I found this very inspiring TED talk today whilst randomly browsing their site. Evelyn Glennie is a very gifted deaf musician with amazing talent, and an extremely engaging speaking voice.
Here she talks about the art of listening. I mean, REALLY listening... If you have a spare 32 minutes, grab a coffee and/or a sandwich and sit back and enjoy her talk.
For my 2013 Challenge, in February, I posted about learning Ewan Dobson's "Time 2". At that time, I was still struggling with getting the speed up to where he plays it, which is around 140BPM.
This weekend, I decided to try and achieve 'racing speed' with this song, and recorded myself on video playing it through.
In my opinion, it is still a bit sloppy and could use some tidying up, but I am pleased that I managed to keep the tempo and momentum going for the whole song.
I have a confession... You know those songs I have been posting on here for the 2013 challenge I set myself? Well, I cheated. Sort of.
You see, one thing I really struggle with is the ability to play a song through from start to finish note perfect, without missing a beat or playing the wrong note. I don't think I have EVER played a whole song through without at least one small mistake in it.
If you listen ever so carefully to those clips I posted, you can hear every now and then a subtle click or pop where I spliced together different takes. On a good one, there will only be one or two splices, but on some, there up to six or seven splices. Don't even ask me how make takes I went through to even get to that point.
There is something about hitting that 'Record' button that puts that extra pressure on me to get things note perfect. Of course, I then tense up and make even MORE mistakes.
However, this is something I have been working on diligently this year. I want to be able to play songs without making as many mistakes as in the past. I know asking for total perfection is a bit unrealistic, but I would at least like to be able to put in a performance level effort every time I pick up the guitar.
In analysing my playing, I found that my mind tends to drift to a myriad of other subject while I am playing, instead of focusing on the music. I will catch myself thinking about inane things to do around the house or work problems that I am having. Obviously, I will have to quell this noise a lot more if I am to improve my playing.
In essence, I have to find a meditative state whilst playing. I need to focus myself on each and every note and nuance, as well as the tempo and maintain a relaxed state of body so that I can adapt to the music a lot better. This is my goal for the next few months.
I am hoping that when it comes time to do the 'professional' takes for my songs later in the year, that I can walk into the studio and play them with as few retakes as possible. It makes sense from an economical viewpoint as well, as I will be paying for studio time by the hour and thus quicker takes will cost me less.
As you might know, I LOVE recording stuff on my MacBook in Garageband. When I got an iPad, I was excited by the promise of doing some recording on such a portable platform. I dreamed of recording whilst kicking back on my deck etc., but alas, the early experiences were not so good.
I mean, there are some GREAT music apps on the iPad, but getting them to talk to each other has always been a pain. Well, it hasn't been possible at all, actually. Apart from AudioCopy, there really hasn't been any other way to get audio from one app to another, so I used to resort to hooking up the audio output from my iPad to my MacBook and recording everything in Garageband on there.
Here is a sample of how I recorded a short track using this method:
That was the only way to record and mix different sounds on different tracks in your DAW.
Until now.
Now, we have the incredible Audiobus app, which enable real time transfer for audio from one app to another (as long as the app supports the Audiobus SDK). Every day, more and more apps are Audiobus ready. iPad recording has finally come of age.
You can even control other apps from within different apps, using the Audiobus sidebar that pops up when running. Now I can be in Animoog, and I can start/stop recording and playback in MultiTrack DAW without leaving Animoog and interrupting my workflow.
Here is a sample of a track I recorded ENTIRELY on the iPad, using Audiobus to redirect audio into MultiTrack DAW:
