A/J's musings

The "sound" of music

2011-12-14T15:20:00.003+05:30

Took a bit of time to realise this rather simple home truth... your music is only as good as it "sounds". I was one of those to took that part for grated albeit, for the demo recordings.

My first album "So far so good" was done all home cooked, baked and flavoured taking only peripheral help of a tech guy. But hey, that time I did not want to spend any more money than what I already had in acquiring gear and such for creating the music. No doubt in my mind the music and the arrangements were cool, but as the ear developed it started to "sound" like it was home cooked and not crystal clear and big and dynamic.

So after much deliberation when I did take the comprehensive help of a good sound tech for the second album "Colours" and found that it did make a quantum leap in terms of sound; decided to get the old songs straightened and cleaned up.

Easier said than done bud.

Getting the old tracks into the tech chaps hands in decent shape by itself became such a huge challenge. The software I'd used was completely amateurish to begin with for the recordings, and therefore the exporting, the lag times, the sessions and takes and effects were a nightmare to set up. Not as easy as it was when I did Colours when it went straight into the Logic Pro interface and the rest was magic.

Took away a good 10 days of intense work to set up the layers, re-set and and add dynamic layers to make the sounds the way they should've been and a proper dressing down.

And that's not all. The tech guy spotted problems in timing in some of the layers to add to the nightmare and also the volume of the exported layers. To add to the confusion we tried to innovate on the mixes as well. Quite stupid of me to even attempt it on the layers which were quite basic. Boy, was that painful!

Almost gave up the idea of getting into the remix. Might've been easier to play, arrange and re record the whole material all over again! But hey, somewhere it all clicked and the final material's out. Thanks to Abhilash Lakra for going through the pains of my indecisiveness and finally making the final product shine.

Its about 90% to my satisfaction, not quite 100% but hey can't get it all. So the new sound of the old tracks now released. And, have decided to keep the gates open on a pay as you like mode. for all.

If you're reading this, might want to check it out. This time its TWO SETS one go. The first is the album So far so good. And the second a couple Singles which I released aptly called "The Singles. You can get the music at my site www.ashaanti.com snag your copy in the format you want. Enjoy the music and pass it along. Thanks for dropping by.

One more guitar greatness passes on to the other side...

2011-12-06T12:44:00.000+05:30

Hubert Sumlin (November 16, 1931 to December 4, 2011), by the time I even heard this name I was in my 30s. Darn! I was quite a late starter to musical forms and evolution of roots especially the blues...

While I'd heard the Howlin Wolf in passing earlier, I had not had the good fortune to own the records and taps and really listen in. Which is what I did one fine day about a decade ago. There was no looking back after that. In the music I started to hear some of the most exquisite guitar hooks and swinging rhythms, sudden death silences and burst of notes. Man, I was blown by the rhythmic perspective of the music and started to listen to more of his work and while also read up about this amazing guitar player. Both as a part of the Howlin Wolf sessions and as a solo player.

This got turned on even further after the crossroads series live action where he was kind of a regular at the gigs.

For the uninitiated, you might want to head straight to a CD store and pick up the Wolf's Moanin' In The Moonlight and just let the time go by listening in to some real badass blues ever.

My favorites remain the killer guitar work with the Wolf in Killin Floor, Smokestack Lightning, Spoonful to some of the most inspired guitar moments in Hubert Sumlin's Blues Party and I Know You. The world's lost a giant in the Chicago blues form.

Rest in Peace, Mr Sumlin. An Obit note from Fender Guitars on the great.

Here's a video of an interview which made me belive that this man was "cooler that cool".

That 20 years, 14 hours a day figure of speech...

2011-12-05T10:41:00.001+05:30

Oh so many of them keep saying this. And I used to get pissed off, still do. Whenever someone wants to make a statement that his point of view is "THE" point of view. I've been playing the guitar for the last 20 years. Or it would go like I've slogging it out for 14 hours a day!

Well I've had my fill of this. Sure you have a point of view. But learn to hear the other side as well and maybe there's an element of truth in that as well? So you claim you "slogged"it out and you feel cheated cause you ain't got what you thought you would get. Hey, the other side might've just simply been "BORN" with it. No need to do what you do, you 20 years, 14 hours a day mothball!

