- might seem strange to be writing about the major chord, but it’s the basic building block of western harmony and is not as straightforward a beast as you might imagine.
It’s existence depends on two things, the and the western concepts of tonality, ie scales, major and minor, that sort of thing.

In a sense,the major chord represents western tonality. The major chord is made up of the first five partials of the harmonic series (see the above link). But this implies that the major chord is a natural thing, whereas the exact “natural” tuning of these notes has been slightly tweaked over the years, to fom what is known as.

So while the major chord could be said to be made up of the most “important” notes in the harmonic series, our ears are actually very well trained to an unnatural, tweaked version, which means the natural version sound rather out of tune to most of us.

There are plenty of albums out there that show of more (or less) natural tunings, such as Riley: The Harp of New Albion [IMPORT] and La Monte Young: The Well-Tuned Piano

Never take the humble major chord for granted – there’s a huge history behind it’s form, and a vast and varied history of usage over a thousand years!

The final stage is the most advanced of all and is quite tricky to utilise in any way that people without schizophrenia will appreciate: multiple cycles of different kinds. You can have regular and irregular cycles happening simultaneously whilst also keeping a free flowing pulse type structure happening in there too.
Managing this sort of thing takes some practice and confidence. It can also be something of a juggling act keeping everything working in a way that actually makes some sort of sense to the listener, without collapsing like a dropped accordion.
Experiment if you are brave enough…there are great untapped resources in this area, for those brave or foolish enough to go looking for them!

Please don’t forget to tweet, fb or stumble this if you like it. I will buy you a drink when I meet you, promise.

Today I want to explain a concept that I’ve been developing: Absolute Creativity.

I haven’t yet reached the most concise definition yet, but I would say that my best attempt right now would be:

Using your creativity to the utmost in every aspect of your work, – from the music you make to how you present it live, how you present it online and how you crave out your own career.

The internet has been a blessing and a curse for vast numbers of musicians. More and more have started to moan about how hard it is to sell stuff, or stop people from downloading things for free.

All these worries can be combated by imagination – fearless, absolute creativity from the ground up.

If you can take a step back from all these issues and revisit them with a creative problem-solving attitude, you might just find that new, individually crafted business models can be created online. It’s hard to do in the real world, but online everything is data, you can present that data however you wish.

For a while there I was feeling a certain degree of melancholy about music – new technology had seemingly opened all possible doors…and the results were…oh, an unexpected watering down of quality. Where were all the works of genius that all these new techs should surely bring?
Combine this disappointment with the experience of endless dealing with musicians moaning that no one buys music anymore, or moaning that labels are dying , or moaning that no one appreciates them, blah blah blah.

But I did finally have a sort of epiphany. It came in two parts. Firstly, that it’s really early days. There will be great tracks coming, but this is the present and the future, not the past – the dross has not been filtered out for us yet. Relax, be patient, give it time.
The second part was that the people moaning about the internet affecting their music careers generally haven’t ploughed much of an individual path anyway. If they had it would probably translate pretty well online – see Tom Waits for example, the push for his new album was online but typical Waits fare, and all the fans of his that I know loved it.

The Flaming Lips have put out a load of pretty weird web based projects in lieu of regular albums for a year or two now, to various degrees of acceptance by the fans (many of whom will dislike one project but remain a fan of the band and check out what they get up to next). Alas I can’t find a link to it, but I remember reading Wayne Coyne actually said something along the lines of “The technology changes, but we just keep doing what we’ve always done”.

In other words – be unique, be creative, and carve out your music and your music career on your terms – this is what works on the internet. There is a place for everything, however weird it may be. Being yourself makes you one of a kind, and you are more easily found by people looking for things like you.
These days you don’t have to find your audience – the audience finds you, however bizarre your interests might be.

Use your creativity to flourish, not to shrink into a corner and feel bitter. Flourish and be proud of what you do and how you do it – it will attract likeminded people. The internet is the perfect tool for building a following .

My main interest is making music, but after my little epiphany about the new world of internet music, and how so many are doing it wrong (the wrong way is someone elses way), I feel a bit of a need to connect the two. You, your music and how you present them are now yours to control, make successful or kill off with a bad attitude and no desire to face up to the future with a determined grin and a hopeful outlook.

I still want you to write better music – of course! – but I’d love for you to also write your music career too – as it is now in your hands!

Absolute creativity -use that imagination of yours in every aspect of your musical life…

As my old drama teacher used to say to me “PROJECT YOUR VOICE!”

I know this is a bit unusual, but as I’m softly relaunching this blog, can I ask that if you like what I’m writing can you click on one of the social media buttons and share it? I’d really appreciate your help in getting more people in on this, and getting some comments and conversation going.

Thanks

I told him that I’d already paid for the waffle so I was going to eat it, but that I’d also do my best to give him my best advice:

Imbue your music with your passion.

