a few tips

A couple things on the ol' agenda in tonight's post. First of all, sorry for the delay of the password site for pre-orders. Apparently some volunteer web genuises (genuii??) have real jobs. The site is almost up, though, and all those who have pre-ordered should have something in their e-mail in the next couple of days. Thanks for your patience.

You can go here to vote for Caedmon's to get to play at the Cornerstone Festival next year. You should also vote for Sufjan Stevens, the Choir and Over the Rhine. Because if I get to be there, that's who I want to go and watch...

A few months ago I talked a lot about a record I produced for Greg Adkins. Grassroots gave it a great review. You can check it out here. You can get his record over at his site or at his show Friday in Knoxville. With me. You should come.

Ok, enough for the plugs. Tonight Alison, Ella and I went to our fellowship group and we had a really emotional and connecting time. It's been such an honor to get to start sharing our lives with each other, and as life has continued to happen for everybody, the things we've been sharing have been real and sometimes very intense. Without getting too into it, Alison and I have been very grateful that God has brought this group into our lives, and tonight was a further evidence of that.

In other news, Michelle Branch and Santana were just on Leno, and is it just me, or is he really an obnoxious guitar player and can she really not sing at all? Man, sometimes I just don't understand why Jeremy or Derek or Randall or (insert really great musician/friend here) don't get those platforms when they're so good at what they do, and the people who are there really don't always deserve it.

This sort of brings to the main thing I wanted to write about tonight. I've been getting more and more e-mails from people wanting me to listen to, and critique, their music. I have been trying to for a while, but they're piling up and I honestly don't have the time to spend with them all.

I thought that something I could do instead would be to share a few tips and insights that I've learned from the past eight years of playing in a band, writing songs and making records. When I do get a chance to give somebody thoughts on their music I tend to say a lot of the same things, so I'll try to address a few of those here now. So this isn't eighty pages long I'll keep with a few basic things I hear with recordings given to me.

First off, one of the biggest things people have to learn when they start making records is to stay out of the way of the song. The song being defined usually as the melody, the rhythm, and the lyric. My dad always used to talk about the anagram (?) K.I.S.S. - Keep It Simple, Stupid. It always drove me nuts, but it's a great idea, and if fits here. Being flashy and trying to play to show everybody what you can do tends to get in the way of the song, and if the person isn't able to pull off what they hear in their head, as is usually the case for me, a good feel can be sacrificed for a bad lick. Those things tend to have a pretty short shelf-life. Some of the greatest tunes by Tom Petty, U2, The Stones, or any Young Life song tend to have a great, simple hook and a couple chords, and you never really get tired of them.

In the Normals we found a way to take this philosophy a bit deeper. One day we were talking about symphonies, and how they're a group of musicians who make this amazing sound, but everybody only plays one note at a time, whereas we had two guitars and a piano banging out big, six-note chords while the bass player played the bottom note right along with us. Somehow our sound was much less stirring and beautiful.

We started experimenting with what we played. Instead of playing chords, we tried to each play a melody, like a symphonic instrument, that would all add up to voice the chords. Eventually we got to the point where we didn't feel a song was done until we could sit aroud and each sing our parts individually and know that the song still made sense. This gave our sound a real depth and complexity that it had never had before, and we were all doing less. It's usually easier to just play chords, but this really set our band apart AND we all became much better musicians in the process. Not that we became the best band in the world or anything, but this philosophy really transformed the band, at least to us.

Secondly, one thing that seems to set the great songs apart from the still-trying-to-be-greats is the use of melody. Five or ten minutes spent re-thinking the choice and length of the notes you're singing can go a LONG way. I heard somewhere that the Beatles always tried to write circular melodies, in that they would pick a note, send the melody upwards, then bring it down below, then back up to land on the note where they began the phrase. Obviously, they didn't do this everytime, but that idea, of really letting a melody go somewhere as opposed to just following the first thing that popped into your head with the lyric, is a pretty great tool. I think songs with interesting melodies tend to be the songs that people get in their heads and want to sing along to, and hear again and again...

The last thing I'll talk about now is the "tightening" of the song. This has been the hardest thing for me to learn and is more and more becoming one of the most useful. A lot of songwriters tend to write something they like and then stick with it, but don't always go further into it. Many times this leaves large spaces or repeated phrases that maybe aren't necessary. This could be seen in places where there are four bars between the first chorus and the second verse, when maybe it just needs to be two bars, or maybe none. Or it could be a spot where you sing the same phrase three times, when you could maybe shorten it to two and raise the melody the second time, or just sing it once. Or maybe that needs to be the bridge instead of at the end of a verse. There are tons of examples, but mainly the questions you should ask of your song are: "is it too long? If I cut out two lines and four bars here or there, can the song be better? Am I wasting the listener's time getting from one section to the next? Is this the best and simplest way to say what I want to say?"