That said, sure practice and that too regular practice and repetition is needed to get your skills and awareness of music "in". But hey, that's not good, if its at the cost of enjoyment. To qualify it one further step, this is valid only you've gone past the beginner stage. When you've just picked up the guitar everything seems like endless pain till you get over that first step. Its like taking that first step to walk for a baby. Once its over, you figure out the rest and start walking, running ...

It takes maturity to "learn" to enjoy music after a while. I am learning it hard way. Currently stuck in the rigor mode and unable to enjoy listening to music. That anal feeling of analysing takes over the enjoyment. Sometimes, I do feel, that the earlier days were better when I could enjoy just letting of myself listening to music. Not knowing what's being played, but enjoying what I was hearing.

Wonder how I can train my mind to understand the mix of learning and pleasure without losing my self into this fire of learning and acquiring serious skills. I do know for sure, the day I start enjoying it is the day I will really play to my best all the time... Tad philosophical, but that's the door to freedom.

Teaching gets you grounded

2011-12-03T15:08:00.000+05:30

The realisation that you might actually not be so knowledgable hits you when you start teaching. And more so, when the student asks some strange questions about what you just explained it in the most kickass fashion... or rather you thought was the most profound explanation.

What makes it even more interesting is that, even the things that seemed most mundane and oversimplified to you at that point suddenly becomes interesting and you literally re-discover the the mundane from a really practical and usable point of view. It also pushes you to revisit your old notes and re-examine what you'd learnt and re-learn the same from the current evolved standpoint.

The other day, I was explaining the Pentatonic scale shapes to some of my students. Well, its shapes, you know and you gotta navigate them following the shapes of the chords and ya da ya da. Out came a question how you find them if you were not so sure of the chord shapes? That chap was not yet fluent with some of the basic shapes.

That stopped me on the tracks. Hey, you just follow the root and apply the shape to the whole, which means you gotta "know" at least the top three strings of the fret board by heart.

Now this comment by me also made me realise that if you know the top three strings you can transpose and visualise full box shapes of practically every scale and modal shape, as well as, horizontal shapes (that albeit, only on the three strings first.

Moral? Learn, Teach, Re-learn and get better.

Shredding gives happiness?

2011-12-02T11:42:00.000+05:30

What's this thing about shred guitar that draws a lot of guitarists to come into the fold and accept its rather overpowering influence on the playing. And then it just becomes hours, weeks, months, years of technique practice to get the "moves" in.

No wonder, if we look at the popularity of the modern guitarists, its the monsters of shred who are dominating the scene. And mind you its not for just the guitarists but also non guitarists who hold them in sheer awe!

After a few years in the regimen of practice, I thank my stars for the shredders for having come in and taught me how to listen, how to practice and how to make speed sound musical. Yes, shredding is musical, depends on the perspective with which you play.

Mindless shredding, is what most listeners would run away from (including myself) cause its not musical, it remains a show of how well one can work out... its boring.

Speed is good. Provided you can make it sound good too. Let me put it this way, by going after speed AND music, you're going to be able to play most music that would come into your mind and create freely. Its inspiring and confidence inducing.

Here's a taste of speed with some element of musicality. Not that its the best example of right of shred and musicianship, it sways towards showmanship. But hey, this is massive in more aspects that one. Enjoy the masters demonic runs...

Needless to say, I've been a student of Paul's flamboyant yet very articulate style of playing. The lessons and the breakdown are perhaps the singular element to make anyone get inspired to give it a go and then never look back. Thanks Paul Gilbert.

Temporary silence

2011-11-24T12:27:00.001+05:30

Thanks to my postings with the blog link and not the blog "post" link on the awards voting, there has to be 6 more days of silence.

Vote Senore?

2011-11-21T07:36:00.004+05:30

The tracking PINK from my album Colours has been nominated for best instrumental. Now to get into the winning game, the system requires a mix of judging by a panel which carries 70% weight, and social popularity index (which is votes) this carries a 30% weight.

As anyone new into the scene would like to visibility, getting votes would seem to swing the chances of winning.

Step 1: You need to register (submit your email ID and create password)

Please visit the page by clicking here

You'll be sent the password to log in to your registered email ID, get that.

Step 2: Log in.

