Using iMixes to Effectively Promote Your Music: Part 2

UPDATE (10/26/08):

This article has move to another website: MusicianWages.com

I am a regular contributor to that site and will continue to post relevant articles there. It is a great resource for musicians. If that's you, check it out!

Using iMixes to Effectively Promote Your Music: Part 1

If there's one small piece of advice I can give other musicians in regards to promoting their music, this is it. This is the one thing I've done that has generated more money, reached more fans, and helped me target other types of promotions, all with no cost other than a little thought and time. And that one thing is create iMixes in the iTunes Music Store.

UPDATE (10/26/08):

This article has move to another website: MusicianWages.com

I am a regular contributor to that site and will continue to post relevant articles there. It is a great resource for musicians. If that's you, check it out!

Playing Rests

In jazz folklore there's a fable-esque story where John Coltrane comes off stage after playing one of his legendary long 'sheets of sound' solos during a set with Miles Davis' band, and tells his boss something like, "I just don't know how to end my solos." Miles response: "Try taking the horn out of your mouth."

We're not all blessed with the endless ideas and technical mastery of Coltrane, but this is good advice for everyone. I remember a guitar teacher once forcing me to allow a bar of rest every four bars in my solo. It was hard, because letting go and knowing how to end your phrase before you begin takes concentration. But with this exercise, my improvisation grew by leaps and bounds.

Playing rests typically means NOT PLAYING. But for guitarists or pianists, it can also mean comping for yourself between phrases. Listen to Wes Montgomery. He is almost constantly playing, yet he throws repetitive riff-like chord patterns between phrases, as if a big band horn section is playing backgrounds to his solo. Or listen to Bill Evans play solo piano. He might play a long line with his right hand, but as soon as he ends his phrase, his left hand drops in for a chord or two before the next line begins.

Here are just a few exercises you can do to get better at playing rests:

1) Transcribe. Along with learning how to play over chord changes, learn when to not play.

2) Trade fours. Get with a buddy and play call and response. A great way to limit your phrases to smaller chunks of music.

3) Record yourself. Nearly every time I hear a live recording of myself, the first thought that comes to mind is, "Man, I need to play less!" It's a lifelong quest to find the right balance.

The Musician's Economy

Last night I had dinner with a few fellow musicians and one thing that came up was the economy. As people that basically create entertainment for others, a poor economy generally means fewer people will spend money on our goods. The first thing my wife and I cut back on when money is tight is our nightlife, and also how much we spend on things like new CDs or downloads (I have to admit, most of the music I buy now is downloaded from iTunes or Amazon).

Then I remembered that most people download music for free, stream it from the internet, or look for free forms of entertainment like concerts at the park. Plus music is a great temporary escape from reality. So maybe this is a good opportunity to connect with some new people that need an escape. Give them something to feel good about now, for free. That connection will outlast the recession.

360 Deals

One of the problems record companies are facing is that their piece of the pie is shrinking as people spend less money acquiring music. There's still a decent amount of money being made in the music industry, but it's spread across different mediums like merchandise, touring, publishing, and recorded music. In response, some lawyers somewhere thought it would be great for one company if they had control of all aspects of an artists career.

Well wait, control is a harsh word, maybe we should just say they want to exploit... oh, that's not much better. How about if we say they wanted to capitalize on the bigger picture?

Truth is no matter how you spell it out, these 360 deals as they're calling them, don't make a lot of sense. They DO make sense when you have an enormously famous artist and can coordinate the release of a new record with a world tour, new line of clothing, collectible lunch boxes, and a video game starring the band.

But the other 99% of the artists out there already have a 360 deal, they just control it themselves. The trick is to learn how to exploit all of our assets in a coordinated fashion. One of the biggest problems is that independent artists have so much to do, they have to choose what gets done. Most of the time the wrong choices are made. Adding friends on MySpace or making tour posters might not be the best use of time, rather it's most convenient or just seems like the right thing to do because every band does it, right?

Every musician's biggest asset is their body of work. So the first thing we have to do is make it better, bigger, and easier to access. That's the piece of the pie fans really care about. It's the part that is actually useful. It's the music that connects you to other people and makes them want to buy a t-shirt or come to more shows and tell their friends to do the same.

It makes a lot more sense for more artists to keep as much control as possible, which is to say control what you know, and get trustworthy people that will work with you to manage the rest. Find some investors to back your next record, not a company looking to own everything you do. Find a good manager. Find some people that know how to handle sales and marketing. But make sure all these people are passionate about your music and believe in you.

Trouble with Mottos

If you've ever seen Talladega Nights: The Ballad Of Ricky Bobby then you know where this first motto comes from. Will Farrell's character is a race car driver that lives by the motto below, which was spouted off by his deadbeat dad after he got kicked out of school for giving some advice during career day. At least, he lived by this motto until after his dad gets kicked out of Applebee's years later and confesses to being stoned when he gave that advice.Of course, that's just a fictional character in a comedy about a reckless race car driver with two first names. Nobody would ever really adopt that as their mantra, right? Ever been to Texas?

What's slightly more frightening is the picture below. This is from the bulletin board at the University at North Texas, where I studied jazz as an undergrad. This was the board that posted everyone's ensemble placement. It was a very competitive school, and the point was to prepare us for the real world, at least as far as the quality of our playing. While I believe the intentions were meant to keep us focused and weed out the people that weren't willing to put in the work, "Every Day is an Audition" couldn't be further from the truth once you're in the real world.

The world is full of talented musicians that are better than me or you. It's also full of not very talented musicians that are simply bright people with interesting things to express and use music as their platform. More importantly, it's full of a wide range of people with different tastes and large appetites for music.

