Ear Training: Unlocking the Musical Tool Box

I should have covered this topic before I mentioned the idea of a “Musical Toolbox”.

To refresh your memory… A "musical toolbox" is a collection of musical ideas, you find pleasing from others compositions. The previous two blog entries, “Pablo Picasso is not an asshole: Introducing the musical toolbox”, and “You are what you eat!” describe in more detail what a musical tool box is and what exactly you should be putting your metaphorical toolbox. If your ears are not trained, it is very difficult to put anything in your toolbox at all. Sure you could write tabs or notation of music you find pleasing, but the goal is to write these musical snippets into your brain. This way you can acesses them anytime you want.

Out of any musical training I have done in my life, the one thing that has helped me the most was ear training.

Ear training teaches your ears to identify certain intervals and chord changes just by hearing them. Essentially it builds an instrument inside your head. Doesn’t that sounds amazing? With an instrument built into your head, you can actually compose music with out the use of anything else besides your mind! I will get into that more in later blog entries.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart could compose symphonies in his head because he trained his ears!

The litmus test for ear training is, if you can match pitch with your voice, than you should be able to train your ears. If you can’t, then I don’t think you will be able to continue with ear training. Some people are wired for this and others aren’t.

If you can match a pitch, go to learn2hear.org, create an account, and start training your ears! I recommend starting out with interval and triad training. If you commit your self to using this web site for 10 minutes a day, every day, for 2-3 months; I promise you, you will unlock your hidden musical potential! Don't expect this to be easy; it takes a lot of time and frustration... but in the end, when you play exactly what you hear in your head, it will be worth it!

The skill you will be developing is called "relative pitch". In other words, you can tell the distance between notes in relation to your starting pitch. There are some gifted people out there with perfect pitch. Perfect pitch is when someone can identify a note with nothing to base it off of. For example, if you play a Bb, they could tell you its a Bb. Someone with relative pitch could figure out what note Bb is if they have a reference note (ex. what is a perfect 4th from F). Some say perfect pitch can be developed, but relative pitch can be just as good! I don't have perfect pitch... but i do just fine with relative pitch!

Jimi Hendrix had perfect pitch!

Another tip for training your ears is to sing harmonies. Since the voice is the most direct connection to music in your head, getting proficient at singing harmonies is another great way further train your ears. When listening to music in the car, try harmonizing as much as you can. The rule of thumb with harmonizing, is to do a third or a fifth, above or below the melody. If you don't know what a third or fifth is, you should start training you ears. Personally I think harmonizing is my favorite thing to do!

These ladies know what I'm talking about!!

Being able to identify the spaces in between notes, or the chord structure of a piece just by hearing it, is the best way to build up your musical toolbox. The better-trained ear you have, the easier it will be to figure out songs, get all those beautiful melodies and chords out of your head, and identify what people are playing just by listening to it!

So what are you waiting for! Go to learn2hear.org and start unlocking your musical potential!

Myspace Music 101: The Five Secrets.

Myspace was one of the first social networking sites. Over the past couple of years, it has turned into millions of musicians all trying to add each other. Because of this rat maze of bands clicking buttons, Rupert Merdoch (the man who is worth 4 billion dollars and is the owner of news corporations such as FOX) makes millions of dollars from the ad revenue.

Rupert Merdoch… Even his name sounds like a villain from the marvel universe…

You can tell that chick is a gold digger, and Mr. Merdoch doesn't care... he's getting laid tonight! Thank you all you Myspacers.

It sucks, I know it, you know it, but unfortunately as a musician, you need a Myspace so people can listen to your music. It is a necessary evil we all have to deal with being musicians in today’s world.

With out further ado, here are five tips on how to get the most out Myspace with out a lot of work!

1) Add the top artists/famous bands.
Go to the music home page on myspace and click on “Top Artists”. Add all these people and leave a comment on their page. Think about it, if these “Artists” get 100,000 or more views a day and people see you commenting on their page, then statistically speaking at least 10 people will click on your profile and listen to your songs or add you! You can go to the next page on the “Top Artists” and do the same thing if you wish. The more you do it, the more hits and friend requests you will get every day. It works, try it out!

