Well, I finished the five-week program at Berklee College of Music recently. Upon leaving, my heart felt heavier than ever. It's difficult to say that I learned anything significant from this program. If anything, it felt like I was downright talentless compared to the other musicians, most of which were just fresh to high school.
I took twelve courses during this five week period ranging from Advanced Music Theory to Beginning Sight-reading, from Funk/Fusion Synthesizer class to Musicianship, from performing in Jazz/Funk ensembles to taking a dance class teaching us on how to move on stage. Most classes were fun to some degree. There was no question that I'd rather have taken a class on how to improvise on piano instead of a class on just about any other subject. I really had no right to complain.
Nonetheless, I had several qualms throughout the whole ordeal. My teachers seemed so unenthusiastic about teaching a subject that seems to generate enthusiasm on its own. One of my teachers in particular, my Music Theory and Musicianship teacher, whom I saw nearly every day, rubbed me the wrong way. He looked identical to Bruce Willis in almost every way, except for the fact that he had a long ponytail and earrings (the standard cranial accessories for musicians). Okay, so first of all, he was the biggest hardass when it came to pretty much everything. You'd think a musician would be more nonchalant, especially one who appeared so unenthusiastic. He gave us mountains of homework whilst expecting us to practice obsolete exercises with our instruments. He even made us memorize an entire five-minute Miles Davis solo and be able to sing and play it. One slip-up and he'd freak out, and when we did anything that deserved recognition, we received none. His classes were frustrating.
The kids in my classes were on average about three to four years younger than me. I kind of felt like I was a tenth grader again except for one aspect: when it came to music, my classmates were frightening. Seriously, they'll be performing at Carnegie Hall pretty soon. I felt completely out of my element despite my advantage of extra years of musical study. Music seemed to just come naturally to them and I became jealous. One of the projects we did involved us listening to a famous musical solo of our own choosing and transcribing it by ear note by note and then playing it from memory. I chose a 45 second Keith Jarrett solo during one of his most famous performances of the classic "Somewhere Over the Rainbow." It wasn't absurdly hard but it was tedious to figure out. Other students chose some of the longest most difficult solos I had ever heard. They played them like they were nothing. They were the types of solos that would make my jaw drop when someone other than a seventeen-year-old played them. I wanted to curl up into a ball by the end.
This whole program has made me have some serious confidence issues, just what I need. At the end, I even sent a sensitive e-mail to Mr. Bruce Willis asking if I should even bother choosing a career in music and if it was a feasible option for me based on his scrutinization of my musical abilities. I have yet to hear from him. It's the icing on the cake. Maybe this whole music thing isn't the right thing to do.
Thursday, August 25, 2011
Tuesday, May 3, 2011
The Tuning Fork in the Road
This summer, I am going to be attending a five-week intensive music program at Berklee College of Music in Boston. On its website, I was asked to rate my skill level, check off my musical interests, and the courses I hope to take. I had no clue what to write down for any of these. What's my skill level? I guess if I play any instrument, it would be the piano or keyboard, but I mainly use it as a means for composing. I guess I "started" playing it around six old when my family purchased a piano, which quickly became my best friend. Some of my earliest memories involve me doing anything from banging on the piano to repeatedly playing single notes at a time and just listening to their sounds. I also remember sitting beside my mother, who took lessons at the time, and trying to memorize the songs she'd play. I only really started taking legitimate piano lessons in high school, from an ageless and squeaky Taiwanese woman who could have been half my size, and I'm not sure how much progress I really made in that short amount of time. People tell me I'm talented when they hear me play, but I've never felt confident about it. I often think I can just fake talent. I just selected "intermediate" and quickly moved on.
Now, for my musical interests. The choices included, songwriting, composing, film scoring, producing and engineering, music education, music and business, and performance. Right away I knew I didn't want to be one of those singer/songwriter musicians, and I figured the business of music would depress me too much. So, I quickly crossed those options off. But, the next cut wasn't so easy. All of the remaining options had their own appeal. Obviously composing is something I love doing, but a composer doesn't exactly seem like a plausible profession for someone looking to make a decent living. The same is true for performance. I'd LOVE to be in a band playing music I enjoy, but the financial risk is too high. Film scoring and producing/engineering are two legitimate career choices with a lot to offer, but I don't think I could possibly muster enough passion for either of them. This choice felt like it had a much deeper meaning than just selecting my interests for a summer program. It felt like a fork in my musical road. Which road should I take? Should I take the risky but fun route, or the safe path with meager excitement? I clicked the button that said "composing." I'm young.