At North Texas, the goal was to be in the One O'Clock jazz band. That ensemble is arguably one of the best college jazz bands in the world. Without a doubt, they blew me away every time I saw them perform or even rehearse. But after college, where are they? Many of the guys I knew in that band aren't even playing jazz now. If they're still doing music, they've exchanged their horns for a guitar and started doing the singer/songwriter thing. Why is that? What changed?

Well, it turns out the real world, for musicians at least, is more about survival and less about competition. It's much easier to get by if you're getting along with other musicians and bands, and using the leverage of the greater community to build a sustainable music scene. The key to a great music scene is variety.

Think about your favorite bands for a minute. What do you like about each? I love Ella Fitzgerald because she can sing. Her voice is a whole other class of instrument. Nobody can touch Ella's voice. I also love Nina Simone. Her voice is haunting. Not always in tune, but it hypnotizes the listener. I love Bob Dylan too, but it's because of the imperfections in his voice and what he's singing, not whether or not he's in tune. But I'm not going to go buy all of Ella's albums and none of the others. I want to listen to all of it, and as much as I possibly can.

Similarly, as a band leader, I have a list of musicians I've worked with. When I have a gig that calls for a trumpet player, I don't simply think about the last time I heard all the trumpet players in my list, I'm considering each player's strengths, personality, and who else is on the gig. I want everyone to function well as a band. We don't all have to be best friends, but can't we all just get along?

Finally, on a personal level, I've realized the key to artistic development is not to try and outdo the next guy, but instead just do what I do best. I'm not John Scofield or Pat Metheny or Grant Green or Wes Montgomery. I'll never play like those guys because I don't have their brain. I haven't had the same experiences as them, and I hear music differently. What I love about them is their individuality. The most important lessons I take away from studying a great musician's playing are the characteristics that make them unique. Then I reflect on my own approach to music, and strive to strengthen my own individuality.

Anyone who has had to follow up a great performance can understand where I'm coming from. There's nothing quite as nerve racking as watching from the wing as your predecessor brings the house down, figuratively speaking of course. The best approach is to take a deep breath, take the stage and play for yourself. You'll never be as good at being the last guy as the last guy was at being himself.

Life isn't a competition, every day is not an audition. Instead of trying to be better than everyone else, just focus on being better than yourself and success will usually find you, or at least you'll get calls for more gigs. Mottos help simplify life and motivate you from time to time, but they can also act as blinders, distracting you from developing your individuality.

Metallica

I'm not ashamed to admit that I basically learned my way around the guitar thanks to Metallica. I learned every song from their 1983 debut, Kill 'em All, through their fifth, the self-titled black album released 1991, plus some of the other miscellaneous debris recorded during that period.

Then around 1992 I read Kirk Hammet's article in some guitar mag, I think his column was called The Sound And The Fury. Anyway, he wrote about phrasing, a term that, when used musically, really has no place in the heavy metal lexicon. But he wasn't talking about heavy metal, he was talking about jazz. Miles and Coltrane to be exact. His article prompted me to buy a Miles and Coltrane CD, then I was hooked. I sold all my Metallica CDs, along with a bunch others I mostly regret selling off today, and the rest is history in the making.

In the '90s, Metallica released a few albums. I bought Load in 1996, and lost interest. I didn't even pay attention to their next couple albums. But they just released their ninth, called Death Magnetic. This one sounds a lot more like their earlier releases, so out of nostalgia, I bought it.

If you used to be a fan, check it out. It's hilarious. They're back to doing everything that made me love them as an adolescent. Long songs with long intros built on riff after riff after glorious wall-to-wall-Marshall-stack riff. Then there's harmonized lead guitar lines, shredding solos, and dark, dark lyrics. I can't really take these men seriously anymore, especially that goofus Lars, but nobody makes this kind of music better than them. Thank you Rick Rubin for giving us our Metallica back.

The author circa 1996(?). I was past my Metallica stage, but hadn't taken down the posters in my bedroom. Note the other sophisticated post-modern decor, accented by the empty Gatorade bottle and Successories (to compliment my road race t-shirt) on the desk and bulletin board full of empty guitar string packs. I used Dean Markley strings back then, but am a dedicated D'Addario customer now. Hey D'Addario, how about an endorsement?

When to sign a deal

Here's the question you should ask yourself before entering any deal:

What does this person/company stand to gain from doing business with me?

If the answer is your sign up fee, your subscription fee, or anything else that has to do with money directly out of your pocket, walk away. However, if the answer has something to do with revenue from your future success, then you're headed in the right direction. If they make more money because you're making more money, there's some motivation there for both parties.

As a musician, my main concerns should be practicing, writing, performorming, and recording. But I also maintain my website, book and promote my own gigs, mail out my own CDs, promote my recordings, and generally just try to stay on top of all the potential marketing opportunities that might come my way. There are thousands out there just like me. It's hard work.

Eventually I'll need to hire somebody to do some of these non-music making related tasks. I don't want to book my own shows forever. I also can't really talk up my new CD to other people. It's good for an artist to be passionate about what they created, but eventually it needs validation from some other authority, and championed by appropriate fans or tastemakers.

I'm always on the lookout for a deal, but I'm in no rush. If you want to own my music, you're out. If you can't speak passionately about my music, you're out. If you can't triple one of my streams of revenue, because I know you want a piece of it, you're out. If you want my money up front, and don't have plans to work with me a year from now, or for a significant period after my album is released, I'll pass. Thanks, but no thanks.

One step back.

Everyday I try to look back at what I did that was productive. Did I practice enough? Did I get some good stuff recorded? Did I write a new song or finish an arrangement? Then there's the non-creative activities like booking gigs, sending out a few press CDs, researching some other sort of opportunity, etc. Some of this work pays off immediately, but most is slowly adding to a greater revenue stream that will flow continuously for a long time. Ultimately that's the goal.

