Ok, this is where I let my musical snobbery comes out some. I've run into a problem in my musical life. I've stopped listening to the radio a long time ago. I got so sick of what was on. There's so much crap. Plus I can't stand watching shitty songs get more and more popular -- and apparently nobody wants to hear anything else! Really the big radio stations (which for a lot of years have been Birmingham stations) don't seem to be a good representation of good music or of genres that I want to hear.
The Problem!: ...is that after years of not listening to almost any radio I feel like I'm starting to lose touch with what's going on in the world musically...even if that "going on" sounds like crap. You would think that a person would be just fine letting it go, but from a musicalogical stand point, I want to know what is out there. I want to be able to look at this past decade and know what the trends were, what was new and innovative, what was influential. I want to know what was crappy and what fads people are now going to regret so that when VH1 does a "remember when" show, I'll be able to keep up.
Another concern about this is that I also teach piano lessons at a small music school. As a music teacher I need to know the current artists and trends for the sake of my students. I can't have a kid ask me about such and such band and me say "I have no idea who that is". Normally I would feel quite indignant and happy about not knowing this crappy music that you speak of but as my boss explained recently, that makes me look very uninformed and out of touch as a teacher/musician and takes away from my credibility.
I have been listening a lot more to alternative radio solutions like online radio. I find that I can finally get to the kind of music that I want to hear that way -- especially older music with Pandora and Accuradio.
So I want to know what other people think about all this. Am I being silly? Should I just let it go and enjoy the music that I enjoy?
Today I've had most of the day off. On days like this I indulge in all manner of personal projects that I have for myself. So today it was one of the big ones - practicing music.
Lately I've been becoming more aware of what I didn't learn studying music in school. I don't mean what I was to lazy to learn, I mean what they didn't teach me. The popular side of music is a very different world. The concepts and theory is still the same but it seems the point of view is very different. Apparently having a different point of view can make a very different sound and of course, it's all about the sound right? So I've dedicated myself to improving my musical skills in things like improvising on piano and guitar as well as guitar skills in general, and just improving my ear so I can hear better what's going on in the music.
I've been on a huge Police kick lately. I bought myself "Zenyatta Mondatta" and the new DVD "The Police Certifiable" and, much to Joie's disgust I'm sure, have been absorbing it constantly. You can't believe how hard it is to play that guitar lick on "Message in a Bottle".
The band I just joined recently has decided to recreate Pink Floyd's "The Wall" in it's entirety. So I've been going through each song making charts which is really good practice for my ear. For the most part the songs are really easy in terms of harmony but now and again they play these complicated instrumental interludes. This album is going to satisfy the tech nerd in me. I'm the second keyboardist in the band and I seem to be the most tech savvy when it comes to keyboards and sequences etc. so I get to sample and recreate all the crazy noises and sound effects that go on throughout. It's going to be great fun!
My biggest frustration for a long time now has been learning to improv on the piano (piano first, then guitar). No matter what I play always seems to sound really vanilla, boring, or just wrong! I feel like I'm missing just a couple a key concepts that would just bring it all together for me and I would suddenly do much better. Again, it seems to be one of those things you don't really learn in school. I've decided that the best way to fix this is to take all the music I have (which is a lot) and just listen listen listen, to as much as I can and play it out.
It's been a good day today. I have to go practice my church music now.
Hello. Here I am.
I'm finally starting my blog. I've had a vox account for months now so that I could keep up with Joie's blog while intending to eventually start my own but it's only now that I finally bring myself to do it. I used to blog with the best of 'em back in the days of livejournal but that slowly faded. I'm very happy to see, thanks to Joie, that vox is far more versatile and seemingly more enjoyable.
I'll start my first blog with a mission statement and a couple of apologies (insight into his personality?!?!?!). I plan to treat this as my very personal blog, meaning I'll be posting things ranging from lengthy rants that need to be released to random fractured thoughts. I have plenty of things I enjoy sharing that are fun or just silly but I also often have many questions or frustrations about life of which I need interaction with others to more fully understand.
Apology No.1: You'll have to forgive me of my lack of grammatical skills (I would say spelling as well were it not for built-in spell check of most web browsers now. Are we lazy or is it just freakin' awesome?). I honestly don't know how Joie can stand being with such a pathetic wordsmith as I. I must play piano really well.
In the spirit of number lists as they are treated amongst this particular community of people I will state now that there is no No.2, or any other number.
I will be using this blog in a very free, exploratory manner. I feel I'm in a stage in my life where I am trying to break down creative inhibitions that I, and i suspect most of us, have accumulated in adult life. I was very glad to see that the button to make a post in vox is the first big button labeled "create". If my ramblings ever annoy or insult you please feel free to say so or just remove me from your neighborhood. I want to try and be myself as much as I can in this blog but I don't want to always bug people either.
Thank you for your attention. I look forward to what's ahead.
Recent Comments
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thedrummer17 said:
You want to talk about top 40 impacting your job. The teaching standpoint is very valid. These kids love this... read more
on Top 40s...uugh -
Heather said:
I ran into this when I started teaching this year. I'm trying to relate to my sixth graders and show... read more
on Top 40s...uugh -
Steve Betz said:
[this is good]Good post. My first impression, was Dude -- let it go. Because if there's ever been a time when artists... read more
on Top 40s...uugh -
Bean Dip said:
Yeah, please send me article if you find it.I'm glad you mentioned the idea of how when you're a teen... read more
on Top 40s...uugh
good points by everybody. you guys helped me confirm mostly what I was thinking. I'm just going to have to... read more
on Top 40s...uugh