You’ve rehearsed a lot, and are ready to lay down some tracks at a nice, or not so nice recording studio.  You’ve probably like I did, paid a bunch of money to have someone engineer the demo and are really wanting things to go well.

Here are just some thoughts about what things to think about once you are ready to go and get everyone together to play.  I recorded some pop songs, and so these are the things that I had to keep in mind, but I guess that the process would be slightly different say if you were recording a hip hop track, or classical concerto, or anything in between.  But for us, it was all about planning…

ARRIVE ON TIME and READY

To me, nothing gets me more aggravated then not having the little things in place before I go and spend money for all the minutes that I’m at a studio.  Most studios charge by the hour, so every minute counts, and if your guitars need to be restrung, or people in your group show up late, it can be expensive and annoying.  My thought is to be overly prepared and ready, because inevitably, setting up the studio itself for a good sound takes time away from playing.  And if you are on a low budget like me, then it pays to have some things good and ready to go.  Here are just some things that I had planned and ready…

1. PRINT OUT A SONG LIST / MUSIC CHARTS marked with verse, choruses, etc.

Even if your band doesn’t need them, it’s a good idea for the engineer to follow them easily with lyrics and all so that she is on the same page as everyone else.  Not to mention at the very least, the engineer will know what to title the ProTools project.

2.  BRING A TUNER, CHANGE STRINGS DAYS BEFORE SESSION

Just do it, have it ready, with cables and everything in an organized place so that the quicker you can set up, the quicker you can get to playing.  No earrings (because of headphones), and no jangly pieces of clothing (because the mic might pick it up).  Everybody turn their cell phones off.

NOW PLAY

Hopefully, as you all are about to play, you’ve been rehearsing with the band by playing with a metronome.  Most likely you will play with one during the recording, so know who will count off the clicks and how each song will start and end.  So, if you are going to fade out a song once its’ mixed, you all need to know to keep playing at the end of the song so that there is enough to fade with.

Stay loose, and try to react to the players around you, and not focus too much on your own part.  Now is the time when all the rehearsing comes in, and if you have rehearsed in a way that it beneficial to the playing now, or if you didn’t rehearse enough.  Your own part should be second nature by now, and the differences between a good take and a bad one have more to do with feel with each other.

Also be very polite to your engineer.  I feel like people in the music world have to deal with too many attitudes and egos.  You generally will be able to get the engineer on your side by being nice.  Just a thought.

SING LIKE YOU MEAN IT

So, my problem when I started was that I was focused on “blending” which is a term used for choir singers to match the tonal quality of the person next to you.  Thereby giving it like a more “rounded” or smooth sound.  When you add 50 people to it, it sounds large and reverby.

However, when you use that technique for rock singing into an SM57 or some other microphone, all that comes out is this wash of a sound.  I think that onstage microphones used for rock, or hip hop, reward staccato ryhthms and “sharp” sounds.  Sounds that are able to cut through the loudness of the stage itself, and the din of live music.  If you have a band, and the bass is taking care of the lows, and the keys, and guitars are in the mids, and cymbals are in the highs… it really doesn’t leave very much frequency range for the human voice (which reside somewhere in the mids).  So, “blending” to get a round sound doesn’t do very much except add to the wash of sound.

I believe that the correct path to take is to sing as if you were the lead singer with your parts.  With conviction.  And try to produce a tone that is clear and bright.  The blending should be taken care of by the reverb and other effects of the PA system.  One important note about that is that it’s important to be sure that the rythms of the melody are in the right place.  That way, things will sound locked in.

PUT YOUR MIC WHERE YOUR MOUTH IS

Another common mistake that I see people do is to sing “across” the mic, rather than into it.  In the rush to setup for a gig, in New york there is like five minutes of time from when the other band leaves to when you have to go on, I’ve seen some people point the mic to set it up and then leave it for the rest of the show as they play their instrument and sing “under” the mic.  Maybe pointing the mic at their eyebrows or something.

Every mic has it’s sweet spots for where it picks up sound the best, but to make it simple, in most live situations, you’ll find a mic not unlike the Shure SM58 or something like that. 

