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A friend posted this article to Facebook:

Ramin Street — Top 10 Reasons Why the Music Industry is Failing

And while I have indulged in my own share of curmudgeonly ranting over the state of modern music, Street’s article attacks the status quo for the wrong reasons. In my own reaction to the article I have discovered in myself a latent optimism, awakened by a compulsion to respond to Street’s points one at a time. Here is my response:

“1. Record Labels Stopped Doing Their Job.”

In other words, labels stopped seeking out innovators and began focusing on self-preservation, not taking risks on truly original talent. This is reminiscent of comments that I recall Frank Zappa making during an interview, about how old-school record executives didn’t know what they were doing, and thus were more willing to gamble than their modern counterparts.

First of all, what music is he listening to? Even mainstream radio is currently featuring some rather unique-sounding acts: Florence and the Machine, Of Monsters and Men, Bon Iver, and Gotye immediately come to mind.

But let’s say he’s correct, and that record labels are no longer taking charge in bringing innovative artists to public attention. How relevant are labels anyway? What necessitates their assumption of the lead in artist discovery and promotion? DIY is the next wave of music marketing. Labels need not be relevant or useful to the artist anymore. Also recall that Beethoven and Schoenberg were self-promoters, so this concept is far from new.

“2. The Record Labels Became Too Big.”

Here we are with the labels again. Let them fall; they only stand in the way.

“3. Lack of Talent and Personality”

The question of musicianship vs. entertainment is age-old. Look at the so-called “sweet” versus “hot” bands of the 20′s and 30′s. Is the problem greater now? I would think not. It’s just that the talent resides in the long tail — in other words, good artists sell fewer units to more listeners at higher margins while mediocre artists sell more units to fewer listeners at lower margins.

“4. Traditional Roles Have Disappeared.”

Street elaborates: “…with the dwindling of funds for music education in our public schools, we now have artists calling themselves songwriters with little knowledge of music theory, composition or song structure or appreciation for styles that came before (to our detriment). We also have people calling themselves producers with minimal studio experience and an extremely limited understanding of orchestration/arranging to better help an artist in realizing his or her full potential.”

This argument reeks of elitism. Many of the artists we “serious” musicians idolize lacked formal training. I would also refrain from jumping to the conclusion that education funding makes any difference. I personally witnessed programs that squandered the resources they had because there was no passion to learn in the first place. I credit half of my personal education to experience. Budding musicians have proven very good at independently seeking out knowledge. Furthermore, school music programs mainly succeed in bringing the weakest member of a band to standards, whereas private and self-education allows a prodigy freedom to exceed standards.

“5. Fan Abuse (e.g. high ticket prices, high CD prices)”

This is the one point Street raises with which I am in near-total agreement. Live music and complete albums offer little value these days.

“6. We Lost Some of the Old Experience”

Also agreed. From vinyl to tape to CD to digital files, the industry has been gradually trading convenience for sound quality. But more importantly, it’s the liner notes, artwork, etc. that promote a comprehensive listening experience. Gone are the days of the album as a cohesive product. As musicians, however, we must take initiative in dealing with the shift: We can respond by either trying to change public demand, or by adapting to it.

“7. MP3s Sound Horrible.”

Again, a little scent of elitism. While I am aware that I just commented that the shift to digital distribution has sacrificed sound quality, “horrible” is too strong a word. We have always dealt with worse-than-optimal sound quality. Was there such a negative attitude towards cassettes? We also tend to listen in environments that effectively mask the inadequacies of the medium. Just now, in fact, I am listening to Bach in my quiet house, save for the humming of a fridge, an aquarium pump and filter, and other incidental noise. Without noise-cancelling headphones in the dead of night, I cannot discern between 192kbps MP3, 128 AAC, or WAV. I would suspect most others wouldn’t either.

“8. Too Many Choices and Not Enough Filters.”

On no other point does Street miss the mark more. A musician himself, he acts against his own self-interest by lamenting the unfettered access listeners have to artists, even going so far as to suggest we need an agent “directing, filtering, or grading all the music being created.” Yet he goes on to criticize media outlets for their “generic, universal playlists.” What is he calling for, exactly?

With unfettered access to band websites featuring streaming tracks, song-sharing services like Spotify, and viral social news networks like Reddit, undiscovered and independent artists are enjoying more exposure than ever. Who would have heard of Jake Shimabukuro or Andy McKee in 1995?

“9. Lack of Musicianship.”