If I'm to do this music thing for my profession in my life, I better have a clear-cut chosen musical interest, a plan for success, and a sense of awareness of my skill level. Hopefully by the end of this five-week program, my musical identity will become clearer to me.
Now, for my musical interests. The choices included, songwriting, composing, film scoring, producing and engineering, music education, music and business, and performance. Right away I knew I didn't want to be one of those singer/songwriter musicians, and I figured the business of music would depress me too much. So, I quickly crossed those options off. But, the next cut wasn't so easy. All of the remaining options had their own appeal. Obviously composing is something I love doing, but a composer doesn't exactly seem like a plausible profession for someone looking to make a decent living. The same is true for performance. I'd LOVE to be in a band playing music I enjoy, but the financial risk is too high. Film scoring and producing/engineering are two legitimate career choices with a lot to offer, but I don't think I could possibly muster enough passion for either of them. This choice felt like it had a much deeper meaning than just selecting my interests for a summer program. It felt like a fork in my musical road. Which road should I take? Should I take the risky but fun route, or the safe path with meager excitement? I clicked the button that said "composing." I'm young.
If I'm to do this music thing for my profession in my life, I better have a clear-cut chosen musical interest, a plan for success, and a sense of awareness of my skill level. Hopefully by the end of this five-week program, my musical identity will become clearer to me.
Tuesday, March 8, 2011
Writing a Song in a Crazed Nutshell
Ready?
Here's how I write a song:
I mess around on a piano, (the best instrumental tool for composing I believe) until I stumble upon something that captivates my interest (which is not easy to do). It's usually by complete luck that I'll discover something that sounds usable in a song in any given piano mess-around jam session by myself. Sitting at a piano and trying to force creative output is virtually impossible. One technique that I used in high school and that I still use today is to turn off all the lights in the room I'm in. It'll just be me, that damn piano, and pitch black darkness. Without any worry of how my fingering technique appears, the piano playing gets much more interesting. My hands will stumble across keys I may not have intended to play had I been able to see what I was doing. There's less of a sense of ego to form predetermined destination for my fingers. It's all a clean slate. I've come across really interesting ideas from this darkness method. Once I am lucky enough to find a cool sound, I'll record it as best I can using my...four-year-old cell phone. With horrible recording quality and only enough space for one minute of recording time per use, this flip-top job (which is now considered primitive, by god) is my only way to store musical ideas away from a computer. As of right now, while writing this, I have exactly 81 recordings of myself playing or singing ideas on my trusty phone, only about a dozen have I ever used for actual songs. I'll take an idea that I believe to be a good and manipulative one, we'll call it "idea A," and try to find more ideas all under the umbrella of "idea A." Once I've found another idea "B," I'll try to find even more ideas that seem to relate and work well with both "A" and "B," perhaps idea "C." These ideas will form the leitmotifs, the main reoccurring themes, of the piece. I'll chug away in some music notation software, trying to manifest the ideas visually. If they seem to work well together and pass the test, they'll stay, and if not, I'll go complain to the world on this blog about how musically inept I am. I ask myself more questions like "Does the overall sound seem to have a natural beat to it? Should it have percussion at all? Is it too catchy? Do I need an idea D to add more flavor?" Test passers get to go to the luxurious GarageBand (cue angel choir) where the real fun begins. The creation of sounds and synths that get to portray the characters, ideas A, B, and C is always a treat. I get to mix and add crazy effects to create sound that would not exist if it wasn't for me. Sometimes GarageBand can be hell when she refuses to cooperate with the sound I desire in my head. Usually, she settles down though. After last minute edits and final tweaks and touches, the work is done and I can exhale. The song in the 'video' at the top of this page represents a perfect example of a song that was made specifically using these methods. I don't usually add lyrics for my songs as they typically don't ever mean a thing, (in fact in the song-video, I scream "lyrics don't mean a thing"). All starting from a pitch black practice room and a shitty cell phone recording, it was born.
