8 Minute Miles

Ok, Paul beat me at the finish line by a second! We both ended up with an 8 minute per mile pace. I was under 25 minutes for the 5k so I'm happy. I'll shave some more minutes off of that during my training for this marathon.


<<--Here I am resting for a moment by my Jeep after the race.

Get it Done!

Here is the official taunt at 2.42 miles into the 5k race this morning. I said, "Come on Paul. Let's get it done!"

NOW, I've realized I need to work on my taunts. That's NOT a taunt, that's words of encouragement! HA!

...maybe taking a picture with my Treo 650 during the race counts as a taunt?

Happy 4th Running

I ran in the local 4th of July 5k race this morning. It rained a bit as I was driving to the race.

Here I am in the race at about 2.4 miles. I'm getting ready to taunt my good friend Paul as I pass him. That's his shoulder in white next to me.

A Day of Rest

Today was a day of rest from running because...well, I've run 14 miles in the past two days! It is that, but I'm also planning to run a 5k July 4th fun run "race" tomorrow with my brother. It's usually a fair good idea to not run a bunch the day prior to trying to run a race. I'm not a fast race kind of guy, but I'd like to do as good as I possible can. A 5k (3.1 mile) race will be a good measure of my fitness level as I've just started (2 days ago) my official marathon training for a marathon in January 2006. I've got 6 months to get in shape for my first ever in my life marathon.

I wonder if I can remember to snap a picture of me DURING the race tomorrow. Now that would be cool...or is that really geeky?

Who cares! ;)

Sunny Run

A nice breeze today, but warmer than yesterday's run. I think it was in the mid-70's. In the sun it was hot!

I did the same 7 mile loop as I did ysterday. Took this picture with my Treo 650 at just about the same spot I took the picture yesterday. Me holding my phone cam out in front of me as I continued to run. Can't stop to just pose!

I wore a Fuel Belt today so that I would have some water, my Treo and some Accel Gel. I do pretty well with the chocolate flavor gel. This is the only gel that I know of that has some protein mixed in. It tastes very good too!

The Road Behind

I took my cell phone (Treo 650) with me on my run this morning. Snapped this picture with it holding it out in front of me as I was running. This was at about 4 miles into my 7 mile run. I wanted to catch the road "behind" me that I had already covered.

It was sure a nice cool and cloud covered morning for a run. Took me almost 62 minutes.

Hong Kong

Oh yes, another self portait, but I made it look like someone else what taking this picture of Hong Kong. I held the camera out with the timer set. Had to take it 4 times to get it right. So, this is a picture of one part of Hong Kong during the day in the hazy.

Shanghai Grand Hyatt

Another self potrait I took while in Shanghai of me and the Jin Mao Tower. This is the 4th tallest building in the world. Part of the building hosts the highest hotel in the world. It is the Grand Hyatt Shanghai. Fantastic hotel and not all that expensive considering the beauty and service.

My hotel room was on the 66th floor. The lobby to the Hyatt was on the 54th floor. Extremely cool building. My Harvard classes were down on the 2nd floor. The whole building is covered with stainless steel on the outside. If you are ever in Shanghai, you should consider staying at this hotel. It's the only hotel on my trip to China that I really would have liked to stay at another night.

Yummy

HEY! I found some more pictures from my trip to China. I don't usually take pictures of food I'm eating. I used to take pictures of odd stuff, but I've had so many odd (and good) dishes that things just don't surprise me.

Well, this was served up for lunch while I was in Macau. Oh yummy! It was pretty gross looking because there was a whole big plate of these little birdies.

What the heck I ate one...but I left the head.

New Runner Tune

As I've mentioned in past postings, I've been jogging (or even running) for the past few years. Maybe it's 4 years now. Well whatever the case, I'm planning to run my first marathon in the next 6 months or so. I was thinking about that today which got me to thinking about a song called Runner that I've been working on, on and off. It's a song about pacing yourself. Have a long-term time horizon view on life. It's also a song that I think about in my head when I'm doing a 7 mile or longer run.

Anyway, I haven't really worked on this song in some months so I called up the tracks in Sonar 4 and started messing with the mix. I've upload this mix of Runner. It doesn't have any vocals in the mix yet, but I like how much of it is coming together. There are still some goofy things in the mix, but I welcome your comments.

By the way, Wally is playing the keyboard, piano, organ parts on this song!

Mr. Wally "Virtuoso" Minko

Had the fun opportunity to check out the sound check at the Gregg Rolie show this past week. This is Wally Minko playing keyboards...fast! Wally is a virtuoso. He does some very complex voicings combinations as he plays. I really need to study what he's playing to understand how he makes it work, but it just flows from him. I've studied a lot of improv theory, chord voicing, scales and how it all fits or doesn't fit together. As I listened to his playing this time, I realized that I clearly didn't know what he was doing. Kind of like a magician doing a trick and you can't figure out how they did it. You can hear Wally playing the keyboards with Jean-Luc Ponty No Absolute Time. It's got some funky African rhythms, but totally a Jean-Luc Ponty slant to it. The best thing you can do is just go see Wally playing live in the Gregg Rolie Band.

Almost forgot, go buy the Gregg Rolie Roots CD too.

Cleaning the Barn and Studio

I had a small recording studio at the old family homestead. The farm is being sold so everything has to be cleaned out. I had a studio in a shed that pigs and then chinchillas used to live in. My buddy Warren and I renovated that place for about a year. We built a nice control room and a studio area. I recorded a lot of live bands in that studio. I worked with very mediocre metal bands, alternative bands (before it was cool) and country bands. Did a little bit of radio stuff. A number of coverbands. My own stuff. And whatever else is on all these reels I now have at home. I think the studio opened in 1986 and stayed open for 6 years or so. It was fun. So now I have some old gear headed to eBay. Know anyone that needs a Crown poweramp, WRT820 mixer, Tascam 32?

In the big barn we pushed out the old 1960 Corvair. Check out what the trunk looked like this morning!

Kurt Griffey

Kurt playing a really difficult chord! Hey, I could play that!!

Probably not too many times during a concert that Kurt is just playing a simple bar chord, but HEY here is evidence!

I got to talk with Kurt about his stage setup earlier in the evening. Didn't get to have lunch with him because he decided to walk 5-miles to McDonalds before I got there.

About 30 minutes after this picture, the rain started just pouring, but Kurt kept playing. It was finally raining so hard that the band had to stop.

I remember having beer spilled on the floor of a yatch club one of my old bands was playing at. Some electrical cords and mic cords were in that stuff and I got a really good (bad) shock. Not good from one's long-term health. None-the-less, Kurt didn't shocked 'cause the bad stopped playing...there was a roof over the stage so that helped for a bit.

You can check out Kurt's guitar playing in any song of mine that doesn't say "demo".

Ron Wikso

Here is Ron Wikso getting his rental drumset ready for the sound check at the Gregg Rolie concert yesterday. I've known Ron a few years now, but this is only the second show I've seen. It was fun to see a band setting up from the stage side. It's really not that much different than any other band setup other than there are more people helping get the work done.

I got to park backstage and watch the dude from Supertramp, Roger Hodgson doing his show. I ended up with a VIP wrist band for Roger Hodgson. I guess this would have allowed me to go have dinner or snacks with him in his backstage trailer. I chose to hangout with the Gregg Rolie band instead. By the way, his Supertramp show was a bit different in that he was solo without a band.