If you don’t have a passion for making music, then leave it to those who do. Fill your music to the brim with all the emotion, drive, energy, love, enthusiasm you’ve got, and add in any other feelings you want in there. Just make sure to pack every moment of your music with something – or else what is it? Even if you love cold, emotionless music, and want to make your own, you can still pour in your passions and make those feeling jump out at the listener.

Make sure your imagination guides you, not your tools.

Fantasise and let your imagination run with the ball…when you have an idea open your mind to all the possibilities it opens up, all the options. If you have a beat that you want to use, imagine all the fills that you could use, all the variations, the stops and starts. If you’ve found some chords you want to develop – remember you can do anything with them, move them to another key, play them backwards, add in chords to extend the sequence, miss ones out to shorten it. You can play the chords in different ways, on different instruments, leave gaps, turn them upside down, miss out notes, add notes in, change the rhythm of them. And so on…whatever idea you have, let you musical mind open up to what can be done with it. There are infinite possibilities, all you need to do is be open to them and pluck them from your imagination when they arrive.

Keep things interesting

- all music needs variation and contrast, even if it’s slight and subtle. Think all the parameters that can be changed and played with. Rhythm, harmony, tone colour, melodic contour on a large scale, individual elements can be toyed with, instruments can be changed, ideas subtly altered, combinations of sounds varied and swapped…and all the combinations of these things. Sometime the music might suit rapid and dramatic change – other times it may not, but you are in charge of it and you need to call the shots. Be aware of what you can do, keep in mind all the options and use what works best for you.

Keep an eye on the structure

– the shape of the track. Be aware of the journey it will take the listener on. Is it doing what you want it to do? Do you know yet what you want it to do? If you are not sure, try using different points of emphasis. After all, structure, really just means the start the finish and the shape of what goes in between – the ups and downs and whatever. There are simple ideas (which can be hugely effective when done well) like one long slow build from silence to all-out blasting noise – or indeed the reverse. There are song-like structure where verses and choruses (with or without words) an alternate and repeat. Then there are more complex structures where you might use ideas in your track in different combinations, and use variation on them.

Better yourself
– nothing too specific here, just a reminder that for the committed creative musician, it’s going to be a lifelong journey. Learn, and seek out knowledge about the things you are interested in, practice and challenge yourself. For some, having a goal and aiming for it works; for others, going with the flow and seeing where you end up is good. Everyone has their own way that works for them.

The important things are, I believe, to keep listening with a fresh ear and to keep challenging yourself in your writing – as these two activities help keep your musical mind in peak fitness.

As usual folks please feel free to tweet, facebook, stumble or whatever you like with these posts…I’d love to hear your views on what I’m writing. Comment! Get in touch! Knock on my door in the middle of the night…ok perhaps a step too far…

Being a thoughtful type, I tend to analyse these feelings. The most major change, after just a few days of separation from writing music is the disconnection from whatever I was working on. Those ideas have faded and no longer seem urgent. I’ve never been good at working intermittently though – I have to start and finish ideas fast or I lose my way with them.

Another interesting realisation, specific to time spent in a Disneyland Resort, is that it is hard to feel anything but happy when the air is constantly filled with ragtime, pumped out into the streets through curiously hard to see speakers. Ragtime is the musical equivalent of the smell of freshly baked bread, or sizzling bacon. it just sends that thrill of the living experience through your body.

The whole experience rejuvenated my interest in orchestral music, and kick-started my long-festering obsession with arrangement. I love the orchestral sound and find endless fascination in combining instruments and harmonies. Sadly working with midi versions of orchestral samples is limited here – you can’t blend tones the same way as you can with real players. It’s weird – I’ve always loved writing for the orchestra (I’ve never heard a single piece played), whilst I find trying to coax interesting sounds out of synths a really irritating experience!

At Disney though, the endless ragtime music was not irritating, which I found strange, as pretty much any other kind of music pumped into your ears whether you like it or not, becomes intolerable very quickly. Ragtime is good-time music, lightly kicking rhythms and simple, lively melodies. The stops and starts stimulate the ears.

Sometimes something as simple as this kind of chance encounter can remind you of what can be done – there’s always so many more possibilities, so many options and styles.

Why does this music seem to embody the optimism of an age before the world wars? I don’t know, but it does remind me that within each genre there are infinite possibilities…and all musical elements can be combined, and recombined at will, like a painter mixing colours on a pallette. It appears that ragtime originated from old traditional folk music tunes and “Sousa” style marches (think the Monty Python theme tune, the style of which became popular around the same time as ragtime) combined with a new dance hall and bar room style of syncopation – specifically made by non-reading musicians. Much of the music that became known as ragtime must have been lost with the people who played it, sadly undocumented.