So, Just keep in mind that you want to point your mouth directly into the mic.  Pretend you are singing into the bottom of the mic.  As if you were singing into a paper towel tube. If that means adjusting the mic on the stand and at a lower level than you may be accustomed, then so be it.

I think you’ll find the sound more to your liking.  Good luck.

IDEAS

When I get an idea for a part of a song. I jump onto my instrument of choice: the guitar.  I start singing what I heard in my head and finding the base chords for that part. I then decide if it’s a bridge or a chorus. In this case the particular song I’m working on has started with a verse part.  I usually riff on this for awhile and then find a chorus by playing chords next to it or complimentary to it. I’m not a classically trained musician so I tend to strike chords around the area that I’m playing in and then something will resonate with me. I call that the beginnings of a chorus.  I now have a chorus and verse. Or if you are keeping track in songwriting land: an A and B part.  With these I can lay out the body of a song.  I usually get a rough version of it going by laying it out ABAB(verse, chorus, verse chorus).

BRIDGES

Now whatever I’m doing is down to finding a bridge using the same method I used prior to find the chorus. The only difference is that  I have a little more freedom to use a chord that is not so complimentary to my ears. I explore it. I lengthen it. I slow it down. I play it faster than the rest of the song. It’s supposed to be experimental. Sometimes it works right away and others it ends up taking the most time out of the entire process.  Most of the time, I write every song with the same form initially so that I can have a whole song to play: so I put the bridge or the ‘C’ part after ABAB….C and then I end on the chorus again: ABABCB.

TROUBLESHOOTS

When I have a whole song laid out, it allows me to see it for what it is. Do I like it? Does it drag? Where am I having problems? What is the ‘hook’? How can I accent that the best? Songwriting is a series of questions I ask myself to trim away an influx of ideas. Form is determined when I can stand back and see it as a whole.

THEN I try and fuck that up to make it as original as I can.  I haven’t said anything about lyrics because I usually do them last. I always have notebooks and word documents laying around about ideas for songs. I find something that I like and stick with that theme and then I’m off to write way too much about it and then I work on trimming that down. Now, for you it might work exactly the opposite and that’s great because you should use whatever works for you. There is no ‘right’ way to write a song, but you should have something that you are proud of and that you can perform.

But rehearsing a band has its’ own challenges and skills that must be learned.  Here are some ideas.

LISTENING

The most important part of playing in a band, is listening and playing music “with” each other rather than “at” each other.  When band members spend more time listening, then the music becomes tight the music gets to another level.  This all presupposes that you know what you are going to play like the back of your hand, which I know is probably not the case.  What is probably the case is you are in your own world trying to figure out what to play over a new section or remembering the changes for another section.  I’ve often been in the situation where I had to learn a new song quickly and write my part as a bass player quickly as well.  But maybe the better way would be to slow down the process.

BREAK IT DOWN

I’m of the opinion that, especially in New York, bands never seem to have enough time to rehearse.  Making music can be time consuming, especially if you are writing original music.  You want your music to be different, creative, and good.  And that usually takes time… at least for me.  But I would always want to play sections of songs and work on them a piece at a time instead of the whole thing all at once.  If your band keeps just playing through the song, over and over, then it will cement in there at a particular level, and then no one has any desire to change things to make it better later.

So, playing the first verse and stopping and maybe someone has an idea for a way to make it better or make it tighter.  Or design a section where everyone plays a musical idea together.  Or many other creative things that you can come up with if everyone is on the same page as far as rehearsing a music in the same way.  Here’s another way to really get everyone listening…

SLOW TEMPO

One exercise that might help with training the band members to listen to each other is to slow the tempo way down to a tempo that you would never really play it at.  Comically slow.  It’s also a good exercise to help with “groove”.  So, as you count off your comically slow tempo, all of the members in the band will be listening to each other to find the next beat for the next thing that they have to play.  And hopefully, everyone lands on the measures, and the sections at the same time.  And if it doesn’t sound great, it’s really just a listening exercise anyways, and when the song is back up to full tempo, you’ll “hear” the music from a different perspective.  Then try faster tempos…Couldn’t hurt.

