by Rick

It is easy for a jazz pianist to become bottled up in a piano-centric world, completely oblivious to the other instruments that exist. This is normal. Pianists tend to see their instrument as the end all be all of instruments; the top of the mound, the king of the hill, the ace in the deck. Throughout history, keyboard instruments have been the ones used to develop theory, develop voice leading, and write symphonies! Solo piano is one of the oldest "complete" genres of jazz, dating back to the inception in New Orleans. In fact, some, like myself, would argue that the language of jazz developed in great part due to the efforts of pianists James P. Johnson, Jelly Roll Morton, Willie "the Lion" Smith, Teddy Wilson, Earl Hines, Fats Waller, Art Tatum, and Nat Cole (surely, the list goes on). As a budding young pianist, I had a piano-centric view of the universe; ignorant and unable to acknowledge anyone who wasn't a descendant of Oscar Peterson, my personal hero. I would listen to solo piano, piano duos, and, of course, piano trios. Any combo larger than three people was too large for me. Yes, the piano is great, and, yes, the piano has played a very significant role in sculpting the form of modern music, but let us remember hubris is the deadly Greek flaw.

Each instrument has a unique sound and mechanism. The combination of these two things, not surprisingly, guide the player in a certain natural direction. For example, jazz professors (and seasoned jazz veterans in general) make a huge ruckus about needing to leave space in a solo. A piano player, who does not need to breathe to play his instrument, can begin to play gratuitous lines, while a horn player will have to leave natural space to breathe (barring circular breathing!). Thus, looking outside the scope of your own instrument is important. Take J. J. Johnson for example. As an up and coming trombonist in the world of bebop, he was faced with a unique dilemma. Bebop was a developing language all about flash and trying to out play the other player, and the trombone was an awkward instrument to play fast and complicated bebop lines on. Still, wanting to sound like Charlie Parker, who was playing an instrument made for fast playing, he took that inspiration and transformed the instrument completely.

I soon realized this importance, and after escaping from the piano bubble I built for myself, came to find inspiration in many different instrumentalists and a few singers. One instrument I am very influenced by is the guitar. While the guitar is a chordal instrument like the piano, it is much less limited, in an expressive sense. You can bend, slide, ghost notes, and use vibrato in ways impossible on the piano. I'm always disappointed when I try to use vibrato on the piano and it doesn't come out, but I hope that the way I approach it does something to my overall sound. One guitarist I listen to for this expressive way of playing is Kurt Rosenwinkel, who comes up with the most interesting clusters and lines. He uses the guitar more as an extension of his voice, and on some recordings you can hear him singing along quite loudly (on his recording of "If I Should Lose You", he even sings the words at one point in the background). Another favorite is Allan Holdsworth, whose technique is simply impeccable, but he does not sacrifice musicality for gratuity (as I write this I'm listening to "Non Brewed Condiment", which is a difficult but gorgeous melody). I also listen to lots of trumpet players. Of course, I include Miles on the list. He's one of the few cats who can take one note played in quarter notes and use it to define the tone of his solo, the groove, and the time (for a classic example, listen to the first three notes of his solo on "Freddie Freeloader"). I'm always trying to emulate the way he plays the blues with that simplicity and dark tone. Then there's Clifford Brown, the trumpet player's Art Tatum. Out of all the great qualities possessed by Clifford, the one I find most inspiration in is his clarity. Clifford's first big gig, like so many of the great trumpet players, was with Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers, and playing with such a rhythmic powerhouse, along with innate talent, surely had something to do with his rhythmic prowess. I'll close out this list with someone who is often taken for granted by the general public, Frank Sinatra. In my opinion, if you want to learn how to swing and lay back, listen to Sinatra religiously. He has recorded some of the most in the pocket melodies in the history of the language.

To be sure, there are many, many more to name, but, I would love to hear back from any of you guys out there in Indaba land with musical influences you take from outside your instrument or comfort zone- please feel free to comment below.

by Vijith

I'm a big fan of jazz pianist Chick Corea and have even occasionally ventured as far as trying to play some of his tunes myself, usually with fairly embarrassing results, so I'm a little stunned by this performance by Fabio Valdemarin. The song, "Got A Match?", might be the most excessive track on the debut record by the Elektric Band fusion quartet Corea introduced in 1986, filled every step of the way with blazing runs from instrument leaders like bassist John Patitucci and drummer Dave Weckl. That Valdemarin can nail a remarkable rendition of such a difficult song on four different instruments is at once a vote of confidence in the overdubbed one-man band projects made possible by home studios and also a reminder that I really oughta turn off this bloody computer and go practice.