Unfortunately, after my interface kept crashing making my mix session take much longer than necessary and then watching the video from the last gig but not happy enough with anything to justify uploading anything to YouTube, I feel a bit deflated.

Tomorrow is a new day.

Basic set up for fretted instruments

Sometimes you end up with a cheap guitar that sounds pretty good but the intonation is rough on your ears and the action makes your fingers bleed. If it's not worth the cost of a set up, you might be able to make some adjustments yourself and make it a decent axe to keep around the house. I haven't done this on a guitar, but I've done work on my mandolin and ukulele, so if you average out the strings, it's the same basic principle. Before you get in over your head, do a little extra research, especially if you're inexperienced at adjusting the truss rod or handling small files or sharp blades.

1) Make sure the neck is straight. Put a capo on the first fret and push down the string on the last fret. There should be a tiny amount of space between the 8th fret and string. If there's nothing, loosen your truss rod. Too much, tighten it. Adjust it in quarter turns, and very slowly.

2) Adjust the bridge or saddle. In most cases, your bridge or saddle (the white piece on the bridge of an acoustic guitar), is going to be too high. There should be slightly more distance between the strings and frets as you move up the neck to allow for more vibration on the string, but too much will cause intonation problems. If it's an acoustic with one of those white plastic saddles, you can simply pop it out to file or sand the bottom side to lower it, or if it needs more height put something underneath it.

3) File out the slots on the nut. On almost every new instrument, especially cheap ones, the nut will need some work. Your strings should be very close to the first fret, otherwise you'll have intonation problems. The string vibration has a smaller amplitude here and is less likely the buzz. Professional guitar techs will have appropriate files for this job, but a set of these is almost as expensive as any instrument I'd have the nerve to work on so I use an exacto knife, nail file, and patience. Go very slowly and retest the string often. If you take out too much you'll need a new nut, or else figure out a way to carefully add a little glue in the slot.

4) Adjust the intonation. This can mean several things. Classical guitars, ukuleles, and many acoustics won't allow for much adjustment. But if your instrument has a movable bridge or individual adjustable saddles (as on most electrics), you can tweak the intonation. First put some fresh strings on and tune up. Then check the note at the 12th fret. It should be exactly in tune. If it's flat, move the saddle closer to the fretboard. If it's sharp, go the other way. Again, small movements do the trick.

If you have any problems, consult a professional before ruining your instrument. But if you have patience and enjoy doing this kind of work, I encourage you to try. I always smile when somebody picks up my $250 mandolin and comments on how nice it feels and I can tell them I set it up myself!

Shopping for your first guitar.

Buying your first guitar, or your child's first guitar, is a tricky process. You don't want to spend a lot of money, and you have no idea what you're looking for. But with guitars, you usually get what you pay for, and a cheap instrument can be a literal pain to play and sound awful. Those two things will take all the fun out of learning the guitar, and before long the instrument will end up in the attic. However, it is possible to find a good starter instrument without spending a lot of money, and there are things you can do to make it easier to play and have a better sound.

All of these tips rely on a guitar that's in tune. At any guitar store, a salesperson should be able to help get you started with a few instruments and should tune them all before handing them over. But in the real world, you have to ask. Don't be shy. Just because you're not buying a $4,000 instrument today doesn't mean you won't someday.

If you're unfamiliar with the different parts of the instrument, refer to the Wikipedia article on the guitar. Learn these basic parts: Headstock, neck, body, frets, fretboard/fingerboard, nut, bridge, and saddle.

Get a trusted brand. Yamaha, Epiphone, Fender, and a handful of others make good beginner guitars. Generally speaking, if you can find guitars with the same brand for $1000 or so, their inexpensive counterparts are usually made with very similar specs, just cheaper wood and labor.

Consider nylon strings. I put nylon strings on many of my beginner students guitars. They are easier on the fingers. Classical guitars will have nylon strings, but they also have a wider neck and flat fingerboard, which can be harder for little hands. Instead, when you find a guitar you like ask the salesperson if they can put a set of nylon strings on a guitar with steel strings. (The answer is "yes," and if they ask why your answer is "because it's for a beginner.")

Don't be too stingy. If you spend too little, which is $100-$300, the instrument is probably going to be a beast to play, which means you'll either give up or outgrow it and need a better one sooner than later. If money is really an issue, decide on a couple guitars you like and then look for some used instruments. It's always cheaper buying straight from a musician, just be sure to look over it closely for any damage such as warping.

Look for a straight neck. The neck has to be perfectly aligned if you want this thing to have a chance at playing well. When you hold the body of the guitar, point the headstock away from you and look down the edge of the neck. There should be a very, very slight concave curve. The frets should be level, and the strings should be parallel with the edges of the fretboard.

Check for buzzing. Play each fret on each string as well as each open string. If you're a novice player, get somebody at the store to do it for you. If you hear buzzing, the neck needs adjustments to play properly. That could cost more money.

Check the intonation. This is hard to do if you're not a guitar player, but here's what I do before I consider even playing a guitar in a store. Once the instrument is in tune, play a harmonic on the 12th fret. Then push the string down on the 12th fret and play it again. The pitch should match exactly. On cheap guitars, they'll never be exact, but you it should be very close.

Does it resonate? Guitars produce a lot of overtones, which is an important characteristic of a well balanced instrument. Play the 9th fret on the G string, or 3rd string (third highest in pitch, which is the third closest to the floor if it's on your lap properly). Let it ring for a couple seconds and then let up to deaden that string. You should still hear the note. These are overtones ringing on the bottom two and highest string. The stronger the overtones, the more resonant the guitar.

Take care of your new instrument. Once you get it home, be sure to treat it right. Wood instruments respond to temperature and humidity. Don't expose it to any extremes for long periods. If your home dries out during the winter, keep it by a humidifier or use an instrument humidifier. Change the strings when they get dirty to keep a healthy amount of tension on the neck and just so it sounds better when you play it.