Good luck Rehearsing your band!

FIND YOUR LEVEL-NEWBIE

If you are looking for people to “jam” with and are trying to get better as a musician, then you won’t be trying to look for musicians that have been gigging for years and are looking for a good music project to work on.  And there is nothing more disappointing than playing music with someone who is not as good at basic musicality.  Heading for an uncomfortable time not liking the way things are sounding.  A musician needs to be able to play to a reasonably steady beat, and be able to listen and begin to work on nuances of what sounds good when playing with other musicians.  Of course that means different things to different people.  But as practice, a less experienced player should play as much with “play along CD’s” and work with metronomes as much as possible.

Once you are there, have some sheet music, or chord charts, or lyric sheets ready work on.  Or songs you’ve written.  Fire up a craigslist ad, and see who shows up.

FIND YOUR LEVEL-EXPERIENCED

So, then let’s say you are getting back into music, or you moved to a new town.  You’d want to network with other musicians and see what the scene is like and start playing with people who are working on music projects.  Hopefully one day, this site will turn into a meeting place for musicians, but for now, try the Open Mic scene in your city, and clap for people.  In my experience open mics are good places to meet people because people are trying out material, and generally people are friendly and open about what they are doing.  It would be better to play at an open mic so that people hear what you are all about too.  And it saves the “I wonder if this guy is good enough to play with” question that can be on some-one’s mind.

The other technique is to go to other peoples’ shows, and listen and try to introduce yourself.  But at shows generally, a band is already staffed up as it were usually.  They are more into getting you signed up to a mailing list than looking for people to play with.  One more idea is…

CRAIGSLIST

Then there’s craigslist.  Here’s a link to the New York City Craigslist musicians community.  I’ve always found that craigslist is hit or miss. I’m sure there are good players there, but it’s hard to tell how much experience people have.  Ask lots of questions, get their myspace page, or what have you.  And then schedule a short jam session, or rehearsal.

Good luck.  If anyone has any other tips or articles, please send them to us.

I have met many musicians who were otherwise very good performers, thoughtful songwriters, and great band leaders who none the less really weren’t that great at tuning their guitars. I guess that it is no surprise since most people first learn how to tune their guitars in the comfort and quiet of their own home, but once they are thrown into a live playing situation, then all kinds of other issues with sound sometimes get in the way of setting up a good sounding instrument. If this is your first time tuning a guitar or have been doing it a while, we’ll go over some things to keep in mind for tuning your guitar.

TUNING YOUR GUITAR… with a guitar tuner

The easiest way to tune a guitar, and probably the most common among people just starting out is to buy a guitar tuner and plug it in and follow the blinking lights to perfect in-tune-ness. If you have an electric guitar, or using the tuners built in mic if you have an acoustic guitar.

1. Turn on your tuner, and plug it into your electric guitar and turn up the volume knobs on the guitar itself. … Or hold the built in mic near the soundhole of your acoustic guitar.
2. Pluck any string with a sense of authority to ensure a strong signal for the tuner to pick up. (However don’t pluck too hard where the string itself vibrates too much and distorts or sounds bad.
3. ***IMPORTANT TIP*** Grab a hold of the tuning pegs with your other hand and *DETUNE* the string slightly. In other words, make the string “looser”, or make the note go “flat”. Then slowly turn the tuning peg to tighten the string until the tuner reads in tune. The reason for this is because you want to avoid the string “slipping out of tune” through vibration of playing the instrument…
4. Skip around to the other strings and repeat this process. You will most likely need to re-do strings you have already tuned, but as you tighten and change the tension on each string, you change the tension on the guitar neck itself, and that slightly changes the tension on each string, which makes it necessary to re-do tunings on each string. When you are doing the fine tuning, it isn’t necessary to “DETUNE” as much. But I always do anyways.
5. Sturm a chord and write a song, you’re done.

I’m not sure of the actual physics of why you need to detune a string to keep it in solid tune, but I imagine that since the string is under tension, if you unwind the tuning peg to loosen the string, the guitar string itself could bind at different points around the tuning peg itself,(or the nut, or the bridge), and later slip causing the string to loosen further and send you out of tune once you start playing. If anyone has a more scientific explanation, please leave a comment below.