Step 3: You'll come to a page which has three banners, click on the middle one which says "Indiego- South Asia"

Step 3a: You see a list of categories. Go to the bottom, you'll see the BEST INSTRUMENTAL, Click that

Step 4: You'll come to a page with 3 nominees. You'll want to click on my link there (A/J etc)

Step 5: You'll land up at the voting page. The song will also be visible as a track. Click on the vote button. And you'll see a comment block below, leave comment (if you feel like that is.)

Step 6: Share if you wish you'll see all the social feed buttons below the track.

Its fast and simple and every vote is counted as a good wish from my friends.

Thanks in advance and keeping my fingers crossed.

Crossroads 2010

2011-11-20T11:43:00.001+05:30

Yet another Crossroads gig. Well like its become almost a ritual, last years festival was a big festival no doubt. But hey, I am sure after seeing three of those on a good system and large screen, it becomes a tad bit boring to see the almost the same artists perform "almost" the same numbers, albeit with some variations. What's left of it is the LIVE experience. I guess I've lived the Crossroads experience at home viewing and have kind of gotten bored. (What? Bored? Moron? you must be thinking). Yep I would say. Unless I plan to go to the next one I guess I've had enough DVD or Blue Ray view.

The set by Jeff Beck however stood out in my mind as something exceptional in the 2010 gig. I am a big Beck fan, but that's not the reason it stood out. Its the rendition of the two tracks which he and his band played out to awesomeness that activated the almost dulled senses for a while.

Thank god for Jeff Beck!

Tonirvana

2011-11-15T19:48:00.000+05:30

Utter the word "tone" to a guitarist and he'll spinning a web words and sounds from his mouth that might not make too much of sense to most. But then, the point to note is that this one word has been the holy grail that all axe-men seem to be forever searching. Their "tone".

Something like, can you make me sound like Rithie Blackmore with a slight tweak on the lows? Well the dialogs can go on and so will the quest.

The real deal I felt over the years that I've been playing, (and that's not too many by the way) is this thing of how you "sound" when you let loose your playing. And that's a combination of the gear (from the string choice to the entire rig), your fingers, your pick, your style of music and most importantly your element of "confidence". There are certain sounds that "make you" play better, longer, more melodic yada yada.

Its not so much about your rig actually, but its about what you connect with and feel the interplay. So while the rig and your signal chain do play an important role, the reason why some guys "sound" amazing or on some nights they really make you sit up and listen is because its their day and they are having a blast. (at least that's what I would say.)

Tip for the tone seeker? Well experiment with sound alright, but try to build on your confidence of playing your way. That's the single most inexplicable reason for TO-NIRVANA.

Not that I have got the tone! But I guess I am quite sure that I will get there someday when the inner confidence kicks in on some tones that I trip over.

Here's a link to yet another article which tries to rate what they call the 50 Greatest Guitar Tones of all time and probably fails just because of the tittle of the article.

Its not about the greatest tones or such bullshit. These 50 are some of the awesome moments in guitar history, I believe its foolish to label it "greatest". There's actually so many many many more out there which are not classified here and are not "Labelled". Click Here for the list in REVERSE ORDER.

Enjoy the Tones!

Guitar Humour

2011-11-14T15:07:00.000+05:30

Guitarists are notorious for their deeds in general. But then so are the PJ's about guitarists. Stumbled across some half decent ones. Let humour be the thought of the day! Enjoy.

What are the two most frequent guitarist lies?
1. I am not too loud
2. I already turned it down

Q: What's the difference between a fiddle and a violin?
A: Who cares - neither one's a guitar.

Q: How do you get a guitar player to turn down?
A: Put sheet music in front of him.

Q: How many lead guitarists does it take to screw in a light bulb?
A: 6 - 1 to put the bulb in, and 5 to say, "I could have done that".

"Mommy! Mommy! I want to be a guitarist when I grow up!"
"Now Johnny, you know you can't do both."

Q: How many guitar players do you need to replace a flourescent light?
A: Five. One to actually do it, and four to reminisce about how much better the old tubes were.

Q: What's the difference between a guitar player and a bag of garbage?
A: The garbage gets taken out at least once a week.

Q: What's the difference between a lead guitarist and a terrorist?
A: You can negotiate with a terrorist.