Look, I'm not going to lie.  I went to the gym the other day, picked up something way too heavy for me and ripped all the muscles in my hand.  Every word, every letter, I type here causes a mini-seizure in my fingers.  I had something planned just for this occasion, though.  I knew someday that I would screw up my hands so I prepared a pose just in case that happened.  And now that it has enjoy the blissfully wordless, "My Favorite Mash-Ups."

--

I adore mash-ups.  They're fun to make, they're fun to listen to and, bonus, they make you think of each song used in a whole new way.  Any music fan can see their appeal so I won't bother analyzing them.  Instead, enjoy my three favorites and, please, if you have a few of your own, post them in the comments. 

3. A Stroke of Genie-u

2. Girl Talk - Feed the Animals (10)

1. And the best I've heard in a long time...2008

by Vijith

I'm having to start from scratch with a lot of workflow issues after jumping ship from Digital Performer to Logic, and during a project I worked on last week, I was forced to re-learn an old trick that's definitely worth passing along here.

In part because I use a lot of MIDI, I generally try to adhere to a click track unless there's an artistic reason to drift -- rubato, and even rushing, have their uses, but I've always felt strongly that DAW-based composition gets much easier when you can visually see and edit the relationships between beats, bars, and whatever musical content you've input, and -- not insignificant, this part -- snap your musical phrases around in musically useful increments. Trying to slide a keyboard riff back by one bar comes much more naturally than trying to move it back by 191,387 samples, and having to calculate the latter every time you want to move something around is, in my opinion, one of the quickest ways to kill a productivity buzz.

Where I depart from a lot of people, I think, is that I think this same reasoning also extends from matters of composition and arrangement and into production. Delays and modulation effects, in particular, can be incredibly effective when anchored to the tempo of the piece, and even compressors can be made to pump in and out in musically useful ways (though you'll rarely see any sort of beat-oriented controls on those plugins). This means that I can quickly turn quite surly when I have to calculate millisecond values in order to get a basic quarter-note delay or swirl a flanger around symmetrically on every bar -- again, it always feels like I'm screeching to a standstill to address some stupid procedural hangup (not unlike doing excessive paperwork, actually).

Most people, particularly when focused exclusively on mixing, don't seem to worry about this -- in fact, I'd wager that an overwhelming majority of the Pro Tools session documents in the world have the metronome set to the default 120 BPM no matter what they actually contain. I've heard arguments that unpredictable tempo asymmetries can make the effects more interesting, and also that locking things in too tightly makes it easier to forget that such details are usually just meant to be frosting. Both are valid points, but I'm not convinced, because if you want the asymmetry, you can always flip your plugin back into millisecond mode. Properly placed beat and bar reference points give you a very powerful new way of addressing your time-oriented production effects, but there's nothing forcing you to use it.

The obvious problem here: playing to a metronome is hard! And even assuming that I've already won you over here, if any of the material is tracked without you around to play resident click stickler, chances are this line of reasoning will be dispensed with, and the project tempo will be set to that dreaded 120.00 when you see it next.

There's a really elegant solution to this with most major DAW platforms, though. No, not yelling at your drummer, although there's often a reason for that too, in which case, have at it, Cowboy.

Rather, you can retroactively move the beat and bar lines of the metronome's "grid" around to match up the musical content in the audio recordings. Thus, it's not actually a grid at all in the end, instead pulsing subtly over the course of the session to match up with the musician's natural pacing. Or even wildly, for that matter -- who cares? I just want to beat-sync my plugins, remember, so if the wildly fluctuating tempos (rubato, incompetent, whatever) are considered acceptable at this point, my cognitive flow has been restored and we can move on.

This is not beat slicing or quantization or Live Warping or time stretching or any number of other terms that might have just jumped to mind. Most of those processes are ways of conforming deviating performances to a rigid tempo grid. Here, we're conforming the grid to the performance, and through it all, the audio is absolutely untouched (for better or worse).

In order to set up your sequence for this, you'll have to do a bit of prep (which I must sheepishly admit might feel a bit like doing paperwork) but for me the payoff comes in never having to stop making music to switch to a calculator.

Platform-specific:
Logic
Digital Performer
Pro Tools
Cubase

This posting is taken from Greg Osby's Artist in Residence program on Indaba. 

