), I noticed some things I hadn't previously been aware of.  Actually, it was pretty much just one thing:  some of the songs had electric piano in them.

So I got thinking about this (as I often do).  I really like the sound of an electric piano.  In my own compositions, I'm more likely to use electric piano than regular piano.  Partially because the sound of the fake piano on my keyboard doesn't sound particularly good to me but also because I prefer electric piano.  It's probably because of all of the Zombies songs I listen to.  At their time at Decca, only three songs were released with piano; the rest feature electric piano or organ.

In any case, I got thinking about certain musical elements I like.  Along with the sound of electric piano, I adore the sound of a Hammond organ, and I like hand claps as long as they're in an interesting rhythm.  I hate the standard one-clap-on-the-first-of-four-beats sort of clapping.

Because NaNoWriMo was last month, I'd been reading Chris Baty's No Plot? No Problem!  In the section of the book that explains how to come up with at least a general plot, he explains his two Magna Cartas.  On the first, you're supposed to answer the question "What, to you, makes a good novel?"  He writes that "Anything that floats your fictional boat should go on the list" and explains that "the things you appreciate as a reader are also the things you'll likely excel at as a writer.  These bits of language, color, and technique, for whatever reason, make sense to your creative brain."

The second Magna Carta (called "Magna Carta II, the Evil Twin of Magna Carta I") lists "those things that bore or depress you in novels."  The point is to avoid writing these into your novel.

I couldn't help but notice that my mental listing of instruments that I like the sound of was akin to the Magna Carta Exercise.  And then I had the idea to apply my list in the same way that the Magna Cartas apply to NaNoWriMo.  February Album Writing Month provides me with the perfect opportunity to do this.  Like NaNoWriMo, it's a challenge that takes place during a single month.  I can create a list of things I like about music and then try to stick as many of those elements as possible into the songs that I write during FAWM.

Of course, it doesn't apply in exactly the same way.  Just because I like the sound of an instrument doesn't mean that I have the ability to play it.  But I still think the Magna Carta idea could work as a general template.

And while I do intend to do this idea eventually, I don't think I'll be doing it any time soon.  My problem is that I have too many musical projects that have objectives that conflict with each other.  I stick with these projects for one year at a time, and the projects that I have in mind for the next two years either totally prevent my using electric piano and organ or constrain me from using them as fully as I'd like.

But I still think that applying the Magna Carta Exercise to FAWM is a good idea.  I just probably won't get around to doing it for a few years.

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