Hey everyone!
So I've come to realize that most of the things I do as a musician and composer are separate (at least the way I looked at it they were).
Because of that I started to re examine all the things I do with music. This includes things like this blog, composing for production libraries, writing band songs, playing live, etc.
But the thing is all of those things can work together. Heck the probably should if I want to really make a long form career out of this music thing!
You see I've been trying to write different kinds of music for different purposes. But the truth is that there are one or two avenues of music creation that I am particularly good at. The main one is an electronic/cinematic rock sound. Basically think Evanescence, and bands that utilize multiple methods of making music in a hard rock context. I had been trying to write very specific things that are not in my wheelhouse for different end goals. This was really scattering my focus.
Being able to solidly produce a body of work that is in my main genre will probably not net me a lot of cash up front, but I feel like it will make for a better long term, and more emotionally fulfilling career ultimately.
You may or may not have noticed on my main Google + account, and my YouTube channel that's attached to it have been renamed from my actual name to "Adore the Red". This is because I intend on actually creating something with that name.
The name is something I've tooled around with for a while now, and my intention was to have a touring band by that name. Unfortunately I've not yet found a group of musicians that fit in well with that idea just yet, I'm still hoping it will happen someday though.
However Adore the Red is ultimately the pen name for all my Electronic Rock work. Whether that be placed in media, touring, YouTube videos, Websites, etc. This is the name I'm going with.
Adore the Red actually stands for something with me.
Red represents: fire, passion, humanity, blood, and life.
All those things that may or may not be readily apparent but are immediately recognizable as amazing things that we can and in my opinion should chase after.
Hence Adoring it.
I also really like writing fictional stories and building fictional worlds. It's my hope that full albums whether vocal, or instrumental will have an overarching story built into a fictional cinematic world. Obviously I am unable to immediately realize this goal. But to put it bluntly, I would like each album to eventually accompany a 3d film with each song representing some part of the stories.
These of course are long term goals that I would like to see happen someday. However if those things don't come to pass I hope that everyone can still enjoy the music I'll be making under this name.
As always I hope all is well and God Bless!
Saturday, December 3, 2016
Thursday, November 17, 2016
Martial Art and Music...
Picture it, a seasoned martial artist. He's training, going through his forms slow and steady, there's silence all around.
You could hear a feather drop it's so quiet in there. He's so focused and in the moment that the entire world melts away and it's just him, and his training.
That's how we picture traditional martial arts masters along with the long grey beard, and the huge bushy eyebrows.
What if I told you, music should be practiced the same way?
You're probably looking at me write now laughing.
"But Josh! You can't shred going slow, it makes no sense!"
True, a quarter note solo at 30 bpm would be painfully boring.
But here's the trick. How do you think Vai, Satriani, Johnson, and everyone else that can play at warp speed got that way?
They train slowly. Just like those old martial arts masters. There's an old saying my Kung Fu teacher kept pounding into my head (literally sometimes lol); "If you can't do it correctly slow, then you can't do it at all."
This is certainly true for music too. I remember when I was a teenager and I had written a slow ballad chord progression. It was really simple, 4/4 time, single key, in E Minor. I shown it to a bass player and drummer I knew from church and they liked it. Granted I wasn't much of a guitar player at the time but it was one of the few things I could play well at the time.
So the bassist found out what chords I was playing and we started working on it. Then something happened, the drummer couldn't drum to it.
I couldn't understand this at the time, because he was a talented drummer and specialized in punk which required the drummers to play blisteringly fast.
Well it turns out he had never practiced anything slowly to a metronome before, so he had no idea how to create drum beats that slow. It's been a long time since I've jammed with that particular musician, and I'm almost certain he could do it now if he's still playing. But that nicely demonstrates my point.
If you start practicing your technique slow and focused, making sure everything sounds perfect at a slow and steady click. You can get it up to warp speed and maintain clarity, articulation, rhythm, timing and all the other fun stuff.
I prescribe getting a metronome app on your phone, turning off distortion all together. Practice your scales, licks, patterns, progressions, all of it at a slow tempo when you're first learning something. Make sure you can play it slowly. Then ramp up the speed over time.
By the time you get up to the tempo you want to get at, you'll be shocked how much better you sound!
And always remember,
"If you can't do it correctly slow, then you can't do it at all."
You could hear a feather drop it's so quiet in there. He's so focused and in the moment that the entire world melts away and it's just him, and his training.
That's how we picture traditional martial arts masters along with the long grey beard, and the huge bushy eyebrows.
What if I told you, music should be practiced the same way?
You're probably looking at me write now laughing.
"But Josh! You can't shred going slow, it makes no sense!"
