Well after I had some extra thoughts that just would not fit in to that last post so I thought I would make a new one.
Last night I talked about simplicity and how we should try to convey the meaning of a song with as little meaningless notes as possible. Now I know that you guys can tell from the music I listen to that there are a lot of background sounds and ambient stuff (thus the name of the blog). This is because I enjoy a hugeness in music. This is why I like classical music and ambient stuff like moby. My friend turned my on to moby with the song "God moving over the face of the waters"
With this song it starts out simple with just a quick piano motif which then quickly is layered with other piano and synth sounds to create a complex wave of sound.
This is not simple. Yet it conveys the message to the listener with all of the clarity that I talked about in my last post. The hugeness of the sound is the message. The theophany is the message. Its the idea that there is something bigger than us.
Yet even in this hugeness of sound, the ideas of my last post can be seen. There are a variety of small piano and synth motifs working together to achieve this sound and Moby adds and subtracts them when the idea of the song changes.
Well that's it for now. I am off to listen to some more moby.
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
simplicity or viva la vida and the satch
Im trying to get back in the swing of things. First of all thank you, Karl for your comment... although I think i should stick to the lack of updates... seems I get more comments that way. Hmm, well I am trying to figure out a direction that I want to take this blog. I know that with my very limited Blogger account that there is not much I can do. I have a vision of what I think would be cool and very web 2.0 or whatever the catchphrase may be. But with limited resources and time i have to settle for this.
Well, let's move on to more non-important stuff. This time I want to talk about when to play music. In music there is a note and a rest. The rest is just as important as the note. The rest gives the listener time to process the note that is being played. In this sense it is important to be able to convey the meaning of the song with no meaningless notes. This will give the listener the ability to process the song with little or no confusion as to what is being played.
A great example is the current debate between coldplay and Joe Satriani. You see there are allegations that coldplay ripped Joe's song of in order to crate the title track to their gammy winning masterpiece. Yet... shouldn't Joe have won the title before coldplay with that SAME melody if it was sooo great?
Ok so listen at about :58 seconds you will hear the riff that Joe satch is suing coldplay for. Hear is the coldplay song just for reference
Ok so coldplay won a grammy and outside of people who play guitar hero and played guitar in highschool no one has heard of Joe Satch. The reason is simple. Simplicity and claity of the medoldy without anything clouding it up.
So as a bass player and as a musician in general it is of the upmost importance that we learn when to play and when not to play. This week I am not playing at all on wednesday night. This is because both the worship leader and I feel that the set, the team, and the lack of practice that we have will not work full band. Thus we can achieve the level of intesity and clarity that is needed without playing.
night guys
Well, let's move on to more non-important stuff. This time I want to talk about when to play music. In music there is a note and a rest. The rest is just as important as the note. The rest gives the listener time to process the note that is being played. In this sense it is important to be able to convey the meaning of the song with no meaningless notes. This will give the listener the ability to process the song with little or no confusion as to what is being played.
A great example is the current debate between coldplay and Joe Satriani. You see there are allegations that coldplay ripped Joe's song of in order to crate the title track to their gammy winning masterpiece. Yet... shouldn't Joe have won the title before coldplay with that SAME melody if it was sooo great?
Ok so listen at about :58 seconds you will hear the riff that Joe satch is suing coldplay for. Hear is the coldplay song just for reference
Ok so coldplay won a grammy and outside of people who play guitar hero and played guitar in highschool no one has heard of Joe Satch. The reason is simple. Simplicity and claity of the medoldy without anything clouding it up.
So as a bass player and as a musician in general it is of the upmost importance that we learn when to play and when not to play. This week I am not playing at all on wednesday night. This is because both the worship leader and I feel that the set, the team, and the lack of practice that we have will not work full band. Thus we can achieve the level of intesity and clarity that is needed without playing.
night guys
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
Well, maybe a new post finally?
Heh. its been a like a year since my last real post. All I can say is I am sorry about that piece of garbage. I truly missed the idea behind worship music. You see there is a tendency with christians to take stuff to the extreme (I am mostly sure karl has blogged about this before) and with worship there are a lot of extremes to fit in with. You can have the all choral extreme, the melt your face off with crazy metal riffs extreme, the all acoustic extreme, the "let the spirit move you" the production oriented extreme and even more. the problem with these extremes is that they end up defining our musical experience instead of worship defining our musical experience. In the previous post as with most of the posts i have made on this sight I lost sight of worshiping God in exchage for "I couldnt feel my bass".
Well Im telling you 3 readers that mentality is garbage. Just worship God and adapt to your surroundings. If I have a click track, awesome, if not, awesome. I just want to make music for God and help create an environment where people can worship through music. Do I think that having a click track creates a better musical environment, sure. But am I gonna let that get in the way of playing music for God, absolutely not anymore.
So please if you read this site take everything I said before with a grain of salt.
Well Im telling you 3 readers that mentality is garbage. Just worship God and adapt to your surroundings. If I have a click track, awesome, if not, awesome. I just want to make music for God and help create an environment where people can worship through music. Do I think that having a click track creates a better musical environment, sure. But am I gonna let that get in the way of playing music for God, absolutely not anymore.
So please if you read this site take everything I said before with a grain of salt.
Sunday, December 7, 2008
Wednesday, April 9, 2008
Summary of the last week
Sorry been busy with taxes and whatnot!
Bass Confessional:
Not much to say. I am increasingly fustrated with the set up at the church (no bass amp, crappy avioms, in ear monitors). But that will be another blog real soon. I realize that our church just cant practically handle a rig. But i cant feel anything at all. We all need to sit down and figure out the click track. Thats about it.