Inexpensive instruments don't have to be pieces of junk. With a little knowledge, you can find a guitar that will promote good practice habits and get you on your way to making great music!

The Recommendations Game

Word of mouth has always been the most invaluable form of marketing. In fact it's so invaluable, you can't buy it. People have a way of seeing through paid actors or manufactured buzz for what it is, traditional marketing. But with the internet, websites can generate recommendations based on consumer buying habits, which are basically the same as word of mouth (if not better, since somebody actually spent money).

Amazon is great at this. I get regular emails recommending new products or books based on what I've bought in the past. In fact, when I log in, they even tell me what I searched for last and what other people who did the same search also looked at and ultimately bought. This makes it so easy to look past the hype that I feel like my online shopping experience is quick and painless.

iTunes and a whole list of other online music destinations are also good at this game, and it's a great benefit to lesser known independent musicians like myself. More people listen and by more music online, the more likely my music will be recommended to the right crowd. On iTunes, people that buy music by Grant Green, Soulive, John Scofield, Greyboy All-Stars, Global Noize, Robert Walter, etc. will be pointed in the direction of my music via iTunes' "listeners also bought" section and the new Genuis sidebar. My tracks will get streamed on Last.fm thanks to user tags or listening habits that match up similar artists. I love it.

So how does one get the ball rolling? How do you get people that don't know who you are to find your music in the first place so it those connections to similar, better known artists are established? Simple. Playlists.

The Power of Playlists

I was drafting this blog before iTunes 8 became available, but now it just makes my point more relevant.

Remember when you'd make tapes off the radio? Sit around, wait for your favorite song, and hit record? If you really wanted the first note, you'd hit record before you even heard the song and stop and rewind when it was something else. Then you prayed the DJ wouldn't start talking over the last chorus. Maybe I'm dating myself a little. I'm only 27, but talking about tapes seems ancient. I don't even have a cassette player anymore.

That was the first time I'd make custom playlists. Then I'd make tapes for my car when I started driving. I made tapes to listen while running. Now we have iPods, so I make playlists for commuting on the subway, running, Saturday mornings, reading, Monday mornings, rainy days, doing dishes, long walks on the beach, lists of songs to practice, songs to learn, songs I haven't listened to in a long time, my favorite tenor saxophone solos, favorite jazz rhythm sections, funky bass lines...

Today, playlists take virtually unmanageable digital catalogs and organize them by usefulness. Music is now so readily available that we need help knowing what to listen to, even in our own collections.

Enter websites like Last.fm, Pandora, Playlist.com, etc. that let either let users create custom playlists or create them for you based on recommendations (a subject I'll address later). iTunes has allowed users to post iMixes to the store since 2004 and now create them for you with this new Genius button.

When done right, playlists are very powerful tools to get your music to the masses. But doing it right is the trick, and I see a lot of indie artists making some pretty misguided playlists. Here are some considerations

- Make playlists you actually like. If you wouldn't want to listen to it, why would anyone else?

- Don't throw all your music into the playlist. Unless it's a Best Of playlist, which sort of defeats the purpose here, use about the same number of songs for every artist in the list.

- Use artists/songs that are either similar to your music or fit the mood of the playlist. Jack Johnson would not work with my trio's music, unless I was creating a playlist for a backyard barbeque and used one of my laid back tracks. But going to far out of your genre could encourage negative feedback.

- Include some obscure tracks. As more and more back catalog gets digitized, it's possible to find a lot of rare cuts online. Use these to your advantage. Especially if it's an underrated cut that you love, people with similar tastes are going to love that you found it for them.

- Own up to what you're doing and don't be shady. People aren't dumb. After they see your music in a bunch of playlists with their favorite artists, they'll put that together with the fact they've never heard of you and figure you're making the playlists. As long as you're making good playlists though, this is a good thing! I've received emails from people that truly enjoyed my playlists, discovered not only my music but some of the other lesser known artists I love. These folks have always bought my CD, told their friends, etc. Musical tastes truly connect people.

Most importantly:

- Don't think like a marketer, think like a fan. Better yet, just be a fan.

Time to redesign the website.

My website has had three versions. The first was essentially a learning experience, and we'll pretend it never happened. Next I learned about nesting tables to organize the layout, and I used elements from my first album in the design. I kind of liked that version. A year ago, just after Life Is Loud came out, I changed the design to use elements from that album. It still uses nested tables and much of the layout is the same as the previous version. It feels like it's time to do a complete overhaul.

Musician's websites need a few basic functions. Let people hear your music, and point them in the direction to buy it. Tell them where you're playing. Give them an idea of who you are. Give them a way to contact you and join your email list.

A great example of this is Gary Jules' website. It doesn't use Flash. A lot of bands think you need a flash site to be cool. I like great Flash sites, but I hate waiting for things to load. The biggest risk you face using Flash is getting too caught up in everything it can do and creating a site that looks fancy but either lacks the basic functions you need to connect with fans, or has so much going on it's hard to find the info you want.

An advantage to Flash is creating an interactive experience, though you don't need Flash to do it. Interactive is good for bands and big personalities. People want to explore and get to know the band. I think interactive is bad for individuals that offer more than just the music performance experience. For example, I have my trio, but I'm also involved in other projects. I would also like people to know that I do arranging, composition, and studio work. Turning my website into an interactive maze would cause me to miss a bunch of opportunities.

Having your own website isn't what it used to be. Social networking has created a variety of experiences that have become status quo. Bands' MySpace pages all work the same way for the most part. There are a wide variety of blogging sites now, so you don't need more than a basic news/update feed on your website. Instead of incorporating video into your website, just link to your YouTube channel.