2) Comment back every time!
This is another great way to increase your visibility. Every time you get a friend request, comment back saying, “Thanks for being my friend” or whatever you feel appropriate. This way when people see their profile, there is a chance they might click on yours! Remember, try to sound human and not like an advertising robot. The more sincere you are the better results you will have!

Try not to be a robot!

3) Make your profile picture interesting!
Since you want people to click on your profile, you need to have a profile image that draws their attention. Weather it be an animated .gif or a picture of you and a lama… what ever you think is effective enough to set you apart from the massive hoard, do it.

4) Find bands you sound like and add their friends.
This takes more work, but it’s more successful in finding real fans, as opposed to robot bands. If you think your music sounds like “Sunset Rubdown”, go to their page and add some people. Choose five people a day, look at their profile and message them. If you compliment something specific about them, than it is likely they will listen to your music! The more human you seem, the better.

5) Add the friends of Peer bands.
If you play shows with bands from your area, add their friends because chances are they may like your music and come to your shows seeing how you are from the same area!

Keep on doing this and before you know it your profile will get more hits and have more plays than ever before… and if your music is good you might actually get some fans! Also if you do get some real fans, encourage them to spread the word! The best kind of advertising is by word of mouth.

So get to it!

P.S. I may as well plug my own music while I’m getting all Myspacey on all of yall.
Check it out:
http://www.myspace.com/andrewmellomusic
http://www.myspace.com/stereoplegic
http://www.myspace.com/thecavitycreeps
http://www.myspace.com/straightangular

You Are What You Eat!

I’m sure all of you have heard this statement before... Its true, if you chug lard every day, you will become a tub of lard!



Aside from the obviousness of this phrase, there are many more levels that can be extracted from this plump fruit, fresh from the tree of human wisdom. If you read my last article, “Pablo Picasso is not an asshole”, then you will know what creativity or imagination is. Let me pamper your minds with the definition of imagination:

im·ag·i·na·tion [i-maj-uh-ney-shuh n]
noun
1. The power of reproducing images stored in the memory under the suggestion of associated images (reproductive imagination) or of recombining former experiences in the creation of new images directed at a specific goal or aiding in the solution of problems (creative imagination).

So if creativity is us rearranging all we have known, then what is known to you will only be known because you exposed it to your self. The things you expose to your self more frequently are more likely so come out of your creative output. So essentially you are what you eat, or what you eat is what you create!



So if you want to become an indie rocker, than listen to indie rock! If you want to experience death by metal, than listen to death metal! Keep in mind, that in the modern realm “genres” are very diluted. You can take parts of Bach and apply them to Krunk rap if you wish!

If you want to write catchy tunes that get stuck in peoples heads, than don’t be afraid of listening to pop music. If I mentioned, “Single Laides,” by Beyonce, you may cringe and think, “You bastard, Why did you mention that?” But behind your internal voice reading this article, I’m sure Beyonce is echoing through the chasms of your mind.

I offer you two versions of this song - the original with horrifying arrangements (feel free to listen to this for 10 seconds):



Here is the second version with the brilliant arrangements of Jack Conte and Natale Dawn from Pomplamoose (which if this is the first time you have heard of these guys, I highly suggest you view some more of their videos... I am very jealous of what these people can do)



If you want to write catchy tunes, you need to listen to tunes that get stuck in your head much like, “single ladies” or “mmm bop” by the androgynous pop trio, Hanson. Don’t be afraid of the negative social context, these songs are catchy because they are well written! Don’t listen to the cheesy pop orchestrations or the lyrics; I try to imagine the music as a string quartet, this way I can hear the power in the songwriting as opposed to the teeny bopping vomit invoking message.



If you are feeling “dry” creatively, don’t forget to lubricate your frontal lobe and listen to music! It will help you remember why you started to make music in the first place. Not to mention it will help you fill up your musical toolbox.

This concept of “you are what you eat” applies to other areas of creativity as well! For example, when I read the harry potter books, I felt like J.K. Rowling was my internal voice. Also I remember I went on a Shakespeare kick for a while and I noticed the syntax of my writing turned backwards and my vocabulary was replaced by old English.



So remember… you are what you eat or what you eat is what you create! If you are displeased with you’re creations, than start consuming new music!

