Congratulations Ben and Ann!

My cousin, Ben, got married yesterday. I wasn't able to attend because my wife and I couldn't make it back to St. Louis for Thanksgiving this year. But my brother, an excellent photographer, took pictures at their wedding. Here's one shot of the bride he posted on his blog.

Ben is a Marine, and will be headed to the Middle East soon (part of the reason the wedding was the day after Thanksgiving). That kind of make missing the wedding a little more disappointing, but I'm sure I'll see them soon and can offer my congratulations in person.

Sequence

Today I've been listening to some music that I recently added to my iTunes library. Conveniently, all I have to do is click on the Recently Added smart playlist and hit play. But after a few tracks I realized the albums were playing in reverse order, because the last tracks are imported more recently. A couple of the albums were compilations of blues musicians. These are typically sequenced in chronological order, so I found myself hearing the newest cuts first, and then moved back in time to earlier material. I don't think I've ever listened in this manner, and it grabbed my attention.

While many pop oriented artists are starting to release digital singles and EPs in place of full albums, I find myself scratching my head a little. Is the idea to only offer the good songs and do away with the filler tracks? Do you still play the filler tracks live? Sure, nobody wants to be forced to buy filler material to get the good songs, but I've got a great solution: Don't write it. If you write a bunch of great music, package it together as an album, and sell it for a decent price, your fans will feel like they're getting a deal when they buy 14 songs on iTunes for $9.99.

One of the albums I listened to today, in reverse order was Tom Petty's Full Moon Fever. You'd fight an uphill battle to say that album has filler tracks. They're not all hits, but they're all very good.

I think full albums with a well thought out sequence are absolutely still valid today. The problem is not the buying patterns of consumers, but the artistic vacuum known as the bottom line. We know CD sales plummetted in part because they were overpriced and full of crappy music. But what made the sales surge in the first place, for this and every format?

Not well constructed business plans. Not brilliant marketing people. Not innovations in distribution or production.

I'm pretty sure it was simply a matter of good music.

Blog: A Musician's Journey

Christopher Lars Carlson is smart. I stumbled across his blog this morning and liked everything he's written. He thinks the way I try to think (not sure if that's a compliment), and his approach is kind of similar to mine.

If you've ever found anything interesting in my blog, you'll find much more at his:

A Musician's Journey

Happy reading.

Textures, Pt. 2

Last week I started writing about using textures to take your playing to a new level of musicality. For starters, we should always look for the inner voices in a piece of music, and then adjust tone and timbre through slight adjustments to our playing techniques.

That first part is very important because it's about using what you have before relying on effects or other equipment to manipulate your sound. For most of us, money is going to limit what kind of equipment we'll have, so we may never have exactly what we think we need to get a certain texture. But even for those with huge bankrolls, there will be plenty of instances where you can't bring along all your gear. Therefore, it's always important to learn how to find the simplest solutions first, and build from there.

Now that we all know how to use the Force for good, let's talk about some of the stuff money can buy.

I'm a guitarist; my people are known for our smoke and mirrors tactics usually associated with effects. But many guitarists' signature sound is due in part to their gear, so it's worth investigating. Let's review the basics:

Acoustic guitars are made from different tonewoods and come in different body types or shapes. Knowledgeable salespeople usually match a guitarists playing style to certain types of wood and body styles because it balances out their sound. But if you're a well balanced player that can manipulate the sound with your fingers or pick, it's usually worth shopping for guitars with different tonewoods and shapes that will expand your sonic possibilities.

Electric guitars capture sound with pickups. The two basic pickup options are single coil (found on Fender Stratocasters or Telecasters) and humbuckers (found on Gibson Les Pauls and SGs). Popular opinion describes single coil pickups as having a bright, clean tone while humbuckers have a fat, warm tone.

Secondary to the pickups, wood and body type can also change the sound of an electric guitar. Archtops and hollow bodied guitars allow the top to vibrate, similar to an acoustic guitar, but with humbucking pickups. These produce a woody, warmer tone usually used by jazz or blues guitarists. Different types of wood can affect sustain and ultimately tone.

Look at some pictures of classic rock bands like the Beatles or the Rolling Stones and you'll see a variety of guitars on stage. Before digital effects became widely popular, using different guitars created all the tonal textures they needed.

