Notes for new CD: I am usually inspired to write when theres something in my life I cant work through. Sometimes Ill start with a chord progression, sometime a melody, sometimes its lyrics - maybe just one phrase will pop into my head. In the past, this was my mode of operating: if it sounds too familiar, like its been done already, Ill reject it. But I decided for this album, that my shortcomings dont include a lack of eclecticism. If anything, Im too eclectic. People generally like to put you in a box, and then decide if they like that box. Ive always avoided that box in the past. So for this album, I tried to reject my natural inclination to be the most original thing that ever walked the face of the Earth. Instead, I just asked myself this question: Is it good? OK, Ill roll with it. The way it turned out, its not just a little square box. The trouble with me writing when somethings eating at me is I tend to end up with whiny, complaining lamentations. I was writing a song called lost child drawing on my experience as a little kid in a big family, and getting left behind somewhere out in the middle of nowhere. But then the news came in about that guy who murdered all those kids at the Elementary school in Newtown, Conn. I stopped in my tracks and abandoned what I was working on, and decided to work on a song I had half-written called Super Human Strength, about situations where kids have been miraculously saved. Life was harsh when I was a kid, and I felt powerless to change anything. When I was 10, I got a little tape recorder for christmas. I could just barely play clarinet in school, and never tried to record it, but I was facinated by capturing sound on that little tape recorder. I would try to record little skits satirizing TV shows, goofy stuff like that. Eventually me and my friends got access to guitars and learned a few chords. One day I was playing an E chord which sounded really good - full and joyful and powerful. Then I took one finger off and played an E minor chord. It sounded sad. That blew me away. I was mesmerized. Suddenly I could completely control something. I went back and forth between those two chords. I mustve sat there on the stairs for 2 hours doing that. Happy...sad...happy...sad...happy...sad. Pretty soon playing music became my own little world to escape to. I played a little with friends, but my thing was always recording. On a reel to reel tape recorder, you could speed things up, slow things down, and play them backwards. Id try things like: hit a piano chord, but dont turn the recorder on for a second so you dont hear the attack, you hear it kind of fade in and sustain. Then Id try putting the microphone inside and turning the volume all the way up so it sounded distorted. I liked that. I also tried using the microphone as a mallet on the piano keys. It made a satisfying smack sound along with the piano note. Distortion seemed to be the way to go. My first electric guitar was a bass. I got a wire with an adaptor at Radio Shack so I could plug the bass into the microphone input (which youre not supposed to do). It was CRAZY distorted. Recording that distorted bass kept me entertained for months. I would get encouragement to keep experimenting. A guy in my sisters boyfriends band told me It doesnt matter that you cant read music. Just start banging around on the piano till you find things that you like. Wrong notes arent really wrong notes if they sound ok to you. So besides playing in bands, Ive been banging around and recording ever since. And I really like it when even the wrong notes somehow still work.
Posted on: Sun, 03 Nov 2013 20:39:09 +0000
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