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Dear Musician - Is Musical Isolation the New Normal?


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There is a new hobby available, that's for sure. Making music at home with all these virtual instruments and recording gear and increasingly affordable decent hardware and acoustic instruments.

 

If there are 250,000 new hobbyists who aren't particularly good at their hobby - I'm not sure that's really a "problem". There are, I'm sure, that many people daubing away at their Bob-On-TV art. Again, not sure that's something to wring hands over. Have fun, guys! Knock yourselves out!

 

There is also a new kind of social interaction, right? This "alone but not totally alone" social media thing. Well, it's here and it's not going away. We're at the very beginning of this - I feel it's way to early to pronounce on how good or not good it is for people in general. People take to it so readily, it's clearly fulfilling social functions of some sort. And it's changing constantly. It's reality even if it feels less than fully real.

 

The advance of science, technology, and the unpredictable path of economics is quite often not so friendly to cherished institutions, ideas, beliefs, ways of living. We hand our future over every day to ST&E, and then fret over what these forces are doing to us. The weirdness of recent musical history is the weirdness of the changes happening in almost all facets of life at increasing rates of change.

 

Music is so much a comforting item now. And there's a sort of cultural hoarding going on, with everything saved and everything available and everything getting recycled. Music is not the outward engine of cultural change much these days....more the soundtrack for dream-existences tailored to meet the expectations of whatever small sub-category of society someone lives in.

 

I'm just watching all this - I have no idea of good, better, best as to where things are going. Just a fish, in the drink, no idea what the Ocean is up to for better or worse.

 

nat

 

 

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So... Here's the thing for me. I concentrate primarily on arranging & recording original music.

 

Jams are fine, but are generally layers of chaos and dissonance (depending on the musicianship of the least skilled player generally).

 

Gigs are fine too, and play a big part in building audience and fans. But there is always so much missing relative to what I can do in the studio. And the time spent preparing shows, packing, travelling and so forth really cuts into my studio time.

 

I feel there is so much missing impact in live performing. For example, in one of my recent songs, I had 3 cellos, a steel guitar, a flute, bass, drums, rhythm guitar, lead guitar and piano.

 

Doing that same song live: vocal + rhythm guitar, with occasional lead licks thrown in either solo or on top of chords. I do concentrate on using dynamics and using compelling performance to make it engaging and interesting, but, face it, nobody wants to hear the same guy with the same voice playing the same instrument for more than 45 minutes...

 

So, yes, I am on an island when recording. I do have one or two people come by on occasion to contribute tracks, but 80-90% of the tracks are just me. I'd love for it to be different, like when I was 20 and band members lived in the same house. But I'm not, and no one I know does that.... So, there you go.

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Home cooking is nothing new to me. I once aspired to ply my talents in the industry. I went to school, sought out instruction, caught my heroes live whenever I could afford it... most of it was a big disappointment. It was too loud for starters and the material was often shoddily prepared and if it got worse (or better) I had no interest left anyway. Classical music was always the exception but theirs is a craft of live performance and the comparisons don't correlate. So rather than suffer the tyranny of deficient music ( they do like it poured their particular way) I followed my own ideals as best I could; still do.

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I see it as isolation in general being the new normal, which just happens to include music. So it has a lot to do with people being chained to smartphones and other devices, which is how they interact with the world around them.

 

I'm still part of the resistance. I use my iPhone for talk and text only. I use no apps. I won't use my mobile device to get online. I have all that crap turned off. I manage things that way on purpose to keep myself grounded. I'll listen to music through earbuds, but I still prefer the communal experience in a car with friends, or the hifi at home.

 

As for isolation in creating music... I've been doing that since the early 80s with analog tape, then MIDI, then adding digital recording where it was useful. I played all the instruments, sang, did my own harmonies. A regular one-man-band. I still work that way with both vintage and modern technology.

 

And others were doing it too, and long before me.

 

Take a group like Boston. That was a band started by one guy in a basement home studio, Tom Scholz layering the parts down on a Scully reel-to-reel, 12 tracks on 1-inch tape.

 

Then we had solo artists like Steve Winwood (Arc of a Diver) who did basically the same thing... played all the instruments, including drum machines.

 

So the technology to do it yourself in isolation has been around for decades now. That being said, there is something different these days. Can't quite put my finger on it except to say perhaps there's so much information, distraction, and too many options.

 

Virtually anyone can make music, and yet so few are really making it from the heart... the soul. I could liken it to paint-by-number artists compared to the classic freehand natural artists.

