2 years into music self-education

pebble444

Italy2503 Posts

October 23 2014 11:08 GMT

:
This blog is a bit later than the one last year :

This year has been very productive for me. I progressed furthur with the acoustic guitar and have improved my voice skills. This summer i jammed with many a people and met different musicians with different styles.

Winter 2014 :
I found some work, making music for short videos, portraing the art work of 3 different people. It was good money and learning; you meet people, try to understand who they are and what does there work consist in, and reflect it in the music.
On the side i made this
Dark Oriental psychedelic music:
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Another multiple piece story was «The tales of John smith » , another imaginary story about a guy who lived in the 16th century, a gambler, cheat, scumbag. He grew up in london, lived a brief but intense life, got sentenced to death, escaped, and got stabbed in the back to death while he was planning to leave for the Americas. I remember how i woke up on the first day after new years eve, and this story just came out of my imagination. I had to pin it down in music. this is a piece of when john gets caught cheating after a card game:
https://soundcloud.com/pebble-5/sets/rejection

The other important aspect of this season was a new window, building musical instruments out of bamboo.
I reaserached and built several xylophones out of this peculiar wood. (yes it is wood). I harvested it, dried it, cut it, fixed the structures, sanded it and coated it with olive oil mixed with sunflower seeds. Hard work but very rewarding. Xylophones are the easiest tuned instruments to build, anyone can make the with proper motivation. Here is a picture of 1 of them.
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Spring 2014 :
Opening up to the world around me. practicing, practicing, and more practicing. Working a bit, not in music;
On the computer side, i got into a project of a video game, called sam the pirate which you may have read on from tl blogs. Despite the game not ever being finished, it was a great learning experience for me. In 3 weeks i wrote some 10 different tunes, based on the styles of the videogames of the 90's and early 2000's . A major influece for me in this style has always been Crash bandicoot.
Here is the intro theme to sam and a level :
main theme
https://soundcloud.com/pebble-5/main-title-sam-the-pirate
« happy mood area »
https://soundcloud.com/pebble-5/happy-mood-area
Summer 2014 :
New windows:
In the beginning june i was expermineting a bit:
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A turning point was the summer solstice . on the 21st of June its the international music festival, people all around europe go on the streets and play, wheter professional or amateur it doesn' t matter. So i went with a friend who sings, we went to a town nearby and jammed for 2 hours. It felt like an initiation. At this point i started really to play with other people and bring my guitar when i went around. It kinda felt like when Japan ended its isolation from westerners in the late 1800's , old beliefs die, cutting corners, going back to the basical and practical. Guitar, guitar bag, pick, voice, electronic tuner, and motivation to jam and have fun. Off i go to see what happens.
I can say that by the end of this summer at least 60 different people played my guitar. My approach became, playing letting anyone play, calling people to meet up, bringing people toghether. Playing things based on what kind of mood is in the area. Everybody can bring something to a party or gathering. Theres those who play, those who dance, those who sing, those who create enviroment. I jammed with people playing the following instruments : Guitars of all kinds, congas, melodica, cello, accordeon, voice, bass, violin
for a friends birthday party, we got toghether a guy who played his cello freestyle over trance minimal music, and danced well into the sunrise.

July was tought. i went out with a girl, and seriously fell for her. problem was she didn' t feel the same way about me. so i wrote a story about the story i had with her. meeting her, hoping, witing, realizing she was not willing to commit to anything, grieving, accepting that and finding a resolution

August was all jams and toast. No seriously, was just good fun hanging around, freestyle ; i worked as a translator real-time, and that has helped in the music as well, for writing my own lyrics.

Some hype music i wrote for crimson invitational tournament : (broodwar)
https://soundcloud.com/pebble-5/hype-nr3-1
A requiem i wrote for my dog that passed away :
https://soundcloud.com/pebble-5/max-1

pictures of my gear:

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Native american drum a friend built in an indian tribe:

Harley Benton Acoustic Bass

Honer Melodica:

insides of piano:

a 1970's trumphet that needs fixing

Tibetan bowl with a dragon incense holder:

shaker and "armonica a bocca"

Chestnut drum:

Wooden recorder:

Ibanez performance acoustic guitar

Computer gear:
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"attack ozone" headphones

alesis q25 midi keayboard

Audio techinca ath-m50 headphones

Sennheiser e835s microphone

Marantz PMD620 for recording microphone, samples and stereo

not pictured trust generic computer speakers
Audacity snapshot
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reason Propellorhead 4.0
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other software i use is:
panzera free audio exctractor, to get audio files from video.
mp3 convertor, to convert wav files to mp3 (lamefront 1.8
musescore
Autumn 2014 :
Just keep on learning and playing. I did my first gig 1 month ago; it was a very emotional experience, having to get onto a stage and playing. i was nervous and tried to calm and relax. The experience was very different from what i imagined. Having friends and family around for support actually helped. my take on it is the more i play in front of people the more i get used to it and its easier (no stress). did another couple of times and it was better. what bothered me most is the downtime beetwen songs; i have now a list of cover and my own songs i keep, that i can do easily, just to remind me of what i can pick from. I like to play based on what feels right in that specific moment. having water around to is a must. i am looking foward to the next gig which shall be next week. for now i am playing before other bands, 40 minutes tops.

What i learnt this year :
-use your emotions and keep them under control while playing. Its not good to let them overwhelm you, or just discart them. Use them in a controlled manner, let them flow out of you trought music.
- Some things i can learn on my own, some things a teacher is better.
- always to keep back-up strings. changing all strings every 6 months refreshes playing.
- have fun!! do what you love doing the rest comes along the way
- Don' t sell an instrument that you use even sporadically; (unless getting a replacement)
- To be open to changes, have goals, but not expectations
Well, thats about it. looking foward to this new year of music, wherever it will bring me!!

Kronen

United States732 Posts

October 23 2014 12:14 GMT

Nice blog!! It was a very interesting and informative read! If you want some more tips/tools on combating performance anxiety leery me know but it sounds like you're not going to perform live that often. Keep it up!

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