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Posted: Tue Jan 08, 2008 1:46 pm
by Precision
thatguy wrote:learn an acoustic instrument, or just bang on things, make music in it's most primal form, then worry about translating it to a computer setting
Great advice. Seriously, having guitar lessons has changed my life!
Just jamming over the top of a few simple chords and drum patterns is just so satisfying
Posted: Tue Jan 08, 2008 2:01 pm
by brightonalex
Can you recommend a guitar tutor, Precision, in London? I am going to start learning guitar this year. I want to play slide guitar like Seasick Steve, but everyone keeps saying I have to learn normal guitar first
Posted: Tue Jan 08, 2008 2:15 pm
by 4.33
the problem is that you think about yourself in a negative way.
"i make NO progress", "i can't express myself" - surrounded by such thoughts the chances of any progress are quite slim.
switch
switch your state of mind to 'beautiful'
watch a good movie
listen to your favorite music
read a book
talk to a kid
do whatever can move you emotionally to that 'beautiful' state of mind and remember it
anything is possible there, just wake up your imagination and think about what you really wanna play
and if you can't play what you want right now - realize that there are only technical obstacles. so work on them and the progress will follow
if you walk a dark road with a light in your hand - you'll only see the next 10 meters before you. but with every next step you'll see more and more of that road. the light is your imagination. just remeber to have it always on
luckies
Posted: Tue Jan 08, 2008 2:43 pm
by radib
get more direct into it, not that lame chord stuff. its dead end street in the beginning when you just have to develop a feel for the production process. get experimental, and then get rock n roll. kick the anger on the fly.
Posted: Tue Jan 08, 2008 2:56 pm
by Precision
brightonalex wrote:Can you recommend a guitar tutor, Precision, in London? I am going to start learning guitar this year. I want to play slide guitar like Seasick Steve, but everyone keeps saying I have to learn normal guitar first
This is my guitar tutor:
http://www.rossmerrin.com/index.htm
Really nice guy, very inspiring and technically outstanding. Give him a call for a chat, I'm sure he'll be able to tell you whether he can help you out
Let me know how you get on!
Cheers,
P.
EDIT: Seasick Steve rocks!
Posted: Tue Jan 08, 2008 3:03 pm
by brightonalex
Precision wrote:brightonalex wrote:Can you recommend a guitar tutor, Precision, in London? I am going to start learning guitar this year. I want to play slide guitar like Seasick Steve, but everyone keeps saying I have to learn normal guitar first
This is my guitar tutor:
http://www.rossmerrin.com/index.htm
Really nice guy, very inspiring and technically outstanding. Give him a call for a chat, I'm sure he'll be able to tell you whether he can help you out
Let me know how you get on!
Cheers,
P.
EDIT: Seasick Steve rocks!
Cheers, I might leave it for a bit as I am moving soon, but I'll keep that link. Thanks
Posted: Tue Jan 08, 2008 3:30 pm
by djgroovy
Ever heard of Eno's Oblique Strategies?
It's a deck of cards with advice for when you're feeling 'blocked'.
You can order one from here:
http://www.rtqe.net/ObliqueStrategies/
But, since the website has the cards texts, no need to buy, and i guess i can just paste it here. Something might get you going:
Abandon normal instruments
Accept advice
Accretion
A line has two sides
Allow an easement (an easement is the abandonment of a stricture)
Always first steps
Are there sections? Consider transitions
Ask people to work against their better judgement
Ask your body
Assemble some of the elements in a group and treat the group
Balance the consistency principle with the inconsistency principle
Be dirty
Be extravagant
Be less critical more often
Breathe more deeply
Bridges -build -burn
Cascades
Change instrument roles
Change nothing and continue with immaculate consistency
Children -speaking -singing
Cluster analysis
Consider different fading systems
Consult other sources -promising -unpromising
Courage!
Cut a vital connection
Decorate, decorate
Define an area as 'safe' and use it as an anchor
Destroy -nothing -the most important thing
Discard an axiom
Disciplined self-indulgence
Disconnect from desire
Discover the recipes you are using and abandon them
Distorting time
Do nothing for as long as possible
Don't be afraid of things because they're easy to do
Don't be frightened of cliches
Don't be frightened to display your talents
Don't break the silence
Don't stress one thing more than another
Do something boring
Do the words need changing?
Do we need holes?
Emphasise differences
Emphasise repetitions
Emphasise the flaws
Fill every beat with something
From nothing to more than nothing
Ghost echoes
Give the game away
Give way to your worst impulse
Go outside. Shut the door.
Go slowly all the way round the outside
Go to an extreme, move back to a more comfortable place
Honor thy error as a hidden intention
How would you have done it?
Humanise something free of error
Idiot glee (?)
Imagine the piece as a set of disconnected events
Infinitesimal gradations
Intentions -nobility of -humility of -credibility of
In total darkness, or in a very large room, very quietly
Into the impossible
Is it finished?
Is the intonation correct?
Is there something missing?