Somewhere along the way, I haven't determined exactly when, it became acceptable for some musicians to think showing up for live (Jazz) performances wearing the same clothes that they wear anywhere else is the thing to do. These days it isn't that uncommon that a patron of the music, with hard-earned cash in hand, will venture out for an evening with hopes of enjoying some high art but instead will be offered a gig where some of the cats who perform will actually show up and get on stage with prominent holes and stains in/on their jeans, wrinkled and tattered t-shirts, dirty sneakers, visible underwear, greasy, unwashed hair (or bodies), dirty fingernails, or worse.... What the hell happened? When did it become acceptable for performers to look like they don't give a s--t? A quick look at any vintage photograph featuring the champions of the music reveals how much detail went into how they looked as well as how they sounded. Neither was any accident. (For that matter, look at the early photos of the Beatles....SUITS.) So why must the prestigious and noble face of the music be tarnished now with this mass nose thumbing at one of the more important aspects of performance etiquette? Irons are cheap and there's a dry cleaners on every other corner.

Now, don't get me wrong, in my private life, I'm just as casual and relaxed in my dress as anyone else. Sometimes I would even classify my look at home as "homeless chic". But once I step outside my house and venture into the world where simple minded people sometimes size you up immediately before you even have a chance to speak... well, let me just offer this to any of you who happen NOT to be a Black man who is always followed and eyed suspiciously whenever he decides to peruse the items in any retail establishment..if this was a constant part of your life that went back as far as you could remember, then you would understand why it is imperative to appear in public at all times as if you mean business. I certainly don't want to be mistaken for a thug, degenerate or anyone else who doesn't want to be taken seriously or respected. (Side note: Each and every time that I travel with casual wear , I am detained and searched thoroughly at airport security and customs. EVERY time.This is obvious character profiling, of course, but is definitely avoidable if my garb and external profile don't resemble that of a hellraiser.)

But where musical performances are concerned, jeans, baseball caps, sneakers and t-shirts and other extreme casual wear just doesn't cut it for me in terms of stage apparel. Not in my band, it doesn't. The exception, of course, would be some of the summer outdoor music festivals where we're often found performing in sweltering heat, or situations where we've had to rush to the bandstand directly form the airport after a day of hectic travel and near-missed flights. Sometimes there is absolutely no time that will allow for the band to "get it together" and one must perform "as is". But dressing as if you just woke up from falling asleep with your clothes on should not be an acceptable norm. I'm constantly surprised to find the number of Jazz musicians who feel that it's no big deal and argue that they're merely "dressing for comfort". I doubt very seriously that any member of any philharmonic orchestra would agree, or think for one minute that their job would be secure if they didn't appear for work dressed appropriately.

Once in or around 1983 or '84, during a break on a gig at a location that I can't immediately remember, Dizzy Gillespie, complimented me on the sharpness of my suit and relayed to me some stories about how meticulous some of the musicians had been about their "vines" (Jazzspeak for suits - hanging on your body like vines). He told me that a hip suit (and hat) were essential "the look" and that they would have never even considered performing in anything less. He concluded his story with the same phrase that I've heard said countless times when referring to the audience: "They SEE you before they HEAR you". I agree wholeheartedly with this and have to confess that I base my total enjoyment of any given performance on a multitude of factors - appearance and stage presence being two of them. 

I would further contend that this slacker mode of dress has contributed to the devaluation of the music in terms of visual presentation and a steadily increasing lack of respect for an art form whose very participants sometimes don't appear to have much respect for anything other than subjecting their audiences to 10 chorus length solos and songs that last 30 minutes each - AND looking like derelicts while doing it! 

In my own experience, I would have to admit that not only do I feel better about my presentation when I'm secure that everything is in place both with the music as well as with the business, but I also notice all too well how different I am treated and respected when I am dressed like a "grown-ass-man". In music, as well as in every other aspect of life, respect for oneself and the rich lineage that we've inherited deserves ample consideration and attention to every facet of the art form - not just being a "bad ass" on your instrument. So to those to whom this would apply: Clean up your act!

And for those of you who are members of Facebook, here's a link to trumpeter Sean Jones' online discussion that deals with the very same subject. 

http://www.facebook.com/topic.php?uid=7762506156&topic=12383

Perhaps it's time for musicians to, along with the refinement of their craft, begin to reinvestigate the value and immediate benefits (WINK!) of being "clean" and "sharp as a tack" once again. I know, quite personally, a number of people who would support the music with a bit more enthusiasm if the musicians themselves didn't appear so aloof and disheveled. It's not so much to ask.

