audiot

did you know who owns the rights for the song “Happy Birthday”? Warner does, bought them in 1990 including the company who owned those rights since 1935 for 15 million dollars. or they bought the company and therefore the rights as well – however you want it. the song was written in 1893 by two kindergarten teachers and has an estimated value of 5 million dollars. And now the tough part:

“Warner claims [...] that unauthorized public performances of the song are technically illegal unless royalties are paid to it.” found on Wikipedia

so this entry is just a heads up to you all. i want you to be really careful and not sing or otherwise perform this song without authorization from Warner. so please, if somebody’s birthday is coming up, write to Warner and ask nicely about permission and their paypal-account. i’m telling you because i care.

i’m just glad i never (ever, for real) sang this song – i could be rotting in jail …

can you force creativity?

yes, you can! all it takes is a little trick.

here’s a little exercise to show you how to force being creative. it can be really helpful if you’re somewhat stuck with something somewhere. first i’ll give you a word and you just make some associations from the top of your head. the word is ‘music’ (now that’s unbelievably creative, isn’t it? but wait, it gets even better…). ok, just come up with some words that come to your mind when i mention ‘music’ ……………dumdeedum………………..dumdeedum…………………ready?……………. cool.

now we do the same thing again. just come up with some words that are (for you) related to music BUT this time the words have to start with an ‘m’ – go!

.

.

.

.

.

.

it’s not as easy right? of course not. but now you are forced to be creative because most of the things coming to your mind aren’t allowed. you have to come up with something different that meets the criteria. if you come up with ‘musical’ it’s not really a winner, so keep going. try other words and other first letters. try last letters or the number of syllables as criteria. anything that keeps you from coming up with the ‘usual stuff’. restrain yourself, that’s the main point here – and it works.

if you’re playing an instrument or writing songs, you could for example lay a towel over your drums or detune them. you could set up your kit in a completely different way, so your standard stuff doesn’t work anymore. detuning your guitar/bass works as well, maybe start with one string and detune it a semitone. build up from there. go through the songs you’ve written so far and write down the chords you used. then write a song without the chords you used the most – and don’t fool yourself with just going one fret up or down. as a singer, sing with an album you know really well but don’t allow yourself to land on the same note at the same time as the guy on the record. experiment, it’s great fun and one of the best ways to teach yourself to be creative.

this is just one approach, but it helped (and still does) me a lot as well as my students.

check it out…

sorry, it’s been a few days…
right now i’m thinking about how much of a good recording is equipment and how much is know-how of the engineer/recordist/whoever-did-it. is it even possible for someone with the best room, best recording equipment, best instruments, best… you get the idea – BUT with no real knowledge of how to use all that to make a decent record at all? understanding how an equalizer works is not that difficult but to be able to really use one, meaning to decide first, which one to use for what and then to use it in a way as to really get the sound needed for the song is somewhat more complicated. and i’m not even talking about the necessity to have more than one high-end equalizer to be able to choose which one you want to use in the first place.
i don’t think one can really use pro-gear if he has no idea what he’s doing or just some basics…
so if you want to make a professional sounding record, there’s two things to consider:
first, there seems to be no use in spending all your money (and maybe even more) on the best equalizer/compressor/expander/limiter/microphone/etc. there is because to compete with a pro studio gearwise you would need much more than one of each kind and that is just out of the question – moneywise – for almost all of us. for example you save money until you can afford that great preamp you always wanted because it’s just the best for vocals. as soon as you have it you think ‘awesome, now i can make the best records out there’ and then you find out that your new preamp is just not good for drums… see where i am going? cool.
the second point would be your education. let’s say you’re rich and you spend all your money on the best equipment so you could compete with any pro studio. but what now? you still wouldn’t know how to use all this stuff (…and there’s no money left to hire someone who could do it for you or teach you for that matter). you’d still be nowhere. so you would need both, agreed?
on the other hand i’m quite sure someone with the know-how would be able to make a decent recording without the best equipment out there. maybe imagine a painter. i’d bet that a professional painter would paint a better picture than me, even if i had the greatest quality colors, brushes and so forth and he had only the cheapest stuff of all. it wouldn’t even be close, trust me on that.
well, any sound engineer will tell you how important the equipment is and that’s right to a certain degree. but given someone with huge knowledge about recording/mixing/mastering… the difference between good and bad equipment is not as large as one might think. there would be a much, much greater difference between huge-knowledge-man and some rookie.

so know-how is the single most important aspect of making records and compared to that, gear seems to be almost irrelevant.