Here's how I write a song:
I mess around on a piano, (the best instrumental tool for composing I believe) until I stumble upon something that captivates my interest (which is not easy to do). It's usually by complete luck that I'll discover something that sounds usable in a song in any given piano mess-around jam session by myself. Sitting at a piano and trying to force creative output is virtually impossible. One technique that I used in high school and that I still use today is to turn off all the lights in the room I'm in. It'll just be me, that damn piano, and pitch black darkness. Without any worry of how my fingering technique appears, the piano playing gets much more interesting. My hands will stumble across keys I may not have intended to play had I been able to see what I was doing. There's less of a sense of ego to form predetermined destination for my fingers. It's all a clean slate. I've come across really interesting ideas from this darkness method. Once I am lucky enough to find a cool sound, I'll record it as best I can using my...four-year-old cell phone. With horrible recording quality and only enough space for one minute of recording time per use, this flip-top job (which is now considered primitive, by god) is my only way to store musical ideas away from a computer. As of right now, while writing this, I have exactly 81 recordings of myself playing or singing ideas on my trusty phone, only about a dozen have I ever used for actual songs. I'll take an idea that I believe to be a good and manipulative one, we'll call it "idea A," and try to find more ideas all under the umbrella of "idea A." Once I've found another idea "B," I'll try to find even more ideas that seem to relate and work well with both "A" and "B," perhaps idea "C." These ideas will form the leitmotifs, the main reoccurring themes, of the piece. I'll chug away in some music notation software, trying to manifest the ideas visually. If they seem to work well together and pass the test, they'll stay, and if not, I'll go complain to the world on this blog about how musically inept I am. I ask myself more questions like "Does the overall sound seem to have a natural beat to it? Should it have percussion at all? Is it too catchy? Do I need an idea D to add more flavor?" Test passers get to go to the luxurious GarageBand (cue angel choir) where the real fun begins. The creation of sounds and synths that get to portray the characters, ideas A, B, and C is always a treat. I get to mix and add crazy effects to create sound that would not exist if it wasn't for me. Sometimes GarageBand can be hell when she refuses to cooperate with the sound I desire in my head. Usually, she settles down though. After last minute edits and final tweaks and touches, the work is done and I can exhale. The song in the 'video' at the top of this page represents a perfect example of a song that was made specifically using these methods. I don't usually add lyrics for my songs as they typically don't ever mean a thing, (in fact in the song-video, I scream "lyrics don't mean a thing"). All starting from a pitch black practice room and a shitty cell phone recording, it was born.
Wednesday, March 2, 2011
Spoiled With Gadgets
If I was a composer fifty years ago, I'd be screwed. Heck, even twenty years ago I'd be in trouble. Without musical technology, I'd never get anything done. I remember when I was around ten years old and trying to write down melodies on actual music paper. I would write maybe one or two lines of music and then take a cartoon break. I shudder now when I think of physically writing down musical ideas -- how much effort that would take! Finding a sharp enough pencil, buying music paper, running out, buying more music paper, writing actual music down in correct notation, ugh! I'm sure Bach would be rolling over in his grave if he heard me talk about how lazy I am. Bach wrote hundreds, literally thousands of works, all written down on music paper, and I can't finish one without the aide of musical technological devices, most of which I don't even know how work. Musicians are spoiled with technology nowadays. I've got my laptop with musical notation software, I've got my trusty keyboard in my dorm room, and my cell phone which I can sing into to record ideas while I'm in the shower washing my armpits, and yet I still feel too lazy to compose. The world is giving me on a silver platter all the tools I need and yet I cannot execute my job without an inordinate amount of motivation.
Tuesday, February 22, 2011
Potential and Kinetic Energy
Sparks of creativity come and go from day to day. The magnitude of creativity I feel or generate on a given day can determine my mood. Days where my creative cap just doesn't seem to be on my head quite right will go by dully and sluggishly. These days come especially after completely finishing and feeling satisfied with a song or work. All of my pent-up creativity is at its climax during the finishing process of a song. Once the song is done, I am forced to dump all of that song-specific creativity out of, what feels like, a whirring city of a head. What follows is a ghost town of a head. My creative fuel pump shuts off, and I am forced to start all over again with no momentum.