Thanks,

GO

On June 24^th, 2009 PBS premiered The Music Instinct Science and Song, an innovative documentary about the power of sound and music. Indaba Music was able to offer its community the opportunity to participate directly in this groundbreaking program, through two consecutive contests.  These contests challenged the community to produce powerful pieces of music from everyday sounds and also to reimagine a theme for the show.

Now's your chance to hear what the winners came up with. The Top Five submissions for each contest were recently released as part of The Music Instinct: Science and Song album

Download the album through PBS or emusic and check out what they came up with!

CONGRATS TO THE WINNERS!

The Music Instinct Science and Song Part I:

David Minnick - Ignition

Andrew Westphal - Groovolution

Randy Colby - PBS Science & Song (RC Breaks Mix)

United Republic - Passin Windows

Royal Beatsmyth - Ambassador Lassiter's Phantasmic Antiquarium

 The Music Instinct Science and Song Part II:

Sujan E. Bin Wadud - Instinct Tells Me

David Minnick - Small Enough

Bobak Salehi - Storm - Instrumental - Lama Mix

Dana "MiztaKlean"Essex - Miztaklean's Music Instinct Theme

Justin Nations (Jus Bus) - Music Instinct Theme 

Every fall, musicians, bands, and industry folk gather in New York City for CMJ, five days of non-stop musical mayhem (AKA heaven on earth).  On October 21st, Indaba will be co-presenting an exciting artist showcase with our friends from Whitesmith Entertainment at one of our favorite venues in NYC, The Living Room. Tickets are free, and first come, first serve. If you're in town, stop on in, say hello and check out some great music!

Wednesday, October 21st

The Living Room
154 Ludlow St, New York NY
(212) 533-7235
21+, one drink minimum, & NO CMJ badge necessary 

7pm - Emilyn Brodsky (with Brian Viglione of the Dresden Dolls)

8pm - Sydney Wayser

8:30pm - Pinky Swear (featuring Rachel Trachtenburg of the Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players)

9pm - Sara Benincasa (comedy)

9:15pm - Elon James White (comedy)

9:30pm - A special surprise guest! (comedy)

10pm - Family of the Year

11pm - Jason Trachtenburg (of the Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players)

11:45pm - Alina Simone

Multimedia: Media Vox 

Hosted by Sara Benincasa and Emilyn Brodsky 

Hope to see you there!

- The Indaba Music Team

I was once again gearing up to write about some interesting developments in the digital music business (as I've done numerous times before) but -- spoiler alert -- in the end it turned out that's not really where this is headed.

The news that grabbed me, specifically, was that DIY music hub Sellaband recently made some major changes to their service. Their site essentially gives bands the infrastructure needed to get their fans to invest in future recordings, sort of like buying them before they come out so there's money in the recording budget, but with some cool bells and whistles along the way (profit sharing of the proceeds with the investors, for example). The biggest change here is the removal of the $50,000 minimum the bands had to hit before cashing in. It has now been moved to $10,000, which seems to me to be a much more reasonable baseline. With professional studios getting walloped these days by the impressive dollar-to-performance ratio of prosumer equipment (and, yes, that pesky economy thing everyone keeps carrying on about), budgets for even large-scale productions are dropping dramatically.

Public Enemy is the most recent big-time band to go indie, a phenomenon which I think people have (astonishingly) already stopped paying attention to for the most part (this conclusion largely because I heard nary a peep out of anyone when Counting Crows kicked their label to the curb a few months back). The twist -- and there must be a twist, else nobody will pay attention, as the Crows had to learn the hard way -- is that P.E. is doing it via Sellaband.

This time, however, the piñata threshold is set at a $250,000 collective whack. This is, of course, unnecessary on several levels.

The first problem is that it's clearly just a publicity ploy, since there's no way these icons could actually be so strapped for cash that they'd need to preemptively milk it from their fans. (Not without gross mismanagement, at least, though you won't have to try too hard to convince me that Flava Flav may have pissed away his fortunes on clocks and women.)

The second -- and please, let's just squash the accusations of rockism at the outselt -- is that I have trouble envisioning why it would cost that much to record an album's worth of hip hop, which is inherently cheaper to record than anything involving a drum set, and doubly so if you're willing to swallow your pride and get your 808 kicks from Kontakt. (Caveats to this include that you might be also covering some marketing costs, they might be buying beats from expensive big-name producers, etc.)