True, a quarter note solo at 30 bpm would be painfully boring.
But here's the trick. How do you think Vai, Satriani, Johnson, and everyone else that can play at warp speed got that way?
They train slowly. Just like those old martial arts masters. There's an old saying my Kung Fu teacher kept pounding into my head (literally sometimes lol); "If you can't do it correctly slow, then you can't do it at all."
This is certainly true for music too. I remember when I was a teenager and I had written a slow ballad chord progression. It was really simple, 4/4 time, single key, in E Minor. I shown it to a bass player and drummer I knew from church and they liked it. Granted I wasn't much of a guitar player at the time but it was one of the few things I could play well at the time.
So the bassist found out what chords I was playing and we started working on it. Then something happened, the drummer couldn't drum to it.
I couldn't understand this at the time, because he was a talented drummer and specialized in punk which required the drummers to play blisteringly fast.
Well it turns out he had never practiced anything slowly to a metronome before, so he had no idea how to create drum beats that slow. It's been a long time since I've jammed with that particular musician, and I'm almost certain he could do it now if he's still playing. But that nicely demonstrates my point.
If you start practicing your technique slow and focused, making sure everything sounds perfect at a slow and steady click. You can get it up to warp speed and maintain clarity, articulation, rhythm, timing and all the other fun stuff.
I prescribe getting a metronome app on your phone, turning off distortion all together. Practice your scales, licks, patterns, progressions, all of it at a slow tempo when you're first learning something. Make sure you can play it slowly. Then ramp up the speed over time.
By the time you get up to the tempo you want to get at, you'll be shocked how much better you sound!
And always remember,
"If you can't do it correctly slow, then you can't do it at all."
Monday, November 14, 2016
Melody Writing (and the Bane of one Rhythm Guitarist)
Melodies.
Ugh.
or YAYYYYY!
That all really depends on how you look at things I suppose. Since moving my primary focus from guitarist to composer a few years back, I've used my long (ish) history as a rhythm guitarist to leverage a sort of niche in my writing. Probably the main thing that got me through college honestly.
But after a while you learn that as a non musician the listener generally hears the sum of the whole, but remembers the melody.
This dramatically shifted my point of view from writing guitar riffs with relative ease, to trying really hard (in vain) to write catchy melodies. Of course being a musician means I'm generally my worst critic and due to this an my newness in melody writing I immediately thought I was a doomed failure, typical right?
I was scrolling through YouTube procrastinating (as is my right dang it!) and I stumbled onto an amazing guitar channel.
It's run by a guy named David Wallimann. Since he's probably never heard of me and chances are never will I'm certainly not getting paid to promote his page but he had videos that really helped me as a writer. I'll leave a link to his channel on this post so that you guys can check him out. Great stuff.
However back to this video I stumbled onto....
It was based on how to write effect melodies and guitar solos. At some point in the video he said something that clicked. You see I had heard all the typical "how to write a melody" Stuff in college. If you're not familiar I'll write it below.
1. Write an interesting rhythm before adding notes
2. Write based on the chord notes
3. Write in non chord tones for tension, and spice
4. ????????
5. PROFIT!
See I was missing something and what Mr. Wallimann said in this video seemed to be the key.
He said that as a composer you are the instrument, not your guitar.
He even told people when writing melodies to not have their instrument in hand. But to instead hum, sing, or otherwise make noises to develop the idea before taking it to your instrument.
THIS WAS IT! If any of the people that know me intimately view this blog, they will recognize that I'm CONSTANTLY doing things like this. Humming melodies, drumming with pencil's on drinking glasses, I'm constantly "composing" without realizing it...
But the missing link as it were, was for me to take those odd musical ramblings that I generally attribute to an acute case of ADHD, and flesh them out into musical works.
That's the secret I've been looking for all these years!
You see as a musician I'm very unstructured. Yes I've learned loads of theory over the years, and as a guitarist, I can come up with multi time signature based riffs on the fly, and so on and so on.
However just about everything I've done has been improvised in some sort or fashion. Which can be a great thing, but in my case over the years it has lead to many an unfinished song, or even music that sounds like a near carbon copy of each other.
As a professional procrastinator, I realized that putting those things to use requires a ton of work to sit down and focus. (GAHHHHH)
So I honestly found it easiest to sit down with a score writing program for an hour or so, and shut off the internet for at least a while. Shutting off data on my phone, and just going at it helped a lot. Knowing that I wouldn't be writing with an instrument in hand made it easier to sit down and either remember melodies and rhythms I came up with goofing off, or to start the process of melodic composition in the truest sense of the word.