Since people spend less time on artist websites, you want to make sure the message is delivered at a glance, whatever that message may be. I need to tweak that message on my site and will hopefully have some time to do that before the end of the year. Any suggestions? What's your favorite artist website? Please let me know!

Tomorrow @ Club Groove in NYC

Cameron Mizell Trio featuring Brad Whiteley (keys) and Kenneth Salters (drums):

Wednesday, September 10th, 7:00 - 9:00pm
Club Groove
125 MacDougal (at W. 3rd)
New York, NY 10012

Reinventing the Wheel

While watching TV with my wife the other day, one of those razor commercials came on. You know what I'm talking about... now with five blades! I'm convinced that in my lifetime we'll see a ten blade razor that vibrates and has a mini vacuum pulling the hairs up off your face. My wife commented, "Instead of just reinventing the wheel, why don't they invest in something different?"

My favorite shave is with my straight edge, which I sharpen on a leather strop. I get the razor so sharp that if you hold a piece of hair between two fingers and let it hang straight down, you can cut the hair by simply passing the blade through it. Gravity creates all the tension you need. You can't beat a blade that sharp. Of course, if you know me, you know I don't shave very often. So on the occasion I need a good shave, I enjoy the ritual of carefully sharpening the blade, getting a warm shave lather on my face, slowly shaving, cleaning the blade, and putting it all away. Disposable razors offer speed and convenience. That's a different audience, with a different need.

My wife had a point. It's really not about how many blades you have, but it's the most obvious way to improve the product. After a certain point it's not going to made a bit of difference.

Think about how this applies to the music industry. Is it really worth the effort trying to get radio play anymore? Is it even worth making physical formats? Will it make sense to keep trying to sell music a few years down the road? The answers are different for everybody, depending on what kind of music you make and who makes up your audience, but maybe it's time to try something totally different.

Deep linking to MP3s

The top referrer to my website is not MySpace, Facebook, this blog, or even Google, but Baidu MP3, a Chinese search engine known for deep linking to MP3s. In other words, it's good at finding the location of music files hosted anywhere on the internet so you can download them. For free.

If anyone know how to read some HTML code, they can find music online. My MP3s are somewhat hidden online, but they're not impossible to find. Likewise there will always be MySpace hacks enabling people to grab music directly off the MySpace server. Actually, you don't even need a hack for that if you can get creative. My belief is that if you are creative enough, or digging through code to find MP3s is your thing, go for it. You earned it. Just don't think you're tricking anybody.

When it comes to something like Baidu, I'm not sure deep linking to music files is the best thing for online music. Eventually, less of the great content will be available for complete previews online, and that's what we all love about the internet. You can find ANYTHING.

Of course, I don't think I'm blowing up in China (yet). Most of these hits likely come from somebody searching for one of the songs I've covered, and the person searching probably isn't looking for my version. But none the less, the end up at my website. While they might not understand English, it would be pretty cool if my music became popular enough that I might one day be crusing through China Town here in NYC and find a bootleg album or better yet, an obscure, nonsensical reference on a t-shirt.

(If you're having trouble reading that, it says, "One of the hostages being Taliban had two message interview late last night.")

And to be sure this blog is now banned in China, let me add: Free the Tibetan people from cultural genocide!

Emulating Other Instruments

In a college improv class, the professor played us sound clips of various musicians' tone minus the attack. Turns out if you cut off the initial attack, it's difficult to tell what instrument your listening to. Great artists tend to have less attack and a stronger tone, which makes their sound more pleasing to our ears. Their distinctive sound comes from the nuances in their vibrato, timing, and general feel. These are things that can't really be taught. The best way to learn them are through transcribing. Internalizing other's solos gives you the experience of knowing what you're going to play and perhaps more importantly, how you're going to play it, before you do.

The best way to develop your own sound is by transcribing other instruments (this goes for great vocalists as well). I find that when I transcribe other guitarists, I'm comparing my sound to theirs. I'm trying to figure out how they got that sound, what kind of guitar they're playing, what fingering they're using to play that difficult passage. But when I spent some time transcribing tenor saxophonist Dexter Gordon, I was focusing on his feel. If you're familiar with Dexter Gordon, you know that he was known for his extremely laid back phrasing. He would play deep in the pocket, and then finish off the phrase laying way behind the beat. One of the greatest lessons I took from these transcriptions was how he started solos. Often times he'd sit on one note, and just play rhythm and tone. Turns out time and tone are the most important characteristics of a great solo. In other words, playing the right notes don't really matter if they don't feel right or sound good.

Think about your favorite musicians. What is it about them that you love?

You Can't Notate Feeling

Create an Email List with Google Docs

**Update 10/9/08** Google has updated their software to make this process easier. I updated this guide and eliminated several steps no longer needed.

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Google Docs has a great function that can help you build an email list. I found out about this when Lauren Zettler asked if I could help her create something like this (and she sent me a link to another example... in other words, this isn't my idea, I'm just trying to spread the good word). Lauren recorded a gig we played at the Hotel Cafe in LA and wanted to offer it as a free download. When you have something like this to give away, it's a great opportunity to build your email list. Click on the cover image for her free download, and you can see how this works from the end users' perspective.


Log in to Google Docs (you'll need a Google password, which will be the same as a Gmail or YouTube login) and select New > Form in the upper left corner.


Start adding your questions to your form. Play around for a bit so you can figure out how your different options will look. It's easy to edit by redoing the last few steps.


Once you're done, save the link at the bottom of the window. Use this to direct people to your form.


Before you close that window, choose More actions > edit confirmation. Make this say whatever you'd like, but it should ideally be an instructions for the next step, such as a link to your free download.


Good luck!