Here, Street is mostly just repeating point #4. And he must not have his ears to the ground, because there are plenty of virtuosos out there. Maybe they just don’t play the kinds of music he likes. Or maybe, as implied earlier, he still expects to discover them through traditional channels.

“10. Focus is on Beats Over Melody.”

Another age-old complaint which lacks support. How can one allege that there is too great an emphasis on beats over melody when acoustic acts like Mumford and Sons are all over the airwaves? If his point is that crap music occupies the top 40, then he is restating what has been bleedingly obvious since 1986.

I do believe there are plenty of things for us musicians to worry about lately ; the decline of interest in small club shows and the emphasis on entertainment over craftsmanship are two that come to mind. But to look to the institutions with which musicians and their fans have always shared a tenuous relationship, borne of professional convenience, not artistic vision — the radio stations, record labels and promoters — to straighten out our concerns is to venture down a directionless path.

I was working on ways of practicing arpeggios through moving harmonies, and came up with this drill.  It uses three different arpeggio patterns, based on the e-form, a-form, and c-form fingerings. Some reversals of direction enable each arpeggio to fit neatly within a 16-note framework.

I have provided fingerings for the first four chords in the sequence, to show how the three-chord pattern loops. Follow this sequence all the way to the G7 chord at the 15th fret, which marks the completion of a full cycle of 4ths.

For an extra challenge, reverse the sequence, starting at the G7 at XV, then through 5ths: D7, A7, etc. on downward to your starting point.

We know that Mr. Zappa’s forte was staging amazing tours. In this excerpt from a recorded interview, he stresses the importance of holding your bandmates to high standards.

Today the world says goodbye to Slayer guitarist Jeff Hanneman.

Slayer are, as I mentioned in my History of Metal, the one group in thrash’s “Big Four” that seem to have maintained the highest level of credibility among listeners throughout the decades since their emergence. Their raw sound, disturbing lyrics, frantic tempos, and chaotic solos might keep all but the pathologically curious at bay, and I must admit my own appreciation for Slayer came rather late; but I for one eventually learned their sound is not raw as much as it is genuine, their lyrics are not disturbing as much as they are revealing, their tempos not frantic but exhilarating, and their solos…well, I can’t tell how calculated they are, but I cannot imagine that anything more polished sounding would seem appropriate in the context of their songs.

I was first exposed to Slayer when the bassist in my high school band suggested we learn “Skeletons of Society.” We rehearsed it, but never got to perform it. Many years later, I would suggest to the members of Avengers Assemble! that we prepare “Seasons in the Abyss” as a set-opener. Could there be any better song to open a club show? Hardly.

We must all rock considerably harder to fill the void left by Hanneman’s departure.

I just completed a marathon practice session, wherein I focused mainly on alternate picking. Here’s one of several patterns I worked on  which combines slurs with outside picking:

Here is what it sounds like at a decent speed.  (Play 16th-note pattern)

I’ll elaborate on this exercise more next time. Meanwhile, if you’re up for a greater challenge, try the pattern with no slurs, beginning with an upstroke.

The problem with arpeggios on the guitar is they generally require sweeping or awkward string skips. If you keep two notes per string, you can set up patterns like this, which are generally pretty easy on the right hand:

Try it with your preferred picking and legato placement. Also, think of each group of two notes on one string as a cell, and try varying the pattern within each cell, and stringing each cell together in different ways. You can certainly apply this pattern to other chord types, but four-note seventh-chords are probably going to work best. Try raising or lowering the fifth, or raising the root one half-step to imply either a C7b9 or C#dim7.

Just a heads-up: I know it’s been a while since I posted, but I have been utterly consumed with a new composition project. I’m rearranging a cool jazz ballad I wrote in more of a modern metal, “Djent” style for what I hope to be either a live rehearsal or an online collaboration.

I have worked out the first 18 seconds of music, only to scratch most of what I wrote and start over; and tonight I realized I may start over again. With each pass, the overarching concept is strengthened; I just need to refine the details.

As soon as I have something worth sharing, I will be glad to post it here.

For whatever reasons, Dave Brubeck is often overlooked by purists when recounting the greatest artists of jazz. But his legacy is nearly as impactful as any artist of the last century, and his music easily as inspiring.

Brubeck, always smiling.