Octoberfest in November

2011-11-13T11:43:00.000+05:30

Now I am a kinda fan of the version of Oktoberfest that's been happening in Bangalore! Each year, in fact we are used to looking forward for this event. Somehow, I for some reason did not really feel the tug this year or even get the urge to go the new venue at all.

Even after going through the artist line up et al, what put me off was the schedule. The utterly DJ/VJ, Puppy line up for each day's ending acts were disappointing. The more relatable gigs from rock and jazz over mid day types. Who the hell would like to go and enjoy the beginning and run out by 6 PM on a fest?

Well, from what I heard from a few of my pals for about day 1. That feeling was probably correct. At 9 Pm apparently there were only about a 100 or so people and the lead act at the time singing DK Bose THRICE and that too on request. Wow. That's like a lot of money saved. Better things to do or even not do than blow it here.

The Kingfisher debacle continues here as well? Don't know whether I can make the mood for day 3 (that's today) Not too impressed except for "the Poets". Would be interesting for myself to see what I end up posting tomorrow.

To CD or not to CD, that is the question.

2011-11-11T11:33:00.001+05:30

Right, so the new age listener would say CD's are dead. Well they are not way off the mark if they say that, as industry sources, even within India, point to decreased physical sales of CDs. They peg the ratio of digital to physical sales for film music @ 70:30 and veering towards 80:20! Wow that's quite dramatic!

But hey, it's not yet time to say goodbye to the CD. As it offers more than just the music. If you are an artist or producer, you just WANT to touch and feel the physical result of all the hard work, and more so, you want to have some physical stuff to shell out to fans at events and promos. Therefore, the CD, the leaflets, the jewel box are as important as the content in it. But hey, the number you end up printing might just be about a 1,000 and not a million!

Here's an example "Five Star Audio, the label that bagged the rights, had a confirmed order for three lakh cassettes on day one. The year was 1999. Cut to a decade later, to the time of the audio launch of Endhiran, featuring the same director-composer combo and also Superstar Rajinikanth, in 2010. The number of CDs produced was 25,000." The numbers have drastically shrunk, but hey, the CDs are there anyways.

So its safe to say that the CD, will not die, at least not just yet, till the Internet generation takes over completely.

A cool review of my album Colours

2011-11-10T15:06:00.001+05:30

Thanks to the guys are TDSR (Thatdoesntsoundright.) They gave a pretty good review of complex musical material presented to them. Excerpts given here. To read the rest, follow the link.

"I interviewed A/J on his (now released) album recently, and was genuinely astonished at the depth to which he has taken the concept of the concept album. Now, for most of us, concept album means 30-minute songs, extreme virtuosity and a poorly developed sense of restraint. Such is not the case with A/J. This is genuinely high concept to begin with. For a better idea of the thinking behind this album, read the interview. But in a nutshell it’s like this. Ordinarily, people associate colors with certain moods. Fine. But A/J goes one step further and connects the key of the piece to mood."

To continue reading, Click Here

What makes a good blog post?

2011-11-09T09:46:00.001+05:30

Found some extremely simple sounding by very difficult to really practice list of tips from another blogger. Will have to try and apply some of this. Am posting this after one hour. Thanks to LookLinkLove for posting this

Some Advice For Publishing Good Articles:

After you write something, save it but do not publish it. An hour (or more) later you can come back and reread your potential post. If you think it’s perfect, then go ahead and publish it. If you think it’s garbage than just scrap it completely. What’s most likely to happen though, is that you’ll notice a bunch of mistakes and be able to fix them. After fixing your article you’ll think, “phew, I just saved my self from a huge loss of readers!”.

Don’t scramble to get a post done: Some people think that being the first person to publish an article for a viral news story is the only one that will get visitors to their blog. That fact is badoozie, and completely incorrect. Even if you’re first, and you’ve got the only post on the internet about a popular subject, people won’t read your article unless you’ve written in perfectly.

Peer Review: If you’ve got a good friend on the internet that you can trust won’t steal your content. You can ask him to read over your post and tell you about any mistakes he may find. Better yet, get your mom, dad, brother, wife, husband, or sister to look over your article and see what they can find (assuming they have equal or higher education than you).
Make sure you find your own post interesting, if you don’t then just get rid of it. Trying to post something that you don’t believe in will not help you at all. Also, make sure you know what you’re talking about, don’t try to completely BS (balonswivel?) your way through an article. Anyone who knows more than you do about the subject will discredit your article, and in time your entire site.