There are also days when there doesn't seem to be an end to my ideas, I lose track of them all. What a wonderful problem to have, or a horrible problem depending on how you look at it. With so many ideas, all scattered, some related to each other, others not, it becomes a challenge to channel this creativity into a finished project. During these days, I'll have at least a dozen separate beginnings or themes of projects, but no clue how to progress with them, or no patience to stay with one specific project, knowing I have scores of other ideas at the ready for other projects. During these days, frustration builds from the lack of accomplishment despite the potential.
Which trait is more desirable in this case: creativity or discipline?
Wednesday, February 16, 2011
I Hate Music
Today, I finally figured out why people are saying, "I whip my hair back 'n forth" all the time. Turns out, it's the chorus of a popular song sung by ten-year-old Willow Smith, the daughter of superstar actors Will and Jada Pinkett-Smith, everything of which they touch turns to gold as they please. Seeing the flashy, well-edited music video of this newly "discovered" pop diva made me realize how hopeless my music career will be. I am not fortunate enough to have the luxury of asking "Mommy? Daddy? Can you make me into a pop star?"
The truth is, I love music. I just wish I didn't. Or, at least, I wish the music industry was a much more fertile environment than it is now. I remember seeing some interviews of high-profile musicians who explained that the only way a musician can thrive nowadays is if his or her album sells more than a million copies. They'll need to tour and sell merchandise on top of it all in order to see a marginal profit. How cruel it is that the one thing I think I'm remotely decent at will not reward me sufficiently in my life. Even given some of the best resources an aspiring musician could ask for, including all the support I need from a creativity-fostering liberal arts college, I'm not going anywhere. Unless my parents have connections to Columbia Records and can afford to hire professionals, who can make any person on the planet appear as though they have talent, I'll still be stuck behind my computer watching four-year-old Shiloh Maddox Apple Jolie-Pitt, or whatever the hell those celebrity babies names are, frolic across the stages of sold-out stadiums.
If only being a doctor seemed more exciting.
Wednesday, February 9, 2011
I Am Worth 7 Dollars
A friendly acquaintance of mine in my college dorm released his first album on itunes today. He is a remarkably talented singer/songwriter style musician and an animated performer. It seemed like the big news around the campus; I overheard quite the plethora of people talking about it. I really am excited for him and I'm sure he will be handsomely rewarded on itunes by this popularity.
And, cue the angry, whining switch. I, too, have an album on itunes. This album was released exactly 180 days ago from today. This afternoon, I checked my bimonthly sales report online. Since "Seven Sins A Swimming"'s (the title of my album) release, I have sold exactly 9 songs, 7 of which I know are from my brother. This gargantuan popularity of the album has earned me a whopping 6 dollars and 30 cents. There is something extraordinarily deflating about putting nonstop effort into a project that not only used up almost a year of my life, but also gave me a sense of pride and a sense of worth, only to realize that this worth is worth less than seven dollars. So, what's my problem? Am I not getting the word out enough about my album, or does my music simply downright stink? Perhaps, I should die like Michael Jackson did; then, maybe, my popularity and album sales will go up. Anyways, I cannot help but feel an agonizing combination of frustration and jealousy towards my fellow star peer. Am I wrong to feel this way? It sure does feel wrong. I think I'm a drama queen.
And, cue the angry, whining switch. I, too, have an album on itunes. This album was released exactly 180 days ago from today. This afternoon, I checked my bimonthly sales report online. Since "Seven Sins A Swimming"'s (the title of my album) release, I have sold exactly 9 songs, 7 of which I know are from my brother. This gargantuan popularity of the album has earned me a whopping 6 dollars and 30 cents. There is something extraordinarily deflating about putting nonstop effort into a project that not only used up almost a year of my life, but also gave me a sense of pride and a sense of worth, only to realize that this worth is worth less than seven dollars. So, what's my problem? Am I not getting the word out enough about my album, or does my music simply downright stink? Perhaps, I should die like Michael Jackson did; then, maybe, my popularity and album sales will go up. Anyways, I cannot help but feel an agonizing combination of frustration and jealousy towards my fellow star peer. Am I wrong to feel this way? It sure does feel wrong. I think I'm a drama queen.
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