Remember, you are the composer, the instrument is a tool. The music has to come from your mind, heart, and your body.
Hashtag Musicalzen.... (hehehe see I can make cheesy jokes too!)
Annnnd as promised a link to that amazing channel!
https://www.youtube.com/user/Wallimann
Ugh.
or YAYYYYY!
That all really depends on how you look at things I suppose. Since moving my primary focus from guitarist to composer a few years back, I've used my long (ish) history as a rhythm guitarist to leverage a sort of niche in my writing. Probably the main thing that got me through college honestly.
But after a while you learn that as a non musician the listener generally hears the sum of the whole, but remembers the melody.
This dramatically shifted my point of view from writing guitar riffs with relative ease, to trying really hard (in vain) to write catchy melodies. Of course being a musician means I'm generally my worst critic and due to this an my newness in melody writing I immediately thought I was a doomed failure, typical right?
I was scrolling through YouTube procrastinating (as is my right dang it!) and I stumbled onto an amazing guitar channel.
It's run by a guy named David Wallimann. Since he's probably never heard of me and chances are never will I'm certainly not getting paid to promote his page but he had videos that really helped me as a writer. I'll leave a link to his channel on this post so that you guys can check him out. Great stuff.
However back to this video I stumbled onto....
It was based on how to write effect melodies and guitar solos. At some point in the video he said something that clicked. You see I had heard all the typical "how to write a melody" Stuff in college. If you're not familiar I'll write it below.
1. Write an interesting rhythm before adding notes
2. Write based on the chord notes
3. Write in non chord tones for tension, and spice
4. ????????
5. PROFIT!
See I was missing something and what Mr. Wallimann said in this video seemed to be the key.
He said that as a composer you are the instrument, not your guitar.
He even told people when writing melodies to not have their instrument in hand. But to instead hum, sing, or otherwise make noises to develop the idea before taking it to your instrument.
THIS WAS IT! If any of the people that know me intimately view this blog, they will recognize that I'm CONSTANTLY doing things like this. Humming melodies, drumming with pencil's on drinking glasses, I'm constantly "composing" without realizing it...
But the missing link as it were, was for me to take those odd musical ramblings that I generally attribute to an acute case of ADHD, and flesh them out into musical works.
That's the secret I've been looking for all these years!
You see as a musician I'm very unstructured. Yes I've learned loads of theory over the years, and as a guitarist, I can come up with multi time signature based riffs on the fly, and so on and so on.
However just about everything I've done has been improvised in some sort or fashion. Which can be a great thing, but in my case over the years it has lead to many an unfinished song, or even music that sounds like a near carbon copy of each other.
As a professional procrastinator, I realized that putting those things to use requires a ton of work to sit down and focus. (GAHHHHH)
So I honestly found it easiest to sit down with a score writing program for an hour or so, and shut off the internet for at least a while. Shutting off data on my phone, and just going at it helped a lot. Knowing that I wouldn't be writing with an instrument in hand made it easier to sit down and either remember melodies and rhythms I came up with goofing off, or to start the process of melodic composition in the truest sense of the word.
Remember, you are the composer, the instrument is a tool. The music has to come from your mind, heart, and your body.
Hashtag Musicalzen.... (hehehe see I can make cheesy jokes too!)
Annnnd as promised a link to that amazing channel!
https://www.youtube.com/user/Wallimann
Sunday, November 13, 2016
What I've been up to (and what I've learned over the past two years)
Hey folks,
I really need to start posting on here more often....
My generalized laziness aside, these past couple of years have been pretty crazy! I've been in a touring band, gotten my first commissioned works, started the process of doing music as a career instead of a hobby, and started a few new projects as well!
First and most important I'm in a band called "The Fringe." It's an acoustic originated project that is surprisingly relevant even in this day and age of DJ based music monetization.
I work with one other person by the name of Erik Flesher who sings, and runs our sound system at the same time. (talk about multitasking!)
As you can already tell this project has a very grassroots oriented approach. We went into this thinking "If we have only 3 or 4 people who really get it, we'll consider ourselves blessed"
Well needless to say it was pretty rough starting out. Our first show was opening for a much more established local act and we were given an hour slot. I hadn't played in a band since my high school years playing in a semi traveling worship team. This was a completely different world to what I was used to. I was incredibly nervous, and I didn't think I could get through that short show. Fast forward to our last show, and we have played a festival, a few benefits concerts, and several local gigs. Our last show being what amounted to 6 hours of a show. 5 hours on stage and 1 hour set up and tear down. Not bad for a couple music nerds who have no social skills!