These are just a few of the things I would suggest thinking about when you're working on your music. They are things that have been very helpful to me, and have taken years to start learning and using, and I'm sure I barely understand. I hope they can be helpful to you in your quest to improve your craft. Feel free to give any comments on these ideas, or examples of good uses of them.

As always*, thanks for taking the time to read my wandering thoughts, and I wish you a great Thursday. For my neighborhood, that means it's garbage day. See you tomorrow!




*always apparently means 'only on Thursdays'...

Autumn is falling...

Finally! At last! It's COLD outside!!! I've been walking down the street a few houses to work at Paul's studio all this week and last and the past few days I've needed a jacket. Thank God!!

Alison took Ella to get pictures taken in her Halloween costume yesterday. I'll try to scan one and put it up here soon. Let me just tell you, she makes a very cute bunny...

A reminder to those of you in the Knoxville area: I'll be playing at the New City on Friday with a band, and it's only like 5 bucks, I think. Greg Adkins is having his cd release party that night after we play, and Arthur Alligood is opening with a short, acoustic set. The cafe has been sort of closed for a while, so it will be fun to play there again. It's looking like we should have a good crowd going, so we'd love for you to be a part of it.

Oh, and my band will be the apparently ever-mentioned Paul Eckberg on drums, Jason Feller on rhythm guitar, and my friend Kevin Mann on bass. Good players + good hangs = good times.

I've found a few interesting and humorous things on the internet today that I thought you ought to see. Jeremy Casella sent me the link to this today, and I honestly can't believe it. Anybody know if that's a joke or not? I also saw this report on a news reporter getting caught talking from a canoe in "deep" flooding water because two people walked in front of her and their shoes were barely wet. That's just funny, but it's really great because Paul and I saw it live and commented on how funny that was, now it turns out it's becoming a story, and we just happened to see it when it happened. I love stuff like that...

back to the grindstone

Monday, Monday, it's all here... and so am I. Back at Paul's studio. We're leaving my gear here for a couple extra days so Paul can track some stuff in the evening, so I'll be recording the acoustic guitars for Josh Wilson's EP over here. Jeff Pardo, keyboard legend and co-producer of this project, is currently doing some editing, allowing me this precious time to write and say hello.

We had a very full and good weekend. My parents came into town and spent Friday, Saturday and half of Sunday with us. I hope they enjoyed coming down as much as we enjoyed having them visit. Ella just grows up so much every month that she was like a new baby with them this weekend. She's now getting to the point where she can stand up, as long as you're holding onto her. It's so amazing watching her learn how to do all these things.

She had a tough night last night, and it was a long one for both Alison and I. We were somewhat taking turns tending to her, but she probably woke up ten or fifteen times last night. Thus, today is a no-shower, ball-cap, red-eye sort of day...

I got to make a final listen through the new Caedmon's album Friday, to make sure everything was good. It was the first time I'd listened to the whole project at a time, and I must say, I really enjoyed it. It was a weird record. Due to various babies, tours and amputations, the process was very spread out and separated. It was hard to get a gauge on the project as a whole, but sometimes that distance can be a nice buffer, as well. You tend to approach songs differently from one month to the next, and I could hear that as I listened. I was glad the extra time was taken and there were different tracks from different seasons, as it were.

I hope the Caedmon's fans will like it. To me, there's some definite vintage Caedmon's-type stuff on there, as well as a couple of if-radio-doesn't-play-this-it-must-be-personal tunes and, like every record I've done with them, a few gorgeous Danielle moments. She definitely has the stand-out tracks. One of them being Randall Goodgame's "Be Merciful to Me" and the other, "Rest Upon Us," a song Laura Story and I wrote. I was really happy with some of my guitar work on it as well. It's got a lot more electric guitar than is typical for them, but I like that(!). Hopefully it helps to serve the album's vibe, not in a loud or rock n' roll way, but with different tones and melodies. Anyway, the short story here is that I was really pleased with the way it came out, and I hope people find it as pleasant and engaging experience as I did.