Pablo Picasso is not an asshole: Introducing the musical toolbox

“Good Artists Borrow, Great Artists Steal”

For this blog entry, I will be focusing on this frequently misunderstood quote. It is widely believed that Pablo Picasso created this assholish statement, but upon further research I found that this quote is actually based off a review T.S. Eliot wrote on Philip Massinger’s work. Eliot didn't actually say this quote in the review, rather he insinuated it's meaning.



So with no evidence Picasso said it, and a paragraph by the notorious T.S. Eliot that potentially sparked this quote – I would imagine a long game of telephone actually molded this set of words into it’s current form. It doesn’t matter where it originated; it exists because a lot of people believe it does – oddly enough that’s how god(s) came to be.



For aesthetic purposes, I am going to attribute this quote to Picasso - not to purposefully shit on the scholarly value of this writing but, because his name works well with asshole. (pic(ass)(o) – (ass)h(o)le).

On the first interpretation of this quote, it may seem like your betraying your artistic nature. “Why would I borrow or steal when I want to create something new?” Well schizophrenic other me… let’s dissect what creation actually is!

Creation is you subconsciously rearranging everything you have experienced in your life. That’s right, if you are a creator of things, everything you have created has been stolen from people, places, movies, music, or whatever you have experienced in your short life. Much like the vastness of our universe, an infinite amount of ideas have been thought before. So to be truly original is almost impossible.

If you haven’t done this before, you should drive to the ocean at night. The infinite blackness of the Atlantic brings out all the stars hidden by light pollution. It’s kind of like a black light revealing seamen stains after a successful 10,000 to 1 bukkake… Think about all those glowing dots (or seamen stains) like individual ideas. As artists, it is our job to connect all these dots. Connecting the dots is essentially creativity. The better you can do it, the more creative you will be.



Now where do we get ideas? This is where our musical toolbox comes in! I stole this idea from Stephen King's brilliant book called “On writing”, which if you haven’t read, I highly recommend it. To fill up our toolbox, you want to use Picassoisim ("…great artists steal"). If you hear a section of music that really moves you, mentally throw that into your toolbox. Even it’s very small... like a three second guitar bend that fascinates you, go ahead... throw it in your toolbox.



Essentially building your musical toolbox is like honing in on what you consider to be good music. Of course the definition of “good music” is different for everyone, but if you are taking a conscious effort to find and absorb parts of others peoples compositions that you feel strongly about, then you will know better where to go and what you want from a piece you compose.

If you think about it that’s how all ideas, sciences, arts, philosophies… or just about anything has evolved. A conscious understanding of the past and an intentional rebuilding to improve it just makes a whole lot of sense in every creative feild. To be fortunate enough to have 1000’s of years of musical development to steal from is a true blessing. Now I’m not saying you should totally rip of other artists – but I am saying is you should build off others ideas to take them to new places.



So build up your musical toolbox! It will help you hone in on the path your music is naturally going to. Like a plant that faces the sun wherever the sun may be… if you are gifted at connecting the dots, developing a toolbox will help your music face the sunshine… letting the sunshine in will help you grow and in the end, that is what existing is all about!

Now lets rock out!

No One Cares About Your Art: A Manifesto

Why would I name my blog, “No one cares about your art”? Why would I make posts tarnishing being an artist, when hypocritically, I am an artist my self? Lay back, relax, get a cup of tea, and let me tell you.



Let’s clarify the term artist. When people hear the word art, they think of drawing, painting, or sculpting… but art can be any form of creation, weather it be music, science, dancing, poetry, or even verbal communication. Art is anything that can invoke some sort of emotion in human beings… anything that is beautiful, ugly, or a mix of both. The spectrum of human emotion is endless, and the fact that a sound can summon feelings of nostalgia or nausea, is a beautiful thing.



To be an artist you need to know that the majority of the time, no one will care about it. So many people create for external gratification, that the preponderance of art out there is but a pretentious attempt at seeming “deep”. It usually is a futile effort to get laid or some ulterior motive that is hollow as the personality these so called “artists” carry inside their lackluster gray matter. I’m sure all of you know these kinds of people; I know I do.



