forbidden phrases
god, i've been horrible about keeping this thing updated. sorry about that--work's been kicking my ass and i've been knee-deep in 2 production projects for several weeks.
nothing new to report on the construction front...everything's still in a holding pattern there until i finish these current projects. i have made a few gear purchases the past few weeks. for mics i got a sennheiser 421 (great on snare) and a shure sm7 (haven't tried it yet, but lots of people say it's great for singers with harsh high-ends and/or crazy dynamics). yesterday i picked up a sansamp bass driver. i'm still by and large unhappy with the bass sounds i get when it comes to recording, so i'm hoping the sansamp will at the very least give me a few more options.
i've been talking with a lot of different people about a lot of different facets of music lately, which has me revisiting the idea of creating a "forbidden phrases" list, similar to the "no stairway to heaven" sign in wayne's world. i've been wanting to do this for a long time now. current candidates for the list:
- but it's my style
- indie rock
- but rush did it
- i want that john bonham drum sound
but it's my style. this is the musician equivalent of parents saying "because i said so." i tell people time and time again to think of their songs as their children. sure, you provide the seed for a song and have an idea of where you want to take it, but as the song begins to take shape it takes on a life of its own and it may decide it wants or needs to do certain things which are at odds with what you wanted it to do. people who defend their musical stylings too ridigly and emotionally by and large do so as a crutch to avoid actually listening to what the song is saying. it's very easy to become too attached to the words you write and the notes you play, which can lead to not seeing the forest for the trees. words, phrasings, notes, tempos, song structures, orchestration...none of that is sacred. let the song dictate those things, not the other way around.
indie rock. i'm so sick of this phrase. it has lost all meaning, and as a result everyone throws it around with their own weirdly-self-serving interpretation. indie does not mean "i don't have to practice." indie does not mean "i don't have to write good songs." indie does not mean "i don't have to make my voice/gear sound good." indie does not mean "all i have to do is say 'indie' in my description and each and every member of the indie community will become a fan of my music." indie does not mean "any suggestions for improving my music are part of the corporate music world trying to make me sterile." there's "i don't want to be like those fake, plastic supermodels, so i'm not going to buy into superficial notions of beauty," and then there's "i don't want to be like those supermodels, so i'm not going to bathe anymore."
but rush did it. you are not rush. you will (hopefully) never be rush. as soon as you start to come even close, rush fans will pee on you for daring to plagiarize their gods. most people listening to your music these days weren't even around yet when rush was making good music. putting a rush riff, fill, lick, or any other reference/homage to them into your songs will not increase your chances of getting laid. unless you like sleeping with chicks named juno. until you decide to write an album entitled "music for LARPing," chances are high that rush-isms have very little place in your music.
i want that john bonham drum sound. if i had a dollar for every time someone said this to me, i'd have enough money to reanimate bonham's corpse and hire him to play on each project which requests his sound. which, incidentally, is the only real way to get that sound. john was a big man with big arms who hit big drums with big sticks and made big sounds. not only that, he had an incredible sense of dynamics, meticulously tuned his drums, and knew his drums and his playing intimately enough so that he could adjust his playing to the recording environment rather than the other way around. no engineering technique can take the place of these things.
i don't know why so many drummers speak as if bonham was the only drummer who ever existed. yes, he was a great drummer and had a great sound, but there are other great drummers and other great sounds out there. not to mention other genres. unless you're a zeppelin tribute band or write music very much in that style, spend some time finding drummers and drum sounds you like in genres close to your own.