Practice: A highly redundant thing for me to say would be “practice makes perfect”. I’m going to bash that cliche statement and say that you’ll never be perfect. Nobody is, not even the professionals at Problogger, DoshDosh, or CopyBlogger. Godzilla forbid I call myself a perfect writer, I find it hard just to follow my own advice. The truth is, you’ll get better and better with practice, but reaching perfection is like trying to reach absolute zero for a chemist. It just ain’t gonna happen!

Simple but effective tip

2011-11-08T10:07:00.001+05:30

For all the budding stage artists, if you are pissed at the unwanted boom from the stage floor due to your amp and have not found a way to
handle it yet, the chaps at Fender have an awesome tip. I for one, had tried this trick on my rig at Studio. Works fantastic. On stage I am sure it will
be very apparent. Read it at the link given beloe. Have fun.
Fender® News

Post for the starting day

2011-11-07T12:14:00.002+05:30

The recently launched album Colours seems to be doing okay in the digital space. Guess the depth of the concept takes a while to get through. But I feel quite confident that the sound is going to make it beyond a few spins.

A track from the album, "Pink" got nominated last week at the indie-go music awards 2011 for best instrumental. That felt really good.

In the absence of money for doing any big time promos or band mates to chip into the energy of promoting it, along with the need to continue my day job schedule, I guess it will takes its own sweet time.

I keep reminding myself the thought that all this album needs is a good mentor. Someone in whose ears this will make sense and the rest will take it where it should be.

If you're reading this and want to hear the sound. Get a free download at my website

So that took two and half years

2011-11-07T12:02:00.000+05:30

The urge to re-start the blog... er not new I say. Already done this twice and each time could not really live up to it. Maybe I was too ambitious then, and have mellowed down a bit? Decided to keep it simple, and try to do just one post every other day should do the trick. (I guess)

Heck why not? There's so much happening around in everyones lives can't I try and make an observation or a point about the day that went by?

So begins the third attempt. Wish me luck.

2009-06-29T15:39:00.005+05:30

Well this reads quite good. Thanks a lot Lalitha. This article came out in Mid Day. To read it just click on the picture.

How is it to be creating and playing all by myself?

2009-06-19T18:42:00.003+05:30

Recently, especially after the soaring rankings on reverbnation and suddenly gathered fan following out of the blue, some pipples asked how easy it must be to not deal with egos and opinions since I was the sole creator cum decision maker of my music.

Well yea. Sure. There are no diverse opinions. I don't have to worry about contradictions and rejections. But, come to think of it, this is actually tougher than working with a band. In my case, I have to think it all out, it really gets to you when you don't come out with parts which don't fall in place, I have to PLAY it all out accurately, and I have to mix it to.

In my case, I try to finish entire tracks at one go. And I like emphasising on all parts of the music rather than just the soloing. Come to think of it I love the bass as much as I love to solo as I believe the rhythm section holds the key to making music. So switching between guitars and different frets and strings and also adding keyboard backings actually is a real pain. And one falters often before getting each part right. Imagine the fingers and eyes getting used to doing one thing and then switching to something else and pushing yourself to do that as well.

And add to that you gotta change your mindset which is the real ball buster.

Its really really difficult. This becomes a whole lot easier with many ideas coming in and making it.

The real trip is in making music together. Its not about isolation, its about energy coming in from various sources and adding to the initial spark.

I guess like everything else in life this is about give and take. You give some, you get some.

Featured Artist at Reverbnation

2009-06-13T19:16:00.003+05:30

June 10th is a day I'll remember for a while. When I was pleasently surprised to get a mail from reverbnation saying that I've been chosen to be a featured artist on their home page. A great honor. Mind you this from over 300,000 artists on their portal worldwide. That too to be featured among the top 10 for the week...

While at it, all this happened too fast and the rush of blood was getting in to me. I've kind of lost track of time. The spurt of creation started sometime in May this year and by now there's enough material to probably create two albums what next is the question that's coming at me now. Had not expected this so soon.