Re: Reconnect with your music.

[tim echols <eekamouse67@yahoo.com>]

if you do play a stringed instrument, mess with your tuning to get a completely different instrument.  during the first gulf war, i wrote a couple of pieces in BAGDAD tuning, until it became apparent why bass strings are not usually tuned in seconds of any sort.  my asthma precluded any real exploration on my alto sax, but the lap steel is just different enough to be a whole new exploration.  if you play stringed instruments and want to add more than one while looping, look into the m-brace guitar holder.

 

http://www.ebay.com/itm/New-Mbrace-Guitar-Holder-Walk-And-Play-Performance-5121-/380426959571?pt=Guitar_Accessories&hash=item589336bad3

 

i can currently have the lap steel in my lap, the acoustic strapped on, and my 6string fretless bass on the m-brace beside me.  scrunchis do a good job of keeping the strings from sympathetically ringing on the bass and guitar, and can be slid quickly past the nut to enable play, then slid back onto the strings when not in use. i use an echoplex for timebased stuff, but also have a boss RC-50 that i use for ambient washes and background vox by having one mic going straight to the boss, and the fretless and lapsteel feeding in through A-B boxes (found out AFTER buying the bigshot that a light denoting A or B was critical).  then the main vox and acoustic go straight into the echoplex, bass and lap steel denoted as "A" on this looper.  my main percussion is accomplished through the acoustic, so the chords and percussion go only into the one i call "time-based," the echoplex.  i eliminated the keyboards once i added the lap steel--  the only serious loss is the organ in "nothing compares to you," an excellent song that rarely changes--  perfect for looping.  "lightning crashes" is the same, though verse and chorus have different rhythmic feels.

 

which is my next suggestion--  learn some new or different chord changes by covering some songs, even if not live to an audience.  some might have to look into jazz songs with crazy changes to do this; others might just go to ultimateguitar.com and go crazy.  i did--  i learned 4 different crazy's there--  willie's, seal's, aerosmith's, and grnarls barkley's-- it's crazy suite!  now i just need to get them looping.  i am a songwriter in the main, so it inspired me to listen to van morrison's into the mystic every time before i started a session, for years.  i just listened, never played to it in this case.  it became a very effective way to "reset" my head and get into creative mode quickly. of late, i have begun to instead cold-read changes to a different song every time before i start writing.  it helps me to go through a piece of music written by someone else as a non-judgemental "warm-up"  to get myself into creative mode, but how i do that has changed over the years.

 

 

i can't wait until my next off-season, because i have a suitcase full  of cassette tapes  from years ago that i recorded on a 4track.  i got myself a 4track so i could fly them into pro tools and make mp3 copies to listen to.  i expect to find some long forgotten songs, but even more instrumental ideas that i never explored fully.  that should yield quite a reconnection with  some past music.  hope something in here helps someone.

 

 

time

From: Ted Killian <tedkillian@charter.net>
To: Loopers-Delight@loopers-delight.com
Sent: Saturday, April 7, 2012 10:26 AM
Subject: Re: Reconnect with your music.

Yes Per!!!

I forgot that one...change gear, try a new instrument.

Along with that, I'd say, pick up an instrument you have never, ever played before (and one that is not even similar to your normal axe) and step on stage and play it in front of an audience.

I mean like, if you normally pluck strings, take up something you have to blow, or hit or shake (or vise versa).

I tell you, until you have done that, you don't really know if you are a musician deep down or not.

It can be a very revealing experience.

Cheers,

Ted


On Apr 7, 2012, at 8:33 AM, Per Boysen wrote:

> Great tips from Ted! :-)  I do practice some of them but my main
> method is to use a different instrument for playing. My live
> electronics, where looping plays a big role, are always the same but I
> have about half a dozen very different instruments to play as source
> audio and it never fails to kick you into the zone.
>
> One special reason for not experiencing instant inspiration and
> excitement can be that you are not quite well. Maybe got the flue or
> migraine or whatever. In this case I stay away from music and do
> something boring but necessary (got lots of such task on a list since
> I'm running my own freelance company as occupation)
>
> Greetings from Sweden
>
> Per Boysen
> www.perboysen.com
> http://www.youtube.com/perboysen