Reading Music for Guitar

Despite the fact everyone and their dad plays one, the guitar is not an easy instrument. Thanks to the Guitar Hero video game, there was a brief boom in the guitar lesson market. Yet once all those people realized steel strings hurt your fingers more than plastic buttons, and hitting the correct string or two is a lot harder than flicking a light switch, those of us that try to maintain a few students had to go back to drinking PBR instead of those delicious microbrews.

One of the biggest challenges for most guitarists is reading music. Many great guitarists don't read music. They just don't have to. Either they have great ears or play in the type of bands where it's not needed. There are also many that do read music, and exploit that skill to get a lot of work.

Learning to read music seems like a chore. There is tons of great music that can be played without reading a single note, and thanks to more intuitive notation methods like guitar tab, it can even appear cumbersome.

Even if you can read notes on a treble clef, you can play the same note on several strings. This gets confusing, especially if you're trying to articulate a passage properly. When a guitarist comes across an E in the top space on the staff, they can play the open top string or, working the way down the lower strings, get the same pitch on the 5th, 9th, 14th, and 19th frets. Each has a different sound and can influence your next move. It's confusing and causes a lot of guitarists to freeze up or get delayed when sight reading music.

My own excuse for being a poor sight reader is that I rarely see properly notated guitar music any more. Most people don't know how to write for guitar. The other night I played a gig where I had a few guitar charts, most with the notes written in the wrong octave (note to arrangers: the guitar sounds an octave lower than written, so if you want to hear middle C, write the C in the staff), and with a lot of cluster chords without a chord symbol notated above. Most of the time I was reading over the piano player's shoulder, looking at a bass line and then a few bars later back to my music stand trying to double the lead trumpet part. The next day I'll be working with somebody using a capo, and while they're telling me it's a C chord, in my head I'm transposing up a minor third to Eb to compensate for that capo on the third fret. When somebody finally puts actual guitar music in front of me I never know what I'm going to play.

However, I strongly encourage guitarists to learn to read. Being able to read and notate music properly is the best way to communicate with great musicians. There are more gigs for guitarists that can read. Even if you don't gig, there is a wealth of music to learn that been arranged and notated for guitar. Combined with a great ear, you'll find yourself not only being a better guitarist, but a much better musician.

Thoughts on Leaky Music

There's been a lot of talk lately about unfinished music leaking across the internet, and I think the conversation started up again after some of the Guns 'N' Roses tracks from Chinese Democracy (their new album) got loose. At first I thought, "Who cares?" But after seeing some reaction, I began to think about it more, and from the artists perspective as well as the fans.

Let's start from the fans' perspective. If you really love a band, chances are you want to know what goes into making their music. Where do they get those ideas? What would it be like to hang out with them? What are they like in the studio? Hearing unfinished music gives you a piece of that. It's like the bonus features on a DVD that have outtakes or commentary. You get to humanize the artist. It's pretty cool, right?

From an artist's perspective, I would love to share the process with you, but within context of my vision. You have to understand that making music is HARD. When I practice, I'm either messing up a lot going really, really slow 99% of the time before I get things right. I also write or play a lot of bad ideas to get them out of my head before I get to the good ideas. I don't want you to hear this stuff, at least not without my consent. So let me show you that I can get it right and then I'll reveal the painful part. Then I know you understand the context, and no matter who hears me messing up, I know they have probably heard me getting it right. This is why outtakes are shown at the end of movies. They're funny because you know the actors eventually said their lines correctly.

Technology plays a big part of this discussion. Advances in recording techniques can fix about anything. Because of this, the quality of talent has dropped. Clearly, if an artist can't really sing or play like the finished product, I would expect them to freak out if the public hears it. On the other hand, it is pretty amazing to hear an unfinished vocal track of somebody that can actually sing. I heard an unedited David Lee Roth track, vocal only with a little bleed from the headphones, and I had new respect for the man. Even more so, listen to someone like Etta James. You think they had to auto-tune her vocals?

In general, recording is a lot less romantic today than it used to be. Music used to get picked up by a microphone and hit the tape pretty close to how it would sound on the record. But today stuff gets recorded very, very raw. Where studios used to use the acoustics of a room to capture natural reverb, today it is a lot easier to record very dry and add reverb later, by running the track through analog or digital processors. Almost every instrument can sound awful in a rough mix. It's very easy for people to perceive ugly sound for lack of talent. Even the best A&R guys can have trouble hearing talent through a poor mix.

Ultimately, this should be an artistic decision. The public does not have a right to hear whatever they want. Many fans believe they have this right because of the transparency of the internet. People, including many artists, share a lot of themselves on blogs, social network sites, YouTube, and personal websites. In fact, doing just that is a GREAT way for artists to reach more fans. I know several people who do this successfully. But at the end of the day, they have artistic control over what is released because they know context is key.

File Under Jazz

Years ago I was asked to write an article explaining jazz to the novice listener. Below is the result, formerly posted on an e-zine, then on my website before I decided to scrap that section. Enjoy, and please add your thoughts and perspectives as comments:

WHAT IS JAZZ?
The largest hurdle for this discussion is to define jazz. To classify any genre of music, certain common qualities must be present. What qualities do we find in jazz? Improvisation and syncopated rhythm seem like obvious answers. Some definitions characterize jazz as having polyphonic ensembles (several instruments playing in harmony) and “deliberate distortions of pitch and timbre” (Merriam-Webster). But the umbrella of jazz now covers many different kinds of music with virtually nothing in common except the jazz section of a record store. Listen to any Glen Miller greatest hits album followed by Miles Davis’ On the Corner. Miller, a popular big band leader in the 1930s and 1940s, wrote some of the most memorable big band charts from the Swing Era, including “In the Mood.” On the other hand, Miles Davis, known as one of the most influential and experimental musicians of the 20th Century, recorded On the Corner in 1972 when his musical influences included Jimi Hendrix, Sly and the Family Stone, and James Brown. These two albums, if not for the two artists themselves, differ in a myriad of ways but are still filed under jazz. There is an explanation for this, both in the way the music is played and its history.