Goofing aside this has been and continues to be an incredible experience and I absolutely love our new friends and fans. Being able to connect with people at our shows in a communal way, sharing something so powerful, there's nothing quite like that moment when you hear the crowd singing over the crazy loud speakers.
Another thing that is incredible about this project I would have to place blame on Erik for. Every place we played (save for one country and western bar in central Illinois) has invited us back for multiple shows. That in itself is incredible and it shows just how much you guys understand what we do. I can't thank everyone enough for things like that.
Other than my band, I'm still pursuing my career as a composer, songwriter, and producer. When I first got into composing it was an incredible feeling. But it was completely daunting. You see modern composers write music, record the audio (or midi), mix, master, and find commissions all on their own.
It's taken a lot of time, and even more schooling. But over the last year I've started networking more and more. Meeting new people, and finding opportunities for work.
And as a result I received my first commission last Winter! In the process of learning more and more about the business side of composition, I've discovered a few more avenues in which to turn my passion into a bit of cash.
Between writing for production libraries, creating sample packs, and stock audio, I'm finding that my door into a full career of work may be in Indie Gaming.
Growing up with an Atari 2600 and the Original Nintendo, I was pretty intimate with games throughout most of my life and was easily able to recognize their value as a method of telling deep and powerful stories.
And now that love for games and the stories they tell may be my path in life. My career folding hand in hand with my favorite modern storytelling medium.
Though it is true I supplement my income currently with commissioned writing assignments, I'm happy to say that for the most part of two years, I've been a "professional" musician.
It's not at all what I thought it would be. But I absolutely love it!
I do hope the fact that someone as goofy and uncoordinated as myself being able to pursue my dreams and make headway towards building a legacy inspires anyone that might read this and have a dream of their own.
Don't give up, keep working, and don't settle!
I really need to start posting on here more often....
My generalized laziness aside, these past couple of years have been pretty crazy! I've been in a touring band, gotten my first commissioned works, started the process of doing music as a career instead of a hobby, and started a few new projects as well!
First and most important I'm in a band called "The Fringe." It's an acoustic originated project that is surprisingly relevant even in this day and age of DJ based music monetization.
I work with one other person by the name of Erik Flesher who sings, and runs our sound system at the same time. (talk about multitasking!)
As you can already tell this project has a very grassroots oriented approach. We went into this thinking "If we have only 3 or 4 people who really get it, we'll consider ourselves blessed"
Well needless to say it was pretty rough starting out. Our first show was opening for a much more established local act and we were given an hour slot. I hadn't played in a band since my high school years playing in a semi traveling worship team. This was a completely different world to what I was used to. I was incredibly nervous, and I didn't think I could get through that short show. Fast forward to our last show, and we have played a festival, a few benefits concerts, and several local gigs. Our last show being what amounted to 6 hours of a show. 5 hours on stage and 1 hour set up and tear down. Not bad for a couple music nerds who have no social skills!
Goofing aside this has been and continues to be an incredible experience and I absolutely love our new friends and fans. Being able to connect with people at our shows in a communal way, sharing something so powerful, there's nothing quite like that moment when you hear the crowd singing over the crazy loud speakers.
Another thing that is incredible about this project I would have to place blame on Erik for. Every place we played (save for one country and western bar in central Illinois) has invited us back for multiple shows. That in itself is incredible and it shows just how much you guys understand what we do. I can't thank everyone enough for things like that.
Other than my band, I'm still pursuing my career as a composer, songwriter, and producer. When I first got into composing it was an incredible feeling. But it was completely daunting. You see modern composers write music, record the audio (or midi), mix, master, and find commissions all on their own.
It's taken a lot of time, and even more schooling. But over the last year I've started networking more and more. Meeting new people, and finding opportunities for work.
And as a result I received my first commission last Winter! In the process of learning more and more about the business side of composition, I've discovered a few more avenues in which to turn my passion into a bit of cash.
Between writing for production libraries, creating sample packs, and stock audio, I'm finding that my door into a full career of work may be in Indie Gaming.
Growing up with an Atari 2600 and the Original Nintendo, I was pretty intimate with games throughout most of my life and was easily able to recognize their value as a method of telling deep and powerful stories.
And now that love for games and the stories they tell may be my path in life. My career folding hand in hand with my favorite modern storytelling medium.
Though it is true I supplement my income currently with commissioned writing assignments, I'm happy to say that for the most part of two years, I've been a "professional" musician.
It's not at all what I thought it would be. But I absolutely love it!
I do hope the fact that someone as goofy and uncoordinated as myself being able to pursue my dreams and make headway towards building a legacy inspires anyone that might read this and have a dream of their own.
Don't give up, keep working, and don't settle!
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