Haven’t played drums in a while so I strung together a bunch of metronome exercises to do on my practice pad. I really want to keep the speed between my left and right hand balanced out. To be frank, I haven’t received any formal drumming training so I'm likely getting the wrong names for the … Continue reading Exercise Combination – Balancing Hand Speed with a “Chop Checkup”

A song is a unit of music that is only required to have a start and an end. There are no other rules for songs. Seriously. People also refer to songs as "tunes," and sometimes "tracks." Track means something else when recording, so avoid using track to mean "song" around sound engineers or in the … Continue reading Appetizer: Song Terminology

This post is filled with advice for people getting started in bands. There's a lot to cover, but I like to start these longer posts with a high-level summary: DO NOT Try to get famous with a viral song Quit your day job Start a rivalry with other bands or individuals DO Discuss goals and … Continue reading Being in a Band – Politics & Teamwork

So in comes the hybrid job: songwriter/producer. Doing both enables the songwriter to get into sound design, which otherwise would be left to the producers and the recording engineers. Sound design applies the science of the engineering on the producer's part of the recording process--putting together the song by whatever means necessary. People can use … Continue reading Musical Careers – A Different Path – Part 3

After acknowledging that the qualifications for a studio musician are basically all of my weaknesses, I first tried to see if I could address these issues. My weaknesses are essentially technical aspects of playing. Regular or frequent practice would help with learning songs, reading sheet music, playing different styles, and singing while playing. So why … Continue reading Musical Careers – A Different Path – Part 2

Until the start of 2018, I thought I wanted to be a musician for hire. Specifically, I thought I was on the path to be a studio musician. Since then, I have been learning more about the music industry and what's expected from today's musicians and I've started down a different path. Now I'm planning … Continue reading Musical Careers – A Different Path – Part 1

Hi everyone! For my first of a series of longer blog posts (expect at least 10 minutes of reading), I wanted to start with some of the pros and cons of learning multiple instruments. Before getting too deep into the weeds, I want to point out that I consider Digital Audio Workstations (DAWs) as instruments … Continue reading The Good and Bad of Learning More than One Instrument