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Doing that same song live: vocal + rhythm guitar, with occasional lead licks thrown in either solo or on top of chords. I do concentrate on using dynamics and using compelling performance to make it engaging and interesting, but, face it, nobody wants to hear the same guy with the same voice playing the same instrument for more than 45 minutes...

 

 

Well, there once was a time for that, when I was in College, it was the time of the Singer/ Songwriter ..and my acoustic 12 string and I fared pretty well. Plenty of gigs and lots of lovely and sensitive women in the audience.

 

It was a halcyon and ‘rewarding’ time for me...at least with the Ladies.

 

Vanguard/Folkways had a rep in the audience at my College Folk night performance, obstensibly searching for the new Dylan, Tom Rush, or Simon and Gofûckal.

 

He approached me after the show and offered me a few hours of ‘free studio time’ in NYC.

 

Free, it was not, I had to pay for my train ride from Central Jersey, cab/subway fares etc.

Sometimes after being placed in a studio and set up...I was preempted by an actual famous recording personality already signed by V/F..some were nice, others complete arseholes.

 

After three weeks, I informed the guy in charge of me that I couldn’t afford to be famous...

He said in a huff, ‘Well, you certainly aren’t taking your craft seriously, I guess you don’t want to suceed in this business.’

 

I answered ‘No, that was your idea not mine.’

 

But, I digress,

 

so yeah, there was a lenghthy and successful time of the acoustic Singer Songwriter, and people actually enjoyed my original music, as well as others, I kinda enjoyed it, but I was happier rocking audiences thru High School with my garage band.

 

Now, If I had to sit through an acoustic set of some guy or girl in a Coffehouse for more than 10 minutes listening to them drone through their songs, and then try to make witty banter with the audience between songs, I would probably go ‘Belushi’ on them, like in ‘Animal House’ and smash their guitars to matchsticks.

 

I remember being at the Atlantic City NJ Pop Festival, and Joni Mitchell came on stage and started her clever repartee with the Audience, strumming and tuning up, and one Dude in the audience jumped up and yelled out;

 

‘Fùck this Acoustic Shít, I wanna BOOGIE!!!!’

 

Amen.

Edit, as far as making music at home in my modest studio, it’s me playing everything, on RTR tape, a 4track Tascam, a digital 8 track Foster and a Tascam DAWS.

Ironically, my three current musical collaborators are two members of our original Garage Band circa 1964...my brother, who plays multiple instruments and arranges all the vocal harmonies, and my songwriting partner who plays drums and percussion and can do the highest of ‘castrati’ like harmonies.

 

Third recent collaborator is a 20 something autistic nabe kid, who sat outside and listened to our sessions, and now is our bassist on recordings.

But this kid is a definite talent and I see good things for him in the future.

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Yeah, kinda isolated here. Runnin low on pop free fat tarts...no...wait...I mean fat free pop tarts.

 

 

Boiled orange peel tea helps to fight the scurvy.

 

Still waiting to hear from Publisher's Clearing House...

 

 

I haven't made music with another human since I was injured back in '02 and had to retire from my orchestra gig. Prior to that it was a daily thing, often many hours of the day. And after 16 years it still feels kind of wrong, musical isolation, though I've come to accept it. Nevertheless, as much as I do love the writing process and enjoy and am thankful for the tools that allow me to continue to make my music sound in some way...that which happens when musicians play music together is truly missed.

 

I suppose my own isolation is somewhat self imposed. I've still got the goods. My access to them times out kinda fast. There's probably some people somewhere that would work with me. Just can't maneuver like I used to. I've got one shot in the hustle gun just in case I see somebody step in front of a bus or something, and that's about it.

 

 

 

Glad for my time in the sun. But not much interested in being an entertainer of any sort anymore either, even on my good days. For a long time said good days. no matter how infrequent, meant instant buoyancy and possibilities to consider. Nyeh, not so much now.

 

(Chronic pain at the base of the skull doesn't leave many options, the more I do-the worse it gets, but it could be worse. It's a rather barren and uncomfortable perch to cling to...but the 'it could be worse' rock is not hard to find.)

 

It never fails to blow my mind when I crack open the latest gear catalog and see all the gear. How many pedals did Jimi have to choose from? Maybe it's a part of the isolation effect...everybody all holed up tweaking away, expecting a new pedal, or better converters to make the difference in the race to get clicks from listeners with earbuds. Keeping them all nice and clean so they can get top $$ next week for them on Ebay as they search on...with their head up their a**. Shovels, pick axes, and wheelbarrows practically of any type one can imagine everywhere...are we getting a commensurate showing of good/great highly creative music by any definition? Seems like the same old stones and pebbles from here, from what I encounter.

 

 

And, I don't have much of a problem with the multitudes having their own finger paintings up on the fridge, so to speak. It would be nice if those with the blood, sweat, tears, and talent could achieve better, or at least hope for it though.

 

 

BTW, I still have my blue Adat Worldwide Network coffee mug from my first Adat, a blackface. Wow, I could like, send my tapes to some guy in Japan. Never got around to it. Local talent pitched in from time to time, for a while. It's been just me for a while now though and I'm used to it. One way or the other, a presence that amounts to much would take some push which I am not able to currently muster, and in reasonably nice if not splendid isolation I continue to make music...just because.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Y

I suppose my own isolation is somewhat self imposed. I've still got the goods. My access to them times out kinda fast. There's probably some people somewhere that would work with me. Just can't maneuver like I used to. I've got one shot in the hustle gun just in case I see somebody step in front of a bus or something, and that's about it.

 

 

(Chronic pain at the base of the skull doesn't leave many options, the more I do-the worse it gets, but it could be worse. It's a rather barren and uncomfortable perch to cling to...but the 'it could be worse' rock is not hard to find.)

 

It never fails to blow my mind when I crack open the latest gear catalog and see all the gear. How many pedals did Jimi have to choose from? Maybe it's a part of the isolation effect...everybody all holed up tweaking away, expecting a new pedal, or better converters to make the difference in the race to get clicks from listeners with earbuds. Keeping them all nice and clean so they can get top $$ next week for them on Ebay as they search on...with their head up their a**. Shovels, pick axes, and wheelbarrows practically of any type one can imagine everywhere...are we getting a commensurate showing of good/great highly creative music by any definition? Seems like the same old stones and pebbles from here, from what I encounter.

 

 

And, I don't have much of a problem with the multitudes having their own finger paintings up on the fridge, so to speak. It would be nice if those with the blood, sweat, tears, and talent could achieve better, or at least hope for it though.

 

 

BTW, I still have my blue Adat Worldwide Network coffee mug from my first Adat, a blackface. Wow, I could like, send my tapes to some guy in Japan. Never got around to it. Local talent pitched in from time to time, for a while. It's been just me for a while now though and I'm used to it. One way or the other, a presence that amounts to much would take some push which I am not able to currently muster, and in reasonably nice if not splendid isolation I continue to make music...just because.

 

 

Given the fierce talent you had/have...I can only imagine your frustration being amplified. I never had any talent, so there is no loss to my long bouts of musical inactivity. But you were a freakin' hurricane of a musician and it is truly a loss for all of us that your injuries have so cruelly limited your gifts.

 

I know what you mean about the veritable flood of things musical available now. Just the amount of plug-ins boggles the imagination...And yet while the sonic landscape has certainly broadened, the creative side...Not so much really. A lot of retreads and walks on well traveled ground. That's the other thing...Radio, how much affect does it have on musical landscape now?

 

There is literally so much music being thrown out there through social networks and the like, it's hard to really figure out where to find something new to hear isn't it?

Used to be getting on the radio was the only conduit to wide spread exposure....Not anymore.

 

Jimi Hendrix....If he'd had the access to the giant pallet of musical colorings available today....Wow....

 

 

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Given the fierce talent you had/have...I can only imagine your frustration being amplified. I never had any talent, so there is no loss to my long bouts of musical inactivity. But you were a freakin' hurricane of a musician and it is truly a loss for all of us that your injuries have so cruelly limited your gifts.

 

I know what you mean about the veritable flood of things musical available now. Just the amount of plug-ins boggles the imagination...And yet while the sonic landscape has certainly broadened, the creative side...Not so much really. A lot of retreads and walks on well traveled ground. That's the other thing...Radio, how much affect does it have on musical landscape now?

 

There is literally so much music being thrown out there through social networks and the like, it's hard to really figure out where to find something new to hear isn't it?

Used to be getting on the radio was the only conduit to wide spread exposure....Not anymore.

 

Jimi Hendrix....If he'd had the access to the giant pallet of musical colorings available today....Wow....

 

 

smiley-happy Thanks AlamoJoe! Yep, it hasn't been easy. I have dreams at night in which I'm still me unencumbered. While that's quite nice...oh rude awakening.

