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As an artist, i've always considered myself more of a composer than a musician. At the same time, I like the idea of working with instruments in real time. It has a much more organic feeling to me, and the slightly chaotic nature of it makes the music feel much more alive for me as well.
I've started adopting guitar and the like into my own work which has always been fine. I've also tried (unsuccessfully) several times to collaborate with others and "start a band", but it just never seems to work for some reason. I get the feeling that I just don't know how to communicate my ideas well enough, because I have no real experience playing instruments along with others. I try and explain things in terms of mood, color, brightness, and tone which more traditional musicians just don't seem to comprehend, at least not to the extent that's needed. They want specific notes and chords, which I'm not familiar enough with to give. Collaborations with just me and another person seem to work ok for a song or two, but then it just falls apart. Three people, i've started to not even bother with at all, cause I just get the feeling it's failed before it's started.
Has anyone else run into this problem before? Did you find a way to work around it? Any tips for someone like me, about how I can communicate my ideas more easily without coming off as bossy or complaintive? | |
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01/17/07
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mulletballet
The way my 'band' project works... I usually mess around and come up with a tune, then send it off to the vocalist... she comes up with words, maybe suggests some changes, then it gets handed to a bass player, who will come up with something (either removing the original electronic bass, or playing alongside it) - and we tweak it from there. We don't ever sit down and 'write a song together'
I don't know if that's unusual or not, but it's working for us -- so far. Live performances are something we have yet to try to tackle.
01/17/07
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sprouts
its sometimes difficult to find people that are on the same "wavelength" especially when ideas about music differ
edited: Jan 17 2007
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utofbu
Music itself is a language that you can translate using those notions of color mood and brightness. Perhaps you need to spend some time and work out some sort of system that describes your composition process or something that can (to some degree of clarity) point people in the correct direction.
You say you look at yourself as more of a composer, can you write lead sheets or reductions for anything you got? That may help. I find that a brief and almost abstract leadsheet with lots of description often guides people to bridging their own connection with your work.
01/17/07
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cartesia
i'm too lazy to get up from my computer, which is a shame since 10 feet across my room I have $1500 worth of audio hardware just waiting for me to get live with, and a mate who plays sax that could add plenty of jazzy funkyness... if only I had the willpower!
Which kind of roundaboutly brings me to my advice:
jazz players know what theyre doing, they should be better able to interpret your emotions, and probably more fun to just jam with, since jamming is the very nature of jazz.
but I guess if you dont like jazz you're screwed!
01/17/07
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utofbu
well, I dont know about that. Scott should be able to back me up on this but many well versed jazz guys go waaay beyond jazz knowledge and for the most part participate in a wide variety of genre's.
They do interpret more skeletal descriptions a whole lot better. I'm telling you, learning how to write lead sheets is super helpful.
cartesia! You should get live with that stuff!!
01/17/07
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papergoose
it's luck, I think, to find bandmates that you work well together with. . . Well, not exactly luck, but... you have to be picky, and you have to have chemistry. You gotta just find someone(s) that you click with. Then you have to devote alot of time to finding a methodology that works for you and be willing to scrap whatever you've done and try working in a new way. I know with my band we worked in lots of different ways, wrote in many different ways before we finally hit on the way of recording that worked for us.
With alot of people I've worked with, you never find that groove. I think it helps if the people you work with are also very close, in one way or another, to you. It can even be someone you just met, but having that chemistry is important. Everyone has to be willing and able to let loose completely and be comfortable enough with each other to TRY YOUR DAMNDEST TO SOUND GOOD but SOUND HORRIBLY FUNNY AND AWFUL. Because, you will, and then you have to keep going and make something good.
Keep your eyes ears and heart open.
01/17/07
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Jim
I think it does pay to learn some traditional music language, notes and the such. However, I think it's also a matter of finding people amenable to working with more emotive and visual language. Just be explicit about who you want to work with up front.