not convinced? ok, here’s the mother of all examples…

think of all the great sounding records of the 60s and 70s, some of them still being considered among the best sounding recordings of all time. and now think of the equipment they had back then…..

so good news everyone, you can go and spend all your money on hookers and booze because you’re too stupid for that fancy multithousanddollarcompressor anyway.
hm, maybe i phrased that unwisely.

don’t get lost in the struggle for high end gear – go learn instead! chances are, you won’t need anything but know-how…

good luck

hello there.

today has been quite nice so far. the new issue of Tape Op has arrived – #65. this is a magazine about music recording and production with lots of interviews and best of all, it’s free. no kidding! you just can go to their site, subscribe and wait for the postman…. ok, it’s only free in the EU, UK and US and delivery can take quite long and they give no guarantees if it arrives ok or at all, but usually it works. highly recommended for people interested in that sort of thing.

and a book arrived. it’s about how to get a great sound without high end gear. i always thought that know-how is much more important than high-priced equipment although it seemed one would need both to make a quality record. so i’m really interested in what the author has to say about doing it with just know-how (more or less…) and the cheapest gear. i don’t have it here at the moment, so no exact title and author’s name yet – but i will post a review or at least a first-impression-entry as soon as i had a closer look….

and one more good thing. i found out yesterday evening that one of my favourite websites (new music strategies) that just dissapeared a few days ago is only changing hosts (and the ex-host apparently had no interest in a smooth transition). so it will be back online soon. no, there is no link because it’s offline at the moment (as i just said, you should pay attention – this is not fun and games here…). it was a link in my sidebar and it will be again as soon as it’s back…

oh, and my statistics for this blog are going through the roof……ok, not exactly through the roof, but they’re great…….great might not be the right term exactly….more like good or average, maybe low…….yes, yes, yes the numbers are ridiculously small but keeping in mind that i have done nothing yet to plug this site in any way and i haven’t started networking anywhere yet and this blog just started about 3,5 weeks ago i’m still thrilled. this page has 2128 pageviews (not just hits!) this month already. stop mocking me! and there are (drumroll please…..) 10 – i repeat TEN – subscribers to my feed. and i love every single one of them. stop mocking me! i’m quite scared already about what might happen if i would start to stop mocking me! really get this blog out there. i don’t even stop mocking me! use tags yet. nothing but stop mocking me! writing entries five to six times a week. so thank you people and stop mocking me! keep reading….

you could by the way post a comment or two – just to let me know if the comment option works…..(ha! let’s see if they fall into my well prepared little trap….damn, they weren’t supposed to read that – enter strikethrough-option)

have a nice saturday y’all and stop mocking me!

i heard an interesting review of a soccer game this morning. the european championship’s happening at the moment so people are kind of crazy about soccer right now (sheesh…). it wasn’t the game that caught my interest, on the contrary i was just about to turn the radio off when i recognised something funny. everybody talked about the star of one of the teams – the team that lost to be precise. where was he? why didn’t he work his magic? what was wrong with him? and in the interviews with the winners it was something like ‘we concentrated on him. we controlled his every move. we didn’t let him come into the game…’

first thing that came into my mind was a question: isn’t soccer supposed to be a teamwork-game? there’s 11 guys in one team, so what about the other 10? or even better, there’s 22 guys on the lawn – so what about the other 21?

on the one hand it might just have been for the media. he is the star so everybody asks and talks about him. but on the other hand we’re facing a common mistake. soccer is about teamwork, as is traffic (the one on the streets with cars and stuff you internet-freaks…), as is making music. most of the times the singer is the ‘star’ in a band. he/she’s the one the people in the audience pay attention to, look at, listen to and so forth. one reason for that is the vocals are mostly in front while the instruments provide the background. another reason is the fact that the singer uses an instrument everyone possesses, so the audience identifies with the singer rather than the guitarplayer. even if the singer sucks and the guitarist is awesome. a good singer makes a good band (from the audience’s point of view), a bad one destroys even the best band. to all of that there are exceptions of course but generally speaking this is it.

now, there’s not much we can do about how the audience thinks and that’s fine. if there has to be an anchor for the people it might as well be the singer. the mistake i was talking about is something different. the bands themselves are making it because lots of times the singer doesn’t just play the role of the ‘star’, he actually thinks he is the star. and no matter whether or not his bandmates share this believe, the band has a problem. i’m not talking about real stars here, where it really is about them and the band is meant to be the background. i’m talking about the ‘band next door’, maybe your band.