A PROCESS NOT A STYLE
Pianist Bill Evans said it best when he described jazz as no longer being a style but a process. In other words, it is a way to play and treat existing music. For example, Cole Porter wrote many great American songs in the 1920s and 1930s such as Night and Day, What is this Thing Called Love, and All of You. These were popular songs of the day, many from Broadway musicals. In the 1940s and 1950s, jazz musicians began playing the tunes in jam sessions, using only the chorus and repeating them over and over again taking turns improvising the melody. (Today, these tunes are part of the standard jazz repertoire.) This process has been part of black music ever since slaves were brought to America, when spirituals were sung in plantation fields. The words might have been taken from the Bible, but the way they were sung came from the African traditions of call and response, vocal style, tone quality, and pitch flexibility. As blacks moved north and into urban areas, they kept these aesthetics and applied them to other types of music. In rural areas black musicians had little access to instruments, but in the cities they could play pianos, saxophones, trumpets, and other white or European instruments and played those using rhythms and tonal qualities from African music. For instance, boogie woogie was a blues based piano style popular from roughly 1920 through 1945. Jazz historian LeRoi Jones wrote about the piano in Blues People as “one of the last instruments to be mastered by Negro performers” and boogie woogie “succeeded in creating a piano music that was within the emotional tradition of Negro Music” (90). And unlike European classical traditions, this music making process has no formal rules. The only rule is to make music that gets your foot tapping, makes you cry, or evoke some kind of emotional response from the audience. This is the essence of jazz, and as far as the listener is concerned, the only quality that matters.

HISTORY OF A PROCESS
If jazz is more easily explained as a process to make music as opposed to a defined style of music, then we have to understand how the process differed through history. Then we can justify the Glen Miller and Miles Davis albums being filed under the same category.

Early jazz, prior to 1928, was a spin off of the New Orleans style brass bands, now known as Dixieland. These bands played tunes from ragtime, the blues, military and religious music, and the popular tunes of the day. In the 1920s trumpeter Louis Armstrong emerged as the first great soloist and entertainer in jazz. He was the first to play with a modern swing feel.

During the Swing Era (1935-1945) big band jazz and popular music were one and the same. From big bands, smaller groups formed consisting of one or two horn players and a rhythm section (piano, bass, and drums). With a smaller band more emphasis was put on the soloist and musicians could improvise longer. Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie’s small group began playing bebop in the 1940s and removed jazz from the mainstream. Bebop musicians considered their music to be art, not entertainment. The music was still based on popular tunes, but the melodies were rewritten and played at faster tempos.

The 1950s saw the beginning of cool jazz, modal jazz and hard-bop. One style of jazz did not stop when a newer one began, they all existed together. The 1960s saw free jazz, post bop, latin jazz and the bossa nova craze, plus the beginnings of jazz-rock fusion that persisted through the 1970s. Also during this time, contemporary or smooth jazz gained popularity, mixing easy listening and R&B with jazz improvisation. Many artists played many different styles as they developed. Miles Davis, for example, began playing at a young age in big bands around St. Louis, then played bebop with Charlie Parker in New York, created the cool school, pioneered modal jazz, led some of the greatest post bop groups, recorded the first major fusion album (Bitches Brew in 1969), and played pop jazz in the 1980s. His last album, released after his death in 1991, was a collaboration with rapper Easy Mo Dee. In many ways, Miles Davis’ career outlines the history and process of jazz from the 40s to the 90s.

SOMETHING FOR EVERYONE
Jazz intimidates a lot of people because it appears so complex. Yet it is not an exclusive club reserved for intellectuals and beatniks. Jazz is a language, an unspoken line of communication between the musicians and the audience. It is an active process that requires the listener’s participation. If you avoid listening to jazz because you think it is all the same, I beg you to reconsider. There are many styles of music called jazz, and there is at least one everybody likes. Once you stop trying to define it and really listen, you will realize that nothing I have written in this essay is required to enjoy jazz; the music will speak for itself.

The New Singles World

We're not talking about the dating scene.

One of the major reasons Napster and subsequent file sharing services became so popular is that they allowed people to cherry pick hit singles. If you think about it, that is probably the root of file sharing. Give me just what I want and not the other baggage (now this is starting to sound like dating). Up to roughly 1999, you had to buy an $18 CD to get the one song you really wanted. So file sharing was never solely about getting that song for free, it was just about not spending all of your beer money to get that one song. If it had been easier to buy that song for $.99, or even half that, I bet a substantial amount of tracks would have been sold. It would still be eclipsed by the free downloads on P2P's, but a lot of people will pay a little for some convenience. I'm one of those people. Enter iTunes.

iTunes is a huge force in music retail. I believe it makes up about 30% of total US music revenues, and according to at least one source, is the top music retailer in the US. One reason is the deep catalog and long tail economics of selling less of more. From personal experience, I can report over 80% of my revenue from music sales is from iTunes, with the rest being physical albums and all the other digital service providers.

Ok, I've said nothing new so far, so let me get to my point.

There are still holdouts at iTunes, perhaps the most notable being The Beatles. Here's a Wall Street Journal article that does a decent job discussing "why" bands do this. In short, these artists want to stick to selling their music in the album format and avoid letting people choose one or two tracks. Even so, their music is easily found across torrent and P2P services for free.

Holding out seems like a noble thing to do and all, but come on guys, you're missing the point. For starters, your real fans are still going to buy the whole album. While your tracks will still be traded freely on the internet, you might pick up a few sales from people willing to pay for the convenience of iTunes.