But there are other issues to take into account that affect the tuning of the guitar that are important to how it sounds.

STRING TENSION

Depending on how new the guitar strings are, you might want to break them in before you stat tuning. You’ll need to stretch them out a little just to get them more flexible. Again, the idea is that you’d want to stretch out the strings so they are less likely to bind while you are tuning them. Same goes for strings that are too old which are too stretchy and won’t be able to hold a tuning.

FRET INTONATION

You can do everything right, but once you start playing a chord it all sounds out of whack. That might be an issue and a problem with intonation. That is, you can spend your time tuning the “open” strings, but once you put your finger on a fret, if the intonation is off, then you have to take a step back and set up the guitar better.

Here is a good link on the web to learn more about How to Tune your guitar.

http://www.howtotuneaguitar.org/

And if you click on each of the letters on the “tuner widget” below, you can hear what it is supposed to sound like….

Ba Rock Obama Fundraiser in Greenpoint NYC

A few weeks ago, my band AM, played this fundraiser for Barack Obama’s campaign. It was basically a hipster neighborhood event in Williamsburg/Greenpoint in NYC where they got a bunch of bars together to host a bunch of indie bands. One ticket got you a bracelet that allowed you to go to any bar that was hosting this thing and see all the music that was being made. It was called Ba-Rock Brooklyn.

So, it was pretty cool to meet all the bands there that night, and to my surprise (since I am a pessimist when it comes to people showing up at shows), there were a lot of people out that night and everyone raised $2500 for Barack. Not bad for a neighborhood thing.

I realized that part of the success of these kinds of nights is the “Music scene” aspect of it all. It works better to ask your audience to go to an event where they will be able to hear lots of different musics than just hear your band. So, the draw is “Come see a night of local indie music”, rather than “Come see my band”. A slightly different pitch. But to me anyways, it feels as though having people gather has a couple of effects. First it was a great way to meet other bands in the scene, and musicians have to stick together. It’s a band thing anyways. One day you’re playing with this band, the next time with another. And sharing tips and experiences with each other can only help in figuring out how to navigate the whole indie music thing. In addition, sharing audiences is good because well, it’s always the more the merrier anyways, and it winds up being a better for your audience as well.

And I believe that that is how music scenes are made. People in the audience checking out the music, then checking each other out, and making friends, and if it works, it might grow into a scene. I guess of course, that the music has to be interesting and all that. But of course, I’m sure it is.

The music scene aspect of playing music for your friends that grow into more friends etc, is what a bunch of social networks sites try to replicate. But I feel like it’s still way different from being in a smokey room a little drunk and really getting into some music while some hotties over there are into it…and in my case, go try to meet them, get shot down… but fun nonetheless.

Whoever can replicate this in the Internet virtual world, will have taken musicianship and the music business to the next level.

As it gets harder and harder to tour for a small act, with gas prices and lodging and every other thing you need to go on tour costing all kinds of money, people are finding alternative ways to go on tour. People use myspace and facebook to connect with their fans and crash at peoples’ places. A few years ago, the band that I was playing in booked small tours where we rented a van and booked some bigger shows that paid some money, and then used that money to stay in motels and peoples’ houses. The amount of telephone planning and mapping and logistics took a good chunk of time and energy. One of the things that I’ve recently discovered, and maybe because I’m not as computer literate as my partner Craig, is using Google Maps to map and plan tours. You can create a customized map to mark each place you’ll be staying and gigs you’ll be playing and you can share it with anyone. You can create a map and have all of your band mates have access to it. You can post it somewhere (I think) and have your fan base take a look and suggest places of interest or offer places to stay. It’s a small tool, but I think that it is useful in the organizing phase of the tour, because god knows on tour, you’d probably be too drunk and high to figure it all out on paper.

Google Maps Video Tutorial – Click Here!

It’s pretty cool to drop a locator on a gig, and then see the whole thing planned out. Pretty satisfying.