Also watched the band Ambrosia from backstage. Met the lead singer with Ron. He sounded like the orginial singer, but looked like Elton John. Seemed nice enough. Had a nice voice.

I enjoyed Ron's drum solo too!

Beijing Olympic Count Down to 2008

Beijing Olympics are coming in 2008. This count-down clock is across the street just east of Tiananmen Square. Only 1159 days, 13hours, 55 minutes and 38 seconds until the games official begin.

I want to mention that there is a multi-year selection process for songs for these games: "　The Campaign will begin in 2003 and end in 2007. The objective of the Campaign is to spread the Olympic spirit of "Citius, Altius, Fortius", to promote the theme of "Green Olympics, Hi-Tech Olympics and People's Olympics" and to carry forward the cultural background and humanism of China world widely. During the course of the Campaign, ten "Songs for the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games" (the "Selected Songs") will be selected every year for wide promotion. The official theme song for the opening ceremony of the 2008 Olympic Games will be chosen from the Selected Songs."

You can learn here.

Forbidden City

Here I am at the entrance to the Forbidden City on June 6, 2005. There were guards marching each morning in front of this entrance, but I didn't take pictures of them. They had guns.

I remember seeing the protest on TV in front of this place. Seemed like the other side of the planet.

Tiananmen Square

Ok, I've got the pictures off my camera finally!

About 5:45 AM on June 6, 2005 in Tiananmen Square -- I took my camera with me on an early morning run from my hotel. It was awesome to think that the 1989 Tiananmen Square "Massacre" was right here. 16 years later, here I was jogging around the square. The world is certainly always changing!

Why Say Goodbye?

Jet lag from my return from China is easing up a bit each day. I didn't wake up until 5 AM this morning. The sun was actually almost starting to come up. The fog outside cleared up over the next hour while the fog in my head was mostly cleared up. Major jet lag is wacky.

I fired up Sonar 4 this morning. Loaded up a song I've been working on during the past year. Messed with it some more and then mixed it. Right now it's called Why Say Goodbye. Doesn't have any vocals yet. I also added song links on the right hand column of this website. From now on you'll find all the songs I reference ---> over there. Was losing track of them before. This gives me a place to put songs as I'm working on them.

There's another track without lyrics over there. It's currently called Change Your Mind. Both of these tunes will need to have vocals to actually be complete songs, but I thought it would be fun to get more "work in progress" stuff posted. For some reason, a lot of songs I write start with the music beforing having any lyrics. This might be totally abnormal. I'm not sure. It doesn't always work that way for me.

Ok, so what's the deal with Why Say Goodbye? Well, it's me playing all the guitar parts. My Parker Custom Fly through a Boss GT-3 pedal. Some of the guitars are then being processed a bit through the Trash plug-in. The drums and percussion are all loops. The bass is chopped up loops. The organ is even from loops. Lots of chopped up loops. I mixed through Ozone with an overall EQ setting I sampled from More Than A Feeling by Boston. Ozone has this unique feature for matching the master EQ from another recording. Leave me a comment if you have questions about this.

I like getting a song to this stage so that then I can listen to it a bunch of times and think more about the arrangement. This song needs about 5 more re-writes before it will be ready to record for real. It's needs to be more epic with a bigger build up at the end. Of course I'll want a bunch of harmony guitars. It may also need a dramatic quiet section. AND some hand claps! ...and Brad Delp singing.

Now I have to drive over to my old studio. I have some equipment still there and the place is being sold. eBay will be getting some old recording gear soon! I kept it all these years (more than 15 years) because I didn't want to say...goodbye.

Blog Explosion!

Now that I've returned from my "tour" of China (Beijing, Xi'an, Shanghai and Hong Kong), I've been updating my blog. I set up some links to the songs I've posted over the past months. I've also brought out a link to my first podcast. These audio link kind of got lost in the blog postings as time rolled by.

...lots of song ideas whirling around in my head.

I spent quite a bit of time checking out the BlogExplosion.com website. Once I got listed there and learned how the credits work, visitors started rolling in here to my arthur vance blog site. Even earned $.04 from a click through ad! It's free to join. If you decide to sign up, please use my link so I get credit for it! The link is www.blogexplosion.com/index.php?ref=arthurvance. I had something like a hundred visitors since this afternoon. Pretty neat.

Back from Hong Kong

A bit jet lagged...ok, a lot jet lagged. I'm back from China with my last stop being Hong Kong. I'll get the photos out of my Canon PowerShot Elph digital camera. I need a new adapter PC card. I broke an internal pin while in Beijing.

I'm off to the store to find one!

Next Stop...China

I'm flying to Beijing tomorrow. Let's see if I can get online!

Shark Tale

It was the '80s. I was playing out live with my band. I wanted something that looked stunningly different, but was still a great guitar. This was it! It was an '80s rock guitar even if I was the only one that I knew that played one.

I bought it around '83. I played my O'Hagan Shark for years. I loved this guitar. My brother helped me yanked out the factory pickups and put in EMG-81 pickups. That was over 20 years ago. We also carefully attached a Washburn Wonderbar to the Shark tail. I had to change the guitar strap knob to get the crazy cool shape to not kill my shoulder after 4-sets with the band. This thing is as heavy as a shark. ha! It weighs approximately 9 lbs. It feels like 15 lbs because of the balance. BUT it is a super solid guitar with great action. It stayed in tune and I cranked on that whammy bar to help cover up for my short comings soloing. When it doubt dive bomb.

Time passes and my Shark as been dry docked in his case for some years. Replaced by a Parker Fly Deluxe. I got to thinking about the Shark and found a website dedicated to the whole O'Hagan line. Check out all the versions and more history at www.ohaganguitars.com

Mmmm...I could go for some shark fin soup now!


By the way, the photos I took today with my Palm Treo 650.

Gold Member

-- 10 O'Clock Report --

Oh my, I found the old cassette I was writing about a few hours ago. This is from around 1983 or maybe 1984.

FreeAstray was my band. If I was 18 right now (but I'm not) I'd wanna be in Theory Astray!

Ok back to my history. Over 20 years ago, I wrote this song. I played some of that guitar (yes that lovely intro lead) and sang the song. Recording at H&G Studios on a Tascam-38 eight track to 1/2" tape. I had no idea what I was doing other than I knew I wanted to write a song.

Here is Golden Dream.

I took this off an old cassette into Sound Forge 7. I think the belt or something needs replacing in this cassette machine. It was out in the garage for a few years. It's a Nakamichi MR-2.

Two Became We

I've been looking around for the first song I ever recorded with a "band" in a studio. I think I've found a cassette or two of that song, but now I need to hook up a cassette player. I have one in the garage. So stay tune for "Golden Dream" in the near future. I told myself a few years ago that I would someday do a remake of that song. Don't hold your breath.

Thinking about that song, got me thinking of other old recordings. Wow, I had a lot of stuff I recorded. I even recorded on 8-track tapes. I'm talking cartridge kind of 8-track. I don't have any of that old stuff anymore, but I have bag full of tapes that I should sort through and archieve...or maybe not. ha ha!

Ok, a little more current day or at least current day according to the calendar. The style of song I know the world is waiting to hear me singing and playing. It's "Two Became We" in all it's glory! I wrote this song a few years ago and then played (recorded) all the guitar parts with some drum loops. I then mixed it with a lot of compression. I just saved it as an MP3 tonight as I ran across the demo on my computer. Here is the demo for Two Became We.

Broadjam

I signed up for Broadjam last summer when I decided that I wanted to have some motivation to actually complete (i.e finish) some songs.

1. To arrive at or attain the end of: finish a song.
2. To bring to an end; terminate: finished recording a song.
3. To consume all of; use up: finish a pie.
4. To bring to a desired or required state: finish a painting.
   
5. To give (wood, for example) a desired or particular surface texture.
6. To destroy; kill: finished the bad guy.
7. To bring about the ruin of: The stock market crash finished many speculators. (ha!)

The motivation was becoming a Taxi member, but the Broadjam membership gave me my own spot to upload my songs. Broadjam also has a "review" system built into their design. You get "feedback" from other songwriters. The design of having other wanna be songwriting reviewing my songs is a bit flawed, but it's interesting to see how much people either hate or like my songs.

I'm having fun with it!

Here's the most recent review I've gotten:

Your songs reviewed by Broadjam members Review of Song: Cool Creek - featuring Joe Retta General Overview Do you listen to this genre on a regular basis? Yes What Genre is most appropriate for this song? Pop What is an appropriate title for this song? cool creak Song Analysis Does this song have market potential? 4/5 Quality of Lyrics 3/5 Originality of Song 4/5 Quality of the Hook 4/5 Quality of Instrumentation 5/5 Quality of Arrangement 5/5 Would you like to hear more from this artist? 1/5 Instrumentation Quality of Vocal Pitch 5/5 Production Quality of Recording 5/5 Overall Rating 4/5 Positive Comments A really good sounding song- rockin! Constructive Comments The theme / words don't draw me in

Kiss Me Again

About a year and half ago, I wrote lyrics and music for a song that I named "Kiss Me Again". Though I'm not a big George Michael fan, it kind of reminded me of something he might do. Ok, maybe my imagination is out of wack. Anyway, I usually just let songs I'm writing go in whatever direction they seem to want to go. I demo'd (played all the parts and sang) the song myself. I'll stick the demo right HERE.

Ok that's the demo.

I decided to get some more musicians involved on this one. Over the past year, I've slowly been getting this song flushed out more and more. It's continued to turn into more of a rock song. I'm going to stick the latest version right here. This is a more acoustic rock version with Joe Retta singing. Lance Morrision is playing the nice bass part. Kurt's playing the tasty lead lines. Ron Wikso all the percussion. Wally Minko is on organ. I mixed this verison of Kiss Me Again last night.

We do have a bunch of other tracks completed. Ron played a big drum part on this Foreigner drum set. He really does have his old Foreigner tour kit setup in his studio. Kurt and I have added a bunch more guitars. Wally's got some electric piano tracks. Lance did another version of the bass track I'm still debating about. We have a bunch of layered vocals I did.

I wanted to to get this mix completed first. Last night's version is a little more mellow than what my finished version will likely be.

This is me finishing (in under an hour) a very hilly 10k race today!  

Didn't Think Twice

Over the past few weeks I've posted some info about my song Cool Creek. Thanks for the positive comments. Let's get onto another song for a bit.

Didn't Think Twice is a song I was developing when I went out to the Taxi music conference last fall. I got some good feedback while I was there. I hadn't thought about this song be one of the more commerical ones, but that was the response. I've take some of those comments and completed another re-write.

I'm going to post a mix I did this week that features Joe Retta singing, Kurt Griffry on acoustic guitar, Lance Morrison on bass, Ron Wikso on percussion and Wally Minko with a little back keyboards. This is a "stripped" down mix because I'm thinking about submitting this song to some song listing for other singer/artists on Taxi. Somewhere in my head I can hear a country/pop version. Check out this mix of the song I wrote called Didn't Think Twice. Let me know what ya think.

The version that will be on my CD, will have 2 lead guitars, 2 rock guitars, full drums, organ and more vocals...most likely me. :)

Not the very best lighting, but a quick example of snapping a picture from my phone and blogging it! 

Who's playin' on Cool Creek?

There of course is a story about who's playing on this track of Cool Creek which I linked to in a previous posting.

A long time ago in a land far far away, I was writing and demoing my tunes myself, but wanted real drums since I was writing rock tunes. Over the years, I had worked with many real drummers in the studio and experienced all the pain of getting a good drum sound and a solid take. For non-pro drummers it's a pretty tall order to play for 4 minutes without making a timing mistake while also playing with style. Instead of looking locally for a solution, I searched the world...

Thanks to the internet, out in LA I found Ron Wikso. Ron's a pro drummer with a world of experience touring with Foreigner, Dave Lee Roth, Richie Sambora, Cher and others. He also was in the super group The Storm. Ron's currently a member of the Gregg Rolie Band. Gregg of course was a founding member, lead singer, keyboardist for Santana and for Journey. By the way, last fall I had lunch with Gregg at Quiznos of all places. That was surreal.

Anyway, back to Ron. He agreed to take a listen to 3 of my songs including Cool Creek. After taking a listen, he really liked my songs and my enthusiasm to create some cool rock tracks. He suggested enlisting Lance Morrison to play bass on these three tracks and Ron agreed to cut the drum tracks. So while I was out here in the Midwest, Ron was sitting down on the throne of his Foreigner drum set in his studio to laydown drums to 3 of my tunes. Ron keeps the set mic'd and setup all the time so that he can more easily record drum tracks. After he had the drums laydown to my click track and scatch tracks, he had Lance stop by his home studio for some bass tracks.

Lance played bass on Alanis Morissette's Jagged Little Pill album and Don Henley's Inside Job. Last year he was on tour with Don and we had to wait for a break in the tour to record some additional tracks. Lance also is on CDs by Rick Springfield, Simple Minds, Alice Cooper, Cher, The Corrs, Bif Naked and a long list of others. Last time I saw Lance, he was on TV playing bass on The Best Damn Sports Show with Rick Springfield. I think he's back on tour with Don Henley this summer. So anyways, Lance cut two or three bass tracks for each of my 3 songs. He's playing bass on Cool Creek.

There's piano and organ tastefully mixed (thank you) on Cool Creek. This tasteful work comes to us by my friend Wally Minko. Ron introduced me to Wally. My songs are not really worthy of someone like Wally. He's recorded, played and toured with Jean-luc Ponty, The Chieftains, Barry Manilow, Toni Braxton, En Vogue, Pink and yet another long list of groups. I didn't plan on having any keyboards at all. I wanted just lots of guitars, but Ron kept encouraging me to at least listen to some keys on these three songs. I love the flavor that Wally added. By the way, Wally is in the Gregg Rolie band with Ron. This band is amazing live. They are on tour so check them out if they are anywhere near you!

I've already posted about Joe as the singer on Cool Creek. He's been a member since 1989 of a very successful Zeppelin tribute band out in LA. The idea in getting Joe to help out was to assist me in phrasing of the singing. Now I feel like firing myself. I really like his voice on this song a lot. He did three takes. I mixed with take two. It's live all the way through with no auto tuning or punch ins. Now THAT's a rock singer!

Finally on Cool Creek, we have my idol and friend Kurt Griffey. I gave him the acoustic guitar track and electric guitar tracks from my demo. I said here's the main riff. I want more harmony parts. I want layers of guitars and make them wide. More is better than less! I need to lots to work with in the mix. This was to be ADDED to all my guitar parts. Wow, Kurt went beyond the call of duty to create some sweet guitar parts. By the way, he's the featured guy with the Greg Rolie band. If they are coming to your area, you can kick back and just soak in Kurt wailing away on guitar for a few hours. Kurt has given me so many guitar tracks that it's possible that I've listened to him playing more than he's listened to himself. I might just be the foremost expert on Kurt's playing. :)

Ron recommended (and recorded) Kurt. Kurt recommended Joe.

Ron, Kurt, Lance, Wally and I have 12 songs completely tracked. We even worked in some horns (thanks Phil Collins & Ron Stewart) on one of my tunes. Now we have this vocal thing to finalize, then mix (again) and master this thing. I'm trying to hold back from recording another 3 songs 'cause I've got more ready to go!


...and everyone lived happily ever after.

Cool Creek

I was wireless in Nashville. I must not have paid attention to make sure my posts actually got posted. Ok, sorry about no cool posts from Nashville.

As I mentioned in my posting a few weeks ago, I really am working on songs. I'm just not all that fast at it. A few years ago I started messing with writing a straight ahead rock song. I wanted it to have a guitar riff hook that repeated in the chorus. That is where I started. I was looking for some kind of dah dat datta datta dah dah riff. Once I came up with that part, I demo'd the music and then wrote the lyrics and sang it....and added more vocals and additional layers of vocals. When I demo stuff, I typically play everything and sing everything...and use some loops. I did this demo process with my song call Cool Creek. Here is the demo with me doing everything.

After demoing the song, I wanted to get some real drums on this song. It's a rock song. It needs REAL drums! Wow, this should be a podcast. I could just build up the whole process of recording and creating this song. Let me get to the punch line! I've got a brand new mix (I mixed it), new singer, drummer, guitar player, bass player, keyboard player for my song Cool Creek.

Nashville

Hey, I'm not sure what the deal is, but I posted from Nashville this week. Where the heck did it go??

Pizza Time

Too much time away from my computer. The song are sitting too much, but that's the way it goes. I got a CD in the mail today so now I'm back motivated. Here is why:

I decided to get some input from another singer for my songs. The idea isn't to have him actually sing my songs on my upcoming CD, but I felt I needed some input from a pro singer. Joe Retta is the singer. You can check out his singing and band at www.led-zepplica.com. My buddy Ron Wikso set me up with him. The vocal tracks were done at Ron's studio in Canyon Country, CA. I know have the issue that Joe's singing is incredible better than my singing. But it's my CD...so now I'm going to get some new ideas from Joe and make them my own. It's all in the name of fun and rock & roll! dah dant dah dant!

Now it's pizza time...I'll link to some music yet this week. Stay tuned for an upcoming April podcast too!

Sunday Evening To-Do Update

Alright, how did we do on the To-Do list today?

1. Log overall to-do list into my By Ear blog. COMPLETED!

2. Email Japan about Singapore business. Turn down the Japan offer. COMPLETED!

3. Prepare preliminary all-hands-meeting agenda. Just get a rough idea of all the potential topics. NOPE! :(

4. Get Map to Sherman. Make sure it captures all elements from the past week. COMPLETED!

5. BMS meeting prep READY!

6. Lay down Kat's scratch vocals on my newest song. NOPE! Schedules didn't line up, but here's a link to the new song: If You Change Your Mind! (without any vocals)

7. Run! I need to get outside and run! YES! I ran outside for 6.8 miles. Took me 1 hour 5 minutes and 59.2 seconds. Had a side stitch 2 1/2 minutes into the run...but I got better. Felt good to get outside in the sun. Wow, this wasn't easy, but it felt really good.
   

8. Update Quicken. I'm about 6-weeks behind... maybe 8 weeksDONE!

9. Buy file trays for my office. All the stores were close for Easter. I made the trip.

10. Email people about Milan business. Action items for Monday. DONE!

11. Goto Home Depot and look at railings for deck/porch. Found one open and bought some samples!

12. Provide some website assistance. I didn't get it schedule.

13. Read thread on board meeting issues and what conflicts are there?IN PROGRESS

14. My old studio still has equipment there. Place is being sold. Snooze or lose. Ebay here I come! But, I've got to take inventory and see what I have to sell or keep. I really didn't plan to do this today, I just wanted to get it on a list. Needs to be completed in the next 2 months.

15. Read the Sunday paper.

16. Watch the Badgers! :(
    

Snooze or Do It!

Easter Sunday will not be a day of rest, but a day of organizing and accomplishing.

1. Log overall to-do list into my By Ear blog. (can I check this off already?)

2. Email Japan about Singapore business. Turn down the Japan offer.

3. Prepare preliminary all-hands-meeting agenda. Just get a rough idea of all the potential topics.

4. Get Map to Sherman. Make sure it captures all elements from the past week.

5. BMS meeting prep

6. Lay down Kat's scratch vocals on my newest song. HEY, I found one that actually fits the charter of this website!! I'll drop a link to a bit of this effort later today or tomorrow. BTW, it's a rock song. Ha!

7. Run. I need to get outside and run! I'm doing my first marathon in 10 months.

8. Update Quicken. I'm about 6-weeks behind... maybe 8 weeks

9. Buy file trays for my office. Need 5+ in+out+next week = 8 trays

10. Email people about Milan business. Action items for Monday.

11. Goto Home Depot and look at railings for deck/porch

12. Provide some website assistance

13. Read thread on board meeting issues – what conflict are there?

14. My old studio still has equipment there. Place is being sold. Snooze or lose. Ebay here I come! But, I've got to take inventory and see what I have to sell or keep.

15. Read the Sunday paper.

Music website Links

I need to catch up with some messages I've been sent on music related web links:

The first one comes from David Hooper. He's got an interesting blog site indiemusician.com going for music industry info. He's got some good thoughts he's sharing about the music industry and such.

The next site is Bob Baker's Indie Music Promotion Blog. He's got news and ideas on music marketing and self-promotion.

Spinme.com is a blog site with info on things happening in the world of being a musician and anything that Joe Taylor Jr. wants to mention.

Vikki Flawith blog is being update on a regular bases. This is a real songwriters blog. Fun to read and see/hear what she's up to. Vikki's a taxi.com member and regular poster on the boards there. Check it out! Almost forgot, you can listen to her tunes here.

What with Jetlag?

Wow, the week zipped by after getting back from Europe. I didn't even have time to remember the jetlag from just returning from Europe. I had some intense coolness happening, but it requirement all my time this past week and my mind...the rest of the time got used up sleeping.

Time zones and jetlag. What is up with that? The first time I went to Europe was about 8 years ago. I flew into Brussels, rented a car and drove in circles around the city because I couldn't read the road signs. I wasn't even sure which signs were signs. Stopped at least 3 times to ask directions to the hotel which was in the center of the city. Final got to the center of Brussels, but STILL couldn't figure out where the hotel was. Drove past it 1/2 dozen times THEN couldn't figure out were the parking lot (car park) was. Ran inside and the guy behind the hotel counter said..."P!" I didn't know what the heck we was talking about. I asked more slowly and louder, "WHERE do I PARK my CAR? AUTO?" He said "P! P!" After this charade a lady standing next to me waiting to check in said, "look for the sign right outside with a P. Follow the arrow. The parking is underground." It was early afternoon by the time I hit my bed, I slept for 3 hours then went for dinner in a daze and accidently bought a $200 bottle of wine when I thought I was ordering pasta and a beer. The next 2 days I was falling asleep in taxis (left the car in the P lot so I wouldn't get lost going to see customers) and not being able to sleep at night. Ah yes, I remember it well...or not.