Sure anyone can create something, but if you have a passion for creation, then maybe you are an artist. If you create with out caring if someone sees your painting or hears your music, than maybe you are an artist. If you create because you know it will last longer than having all the money in the world… then maybe you are an artist. If creating some sort of medium is fun to you and you find that time passes by fast when you’re doing it – then yes, you probably are an artist.



I have used the term artist quite a bit in this entry. If you consider your self one, don’t flaunt it – because again, no one cares about your art. If you truly enjoy creating then you shouldn’t care that no one gives a damn.

In this life your goal should be to make your self happy and if you are unhappy because no one cares about your art, then go do something else. Find something that makes the time pass through you like the laxative properties of coffee.

If creating things gives time haste for you, than continue to read this blog. I will be sharing with you some things I have learned in my life; as someone who genuinely enjoys creating things, i hope i can give some insight on the creative process. Though my main medium is music, a lot of the concepts I will be covering can be applied to any art form.

I hope this clarifies the purpose of this blog for all you human beings out there.

Straight Angular Live at The Polk House!

This is the video from the phoenix article. I had to post this to a separate blog entry because it wouldn’t let me embed it for some reason. Enjoy!!!

Straight Angular in the Boston Phoenix?

That's right a band that I play bass and sing harmonies for is on the front page of the music section in the Boston Phoenix! Right after I wrote two very depressing articles this happens...

That's the way life goes - when things are good they will get bad, and when things are bad they will get good. Remember that always all you guys and girls out there.

So here are some links and screen shots!

Here is the link to the front page of the music section:
The Boston Phoenix Music Page

I’m not too sure how long we will be on the front page so, I took a screen shot while we are currently up there!




Here is the link to the article they wrote about us: Anything and everything: StreightAngular just want to know what's now


Just in case you don’t trust my links… here is the full length article by Barry Thompson.


"Anything and everything
StreightAngular just want to know what's now
By BARRY THOMPSON October 7, 2009

People never like to label themselves. Or, at least they shouldn't.

A musician who's comfortable summarizing what he does with a phrase or two probably isn't a very good musician. When asked to describe one's band, the right tack is to sidestep the question, or else offer a bewildering response. For their part, StreightAngular have a knack for making correct choices — and taking them to extremes.

"I had a vision of making music that wasn't just love songs. It would incorporate love, but would be more of a commentary on things around us, things that humanity is going through at this moment," says Al Polk, as he sips coffee with his wife and drummer, Theresa Polk, at the South Street Diner. After doing the White Stripes duo thing for a while, they filled out with Andrew Mello on bass, Adam Strock on guitar, and Michell Barys (also of Brunt of It infamy) on trumpet. "So, StreightAngular spawned from seeing garbage on the streets, buildings, skyscrapers, homeless people, models, magazines, and things like that. If a love song one day were to be written, it might be love for a robot. Or a person. StreightAngular is more about freedom, actually."

Hold on . . . "Girl with a Tambourine" isn't a love song?

"Sounds pretty lovey-dovey," Al admits, after reciting a snippet of its lyrics, which pertain to spandex and escalators. "I think all our songs are love songs, actually."
Once you cut through the abstracts and the contradictions, StreightAngular make their own kind of sense. Curious listeners are encouraged to indulge in this logic this Friday at the Whitehaus DIY collective in Jamaica Plain, and next Friday at P.A.'s Lounge.
Being a nascent, amorphous band, StreightAngular can roll untethered toward anyone's expectations, and they gleefully indulge this freedom on their first outing, After and Before. There's a dancy protest anthem, "Mission Has Failed," a chunk of updated proto-punk, "Empathetic Environmentalist," down-tempo synth-rock on "Open Your Eyes/Take a Picture," surfy fare on "HOTTIES," and two songs that remind me of the Pixies, "Are You Ever Satisfied" and "On the Washing Machine." (Then again, for some reason, every song ever reminds me of the Pixies.)

"Nowadays, with technology at our hand, we can listen to any kind of music from any region, any time period," Al observes. "Maybe that's an overload of things in the brain. On the album, I bet we ripped off everyone. We probably ripped off Paula Abdul and Kiss and anything that was floating around. Like if, when I was a baby, the window was down and Phil Collins was playing somewhere."