I first encountered him when I was 18 years old. He was a featured artist on VH1′s “New Visions Jazz,” hosted by Ben Sidran. Mr. Brubeck was performing a couple of standards (“I Hear a Rhapsody” and “These Foolish Things”) at a jazz festival in Florida; and even I, with my then limited capacity to understand the subtleties of jazz, was dazzled by they way he could evoke orchestral textures from a piano. In a subsequent interview, he was asked how he felt about playing the old fan favorites dozens of times per year, for years on end. Hardly a month goes by that I don’t recall his answer as one of the first lessons I learned about being a performer. He said that he was fortunate to be playing music for so many people, and for so long, and that if people wanted to hear “Take Five” for the 200th time, it remained his job to play it for them, and to do so with as much intent and fervor as he ever did.

Another of the several lessons I learned by listening to his music was that a style is represented by its distilled essence, not by its most frequently used techniques. To illustrate: “Blue Rondo a la Turk” is one of the greatest blues pieces ever written and performed, and without adhering strictly to the incessantly repeating twelve-bar form. Today, remember Dave Brubeck in hindsight the way countless students and fans enjoyed him in person — by taking delight in the impeccable structure, exhibited both on the page and in improvisation, in the music of Brubeck’s classic quartet, who were matchless both in their knack for craftsmanship and in their appeal to humanity’s basest feelings.

In Part 1, I described how I devised an overall strategy for the arrangement, then transcribed the verse parts. In Part 2, we examined the keyboard part in the chorus. Today, I shall conclude by summarizing the other rhythm parts in the chorus and bridge.

The guitar in the chorus is elementary: 5th chords in rhythmic unison with the keys.

The bass doubles the roots throughout.

As I mentioned in Part 2, the keys need to dominate the arrangement right here. I have found in performance that laying low with the guitar part can be a challenge. Right before this tune, I need to do something that attenuates my overdrive channel volume. For now, it’s selecting a quieter model on my Variax, which I prefer to turning down the OD1 channel on my amp, which might prove difficult to do just the same way every night. This is a situation where a volume pedal or an extra EQ pedal might make life easier.

Our band’s manager asked if I could give our horns something to do. I wasn’t crazy about throwing horns into the mix, but it doesn’t hurt to give a group options. This arrangement will work with our without the horn section. I decided to use them only in the chorus to reinforce the keyboard.

I could have voiced the horns with the trumpet doubling the highest note of the keyboard — an obvious approach, given that the highest notes seem to carry an important melody. But that also seemed a bit too near the edge of the trumpet’s range. When you push an instrument that hard, its intensity can distract attention from the principal voice of the arrangement. So I took a chance in assigning the lead voice to the tenor sax and trombone, playing in unison, with the trumpet playing roots above. In jazz, this would be blasphemy. But after hearing this in performance, I’m okay with the results. The trumpet does tend to pop out a bit too much at times; but I figure that even if savvy listeners might notice something about the lead line that doesn’t resemble the album (which is unlikely), they have already accepted the use of horns — already a departure from the original.

The second half of the chorus has the guitar doing a repetitive, 4-note pattern:

This sounds like a synth in the original; it’s tough to tell because it’s one of the more subtle components of the arrangement. In performance, I cut my overdrive a bit. My approach is to use a Boss SD-1 throughout the tune, coupling it with the clean channel for the verse riff and the above pattern, and switching to the amp’s overdrive channel for the power chords in the chorus and the lead in the bridge. As in every other part of the arrangement, my objective is to lurk in the shadows and provide textural support. It is important to use your technology to suppress as well as impress.

Note the volume swell in the guitar part at the end of the first chorus:

Here I also had the tenor and trombone double the bottom two notes of the 5th chord. This is a type of subtle touch that often comes to mind when you are focused on making an arrangement sound ideal, and not simply transcribing parts.

Finally, here is the last new phrase in the song, a guitar lick that soars above the bridge:

I indicate “long delay” at the end of this section, so the final two notes can echo in the background during a break.

The rest of this arrangement was a matter of cutting parts here and there and mapping out sections. Finally, I double-checked the legibility in the parts, and made sure there were rehearsal marks and helpful dynamic markings where appropriate.

I hope this process has been educational. I recently completed another arrangement that I’d like to share in an upcoming post.

I would expect any jazz student to be familiar with the Charlie Parker Omnibook, a compendium of transcriptions of heads and solos by the seminal altoist. It is an essential tool for any performer interested in building a bebop vocabulary.

YouTube user dancohen has created a series of videos which follows the original recordings with note-by-note animations based on the Omnibook transcriptions. One hazard of learning solely from another person’s transcription is being unaware of the quirks of rhythm and accent that cannot easily be notated. I found these videos useful for learning how Bird’s phrasing might sound different than mine if I simply learned the transcriptions as written.