 

I've been downgraded. I'm a widely scattered pop up thunderstorm now. :lol:

 

Still got a lightning bolt or two handy though. :thu:

 

I'm lucky in love. The wife is really good to me. Our son will be twelve soon. He has likely saved my soul. Pretty much impossible to be bitter for long with him here. I sorta feel like the universe made it up to me when he arrived. If things had gone differently, he might not be here. Seen in that light...I wouldn't change anything even if I could. He maybe deserves a dad who's out there kicking **s, and I feel a bit rotten in that regard but, I'm not on the road all the time either.

 

I was kind of going the other way in bringing up Jimi. IOW, he'd have been Jimi playing through practically anything, like a lot of other great guitarists. You can't buy an identity like that. Maybe after a whole lotta gear has been sold and resold some people will realize that the stuff that will truly set one apart from all the clutter comes from somewhere else. Of course, that's not to say that the gear doesn't matter. I've had an effect I was playing through inspire songs, and have perhaps even built songs around such an effect.

 

There's a Heifetz story... roughly something like he was backstage after a concert and a woman approached him and said that his violin sounded so beautiful. He looked at it sitting on a table and said he couldn't hear anything.

 

And yeah, the foot I had on the non classical side of the fence was geared for the old system. It had it's drawbacks, but the the wheat got separated from the chafe, for the most part.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Insofar as Jimi is concerned, and not speaking as someone who has any authority on the subject...I think onstage at least, he'd have been limited to the tech of the times...Fuzz boxes, wah pedals, reverbs. Maybe a Leslie although I don't remember ever seeing Leslies on stage in the zillions of feet of concert footage and still photographs I've seen. I do know he'd run several different fuzz boxes in series. At that point, flanging and delays were studio tricks for the most part, employing multiple tape decks. I guess maybe the Univibe and the Tone bender were around then though....

 

Thing is....All the pedals in the world didn't make him Jimi...It was his playing....And he'd have come across with nothing but a guitar and a amp.

 

just like you and your violin.

 

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Thing is....All the pedals in the world didn't make him Jimi...It was his playing....And he'd have come across with nothing but a guitar and a amp.

 

just like you and your violin.

 

 

High praise! I suppose we both paid our dues where the rubber meets the road. I started young and spent many long hours in, well whaddaya know...isolation...getting to know, (wrestling with) the violin. That's the hardest part. Shutting the door on all else that might be done with the morning, afternoon, evening. I spent a long time in practice rooms that would make most cubicles look rather inviting. Just me, and the violin...and a pack of smokes. (I quit smoking nearly 30 years ago, btw.)

 

And along with the right kind of isolation was regular interaction with teachers, other musicians, students and tons of listening. And one more really important thing my non classical self probably wouldn't exist without. I made up violin parts to pretty much every record, CD that I got my hands, (ears) on that captured my fancy. Again, done in isolation.

 

It wasn't easy then. And I can only imagine it's gotten harder... to focus where it will matter most. At the point where one interfaces with the music to begin with.

 

 

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I guess it's important to note that we all have to learn our instruments alone. We can take lessons, study with others, but ultimately it is ourselves that must learn the instruments. No one can learn them for us. You picked up a bow, and soared...I picked up a pick...And hey once in a great while I can carry a tune well enough that someone recognizes it...Lol.

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I guess it's important to note that we all have to learn our instruments alone. We can take lessons' date=' study with others, but ultimately it is ourselves that must learn the instruments. No one can learn them for us. You picked up a bow, and soared...I picked up a pick...And hey once in a great while I can carry a tune well enough that someone recognizes it...Lol.[/quote']

 

I think that at certain points, particularly early on, a good teacher is very important... maybe for some instruments more than others, but it helps to get off to a good start.

 

I'd been playing for 10 years or so when I came upon a teacher who quite rightly saw flaws in my form, but was a bit dogmatic about it looking like, operating like her own. But her physique was quite different. She had super long fingers, hands, and arms. She about had me tied in knots during the school year.

 

I threw down the glove while I was away at music camp in the Rockies that summer. Drank a lot of coffee and practiced 6 to 8 hours a day. I worked on pieces at the very limit of my abilities and did what had to be done to master them.

 

When I played for her in the fall, she was very congratulatory. She had a look on her face---she knew. She couldn't argue with success. I'd found my own way. No form flaws or hangups, but I didn't look just like her either.

 

My teacher after her was more about how to be a pro. Always be prepared, present well, and never get caught with your pants down so to speak, etc.

 

 

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Here here RockViolin -

I'm happy to hear this. Many times, people tell prodigies that they are doing something completely wrong, even though they are doing it brilliantly. Why? Because it's not "their" way. Someone else's way doesn't make it the right or wrong way. I like that you basically "proved" yourself through sheer determination.

 

Your teacher in your last sentence was the true pro. Teaching you life skills that you probably still draw on from time to time.

 

D

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Here here RockViolin -

I'm happy to hear this. Many times, people tell prodigies that they are doing something completely wrong, even though they are doing it brilliantly. Why? Because it's not "their" way. Someone else's way doesn't make it the right or wrong way. I like that you basically "proved" yourself through sheer determination.

 

Your teacher in your last sentence was the true pro. Teaching you life skills that you probably still draw on from time to time.

 

D

 

She had a point though, the first teacher I spoke of. I'd been under the bad influence (in more ways than one) of another young violinist who at the time seemed considerably more prodigal in my view (I never thought of myself as such) than I. He had short fingers, smaller hands, more compact physique in general and he could get away with having his left wrist bowed out. He kinda had to since his fingers were so short. He could get away with keeping his right elbow rather high. He had fast twitch for daaaays, which I didn't really understand at the time.

 

I was under the mistaken impression that if I looked more like him as a violinist, I'd be more like him. He had incredible technique. But it wasn't working for me and she saw that. She did me no wrong. I learned a lot from her. And of course she had her way to offer. She certainly did my left hand some good.

 

But I couldn't be him, and I couldn't be her. I was a wreck. And so I went into the summer thinking that if I simply threw enough baseballs, pretty soon the catcher wouldn't be able to argue with me. I practiced HARD. I don't recall giving much thought to where my left wrist was, or my right elbow. I just went at it, and my body found it's way. It wasn't easy for an Iowa boy way up in the Rocky Mountains to hole up and practice. But I did.

 

The 2nd teacher I spoke of just retired recently from the U. of S. Carolina, where he had held the endowed chair. Violin professor and conductor of the university orchestra. smiley-happy

 

Yeah, he whipped me into shape. It was not good to be caught unprepared around him. El Tigre would suddenly appear and leave tooth and claw wounds all over someone's poor, slack butt. :D

 

He used to say from time to time in orchestra rehearsals, as his finger would go up beside his nose, "You know, I'd hate to see how some of you drive."

 

Life skills indeed. :thu:

 

 

 

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Who was this said Gamecock instructor? I hailed from the same school!

 

 

Dr. Donald Portnoy. He was my teacher at WVU. I think it was '87 when he took the job in S.Carolina. My wife at the time and I followed him there.

 

He was the last violin teacher I had and as I mentioned earlier deserves much of the credit for filling in a few gaps and teaching me what it was to be someone with their act together to a professional degree. He was the conductor of the West Virginia Symphonette and Pittsburgh Opera Theater, some of my very first professional gigs, and he also ran the Conductor's Institute with Harold Farberman. That was a schooling too, though I was a player not a conductor.

 

Learned lots!

 

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I`ve been flying solo for a good 8 years now. I think I have had 4-5 sessions in my studio since 2010 with other musicians.

 

There are various reasons:

 

1) My buddies and I still get together but its more having dinner and a few beers and keeping our friendship together whereas 13-15 years ago we all had a bit more time and energy to get together and try to make a run at the band thing. The kids were babies and we had less responsibilities. Now that we`re older and busier than ever before (especially me who used to coordinate everyones schedules), I no longer have the interest to do the band thing, book gigs, schedule rehearsals, and put on a show. Its exhausting, its expensive, and at the end of the day, the same 25-40 people were showing up to the gigs. It got old.

 

2) As for recording, it seems collaborating over the web is just more convenient for most people, including myself. I collaborate with a handful people who record drums and guitars for me at their own spaces and send me the files. I also produce tracks for others, record vocals, piano, etc... and send files to them. Complete songs have been recorded without seeing the other artist(s) face to face.

 

3) I personally enjoy the freedom of recording solo. When its just me in the studio, I can record when I`m in the mood. I can record at my own pace is usually pretty fast especially when its vocals. I also have the luxury of stopping if my voice is not there that day. So even though I can record with others, I choose to record myself alone these days.

 

4) My sound has changed a lot in the last decade. Sound libraries now make up 50-75% or more of my sound. I just find that libraries are getting better and better now to the point where I have to question if its a real player or sample.

 

With all that said, I think the best music, meaning sound that carries emotion, is made best in a communal setting.

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