A million flight miles later, I always sleep on the flights. Usually for some hours. I arrive ready to get going with whatever I'm there for. I sleep whenever possible and don't worry about getting the recommended daily allowance. Last night after being home for 6-days, I finally had time to really sleep. Did it up big for 10 hours straight. Blah blah...what's the deal with this jetlag stuff!

Next trip is Nashville, but that's not for a few weeks.

Setting the digital cam on a chuch pew in Milan! A HUGE church in the city center in Milan. This was March 13, believe. My running jacket even has glowing stripes. 

Set the cam on timer and hold it as far away as possible. Repeat 3x to get myself actually in the picture! This is right across the street from the Dominion Theatre on Tottenham Court Rd in London. This was right before I went in to see We Will Rock You! 

Heathrow

My European tour is wrapping up. I haven't been online much other than to grab email. I'm now sitting at Heathrow paying 5 pounds for 1 hour of wireless time.

This place is a zoo. (just thought I'd mention that)

Glasgow was rainy and cold (imagine that)

I saw We Will Rock You

	Dominion Theatre
	Tottenham Court Road London W1T 7AQ
	(0870) 169 0116
	Take the Tube to Tottenham Court Road

Ah, my flight is boarding for Chicago. Time is up. I'll be back to more post later this weekend. Lots to cover and uncover!

-Cheers-

Priorities

I'm packing for Europe...well, I'm suppose to be packing for Europe tonight. It's #3 on the priority list. It was #4, but I completed #1 so packing is moving up.

#1 on the list was get my 4 songs of scratch vocals recorded, exported from Sonar 4 and burned onto a CD. I'm going to snail mail the CD and lyrics sheets out to LA. I've finally surrendered to the fact that I need to get another perceptive on how to perform these vocal tracks. I'm just not satisfied. So, my pro drummer buddy, Ron Wikso, is hooking me up with a singer he trusts can lay down guide vocal tracks to help me learn how to perform my own songs. Now this is a little odd for me 'cause I wrote the songs, the melody and the lyrics. But, I'm not rockin' my own world so I need another approach. In a few weeks, I'll know how well this will help me. I'll be posting some samples and results. I can't wait!

Ron is also going to lay down some percussion tracks. Wow, I was stupid when it can to percussion on rock songs. Ron is doing a fantastic job of filling out the feel of my tunes with some great percussion. Subtle, but it really polishes the songs. Ron is playing drums on all 12 of the songs for my CD.

I was reading over at MelodicRock.com that Ron and Kelly Keagy (Night Ranger) are the two drummers on the upcoming Frederiksen-Denander Album.

With this post done, packing is moving to #2 on my priority list. Sleep is #1.

Next post will be from Europe! Grazie i miei amici

Podcast Technical Improvements

I made some technical changes to the first Podcast By Ear with Arthur Vance. PodCast feed is still at feeds.feedburner.com/ArthurVance. But, I was hosting the podcast mp3 files over at broadjam.com because I have an account there already. Ran into a problem. Broadjam converts all mp3 uploads. This strips out all my header description stuff. I don't like that because if you use podcast receiver software, well, you're not going to know who the heck the file is from as you browse your iTune files or browse your iPod. So I am feeding the file from my new hosting site at arthurvance.com which as of right now, I'm only using to host my mp3 files.

I'm going to now see if it works!

My First PODCAST!

The first By Ear with Arthur Vance PodCast is here! You can click that link to just stream it to you over the internet or point your podcast receiver software, iPodder, iPodderX (or search for PodCast software) to my PodCast feed at feeds.feedburner.com/ArthurVance.

Let's see if this works. I'm hosting the file at broadjam.com, but they don't know I'm podcast it!

Buzzin' Virtually

I'm having fun with myvirtualband. Rick "Buzz" Ellis is making a lot of contributions as a virtual musician. He also has a blog at HomegrownMP3 which you should check out. He's got some well done groovin' orginal tunes he's written and record that are posted on this site. You really need to check out his tune, Overrated. It just makes me tap my foot and grin. :)

Putting The Band Back Together.

- 8 o'clock report -

Pubsub turned up a myvirtualband posting on another site called Slaw Blog. You can check out this write up. I really think the myvirtualband concept is awesome.

I've been working with some fantastic pro musicians over the past year. We've done 95% of the work remotely. It's all coming together sounding great too. I would have NEVER ever come in contact with them without the internet. I did some searching in google. Sent some emails. Bam! I'm working with guys I've heard on albums and see touring through my town. Ok ok, I can't resist. I'm working on a song called "Swing!" and amazingly I have a couple of the guys from Phil Collin's horn section playing on it. I mean actually them playing for my song. They sat in the studio to play my song. Not a loop sample. They played for me. Only with the internet!

I guess we have the topic of the 1st By Ear with Arthur Vance - PodCast!

...coming soon!

PodCasting

- 9 o'clock report -

You know that I've been excited about Podcasting for the past couple of weeks. I have a lot of ideas. My behind-the-scenes work on getting a podcast technically working is a success! A feedster RSS feed with smartcasting turned on and pointed to this blogspot.com blog does the trick. Turning this option on from feedburner will convers my source blog feed into RSS 2.0 format with appropriate elements of the audio links as long as the the audio links at the beginning of the posting.

I can post more details if you'd like.

Ok, to get my PodCasts, you point your podding software to my feed:

http://feeds.feedburner.com/ArthurVance

I tested this in iPodder tonight. It worked great!

Right now the only podcast download is of a song I'm writing at the myvirtualband.com website. The podcast is me playing some guitars and the songs structure that I wrote. No vocals yet.

Future podcast from this site will be more interesting with me chatting up a storm about my songs. I'm also going to line up some interviews this year so stay turn and subscribe to my RSS podcast feed!

That's what I'm talkin' about!

PodCasting, Comdex & the Scobleizer

- 10 O'clock report -

Getting PodCasts to download is easy. I'm using iPodder as I mentioned in earlier posts last week. Once I had figured out how easy it is to get PodCasts into iTunes and my iPod, I wanted to get my own PodCast happening. Well, even though conceptually I now understand about RSS 2.0 and enclosures, I ran into a problem here on the blogspot.com hosting site. They insert a header into my blog posting so even when I post just RSS with the right PodCast enclosures and such with a blank template, the RSS feed still doesn't work in iPodder. So I was over at Feedster.com and reading some more help files. I'm close. I'm sure sometime soon, Blogger will just handled the posting of audio links that I want to podcast. Or, I can switch to another blog host. I think I can probably handle figuring out such a thing. The podcast adventure continues.