However, I’m not here to sell you ragtime! Merely to to remind that sometimes choosing to, or being forced to listen to something outside of your normal tastes can be refreshing, inspiring and a learning experience too!

In my experience the best musicians listen widely and learn from as broad a range of music as possible.

Please feel free to tweet, facebook, stumble or whatever you like with these posts…I’d love to hear your views on what I’m writing. Thanks…Dave

Humans like patterns. We like living in them and like to recognising them in things. It also seems like our brains are incredibly good at finding them. This, however, also makes us prone to getting into the habit of thinking about certain things the same way for long periods of time.

Consciously changing your thinking patterns can tip you out of the rut, and promote new ideas and paths to try out.

Every once in a while I look up (or invent if I’m feeling frisky) an alternative form of music notation, or a strict compositional method of some sort. I’ll tinker with it for a bit and inevitably, before I actually write something using this new idea, the new thoughts will merge with the old ones and I’ll get an idea for how to finish of something I was already working on, using this new technique/idea.

Change the names, or the parameters, or the ways that you think of them, and new possibilities emerge. You might even be able to achieve things you couldn’t before -simply by changing how you view the parameters…

p.s. I feel, any form of variation to the “norm” will have a rejuvenating effect. Once some form of listlessness or stagnation has set in artistically, then change – somewhere – is needed to counteract it. For me this invariably has to involve either the discovery of a new artist who inspires me, or a lifestyle change, whether it is status, diet, location…whatever, as long as it is a meaningful shift, involving creating new patterns, you will be forced into looking at things differently.

Please don’t hesitate to tweet, facebook, stumble or whatever you like with these posts…I’d love to hear your views on what I’m writing. Email me, phone me, text me, write a complaint in Latin under that bridge.

It’s hard with electronic music as these things don’t really influence the sounds in the same way….but I think being aware of your music working as a time machine, preserving the moments you live for the enjoyment of future ears, can change how you make your music.
Even if it only makes you question what you do and how you do it, then there is some worth in it!

As usual folks please feel free to tweet, facebook, stumble or whatever you like with these posts…I’d love to hear your views on what I’m writing. Comment! Get in touch! text ok ttfn omg thnx lol!!!1!

The truth is, if you make music with the aim of expressing some form of higher purpose then you’re an artist. If you are really into making music for its own sake, then you’re a craftsperson (I’d prefer to say you are crafty, but you gotta be pc in these times).

The complication comes when the music is experienced, because by this time, it doesn’t matter what you consider yourself, or what went into the creation of it – it will most likely get judged on the listeners own terms.
So whatever you call yourself, and whatever your method of creation…that matters to you, but not really to anyone else. At the business end – the experience of music, the listener is in their own space and time. They will merge what you have made with their own life and form a reaction to it instinctively.

You are probably wondering what on earth this all means, and what I expect you to take away from it. Pretty much all I can say is:
You and your ego have a physical/emotional presence that affects people you meet in person. Your music is an intellectual and emotional presence that is separate from you. Anything you feel about yourself does not travel with it.

Whatever you might want to call your music making process…dabbling, experimentation, or even your art or your craft – it won’t change how people percieve and receive your music.
If you decide to that you are an artist or a craftsperson – I think this is a declaration to yourself that you intend to work to a certain standard…and that you expect to create something greater than average.

And if you do that, that does travel, and people do notice the difference.

Expect more from yourself – with that slight switch in attitude, you unlock ideas and new thought processes.

Craft your work…and look to find the hidden art of what you do. You will achieve greater things for it.

I put sweet chili sauce on a peanut butter sandwich the other day, as a spicy alternative to jam. Was odd. But sort of interesting. Make some peanut butter and sweet chili sauce music tonight!

Be different.

and

Be awesome.

and

Let the most appropriate people you can think of know about you.

I hate to break it to you, but if you are not popular – then you have either not done these three things, or you’ve kidded yourself that you have.

There’s one other killer rule here too – if you can’t tell truth from delusion in these matters then you are dead in the water.

Number One: Be different.

Your music is different from anything else out there because: _____________________________________

You need some serious non-bullshit in that space or else you are dog food. If you don’t get listeners it’s because you either chose a style that everyone in the world hates, or you are fooling yourself. I’ll even give you a hint: there is no musical style that everyone in the world hates.

Your music is awesome because:_____________________________________________.

You need some serious non-bullshit in that space or else you are ex-grand national runner up-style cat food.

Number three: Let the most appropriate people you can think of know about you.

You might be hesitant about this. But remember, you are different, you are awesome, and you are not bullshitting. Tell whoever should be interested in you, that they should be interested in you. Your music will make or break the deal within 20 seconds, so there’s no pressure on the asking side.

Remember…don’t fool yourself, because by definition it’s only you you fool, you fool!

Don’t be a fool!