if you’re going to see or play a live-gig in the near future, try to really pay attention to what’s going on up there. if you show up early enough you might even see the soundcheck which is a perfect chance to observe the behaviour of anyone involved regarding the ‘sort-of-stardom’. if you’re actually in the band showing up early might be a good idea anyway. for example compare how much time is being spend on the different instruments during the soundcheck. if the voice takes longer than a complete drumkit you have your first clue…. so just go out and watch carefully. watch the band and the audience, find out if there really is a ‘star’.

needless to say (at least i hope so), that losing the teamwork-aspect is the mistake i was referring to earlier. a chain is only as strong as its weakest link and the same rule applies to a band. it’s not about the singer or anyone else. it’s about the team and only about the team. and that’s where i come back to the soccer match. i didn’t watch the game (and i’m not talking about the game but the surroundings, the vibes…) but i know that making it all about that one guy was one big step towards losing…

i never was a vinyl-guy. i’m too young. something happened between my sisters’ teenage-years and mine and it’s called ‘cd’. although a lot of people didn’t take the new shiny thingy seriously, i did – and i loved it. the cd was the future and a few years later i threw all of my cassettes out. now why’s that you ask – well, something new appeared: the minidisc. for me as a musician this was a dream come true, a disc that combined the advantages of the cassette and the cd and could do even more. the minidisc never really made it though, i guess it came a little too late and the advantages weren’t that interesting for the non-musicians out there (rumour has it that such a species exists). so my tiny little friend slowly died and although i still use them, it’s getting harder and harder to buy new ones or to get a new recorder.

now the minidisc never was a big hit, so one could imagine it wouldn’t survive too long and we all thought the cd would last forever. did we really? nope, not all. some people talked about the end of the cd years ago, and some even said the beginning of the cd was also its end. but why? the sound is one of the main points. now how can that be, the cd was such a huge step forward in quality. how could anyone say vinyl’s superior? with all the noise and crackling? that’s not possible, is it? vinyl sounds warmer and way more real while the cd’s cold and sterile, at least that’s what the vinyl-people say and well, it’s not too far-fetched. but does that mean vinyl’s gonna come back? unlikely. will the cd stay? unlikely. what about audio-dvd, hdcd, blu-ray or whatever else the disc-companies come up with? i say it’s all unlikely. the cd will die, if it’s not already dead. i think that’s for sure and cd-sales seem to prove it. but i don’t think the future will be another disc. mp3s are coming stronger and stronger and it looks like they are the future. and again they don’t sound better than their predecessors, this time it’s undeniable. someone with experience in listening to music will hear the difference between the original audiofile and a standard mp3, no doubt. so what is it? mp3s are easier to obtain, legally and illegaly. they are easier to store, easier to collect, easier to take with you and you can get single songs instead of whole albums as well. at this time they’re as convenient as it gets and that’s what sells big time.

but enough with vehicles, what about the music itself? what effect does the above have on the music?

from the top of my head i can mention two points: one advantage and one disadvantage.

today, recording music in a decent quality is easier and more affordable than ever before. there’s of course still a gap between some home-studio and a million-dollar-production but the home studio stuff (paired with know-how!) becomes good enough to be sold. the internet makes it possible for anyone to get his/her music out there, to publish and to sell it. so there’s tons of new music out there that would never have made it that far a few years ago. and that’s great because it’s no longer about production costs and sales curves, it’s about art.

the downside is a point i already mentioned in a previous entry. it’s about music becoming a minor matter and seemingly less important as an experience. it’s becoming background noise….

what’s the conclusion? ‘hey, you can get your music out there to millions of people but nobody will really listen to it’. that’s kind of scary and hopefully not true……

to be continued

ok, here’s a short one
to all singers on the face of the planet: if you’re using words, make sure the listener can understand them !!!!!
i’ll post more on that but i’m in a hurry now. just wanted to throw this out because i’m furious about a terrible performance i spend time listening to…
take care.

precision is without doubt one of the most important aspects in making music. and this matters not only to the actual musicians but to the listeners as well. when it comes to recording, it’s not about being all freaky and wild – it’s about precision. although it’s not exactly the same for the differents instruments, the basic principle is something all participants need to must have in common. for a drummer precise timing is the most important thing, simply because he has the sharpest sounds available. it doesn’t get any clearer as a snare-backbeat, so it better be exactly where it should be. for a guitarplayer it might be more about not making any noises that aren’t meant to be on the record (use your imagination…) and a singer’s holy grail is being clear (more on that in a future entry).