Note: I've got ideas for my first PodCast maybe songthing like what they are doing over at MyVirtualBand radio

Another thing to mention today, Robert Scoble has become a blogging celeb. Seems like I knew he was doing a blog a few years ago. Don't remember who told me about it, but my brother was talking to me a few weeks ago about the Scobleizer blog and Robert's fame in print media like The Economist. I was just shaking my head agreeing with my brother. I told him that I didn't realize that he was up at Microsoft now. I've known Robert from CompuServ days when I was moderated the multimedia VB forum. Some of us moderators got together out at Comdex in the early 90's (I think it was '93) to talk Visual Basic (VB). Keith Pleas arranged for us to stay at the Golden Nugget. I think it was Robert that got some software vendors to serve us breakfast every morning before the conference started. Holy Cow! I just remembered, Robert and I gave a presentation about Visual Basic at Comdex. Ah yes, it was Robert, Dan Appleman and me. I had completely forgotten about this. We went to the Hard Rock the night before to "prepare" our presentation.

I had written a music program called "Nkey" using VB so the next day after Hard Rock, as people were coming into the Comdex presentation in one of those paneled off ballroom conference rooms, I was playing my program. You know, MIDI music coming out of the PA and me improving along in my "Nkey" program. It was pretty cool or least I thought it was. I can't remember anything more about the presentation other than Robert moderated, worked on his PowerPoint as people were arriving and that it was about the basics of Visual Basic and it was over at the old Sands Hotel Conference Center.

That night, Microsoft held their little "semi-secret" VB GeekFest with pizza and beer. Bill Gates stopped in alone. Robert, Bill and I stood there as Bill was eating some pizza and Robert quizzed him about da Vinci's Codex that Bill had just bought for some $30 something million. Did the GeekFest a few other years too.

Robert was with Fawcette at this time. I remember another time for a VBITS event in Chicago that a group of us were at the top of the Hancock building. I think it was Robert that got me out of some conversation to go get into a limo and head over to play Battle Mech at some game place downtown. I think Richard Hale Shaw, Jonathan Zuck and some other guys were along. I don't remember who's limo it was. Just know it wasn't mine.

Well, check out my old friend Robert. He's got a lot happening here online. You might learn a thing or two too! Good going Robert!

Sunday Audio Update

Get an update on what I have going on here on this site and what's coming up. Yep, me talking about it!

Winter Lady

- Ten o'clock report -

In less that an hour after posting my Winter Song on MVP, Mike from N. CA already was contributing a start to the lyrics for the song. Check out this out:

Lyrics by Mike Mikerman

Winter lady
short lived
cagey
solstice hazey
bitter sweet
standing still sun

The trees have changed to amber
sarcasm reeks from your stair
rolling from your morning sty
reaching for your cup of morning lies

the ground is hard and empty
parallel daydreams call despair
rain from the early sky
change the cold to powder in your mind

she knows what she wants
and she knows just how to get it
reach out her hands
put them in your pocket

don't hesitate
the price you pay is forfeit

Winter lady
short lived
cagey
solstice hazey
bitter sweet
standing still sun

I love technology! The web is amazing and gets more amazing each year. Oh, I almost forgot...and we rock!

Blogcritics.org

Nick Kepics dropped me at note about Blogcritics.org. Wow, this is the sinister cabal of superior bloggers on music, film, books, pop culture, technology and politics and of course with RSS feed. Lots of critics about everything. Nick's a Taxi member that's in tune!

Since Nick tipped me off about Blogcritics, here's a review of his CD Piece Offering. See, you let me know about something neat related to songwriting and technology and poof you're here!




Black Belt Guitar Academy RSS

Before I forget, I'd like to pass along an interesting website call Black Belt Guitar Academy. They have a useful chord and scale java app that runs right on their home page. Besides that, they have a RSS feed from their website so they qualify for my liking. Lots of cool stuff here.

MyVirtualBand.com - Songwriting for the Digital Age

I'm totally excited MyVirtualBand.com!

I was reading up about podcasts this afternoon which lead me to searching PodcastAlley for songwriting Podcasts. That lead me to download iPodder so that I could listen to the MyVirtualBand (MVB) Podcast. Ok, so that's how I found the site. Let me tell you more.

MyVirtualBand.com is on a mission to bring together "virtual bands" of collaborating musicians from all over the world to write and record music. This is not a fee base kind of thing where you're hiring other musicians. This is true open source song and recording collaboration. That's what I'm talking about!

No fee, just sign up. Download some tracks and collaborate OR do like I did this evening, upload some tracks of a song for others to collaborate on.

I uploaded a song that I hadn't come up with lryics for yet. I've only flushed out the overall structure and a couple of guitar parts. You can take a listen to it in progress. I called it Winter (Rock) Song. If you want to check out more details about what a collabration posting looks like, mine is right here.

I can hardly wait to get some others working on this tune. This is going to be fun! I'll keep you post on the developments.

Treo

I'm sending this from my Treo 650

Text America

Arthur Vance

I didn't work on any music stuff tonight, but I was searching online for more information on blogging. I found this textamerica.com site which also for cam phone pictures and video to be posted. Here's the link. I haven't sent any video yet.

It's nice

It's nice to have my recording setup getting re-stablized. I was able to do some more listening to old tracks tonight.

After that music conference in LA back in November, I was excited but also a bit bummed that my lyrics didn't cut it. It wasn't that others said they didn't cut it. It was realizing as plan as day that good successful songwriters would obvious do better than I had. They also try a lot harder. I was in the wrong mindset. Not only were none of my songs hits, they weren't going to get past a reviewer to be submitted for anything.

I'm not planning to completely redo all the words to my 12 songs, but select songs gotta get some obvious rewrites. The adventure continues!

My song "Feels So Good" is one that is getting some lyric and melody additions in the Chorus. I wrote about this song right after the conference. The Chorus just repeats Feels So Good, Feels So Good. It was suggested that I say "something" more. Describe something. Say something descriptive about why I feel so good. I'm thinking it should be beach, sun, sand, fun kind of words. This song is good enough with the right words to make a TV listing.

I also was listening to "Swing" tonight. I already rewrote 75% of the lyrics. It tells a story now, but I can pull it off when I try to perform it. Sound like an idiot. It was suggested that this be a song of motivation. I think the concept is the right direction.

I got my preamp Voxbox hooked up tonight. Wow, it is nice. Now I can hear how bad my basement sounds. I'll work on that, but I will be able to get good vocals right here. It's going to be sweet learning how to do this. Still don't have a good headphone mix so that's got to be corrected. Where is that Big Knob?

I could sure go for some sushi right about now.

yellow snow

Digital cameras are getting pretty good. This action shot is from the new Sony Cyber-shot® with 7.2 Megapixel. Using it in 1 MB mode.

Dreamed I was an eskimo
Frozen wind began to blow
Under my boots and around my toes
The frost that bit the ground below
It was a hundred degrees below zero...

And my mama cried
And my mama cried
Nanook, a-no-no
Nanook, a-no-no
Don’t be a naughty eskimo-wo-oh
Save your money, don’t go to the show

Well I turned around and I said oh, oh oh
Well I turned around and I said oh, oh oh
Well I turned around and I said ho, ho
And the northern lights commenced to glow
And she said, with a tear in her eye
Watch out where the huskies go, and don’t you eat that yellow snow
Watch out where the huskies go, and don’t you eat that yellow snow

-- words by Frank Zappa --

Ta-da List

To Do with Ta-da List: Simple sharable to-do lists.