Being the multi-tasking sort, Al Polk is also head honcho of Polk Records, a well-regarded local stable since 2007 that's dedicated to throwing eclectic, round-robin-style showcase shindigs.
"I was inspired by the late '60s, when people knew each other and would play on each other's albums," he explains. "I saw this scene in Festival Express? it was Janis Joplin and the bass player from the Band. They were sitting on a couch, singing a song together. They're legends in our time, period, but back then they were just friends. They were just like us, trying to make music, and that's basically why I started the label. I wanted that community."

Funny he should mention the late '60s, given the way After and Before nods to the late '70s and the '80s. When I broach that subject, he tells me how much he's been influenced by the Baroque and Romantic periods of classical music. "It's like everything's connected. We divide things by decades, just because that makes it easier for us. What are these decades and days and years? The sun goes up and the sun goes down. You listen to the '90s, and sometimes you're like, 'Wait a second, that sounds like '80s!' There are these transitions, and I think that's what we're waiting for now. Some people are like, 'What's now?' "

STREIGHTANGULAR + THE WOODRO WILSONS + TOM THUMB Whitehaus, Jamaica Plain October 9 at 8 pm www.whitehausfamilyrecord.com STREIGHTANGULAR + RED QUIET + LADDERLEGS + 16 LIPS + AHMAHLLAMAH + DJ GHETTO BLASTER P.A.'s Lounge, 345 Somerville Ave, Somerville October 16 at 8:30 pm 617.776.1557 orwww.paslounge.com "


And finally as a special treat, were going to be giving away our new CD “After and Before” for free!




Download: Straight Angular: After and Before

Or you can copy and paste this link into your browser:
http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?t1ettonvwnx

So download the CD for free, read the article, and share both with everyone you know! These are exciting times, and I feel it's only going to get better.

I have a lot more updates to come! Stay tuned : )!

If I were making music 30 years ago: A breif history of the rise and fall of record companies.

The year would be 1979...



Cocaine, the end of disco, the release of Pink Floyd's masterpiece "the wall", the beginning of prince's career and the start of the horrifying 80's fashion movement. If you were a half way talented band who wrote original songs, there was a big chance a record label would pick you up, throw you in a recording studio, pump out a record, book a tour, and if you didn't make them enough money they would drop you like an aborted fetus.

If I were making music back then, I know I would get a deal. Well on second thought... I don't know if I would get signed, seeing how I wasn't alive until 1987, or confident in my talents as musician until 2005; but I know the chances would have been dramatically higher.



The reason being is, back then if you wanted to hear a song, such as the brilliant "As" by Stevie Wonder, you would have to go to the record store and buy the album, "Songs in the Key of Life". On top of that, the radio was like a constant advertisement for the record companies, because they knew the only way people could hear music, is if they bought the record or hoped they played it on the radio. Most people just bought the record. Since the record companies were making so much money off of all of these sales they could afford to take chances on all kinds of horrifying bands and get away with it.

Then time passed, the glorious day of 7/7/87 occurred and I was born. When I was conscious enough to remember things in the early 90's, the state of music was in a gradual change. Now these old "record things" were replaced by tapes, and if you could afford a player, CD's were the highest quality thing out there. The record companies were still sitting high on their solid gold horses, because yet again, killer songs on the radio could only be heard if you bought the tape or CD.

If the record companies were a golden horse, than there was one thing was right underneath them - slowly melting their horse into soft malleable gold. That boiling hot surface was the internet. Software like audio grabber could save ".wav" or ".mp3" files of a whole Cd on your computers hard drive. When it was on your hard drive, sharing programs like Napster, Morpheus, Kazza, or Bear Share were distributing all these music files for....... free.

Free wasn't a word the record companies had ever heard. Then celebrities began to notice that they were not making as much money as they used to; so logically they tried to stop it. They got their fancy lawyers, and made commercials to scare everyone, but the people weren't going to stop. After a while the record companies began to realize this so, they created the itunes store, and similar music purchasing sites. This way people could buy music as .mp3's and put the new "Shakira" or "Britney Spears" song on their ipod.




Just like anyone who has power, they will resort to anything to maintain their power. When sales dip they highly publicize some poor house wife or college kid getting sued for 6 Billion dollars to scare people into buying mp3's again. Currently the best way to steal music is the use of torrents or doing some google searching. The record companies are withering away... they really are on their death beds.