this is where music becomes a craft. if you’re not absolutely precise about virtually anything during the making of a recording, it just won’t fit together in the end. that’s why there is a whole class of specialized musicians you can find on hundreds and hundreds of records. go ahead, check out the credits in your cd-booklets. chances are, you will find some names appearing unusually frequently, maybe even over and over again. those are the guys that are simply the most precise (and easy to work with…), so they get hired over and over again. to give you an example: Bernard Purdie (drummer) mentioned in an interview back in the late 80s that he appeared on over 2,000 records, that was 20 years ago – and as far as i know he’s still playing, so go figure…

now if you are a musician, spend some time thinking about precision. listen to anything you can get your hands on with precision in mind. try to figure out why some songs grab you and others just don’t seem to work.

as a listener this will work for you either, because by concentrating on precision you will start to notice things that just weren’t there before. this works both ways, it can be flaws you never noticed but it can also be moments of great intense or density that went by undiscovered until now.

it’s an important step in becoming a connoisseur (sorry, couldn’t think of a more appropriate term) and it’s great fun as well…

…so i’m finally free!!!
well, to be honest, i don’t watch much tv anyway but now i have the chance to do something i wanted to try for quite some time now. i think music is much underrated when it comes to movies or even tv-shows. a horrorfilm without music (or actually any sound except the dialogues) just wouldn’t work. it wouldn’t be scary at all – just boring. check it out, watch the worst horrormovie you can think of and during the slaughter-scenes mute the sound… the same goes for love-and-embrace-scenes or just about anything else. music fills it with meaning and makes us feel something while we’re watching. a great soundtrack can even make up for a weak plot.
now don’t give me the: “in movie ‘x’ during scene ‘y’ there’s no sound at all, but it’s the best scene ever!” because that’s also part of the soundtrack. it’s about the choice – someone chose not to include any sound in the scene and silence can be the most powerful sound of all. any great musician will tell you that a pause is just as important (maybe even more) as every note played. for example i’m thinking about scenes in which suddenly the music stops to add suspense, the someone-broke-into-someone-elses-office-and-goes-through-the-files-just-before-he-got-hit-on-the-head-scenes.
so where was i……..right, the broken tv. i’m gonna watch a movie without the watch-part – just listening to it. i did this sometimes in bed just before dozing away but that’s not what i mean. i mean to really pay attention to the movie just without the seeing. watching a movie without sound simply sucks but if music is as important to the film as i believe, ‘listening’ a movie should be not that bad….and it’s better for the eyes as well….

most people think creativity is the process of coming up with something new out of thin air. think about this for a moment. wouldn’t that mean it’s mainly about luck? how would one explain guys like Einstein, Mozart etc. – were they just extremely lucky? ideas came to them rather than anybody else? of course not. today i saw a documentary about creativity – not from the beginning so i didn’t get the names – in which a professor of the university in Sydney tried to switch off certain areas of the human brain (with a magnetic device) because he was certain that this would lead to a different kind of perception, making people more creative. another man was positive that geniuses like Einstein and others only could achieve such creativity because they were some kind of savants, meaning intellectually disabled in some way. no matter if this is true or not, what i didn’t like about this documentary was the way this was presented because it seemed one had to have a malfunction of the brain in order to be creative. i’m not a scientist but i do know that this is not true. i guess they were trying to say that this might be an explanation for those people to became such extraordinary spirits (i hope this was even a sentence, my english is a little, uhm, creative sometimes…).

so were does creativity come from? as far as we know today, it’s quite simple (the principle that is). two thoughts get connected for the very first time. the more different those thoughts are or the crazier this connection is the more creative is it. but that means those thoughts were both there before, the connection of them is what’s new. so to become more creative we need more thoughts. but is it even possible to affect, manipulate or even control the amount of thoughts our brain produces? believe it or not, it is. you don’t believe it? ok let’s try something: think about quantum physics. any thoughts on that? chances are you don’t have many, if any at all. now think about something different, big cities for example. how many of them can you come up with on the spot? now think about your work and try to count your thoughts. you might have guessed it already. the number of thoughts we have about something depends on how much we know about it. think about a field in which you’re an expert…

and that leads to the conclusion: the more we know the more creative we are. it’s not about luck or about waiting for that one moment. it’s about taking action, it’s about learning. you want to be creative? go read, listen, learn, experience something new and creativity will come.

a great, creative musician is not just one lucky guy. he/she dug into it a lot, spend all the time listening, analyzing, comparing, trying, practicing, checking out and that created thoughts which created, well, creativity. that’s how it’s achieved. you don’t have to be lucky or whatever else you might think that holds you back. you just have to take action, it’s completely up to you.

and this can be good or bad news…………..