Since I mentioned Basecamp project management last Saturday, my brother tipped me off to Ta-da. I created an account in 15 seconds and had a RSS of 8 things I need to-do this week feeding into a live bookmark in Firefox. Kind of cool.

That's what I'm talkin' about

I'm BACK with everything working in Sonar 4 and my RME ASIO drivers. Here's the story:

I took the RME card out and stuck it into another PCI slot thinking the PnP stuff would fix the issue of not finding any digital audio input/output drivers in Sonar for my RME Multiface. Didn't do the trick. I decided to load Project 5 and see if the drivers appeared there. Presto, there they were. So back to Sonar and I messed around in the Options/Audio dialog for 15 minutes trying to get work. Duh, got to select ASIO for the driver mode. Got that figured out finally, but then had my Sonar session skipping beats and dropping out. I struggled for an hour reading the the Sonar 4 manual. I finally found the RME newgroup forum. Ha, I didn't find the answer, but I read about all the great success everyone is having with RME stuff. Why was it not working for me? Um, how about 53 active real-time audio fx plugs (bunch of mic modelers, 8 auto tunes, Ozone, lexicon verbs, bbe, etc. AND 44 digital audio tracks 44k @ 24 bit. Well, I bumped the buffers on the card up to 8192 and now it ALL plays with cpu usage only around 80%!

That's what I'm talkin' about!

I plugged the RME outputs right into my Mackie HR824 speakers. Wow, this sounds cleaner than the US-122. It's looking all sad because it's unplugged. I used it SO much. Next thing I need is that Mackie Big Knob. I still haven't checked on that order. It was backordered. Now I need it.

I can also now start enjoying the Manley Voxbox and that C1 mic. I'm going enjoy working on the songs again. I want to get this all wrapped up before mid-year. I've got some new songs I want to get started on!

RME Audio Interface

Here's the Sunday night 10 o'clock report:

I didn't take much time today to investigate my RME interface issue. I did check the back of my computer and found I had it plugged into a firewire port instead of the RME adapter. Same type connection, but that fixed the red led error on the front of the RME Hammerfall DSP multiface. I can now get digital audio when I'm in Sound Forge. I still don't have any wave sound from Sonar 4. I don't even see the RME drive in Sonar. I think I need to re-install something.

By the way, I read there is Sound Forge 8 coming out which will included a bundled CD Architect 5.2 which includes CD text reading and writing, and updated drive support. Since I alread own 5.0 the upgrade is free. I'm sure the Sound Forge upgrade will not be free.

Since I'm talking software right now, I recommend checking out the ever so cool yet simple Muvee program. Automatically creates video from digital pix and vid clips. Does load the demo or just buy the program!

Blogging By Email

I'm trying out yet another new feature that I just learned about. I
read that I can "email" a blog posting to my blog site without
actually going to my site. Just email to a secret email address and
magically is will appear. Let's see if this works. If it does, I could
email from my Treo! :)

Basecamp Project Management Software

Project Management Software ASP (simple, elegant, powerful, fast, and usable)

I stumbled across this project management ASP site. It got me to thinkin'.

C1 and VoxBox

Haven't been getting any songwriting done lately. Wasn't really in the mood. Been busy working instead of playing. I'll be regrouping my brain and motivation soon so that I can make this first work of art available to the world. I have 12 songs written and recorded.

I did get motivated to upgrade some of my equipment. I love recording equipment. Sometimes I like the equipment more than the music. Here's what's up:

I ordered a Studio Projects C1 mic off of ebay a month ago for using in my home studio (my computer, a chair and a desk). The Studio Projects C1 is a large diaphragm, fixed-cardioid condenser microphone employing a 1.06” (27mm) capsule, high quality, low noise amplifier and balanced, transformerless output circuitry. It features switchable -10dB pad and 6dB@150Hz high pass filter for added control in various recording applications and a clear, full response expected from a large capsule microphone design. I had used a C1 while singing some vocal parts at The Laboratory

So a new toy with a C1, but I also wanted to upgrade the things I plug the mic into. So after a bunch of reading up on mic pre amps, I decided I'd look on eBay for a Manley VoxBox. Not the most common type of things for eBay, but low and behold there was one and it was available with a Buy It Now. So after some waiting for USPS snail delivery, I'm now the proud owner of a VoxBox. Read the manual. It's cool! ...and full of real tubes.

I have this Hammerfall DSP Multiface as my a/d input into my computer, but it's not working right now. Getting a communication error and the red light is on. I did something to it some months ago when I hooked up the ADAT I bought on ebay. I got that to work through the SPDIF/ADAT input, but I know I change some setting to do that. I messed up something. So here I am with this nice new setup of a C1 and the VoxBox and I'm having to run that into my Tascam US-122 interface to get any sound into my computer. Not optimal, but it at least works.

Next up is a Mackie Big Knob. I need to check up on where the heck my order is.

Back to working on the interface issues.

Work and no play? 

Music Conference Lessons

Today, I learned that there is a difference between songs that an "artist" plays with good feedback from fans verses a song that has wider commerical appeal away from that live performance.

If you want someone else to cut your song, then you significantly increase your chances of this happening by writing songs that fit into a known formula. Like intro around 13 seconds. Do waste time with solos. Tell a story that builds throughout the song. Be descriptive. DON'T preach. DON'T whine. Describe something in a new way. Don't be lazy which means rewriting at least 6 times. Co-write whenever possible.

Doesn't mean you're not being creative, but you're framing the songwriting into that template to increase your commercial chances of success.

I heard a strong theme of advice throughout the conference that continued to reinforce this.

If you're artist that wants a record contact. Do the same things with your songs. If you don't write hits then find someone that has songs that fit into this. Pretty much all styles that we listened to during the conference fell into this same frame work. Very educational for me.

Music Conference (yet more to the story)

Next song up for critique was “Feels So Good”

I was back scribbling in my notebook as John listened. He liked this song better than my song Swing. “Good feel. This is catchy.” Then he got busy on those darn lyrics again. “The chorus doesn't need to totally repeat so much. You have room with the lyric echo to tell a little bit more of a story. It's too repetitive. Repetitive is good, but you could say more and still keep the fun of some of the repetition.” We got into a detailed discussion on how to improve the chorus lyrics. I immediately saw what he was saying. He was absolutely correct. He said, “you're only a rewrite (or two) away on this one. Music is really good. Don't really need those solos, but they are well done. This song could be used in TV or film with a bit more work.”

John went on listening and commenting on two more of my songs. One song that really didn't say much. He called it a list song. The last song he liked because it told a story in a conversational way. He suggested I put more effort into the story. He finally suggested that I consider co-writing. Maybe someone with experience writing great lyrics that's had some placements. Music is good.

The hour breezed by. The critiquing was extremely helpful. I didn't feel demoralized like some of the Broadjam reviews I had gotten. I felt...motivated!

Lessons learned:

1. Don't need solos in my Taxi song submissions
2. Need short intros (less than 15 seconds)
3. Since I'm not a big time artist my songs should say something that other people can relate to
4. If I have weak lyrics, all that music won't make a song
5. Repetition in the chorus can be a good thing
6. Don't over do the repetition
7. Do some rewrites. Do more rewrites
8. I shouldn't be lazy with the lyrics
9. The first two lines in the first verse gotta say something
10. I'm on the right track!

Gotta get myself registered. Find my brother, compare notes over dinner and then get back to watch and listen to the open mic in the ballroom. I'm sure there's some lessons learned there!