If you can't afford a new guitar, sometimes a cheap, used guitar that's been beat up a bit can give you a unique sound. I have a few in my collection, and while I don't use them live, they've been very handy in recording situations.

Next, you've got amplifiers. Most people are going to tell you tube amps are the way to go. Frankly, the only time you can argue against that is when a solid state amp can do well enough to save yourself the trouble of dragging a tube amp to the gig. I recently spent a good amount of money on a Class A tube amp, and while I don't understand all the technology behind it, I do understand the wide range of tones I can create. In general, I'd recommend a simple but well built tube amp over any digital amp simulator. Nothing tops the genuine tube sound, and if you put a decent EQ between your guitar and amp, you can mimic most classic amp sounds.

Everything other than your technique, guitar, and amp is just details. But textures are often created in the details.

I've always considered myself a guitar-to-amp guy, but I ended up with a decent collection of effects pedals. My favorite effect is the vibrato on my amp, not pictured below, but here's a rundown of what you see on my pedalboard: Jim Dunlop Crybaby Wah, Electro-Harmonix Mini QTron envelope filter, ProCo Turbo Rat distortion, Boss Giga-Delay (with an FS-5U pedal I use to tap tempos), Boss Flanger, Boss EQ, Ernie Ball Volume.
I can create more sounds than I'll ever use with this rig, and when I use it, I use it sparingly. In most live situations, I'll change my tone by switching channels on my amp, changing pickups, adjusting my tone and volume knobs, and picking closer to the bridge or neck. But with my trio, I often take it a step further using my pedal board. The wah-wah and envelope filter pedals allow me to quickly sweep a wider EQ range. The distortion and flanger color the tone. I usually only use the EQ pedal when I'm dealing with a house amp. The giga-delay lets me program four different pre-sets. I'll use some light delay during some solos, and then I've got some wacky settings for taking things out. Psychadelic jazz doesn't happen without some enablers.

The trick is to know when to use these options. Django Reinhardt made legendary music without any of these effects. Jimi Hendrix practically played effects like they were an instrument all their own. Yet if you took everything away from Hendrix, he still sounded like Hendrix. Jazz guitarists Pat Metheny and John Scofield both have very distinct tones on electric guitar. Yet both have recorded acoustic albums, and their playing is immediately recognizable. In fact, every great artist has at some point recorded or performed acoustically and maintained their unique sound.

The point is to use your textures to suplement musicality, not replace it all together. Learn how to manipulate your sound organically first, and then introduce some other effects to alter your tone even greater. Used tastefully and with a strong musical purpose, textures will add new depth to your songs.

Textures, Pt. 1

My latest kick in writing or playing music has been experimenting with textures. This actually isn't a new thing, but I'm spending more time at home, on my own, trying to figure out ways to play the same passage differently.

For starters, a song needs to be good. If your tune is lame in it's most naked form, it's going to be lame no matter what smoke and mirrors you apply. My yard stick is my wife. If I write a tune for my trio and have been honing the melody for a while, and then hear her humming it later that night, mission accomplished.

The next step is adding texture. How can I make the "A" section sound different from the "B" section? Do I need a bridge or vamp to add more interest? Who plays the melody? Is it doubled? Is everybody playing?

Since my trio is basically an electric jazz ensemble, many of our textures happen on the spot, but I try to write some of it into the music. I think one of the problems a lot of people have with jazz music is that it kind of sounds the same to them start to finish. The same instruments and sounds and feel basically the whole time. It's really easy for someone like me to forget about this perspective because my ear picks up on the other things happening. Specifically, what the soloist is doing.

When it comes to the other music I make, very specific textures play a larger role. Take, for example, a chord progression of G to D. Repeat. Ad nauseum. There are many great songs written with these exact two chords. Lyrics and melody definitely create interest, but what can you do to pull it away from the Kumbaya-fireside-I-learned-this-song-from-online-tabs sound?

A lot.

First, take stock of how the song is performed. Most of the time I'm playing with somebody else who can play guitar and sing. I can play a variety of instruments, sometimes at the same time. At least in theory, it's physically possible. I've got some practicing to do.

But I always start with what I do best, the guitar. I start with playing inner voices on the guitar. Then it's a matter of rhythm and attack. Fingers or pick? Strum or pluck simultaneously?

