Been a long time…

Been a long lonely, lonely, lonely, lonely, lonely time.. (insert kick-ass Bonham mini solo, followed by Page outro lick, and final band hit)

My paradigm for music these days: the buildup of clean layers, or parts, is nearing a turning point. Opening up to other influences during live playing is certainly key to being a member in a band, a player in an ensemble, which is what you are. Things in a group happen simultaneously, innovation happens concurrently, one thing leads to another.

The reverse-engineering of a road map from that, and the creation of recordings based on that map as a proof of their accuracy, is a process of getting to know yourself better, one that an aspiring band will want to undertake at some point. This is an important part of the process that is missed if you’re constantly debuting new material faster than you can fully assimilate it.

I love the creation of artifacts of the music we play – set lists, charts, chord diagrams, tabs, midi files, snippets of digital camera video, photos, everything – that explain an event as if you were there. If your recording were a snapshot, the charts would be the plan for how to compose that snapshot. We’d like to believe all we need is for someone to point the microphones at us and roll tape, and we’ll be brilliant, but frankly there’s a lot of work to lead up that. The effortless moments are always the result of substantial investments of preparation.

It’s fun to get up and play like we did at the Block Party http://www.facebook.com/photos/?ref=sb#/album.php?aid=98340&id=829567899 – to be able to interact with the audience in both overt and underhanded manners (Muahaha !!) is what makes it feel the most fun. Those moments, you carry with you through the work of starting up the band’s repertoire, website, identity, equipment, and recordings, the day-to-day mechanics of procuring gigs, making rehearsals happen, etc.. But if everyone in the band has a good long term outlook to get through the less fun stuff, far more fun can be in the future..

The band IS fun, even when it is work. Thankfully it is work that pays back in fun more than you have to give. But you gotta exceed that first threshold and make it to the ‘launch’. Like in software, the launch-date or go-live deadline can motivate the greatest of efforts and without it, half if that would get done..