01/17/07
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mrpanda
Mulletballet: That actually reminds me of a collaboration I did with a friend, where we basically just tag teamed a track over the course of a night. We started out with a loose timer, where one of us would start the track, work with it for five minutes and then even if we were in the middle of something, after the 5 minutes were up, the other person would take over, and while it was a little chaotic, it was a really fun experience to just let the music take it's own course.
utofbu: I see myself as a composer in the sense that I sit down and start working with a song and as it develops, I can just hear the notes in my head as I want them to sound, but if you handed me a guitar and said "here play those notes" it'd take me a little while longer than say, if I was just working with a piano roll. I know basically what each note is, and I know a tiny bit about musical notation, but not enough to just jot something down without a reference. I think perhaps you're right though, in that being a little more formal about how I communicate ideas, could help the process.
Papergoose: That's great advice. There have been friends of mine that i've tried working with in the past and the chemistry is just so terrible, you could cut the tension with a knife. Working with people who understand you musically as well as wanting to present the same feel in the music, is quite important, and I think sometimes I, and i'm sure others, have the tendancy to downplay that necessity. Just because you get along with someone socially doesn't necessarilly follow that you would get along with them musically. That's easy to forget.
Pawel: The forum is for technical questions, not personal ones. That's why this is as a blog. I think your view of rock music is very misrepresented though. Sure, if all you listen to is clearchannel, then you're not gonna find hardly anything worth listening to, but as whole there's plenty of great rock music out there. People would say the same thing about electronica too, if all they ever heard was crappy techno. We're getting off topic with this however.
edited: Jan 17 2007
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utofbu
PAWEL said: "guitar guys wear faggot clothes, have no formal training in music,....its fucking 2007 enough with the primitive monkey paws grabbing at nylon strings"
And in my experience, the people who broke me out in the most useful and effective ways were well trained guitarists because if you arent lazy you force yourself to keep multiple lines running in your head while you write and you slowly learn how to control that.
playing an instrument isnt primitive. Understanding the dynamics of what is playable is a big part of what makes good electronic music. Be it a guitar or a Bass or a horn or a drum.
Electronic has never been a purely one sided art form. In the end isnt it just music and those who utilise all of their resources will be in a position to express themselves in a way that those who corner themselves cannot?
PAWEL I know that recording stupid people for money is frusterating but leave the instruments out of the stereotypes.
If we all transcended instruments, wtf would we know about real music or pedagogic discipline in a generation? We would know jack shit. Music would degenerate even faster than it does within the social state of the modern world.
edited: Jan 17 2007
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astroid
i used to play in a band with a kid who was called "the bebop nazi"
one day he took me aside and asked "is jimi hendrix really any good?"
his teacher was this starving jazz musician who was quite good, but really really fucking angry. he's in his 40's, is trying desperately to sound like michael brecker, the only time his eyes light up is for a second when you heap effusive praise on him, and then they go dead again.
MY first sax teacher liked to come to school as we were putting our first combo together and humiliate us by saying things like "well NOW it's starting to sound like western music". he turned one of our songs at a concert into a 7 minute ewi solo, cutting off several kid's solos.
my second sax teacher said, upon hearing that i wanted to be a musician- "DON'T become a musician. BE SOMETHING ELSE."
so i feel your pain. it ain't just the jazz world.
01/17/07
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astroid
OT sorry
as a solution to your problem, you have to play with people you have a mutual respect for, or with whom you share a respect of someone else (like a famous band). if not, someone better be paying someone else, or it'll turn straight to shit.
01/17/07
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electrodan
lol - people still write responses to PAWEL.
edited: Jan 17 2007
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Roshi
You have to be able to be direct with the person without hurting their feelings. I think I can be a real asshole when I do collaborations, but I always try to have respect for what the other person is doing. If they're too interested in looking emo or some other bullshit that is non-music related, they're probably not for you.
You also need to have common language between you. That may mean sitting down and learning more guitar chords/progressions, or working within one of their chord structures/lead sheets so they can understand what's going on.
01/17/07
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eyezenears
Be organised when you come in with your ideas. It doesn't matter if their notated, colour painted or put in diagrams, musicians will take your ideas more seriously if they can see that you've put in the work and given them some kind of musical map to follow.
this is just a traditional form of musical communication.
Recent blogs: Cleverhorse
01/18/07
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prugelknaben
i can understand it is difficult - if you are composing something very specific, you have a certain music in your head - but theres no way you can communicate that music to the musicians. sounds like you need to find a workaround. either let them contribute more, or you need to learn how to write music, or let them be more free and accept what they bring to the table, or you could make exactly what you want them to play on the computer and have them copy it. or maybe you need different musicians.
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