Next comes tone. Acoustic or electric guitar? There are many ways to change your tone before using various effects pedals, so I do whatever I can with a straight, clean tone (the fewer effects I use, the less I have to drag to the gig!). Right and left hand position make a huge difference here.

With your left hand (or whichever you use on the fretboard) the further up the neck you voice a chord, the shorter the string becomes. I call this choking up, like a baseball player. But if your other guitar player is playing in a lower position on the neck, choking up will create a distinctive tone and prevent the music from getting too muddy.

Your right hand has even more control. Pick close to the bridge and the tone gets "tinny" while the picking close to or even over the frets produces a "warmer" tone. You can also change your angle of attack by flat picking or using the edge of the pick for a smoother release. I try to maintain my fingernails on my right hand, which has come in handy many time. If I shape them right, it's like having five guitar picks. Each has it's own tonal character as well, just because they grow differently. This is where some classical chops come in handy, even though I rarely play classical music.

I'll expand further on effects and other instruments I've found helpful in future posts. For now, just playing with an acoustic guitar should keep you busy!

Does your artist name make a difference?

Flipping through my iTunes library today, I noticed that most of my 6,376 tracks are by artists whose names are in the first half of the alphabet.

This could be quickly filed as a useless statistic, except I don't think I favor that end of the alphabet. For all the Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen I have, I've got more Stan Getz. I've got a lot of James Brown and Jimi Hendrix, but I also have plenty of The Meters, Miles Davis, and Radiohead. (And it's worth noting that for people, iTunes organizes by FIRST name, where a store organizes by LAST name.)

The difference is in the bands with an album or less in my collection. Those are the groups I wanted to try out. Buy a little, see if I like it, maybe buy some more later.

The music in my library comes from four sources, more or less in this order by quantity:

1) A few hundred CDs that I bought in an actual store, which I keep in some of those big folders.
2) Music that I bought online, mostly as downloads, a few from Amazon or CD Baby.
3) Music from friends, either by ripping their CDs or mp3s they send me.
4) CDs I got while working at Verve, either for free or at an employee discount.

Believe it or not, I never did any massive free downloading. I just never wanted all that junk on my computer. And despite all the free music I got from work, and the huge options I have amongst my friends music, it makes up a pretty small fraction of the music on my computer.

So I have to wonder whether or not there's some reason for this? Am I (are we?) conditioned to start at the beginning and work our way back? If we find something we like by the time we get to the J's, do we buy it before getting to the Z's? Is there a disadvantage? Does the internet help or hurt the issue?

Tonight @ Europa Night Club

Tonight my trio will perform at Europa Night Club in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. It's a night of groove focused jazz/funk/jam music organized by yours truly. I could use as much support as possible, so please come on out!

Cameron Mizell Trio @ Europa Night Club
9pm - 10:30pm
Featuring Brad Whiteley on keyboards and Kenneth Salters on drums

Europa Night Club
98 Meserole Ave. (at Manhattan Ave)
Brooklyn, NY 11222
Visit my calender to see more of my performance schedule.

Lyrics

I can write melodies.
I can write harmonies.
I can write chord progressions.
I can write rhythm.
I can arrange all this together and turn it into a song.
But damnit, I'm having a tough time writing lyrics.

I also can't sing very well, but I've been ok with that. The only part of college I couldn't get a good grade in, no matter how hard I tried, was the singing part of my aural skills and music theory classes. I can hear my voice on the wrong pitch, and just can't get it to the right one, unless it's within about four notes just below middle C, depending on how long I've been awake that day.

Never singing sort of eliminated the need to write words, so I've gotten along quite well without that skill for the last 20 years I've been playing guitar.

Now I'm going to start writing lyrics. I'm writing music with a friend, and we need to both bring ideas to the music. In order to veto his lyrics, I need my own ideas. Plus, I just want to be able to do it. Do I really need a reason?

I doubt I'll ever be a poet like Dylan or Mitchell, or a storyteller like Springsteen, but I've heard enough Kiss to know lyrical content doesn't have to necessarily be very deep.

My biggest problem, I think, has been the first line. When I listen to any song I like, the first few words are always perfect. How does one do that?