Music Conference (the story continues)

As the story continues, now it was my turn to get critiqued!

First up was my baseball tune called “Swing!” I've been working on this song on and off for months. This is a hit! First writing and demoing it myself on my computer with Sonar then getting some assistance from some musician friends. Real drums, keyboards, bass, guitar and people (including me) singing. I finally decided to take the plunge and even added some real horns. I knew (ok, just dreamed) this song was going to blow everyone's socks off. I had it first on my list to impress John. He's worked with a zillion other hit songwriters so he'll know how good this song is. Ha ha, or he'll hate it and tell me how bad I am. Tell me to get back on that plane before the conference even starts. Confidence is a hot and cold thing for me as a songwriter...depending upon the moment.

John popped in my CD (with fancy ink jet label I had printed just the night before). He hit play with his headphones on. I had my lyric sheet out in front of him. He started bobbing his head to the music as I scribbled John's name and the date in my note book. My scribbling took only a few seconds. I sat there pretending not to be nervous. I thought about how impressed he must be with those horns then thinking that he must hate my vocals then wondering how quickly he'd escort me directly to someone for a contract (any) then knowing he must think I'm an idiot for writing such a stupid crap song THEN pondered if I was the worse songwriter he'd ever heard then daydreamed about Aerosmith recording this song then knowing it sucked, it's awful. I'm not a songwriter I'm just pretending.

“Swing!” runs only a little over 2 ½ minutes. He listened all the way through the song. He hit stop and said, “that was good, you didn't have any solos.” I started to tell him I could easily add solos. He went on to say, “I just fast forward through solos. Most people critiquing songs either fast forward through the solos or just stop listening to the song when a solo happens.” I've spent hours, weeks (months) working on solos. Note to self: solos are not needed for a Taxi “song” submission. Right there I saved a year of my life.

What about the song? “Excellent groove. Good length on the intro. You've got something clever going here in the chorus. Very good, but...” But? But what? “Tell me what is this song about. What are the verses saying? You have a nice rhyming thing happening, but it doesn't seem to really mean anything. What are you saying in this song? You're making some baseball references, but then making some pop culture references and music references. I can't really follow any theme or story that fits with the chorus.”

Wow, I had never looked at it like this. I didn't know I really needed to say much in the verses. This is an upbeat (140 bpm) fun song. Looking uncertain I said, “I'm just kinda taunting someone maybe kinda sort of.”

Verse 1
Slick as a whistle clever as a fox
Sharp as a tack you know I like to rock
Swinging like a jungle rollin' like a stone
Leapin' tall building everybody phones
Smart like Eistien throwin' like Ford
Stick by me you'll never bored
Life's a party New Years Eve
Tootin' my horn you know that's me

I'm a “Pour Some Sugar On Me” kind of guy. Lyrics are needed, but they can be whatever as long as I think it's clever or funny. I make references to things that only I get. Sometimes I go out of my way to do this. With the verses in Swing, I was just rattling off some things.

He pushed me on the song concept. What could be said? What might reach an audience? Instead of just saying nothing, John expected this song to have some moral to the story. Get up to bat. Take a swing. Life's too short to sit on the bench. Keep your eye on the ball. ANYTHING, but I said nothing. Then it hit me, the song should be about MOTIVATION! I said to John, “Thanks! I get it now! Duh, it's a song about taking a swing in life. Giving it a try. Take a little taunting and get back up there and swing! The whole reason I'm here.” I thought the song was done, but now I clearly could see it needed a rewrite. Wow, what a great simple idea.

John had a cassette rolling for me so that I could listen back to all his comments. This was helpful in matching up my notes to what he actually said since I selectively filtered when I was sitting there as he listened and commented.

Next up was my song called "Feels So Good".

Music Conference continues

The registration line was moving right along. Having some fun chatting with other people in line but I had to skip out for my 1 on 1. While I had been standing in the registration line drinking a Heineken, my brother was already meeting with John.

I had convinced my younger brother to make the trip to LA with me. His 34th b-day was happening during the conference so I told him I'd pay for a 1 on 1 consult for him with John. He took me up on the offer and diligently work on 3-songs. One was ala Nora Jones with a female singer, another was a jazz/guitar song with him singing and the third was a pop/rock groove song that he sang also. After skipping out of the line with the registration desk in sight, I called John's cell to find out where we were meeting. I was only a few feet away from the meeting room near the lobby.

I peeked slowly into the room, my brother was smiling sitting on one of two chairs across a small table from John. They were both into the conversation. I introduced myself and sat down since I was footing the bill. My brother is an experienced lead rock guitar player and a fine pop singer. He also has an English degree so his lyrics always seem cool. His songs have impressed me for years, but we live in Midwest. His songs just sit collecting dust.

I was surprised to hear John quizzing him about not working hard enough on the lyrics in the first verse. “You're settling for a weaker line for the sake of the rhyme. You're weakening the song. You need to write several versions of the first two lines to come up with an ending word that offerers more rhyming possibilities. Don't reach for the easy rhyme if it dilutes your efforts.” He went on to say, “you're speaking like Yoda right here. Inversions almost always feel awkward no matter how cool you think you're being. If you're an artist like Sting you can do this, but you're not Sting so you're better off being more conversational.”

My brother seemed pumped from an hour of discussion with John.

Lesson learned:

1. Work harder and rewrite those lyrics a lot
2. Don't settle for the first thing that pops into your head
3. Do talk like Yoda unless you are Yoda
4. Don't talk like Sting unless...
5. Make it conversational

Now it was my turn! I'll catch my breath and lay it out for you. This was GREAT.

LA Music Conference

...so when I arrived at the hotel from LAX it was still early afternoon. I walked around checking out the hotel since I had time. On the wall past the lobby, I found a sign for the Ballroom. I was surprised to see SO many chairs in the ballroom. I had no idea so many people would be here. I checked out the registration area since I had read there might be a line when it opened. Only a few people milling around at this time. I guess what I read was wrong, no one camping out in line.

A few weeks prior to the conference, I had pre-scheduled a consultation with John. We agreed to a 1-hour consultation Thursday evening which was at the same time of the registration. I plotted out getting my badge, schedule and info then getting to my song consult. Still had a couple of hours before registration opened so I went to my room to get organized.

After a 15 min power nap and an hour ½ of figuring out which 3-4 song I wanted to discuss with John, I took the elevator from the 9th floor to the lobby. Checking my watch, I was still early. 5 minutes before registration opens. The doors opened to a sea of people. Hundreds upon hundreds in an endless line from all walks of life, some with guitars on their backs. I waded through the maze of people to find the end of the line which seemed to wrap around back into itself. I grabbed (bought) a Heineken as I came past the lobby bar for the third time searching for the end. By this time, I had 5 others joining my search. We ended up right back by the elevators laughing and introducing ourselves. A doctor from Michigan with one song, a love song, that he was sure is a hit. A lady from Texas with a new CD of political “show tunes”. A multi-instrument musician from NC mostly into R&B and producing. A singer/songwriter lady from New Hampshire with lots of songs AND me. A pop/rock guy trying to have fun writing tunes.

The registration area opened promptly on time. The line moved fast, but after 50 minutes in line, I had to skip out for my 1 on 1 consult. Next up, I can tell you want I learned from him.