There is only one market remaining that is like an IV in the dying arm of record execs... and that is the "tween" market. This market exists because kids are too young to have to money to buy a CD, so they ask their parental units to do so... the parents being old enough to remember, "if I want to listen to music I need to buy the CD!" So they go out and buy their child the new Hannah Montana or Boys Like Girls CD and pick up an Elton John's greatest hits for them selves, so they can have nostalgic experiences on their drive to and from work.

Now here I am. Its 2009, there is basically no such thing a record label that picks up bands anymore. No one buys music, everyone steals it. So how are musicians supposed to make a living if they cannot sell records anymore? Even Cd's are becoming obsolete. People just want mp3s and a maybe a vinyl to play in their modern record player so they can seem more "indie".




The bleak reality for musicians today is that, the only way to make money creating music is to tour... but the kicker is that touring costs money, so it is very hard to make a profit from it... especially if your starting out fresh. Bands today have to be amazing performers because that is the only way they will be able to sell merchandise. If you can convince people that they are having a great time at your show, then you have secured a few sales so you can have enough gas to get to the next city.

This cycle repeats until the artist gets sick of it or they die due to suicide or exhaustion.



So I wish I was 22 in 1979. At least then it would be possible to make money from album sales. Currently the only way to make money in music is to A) Sell to Tweens or B) Do jingles, or C) Compose for video games or movies. For all of us who are artists and want to stick to our passions of creating original music, we have to tour and hope people like us.

That's just the way the cookie crumbles. So give up those dreams of some British CEO knocking on your door proclaiming that "your music is bloody brilliant!" Than proceeding to flying you in his private corporate jet to a recording studio. Those days are over - you now need to do it your self. Go on tour. Go now... hurry up before that doesn't work either!!

So your a "starving artist"?

What is a starving artist?

Well the literal definition would be - one who creates things who just so happens to be hungry. Hungry for what you may ask? This part of the definition can be skewed - is this artist hungry for calories or is he hungry for people to view his art? I do think in most cases it is the latter. How does one become like this? I like to imagine this scenario.

Picture a summer day, just a few hours afternoon as the sun begins its retreat out into the western sky. In the distance you can hear little Timmy with his OshKosh B'Gosh outfit, stomping on the pavement of his parents drive way.




Martha, his mother - who is of course toiling in the kitchen, hears the triumphant little steps of her 7 year recent vaginal spawn. Intrigued to know what he is all fired up about, she looks out the window and sees her son flailing a piece of paper around, darting to the house; while in the background the roar of the school bus fades away.

Nearly out of breath Timmy opens the screen door and yells in an enthusiastic manner, "mama mama look at the grade i got on this drawing!!!"
Martha takes the sheet of paper only to see a horribly scribbled man flying a kite in a crayon field of orange and green. "Wow this is amazing!" she lies encouraging her young boy, "You could be the next Picasso!"
"Really mama, isn't he a famous artist?!" Timmy spoke with big dilated dreams in his eyes.
"Yes son, he sure is - why don't you keep drawing..." she responded with a careless encouragement.

Little did she know what kind of monster she had just created. The words "famous artist" have now been branded in Timmy's malleable mind.

Fast forward 15 years. Our little Timmy is now 22, and has worked very hard on his art. He is much better now and in fact, he thinks he is so good, that he is still perusing his childhood dreams of becoming a famous artist. His mother long ago stoped caring about his art because she realized she was still supporting her son. So now he is starving for attention. Once his mother kicks him out, poor Timmy will go out into the world (most likely the nearest city) yelling with clenched fists, "Mom I'll prove to you that I will become a famous artist!"



If you go to any big city, you can see hundreds of these "Timmy's" pedaling their art on the street, playing music, dancing, reciting horrifying poetry, or doing what ever art thier mothers said they were good at.

Artists are sad people. They try to change the world by being original... but really they just want to prove their families wrong, because deep down inside, they know you need to make money in this world... with out money you are nothing and no one cares about you.



So, all you starving artists out there - get a job. No one cares about your art except for you and maybe your similarly pathetic girl friend.

God damn I am a hypocrite.