In other news, one of my favorite bands, the Cardigans, released a new album last week that is only available in Europe. They're from Sweden and their last record, Long Gone Before Daylight, took over a year and a half to be released in America. I hope that doesn't happen again. That record was, no lie, my favorite record of last year. Honestly, I thought it was better than the new U2. Don't tell Bono... Anyway, if anybody knows how to get a copy, or anybody from Europe reads this and wants to send me an early Christmas present...

And to finish up, I have a great story to tell you. Alison and I are going to a membership class at our church that started this past Thursday. We started out that meeting by splitting into pairs and "interviewing" each other. Then we'd take turns standing up and sharing quickly about the person we had just met. Typical welcome-to-college stuff. So this one guy is talking about this other guy that he met who does some sort of medical history computer documenting stuff, specifically for OB/GYNs. He was like "Blanketey Blank has been in Nashville for eight years, he is married and has two kids, and knows a lot about junior colleges." To which the person being talked about replied "that's gynecologists..." Thank you very much!

is it already Thursday?

Man, has it been a busy week. I've been cutting the drum and bass tracks for Josh Wilson's and Matt Long's EPs. We've got one more day for Matt's and we're getting my favorite drum sounds we've ever had over at Paul Eckberg's place.

Tonight we're going to start a membership class at Church. We're excited to learn more about what's going on, how we can be involved and who knows what else...

My parents are coming in town tomorrow, so that will be fun. My dad always calls a few days before he comes down and asks "should I bring any tools?". He's a project man. I am too, but rarely with hammer and nails. He added on two new rooms to their house by himself. Last week I changed a light bulb. I'm going to try and talk him into running an air vent from the attic into the basement. Depending on the season, it's a locker room or an igloo down there, and frankly, after two and a half years of it, I'd like some climate control. Come on Dad, you know you want to...

Alison wrote a great entry on her blog the other day about how stinking hot it's been here in LATE OCTOBER! Enough 88Ëš days, thank you very much... Well, I need to get going. It's about time for class. Did I just say that? I've been a sophomore for 8 years!

walking in Salem

Man, Marc Cohn needs to put out another record. I spent the weekend in Salem, Oregon, or should I say, I spent the weekend in, and getting to and from, Salem, Oregon with Andrew Peterson and Ben Shive. LONG flights, back to back, but it was all right. I slept most of the way there, and read the book "Ender's Game" that Andy loaned me on the way back. It was a great book, that you probably all read in jr. high.

Our show went well, the people were very nice. They had Andy play that Sunday morning in their church services, but they wanted him to play songs I didn't really do anything on, so I slept in a little bit and then just walked around downtown Salem for a couple hours. Thanks to the time zone difference I was up fairly early. Salem is an older town, and has a lot of charm. Small shops and antique malls mingle on the old blocks with the hippie's bike shops and all-natural cafe's. Unfortunately, because it was a Sunday morning and still kind of early, everything was closed, so I just enjoyed the crisp air and the fact that I wasn't in a basement or a studio, or both, to actually enjoy real, natural air. I should do that more often.... The trees there are already halfway through the autumn's fall and the colors of their leaves were brilliant and unique. Bright pink, neon red and flaming orange lined every street curb. It almost looked photo-shopped, it was so dazzling. I took some camera-phone pictures to send back to Alison, but they really did a horrible injustice. It was a really nice time to just enjoy the day and some rare and refreshing time alone.

This week I'll be in the studio a ton. We'll be getting the drums and bass for two different EP's. The artists are Josh Wilson and Matt Long, both good, catchy songwriters with hair to kill the ladies. We'll be over at Paul Eckberg's all week to do these tracks. Always a good time.

Tonight Alison and I took Ella with us to the library, I wanted another book about Ender, and then to the new Chik-Fil-A that just opened a couple miles away. Mmm. Love that stuff. That followed with a wild and exciting trip to Target and then the Coldstone Creamery, since we were feeling so footloose and fancy-free. Chocolate with Butterfinger. Delicious.

So now the family's asleep and I'm wired for no reason, except that I'm really, really tired and have to be up in six hours.

I've been shooting blanks with my McDonald's Monopoly for a while now. I've got all but one piece of every Monopoly and I'm starting to think that my twenty million isn't going to come as easily as I first thought... Oh well, I'm sure it will happen this week. After all, I have great ideas of what to do with it...

Well, thanks for reading this ramble. Hope you're having a good, healthy start to a week with some sort of discovery or healing. For now, I'm off to bed...