Warning: May contain nuts.

LAISSEZ FAIRE - NEW TRACKS!

2009-06-20T04:14:00.001-07:00

Had a quiet spell for the last few weeks. Exams (?!) and moving house have taken control for the last month or so.

So, what has been going on? Well, between lectures and other nonsense we've found SOME time to get some recording done. There is evidence of a couple of new songs: Regicide and Rabbit Pie and Jelly Bean. Both are working titles for works in progress. Thanks to This Window and Dastards for helping out.

In other news this week: other projects This Window and Dastards are doing particularly well. This Window has been seeig international ReverbNation chart success (check out the Reverb Nation page here) and Dastards are finalising festival details for some summer gigging (see the website for more info).

Bristol, Bach and Bat For Lashes

2009-04-16T18:02:00.000-07:00

So what is creativity?

Bach - He's a genius and I can't match it. Trying to one of his courantes. Can't do it. However, I guess if he had been so bloody good he'd have finished it himself...

Bat For Lashes -Saw them in Bristol last night. One of the best things I've seen in a long time.

In other news, playing Tchaikovsky's 5th on Saturday. Love the orchestration - Tchaik and Stravinsky somehow manage to make an orchestra into one big drumkit... Those clever Russians... Also playing some Brahms and Strauss (not the waltz man, though). Not so exciting - mostly sustained, dull drawling. I guess that's what you get as a double bass player, though...

Equation of the day

2009-04-09T08:30:00.000-07:00

(Sigur Ros + Deftones) + Tchaikovsky(Stravinsky) = New Song

. . . . . . . . . . .Bright Eyes - Sylvia Plath

Today's thought was brought to you by the letter F.

Where is my Jesus?

x

Pseudointellectualism vs. Overintellectualism

2009-04-08T14:39:00.000-07:00

Studying music at university has been daunting. It's an incredibly deep and complex subject - Politics, maths, gender, religion, science, drugs; all have all had an impact on the subject in some way. Why is it then, that knowing the intricacies of the subject isn't important to gaining a career in music?

Why do many of the famous and credited contemporary musicians know very little about Shostakovich's plight during the Russian Revolution or neapolitain, French, German and Italian sixths? You would, after all, expect a surgeon to have been thoroughly taught the mechanisms behind the knee joint he's about to operate on as well as having a technical understanding of all the equipment he's working with. Ok, so some musicians and bands just seem to make things 'work' without knowing why, but if a Civil Engineer said "I'm not sure why that bridge stands up... It just does" someone would be asking serious questions...

Maybe it's to do with creativity? Perhaps talent and flair overrule the neccessity for knowledge? Many of the world's most famous musical stars are ex art students: Bowie, Ferry blah blah blah blah blah... Perhaps it is the 'artist' in the musician that makes an 'uneducated professional' a credible reality? I don't think so. If you had an artist who claims to have created a new way of thinking, he would almost certainly have been taught where the impressionists, pre-raphaelites and dadaists sourced their (probably similar) preconceptions.

Having been in a higher learning environment for the best part of an academic year now, I think I can see why the academic music route is a big turn off for those trying to make it in music these days. The physicists, medics and biologists are all in laboratories practising cutting edge theories on cutting edge equipment. They are the ones who, after graduation, will be the best in their field; the ones making the new discoveries and researching new theories. Based on that same model, music students are the ones in four years who will be the misunderstood artists; the ones bending the rules of what is acceptable of music as a contemporary art form - the Hirsts and Emmins of the music world if you like. Alas, that is not so. The drive just isn't there.

The background and history of music is fascinating and given the chance I would probably indulge in journals, books and papers to understand why Bach may have preferred F-sharp to G-flat, but that doesn't help in the progression of modern music. No one cares about where music's going because no one's really asked. The music press doesn't help either: Doherty, Kings of Leon, U2 and Madonna are STILL the ones bending the boundaries. Apparently...

So is studying it a benefit or a curse?

Maybe I should have gone to art college or something instead...

Maybe I'll just drop out...

An answer

2009-04-06T11:10:00.000-07:00

Well, seems that Plinky has the answer to my blogger's block. Instead of writing about what it suggests, I'll write about plinky instead...

In the beginning...

2009-04-06T09:54:00.000-07:00

...writer's block struck (or is it blogger's block?). I guess blogging on demand is a difficult thing to do... I'll wait until something interesting crops up and I'll scribble it down. In the meantime, watch this and enjoy the former glory of one of Britain's finest. x