It is quite possible (after all)
Just carry on
Listen to the quiet voice
Look at the order in which you do things
Look closely at the most embarrassing details and amplify them
Lost in useless territory
Lowest common denominator
Make a blank valuable by putting it in an exquisite frame
Make an exhaustive list of everything you might do and do the last thing on the list
Make a sudden, destructive unpredictable action; incorporate
Mechanicalise something idiosyncratic
Mute and continue
Not building a wall but making a brick
Once the search is in progress, something will be found
Only a part, not the whole
Only one element of each kind
(Organic) machinery
Overtly resist change
Question the heroic approach
Remember .those quiet evenings
Remove ambiguities and convert to specifics
Remove specifics and convert to ambiguities
Repetition is a form of change
Retrace your steps
Revaluation (a warm feeling)
Reverse
Short circuit (example; a man eating peas with the idea that they will improve his virility shovels them straight into his lap)
Simple subtraction
Simply a matter of work
State the problem in words as clearly as possible
Take a break
Take away the elements in order of apparent non-importance
The inconsistency principle
The most important thing is the thing most easily forgotten
The tape is now the music
Think of the radio
Tidy up
Towards the insignificant
Trust in the you of now
Turn it upside down
Use an old idea
Use an unacceptable colour
Use fewer notes
Use filters
Use 'unqualified' people
Water
What are the sections sections of? Imagine a caterpillar moving
What are you really thinking about just now?
What is the reality of the situation?
What mistakes did you make last time?
What wouldn't you do?
What would your closest friend do?
Work at a different speed
Would anybody want it?
You are an engineer
You can only make one dot at a time
You don't have to be ashamed of using your own ideas
Posted: Tue Jan 08, 2008 3:55 pm
by koneko
just take it easy. its all playing, and playing should be fun. 99.99% of us here will never strike a tripple platinium.. so thats all left -- enjoy it, make bad tracks, make ugly tracks, make noise.. make the most wrong stuff, just have fun.
Posted: Tue Jan 08, 2008 3:56 pm
by darkcatt
well you are taking it too serisouly.
you can't expect every song to be a masterpiece. I was a fiction major in college and they gave this analogy of the old hand pump well. See your creativity is like an old hand pump well. when you first pump it nothing comes out, then comes this crusty nasty water, then it gets clearer and clearer.
Eventually you have drinking water, or the music that you are looking for.
Even still just write to write. I heard Bon Jovi (*ducks infear of flying insults) said the hardest part of his last album was not writing the songs but weeding through the 80 plus that he wrote and pick 10 keepers.
just do it all, write write write. Then go back and canibalize 5 of them.
If you are angry at the music, intentionally go out at right a bad piece, something that you would normally never do. Who knows lightning may strike
Posted: Tue Jan 08, 2008 7:15 pm
by dm_hawk
thatguy wrote:learn an acoustic instrument, or just bang on things, make music in it's most primal form, then worry about translating it to a computer setting
+1
also, try making a few minutes of interesting music/sounds using a single tool: one instrument plugin/manipulating one sample/using one rhythm/etc. make it sound as interesting as you can, call it "experimental" or something.
Posted: Tue Jan 08, 2008 11:48 pm
by ciw
Emissary wrote:dont just sit and noodle away, you need a goal to work towards. such as 1) i'm going to make a song out of toilet sounds 2) i'm going to write a song for my love 3) i want to dance around to this piece
+1
Messing around with synth sounds doesn't usually work for me unless it has a purpose.
Such as, 'i'm going to make a song out of this foreign language vocal sample I recorded' or 'I'm going to write a song that describes a long boat journey through the jungle' or 'I'm going to write a song from the point of view of telegraph poles, which (though you didn't know it) are ancient tribal beings that actually created mankind rather than vice versa'.
Yes before you call in the men in white coats the last one is tongue in cheek, but all of these have worked for me!
Alternatively go and have a really good night out clubbing. You'll hear some good new music, and likely fail to remember exactly what it sounded like, but will remember a few aspects that made it good. Now try and recreate those aspects.
Posted: Tue Jan 08, 2008 11:53 pm
by djgroovy
This is a great thread!
Posted: Tue Jan 08, 2008 11:54 pm
by dcease
still with us, silverlulu?
Posted: Wed Jan 09, 2008 12:42 am
by ciw
More thoughts.
A friend of mine once told me "you are more productive than you think you are". What he meant was that good ideas strike at all sorts of random times. His method was to carry a notebook and pencil with him everywhere to note them down. With the idea recorded (whether a concept, a breakdown, a synth line, whatever...) you can return to the studio later to make it happen.
The notebook doesn't really work for me but my phone can record voice memos, and that does. I tend to sing or hum lines and rhythms into it.
I do keep a notebook by my bed for the creative ideas that strike just before going to sleep. This happens pretty often in my experience - it's an altered consciousness thing. Sometimes I'll get up there and then to work on the idea.
Finally, talking of altered consciousness, I'm surprised nobody has yet mentioned that there are (so I'm told) certain substances that can help with generating creative ideas. It goes without saying that it would be very very bad to become dependent on anything unhealthy in order to create music
But seeing as some people do these things anyway - bear in mind that said substances aren't recommended for studio work, but voice recording devices are pretty cool for getting an idea noted down as fast as you can speak or sing it and before you forget what it was...
Edit: I would in no way recommend or condone this course of action but those people who do it might as well do it right.
Posted: Wed Jan 09, 2008 2:14 am
by silverlulu
dcease wrote:still with us, silverlulu?
haha yes i am still with you!
wow thank you everybody so much for what you have written. i have just seen that this has spanned 3 pages so i am going to go back over and read what you have written. i am so grateful for your help, sometimes i feel so trapped because i can't express my feelings through music like i would like to.
i appreciate these replies a lot!!!