More importantly, there's the artistic debate. The artist wants you to buy the whole album and listen to it start to finish, in order. Well, here's where it gets tricky. I see albums in three categories.

First, there will always be pop acts that play the singles game, and those singles usually get released on an album with eight or nine "filler" tracks. Filler, in this case, means phoned in pieces of crap that should be an embarrassment to all those involved. These are usually the kinds of acts major labels got in the habit of using to support themselves. Once there was an option to avoid the filler, the focus was shifted back to the single. Only today you can exploit it with with mobile products, videos, etc.

At the other end of the spectrum there's the concept album. The first band that comes to mind is Pink Floyd. Sure, they had some great songs, but in the context of the whole album, holy shit, it was a whole new experience. Why would you want to miss out on it? Fact is, most people don't. Go look at The Wall on iTunes. It's $24.99. Originally released as a double LP, it's now just 26 tracks (you can tell it's on two CDs because it's numbered 1-13 twice). A bunch of the tracks are under two minutes, and there are maybe just two or three songs people would actually listen to outside of the whole album. Yet the "filler" tracks here are functional pieces to a larger concept, and to get the whole picture you gotta buy the whole thing. If you look at that graph in the WSJ article, you'll see that people are buying as many Pink Floyd albums as they are digital tracks.

Finally, somewhere between the pop acts and the concept albums are simply great albums. The Beatles would be a great example here. So many of their albums are loaded with songs you want, you just buy the whole thing. One of my favorite albums by an independent musician is The Hill by Mike Stocksdale (you can get it for free on his site but I STRONGLY encourage you to go buy it and support this guy). Mike just wrote a bunch of great, tasty songs. A few of these could be singles, but quite frankly, you're missing out if you don't get the whole thing and listen start to finish.

The bottom line is either your album is either good start to finish or it's not. Not selling your tracks as singles makes no sense to me. Your fans are allowed an opinion, and in today's climate they expect to be able to buy a track or two first before deciding your new masterpiece is worth their time and attention to listen start to finish. Look, I understand that many tracks are Album Only on a variety of services based on length (see any jazz album), licensing (see any soundtrack), and occasionally publishing (which makes little sense to me), but those are not artistic decisions. If you think your album so great that it MUST be listened to start to finish, which ought to be the way we all make albums anyhow, then throw it out there and let the fans figure it out. Everybody wins.

Craziest gig, ever.

Summer of 2002. The last summer I spent in my parents house in St. Louis. I was working as a waiter and trying to find gigs wherever possible. With the amount of running around I was doing, I figured a cell phone would help people reach me for gigs, and within 24 hours of activating my first cell phone, while shooting pool and drinking beer at a friend's house, I got the call.

Me: Hello?
Unidentified Voice (w/ heavy Italian accent): You play guitar?
Me: Uh, yeah?
UV: You know some jazz chords?
Me: Yeah?
UV: You gotta suit?
Me: Yeah, who is this?
UV: How long will it take you to get to the Hill? You gotta car?

The Hill is the Italian neighborhood in St. Louis. Sort of like Little Italy in New York, but less touristy and in my opinion, a lot more authentic, so probably more like Arthur Ave. in the Bronx.

Me: Maybe an hour and a half. Wait, who is this?
UV: It's [not named to protect myself], I'm a jazz singer that sounds like Tony Bennett, Frank Sinatra, Dean... you know, I'm a jazz singer. Meet me at [unnamed restaurant] in an hour. I need a guitar player. I've got all the music.

And so I asked a couple more questions to make sure I'd get paid, got something that resembled directions, and went home to get my suit. I had no idea what I was getting myself into.

While sitting in traffic headed downtown, he called back to tell me that he and the sax player were running late (Ok, now I know there's a sax player), and he needs me to cover for them until they get there. In 2002 I could play about three competent chord melody solos on guitar. At least, there were three I felt comfortable performing. So I crossed my fingers that they weren't running that late.

When I got to the restaurant, a rough looking man in a suit named Guy showed me where to set up. "Where's [the singer]?" he asked. "Oh, he'll be here soon. Traffic. I'm going to play some solo guitar in the meantime." Gulp.

Nearly an hour later, they showed up. It was just the two of them. That meant I was the entire rhythm section, and would be playing plenty of chord soloing whenever the saxophonist laid out. After setting up the small P.A., a binder of music was thrown in front of me. Opening it up, I didn't recognize a single song. These weren't jazz standards, these were Italian songs. Half of them were written for mandolin! I was a goner.

The scariest moment in my life happened a few tunes later, when he called Mi Amore. Finally, something I sort of knew! Before I had a chance to look it over, he was counting off the tune. And by counting off, I mean he was doing some weird foot stomping, fist swinging motion while singing what I imagine was some sort of trombone part from the arrangment stuck in his head, "Bah, Bah-Dah, BOP!" As soon as I started playing my best boom-chick-chick waltz pattern, he got right in my face and while playing air mandolin, starting singing some high notes, wanting me to play that, doing some tremelo picking, at the same time. I don't remember the next couple minutes, but things seemed to settle in place. But then it all fell apart. The key changed or something, but not in my music. Wait, where's the final barline? Where's the rest of this lyric? I'm missing a page!

And that's how I fucked up Mi Amore in front of an all Italian audience in the most Italian neighborhood in St. Louis. I was pretty sure my car was going to blow up when I turned it on.

Yet ironically, Guy and everyone else loved my solo playing at the beginning that they forgave me, and just teased me about it afterwards. Plus, once we did get to the jazz standards, I more than made up for it. Literally, I played like my life was on the line. After the gig, which went until the last customer left a little after midnight, the chef made an amazing pasta dish for the three of us. The owner broke out a few bottles of vino and we kicked back, smoked cigars, had some lemon dolce, and shot the shit until about 4 am. My car started without incident and I felt successful.