Guitar for Worship night:
What a cool chance to meet some old friends and meet some new ones. Karl put on a great seminar on his tone. Also it was great to see what other people run and sound like. Basically, I am glad that I have a worship leader/ guitar player as humble and as good as Karl. Its not everyday that you get a bass player and a guitar player liking the same tone. Also I am inspired to think about playing guitar more (maybe?). If I had money that is...
Music that I am listening to:
The Beatles
Credence
U2
Editors
Bass Confessional:
Not much to say. I am increasingly fustrated with the set up at the church (no bass amp, crappy avioms, in ear monitors). But that will be another blog real soon. I realize that our church just cant practically handle a rig. But i cant feel anything at all. We all need to sit down and figure out the click track. Thats about it.
Guitar for Worship night:
What a cool chance to meet some old friends and meet some new ones. Karl put on a great seminar on his tone. Also it was great to see what other people run and sound like. Basically, I am glad that I have a worship leader/ guitar player as humble and as good as Karl. Its not everyday that you get a bass player and a guitar player liking the same tone. Also I am inspired to think about playing guitar more (maybe?). If I had money that is...
Music that I am listening to:
The Beatles
Credence
U2
Editors
Monday, March 31, 2008
Bass Confessional?
Hey all its Monday. This would be the day that I would do Bass Confessional.
However, there is a problem. I did not play bass, I played guitar for the first time in two years.
So for the first time in the history of my blog its
GUITAR CONFESSIONAL!!!!
This week was really cool because we had a pro surfer/producer/talker guy come in and preview his new movie. We only played 2 songs on Saturday night and a full set on sunday. We were really sketchy on Saturday night since there were a lot of brand new songs and our stupid in ear monitors were sucking. I some how ended up breaking Karl's input jack on his guitar (sorry Karl). On Sunday things started to go better until first service we played How Great is Our God. Our female vocalist wanted to change the song from its original practice key of G to the lower key of F. Ok no problem right? Well most of the songs this week were in G so Karl's pad/background noise is in G so the transition was: end of song in G > Fade out of pad in G > Tim's guitar playing How Great in F. This had the awesome effect of completely confusing the poor female vocalist on the key. Se then sang the song in G. Bill our bass player comes in on G and Karl comes in on F. So half of us played in G the other half played in F. Total awesomeness!
Other than that it went great. I had fun even though I was rusty. I hope Karl will let me do it again.
However, there is a problem. I did not play bass, I played guitar for the first time in two years.
So for the first time in the history of my blog its
GUITAR CONFESSIONAL!!!!
This week was really cool because we had a pro surfer/producer/talker guy come in and preview his new movie. We only played 2 songs on Saturday night and a full set on sunday. We were really sketchy on Saturday night since there were a lot of brand new songs and our stupid in ear monitors were sucking. I some how ended up breaking Karl's input jack on his guitar (sorry Karl). On Sunday things started to go better until first service we played How Great is Our God. Our female vocalist wanted to change the song from its original practice key of G to the lower key of F. Ok no problem right? Well most of the songs this week were in G so Karl's pad/background noise is in G so the transition was: end of song in G > Fade out of pad in G > Tim's guitar playing How Great in F. This had the awesome effect of completely confusing the poor female vocalist on the key. Se then sang the song in G. Bill our bass player comes in on G and Karl comes in on F. So half of us played in G the other half played in F. Total awesomeness!
Other than that it went great. I had fun even though I was rusty. I hope Karl will let me do it again.
Wednesday, March 26, 2008
Random Post
Ok so this is my first official post in a while. Thanks to Karl for launching a blog in order to kick me into gear.
Ok first the music thing: I am listening to moby recently. I dont know why but everything he does interests me on some level. His music choices are so tasteful especially his simplistic bass lines. Also as I watch American idol, I have been really getting into the Beatles recently. I am infected by dance punk. I dont even know what dance punk is but whatever bands that my friend told me to get have been amazing.
I recommend
1. VHS or BETA - simply amazing
2. Moving Units - very very good
Secondly: Everyone of the 2 people who read this site need to go to http://guitarforworship.blog.com
This is written by my friend Karl. He has more gear than you can shake a stick at and knows more about that stuff than.... some really smart person. Great website, great reviews. If anyone wants to know why I don't do that kind of stuff for bass, its because I have no money. anyway great site.
On that note everyone please visit the people on the links at the left. They are all great websites with tones of information that I know very little about.
Also I wanted to give everyone an update about the vision of this website. In this next year I want this site to be one of the best sources for music reviews, insights about bass playing, and interviews about worship styles out on the web. I may be slow to upload all of this awesome content but by the end of the year I hope it will be up and running.
Ok first the music thing: I am listening to moby recently. I dont know why but everything he does interests me on some level. His music choices are so tasteful especially his simplistic bass lines. Also as I watch American idol, I have been really getting into the Beatles recently. I am infected by dance punk. I dont even know what dance punk is but whatever bands that my friend told me to get have been amazing.
I recommend
1. VHS or BETA - simply amazing
2. Moving Units - very very good
Secondly: Everyone of the 2 people who read this site need to go to http://guitarforworship.blog.com
This is written by my friend Karl. He has more gear than you can shake a stick at and knows more about that stuff than.... some really smart person. Great website, great reviews. If anyone wants to know why I don't do that kind of stuff for bass, its because I have no money. anyway great site.
On that note everyone please visit the people on the links at the left. They are all great websites with tones of information that I know very little about.
Also I wanted to give everyone an update about the vision of this website. In this next year I want this site to be one of the best sources for music reviews, insights about bass playing, and interviews about worship styles out on the web. I may be slow to upload all of this awesome content but by the end of the year I hope it will be up and running.
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