I'm curious, how do different songwriters get their inspiration for lyrics? If you're a lyricist, what do YOU do?

And if you're in the same boat as me, this might help with that first line.

Turn your music into money.

There are many ways to make money as a musician, and we're trying to learn how different musicians are doing this over at MusicianWages.com. Yeah, yeah, I've been plugging that site a lot, but I think it's a pretty cool project, so go check it out already.

Today I spent a good part of my day writing an article about making money from original music. I think that's the one thing nearly every musician would love to do, yet it's usually the most difficult. But I've managed to have some success, at least I've built a steady stream of income that in turn funds future releases, new equipment, and even helps pay some bills.

If you're interested, here's the link to Creating Income with Your Original Music.

Let me know what you think.

And don't forget to vote.

And you thought election season was over!

I need your help. For the first time in my life, I'm a part of a music related contest, and it's one of those annoying types where anyone can vote once a day until the deadline. In other words, a popularity contest. Luckily, the public can't tell I have anything to do with the song (unless you find the bonus link to the "making-of" video).

I recorded a song with Lauren Zettler (who's mug shot is easier on the eyes than mine) and she entered it into a contest. It was picked as one of the Top 10 Finalists by a bunch of really important people and now it's up to the masses to decide who's song is best, and the winner gets to go on a cruise to perform this song along with a handful of popular and influential singer/songwriters. This is a big opportunity for Lauren, and by association, a big one for me too.

Enough chat.

CLICK HERE TO VOTE!!!

You will have to register. I know, it's a pain in the ass. But once you're registered, you can vote once a day through November 23.

My wife would get to come along, so that multiplies the karma you receive from your deeds.

Thanks!

Home Recording Tips, Learned the Hard Way

1) Save often.

2) Make sure you're comfortably in front of the mic and can reach the mouse/keyboard. Slightly repositioning yourself to set up punch-ins can noticeably change your tone.

3) Tell your wife when you are about to hit record.

4) Take time to pet your cat before you start, so they don't come asking for attention mid-take.

5) Save often.

6) If patience is a virtue, be the Pope.

7) Give yourself some breaks, and try not to obsess.

8) At a certain point, it's not going to get better, you're only wasting time.

9) Play less.

10) When layering several guitars, find a distinct tone for each based on it's role in the song. The same tone on top of itself just gets muddy.

11) Save often.

12) Learn how to use your equipment, inside and out.

13) When all else fails, reboot.

14) Learn the part, then press record. Doesn't work as well the other way around.

15) Sometimes, it just doesn't sound good. Chalk it up as a learning experience.

16) Try to figure out what time your neighbors get home from work (if you live in an apartment).

17) Save often.

18) Getting the part right is always easier than editing pieces together.

19) Before you say, "I can fix that." and move on to the next part, make sure you can actually fix it.

20) Learn to use what you have. You'll never have the ideal equipment, but many times the best results come unexpectedly by not being able to do what you think you need to do.

New Website: MusicianWages.com

For the last two months, Dave Hahn and I have been working on a new website:

MusicianWages.com: The Website for Working Musicians

The website is built around the simple idea that musicians can learn the most from their peers' success stories, as well as lessons from others' mistakes. We're promoting a community atmosphere as well as an informative resources for those interested in making a living as a musician. So far, we've received some fantastic articles by some of our friends who make a living on a variety of different gigs:

Guitarist Gary Melvin contributed an article about being a professional sideman. Currently, Gary is playing guitar and touring with Frankie Valli and stays busy promoting his first solo album, "Spare Time".

Singer/songwriter Lauren Zettler wrote about her decision to quit her job and follow her true passion as a musician. Lauren is performing regularly in NYC supporting her EP, "Call Me Out" as well writing and recording for her next.

Percussionist David Jolley shares his story of becoming a professional musician (you'll laugh, you'll cry, maybe even tip that one guy on the subway platform). Dave is presently the resident percussionist for the Prather Entertainment Group.

Along with this there are many articles by Dave and a growing number by yours truly. We've also got some great stuff in the pipeline from others, and as those articles become available I will probably add some links on this blog.

So if you're a musician, please stop by, visit the forum and let us know what you think. Feel free to suggest an article, or ask questions. If we don't know the answers, I bet we can find somebody that does.