But here's where I went wrong with that last part: I made that calculation from the perspective of a DIY musician, which I am, and which these guys are apparently not, DIY financing approach notwithstanding. Thus, that quarter-mil budget -- though still excessive, possibly -- comes from paying through the nose for every second of potentially productive studio time with expensive expert engineers in high-dollar studio rooms. They're paying for the clock to tick while they think creatively, and even Flav's ample stash can't help get that under control. I just realized that's a calculation I've never had to make, and probably never will.

For obvious reasons, most readers here can record themselves, so if you're reading this, congratulations -- you have already figured out the financing problem Sellaband is trying to solve. $10k, if that, should more than cover your record. Should you be so lucky, you can spend the other $240k on a house to make it in.

From Kanye West to David Byrne, M.I.A., and Tom Waits, N.A.S.A.'s Spirit Of Apollo remix program is an amazing opportunity to work with some of music'c most talented artists. With such incredible and diverse material for Indaba members to work with, we thought now would be a great time to teach you some simple ways to use twitter to promote your favorite remixes. And to encourage you to participate, we've put together an exciting contest that will help bring much deserved attention to your top picks, and maybe fatten your pockets at the same time.

Anyone who tweets using the tag #IndabaNasaRmx, AND includes a link to either the contest page (http://bit.ly/3IrpuU) or a contest entry, will be eligible to win $500 and a one year Platinum membership to IndabaMusic.com (a $250 value).

But, that's not all.

For every day that #IndabaNasaRmx is a top trending topic on twitter, we’ll increase the prize by $500… All the way until the pot is worth $2500!

Guidelines:
1. To be eligible to win, your tweet must contain “#IndabaNasaRmx”
2. Your tweet must also contain a link to either the N.A.S.A. remix program page or an entry from the program

Prizing & Winner Selection
When the submission period for the N.A.S.A. Remix Program ends on October 27th at 5pm EST, so will this twitter promotion, and we will select one very lucky winner at random from everyone who included #IndabaNasaRmx in a tweet. The winner will receive up to $2500 and a one year Platinum membership to IndabaMusic.com (a $250 value).

Here are some specific ways to get involved:

First, head on over to twitter and setup an account. Once you've signed up, you can start tweeting:

Let people know you entered - Just entered the N.A.S.A. remix contest on @IndabaMusic. Can't wait to remix David Byrne! http://bit.ly/3IrpuU #IndabaNasaRmx

Let people know you're working on a remix - Mashing up Kanye West & Tom Waits in the N.A.S.A. Remix contest: http://bit.ly/3IrpuU #IndabaNasaRmx

Share your finished remix - Just uploaded my remix of M.I.A., Santigold and RZA to @indabamusic: "http://bit.ly/XXXX" #IndabaNasaRmx

And, of course, this promotion isn't limited to just contest entrants:

Fans can get in on the action and promote a favorite remix - Loving Matt Palmer's N.A.S.A. remix! "http://bit.ly/XXXX" #IndabaNasaRmx

Re-tweet something that we post from our twitter account - RT @IndabaMusic: Epic remix contest w NASA, Kanye West, David Byrne, MIA! Win $1K & official release! http://bit.ly/3IrpuU #IndabaNasaRmx

Simply add RT @IndabaMusic in front of something we tweet, and you will have successfully re-tweeted.

Follow @IndabaMusic

Making The Most Of Your 140 Characters:

Since you're limited to 140 characters per tweet, you'll want to use a url shortener to make the most of your 140 characters. We recommend using bit.ly. Simply go to http://bit.ly, paste in the URL you want to link to, then copy and paste the shortened bit.ly URL into your twitter post. This will give you more room to write about your remix!

Our favorite part about using bit.ly is that if you a “+” to the end or the url (i.e. http://bit.ly/3IrpuU+) you can actually see if your link has been clicked on and shared across the internet!

If you have any questions, just email us (info@indabamusic.com) and well be glad to help you out!

Happy remixing!

- The Indaba Music Team

Say hello to the Indaba console's long-lost cousin. Or, well, pet hamster, at least.

Tweet A Sound is a standalone desktop program for Mac OS X built in Max/MSP which uses Twitter to send synthesized audio. Best I can tell, it's a collection of states for each of the controls in the simple integrated sound design environment, which, when captured as discrete numbers, fall below Twitter's 140 character limit and can thus be broadcast just like any other message. The app includes a login panel, so thanks to Twitter's extensive API, you don't even need to alt-tab your way into Firefox.

These tweets, collected under the #tas hash tag (which, sadly, is quite contaminated because of its application to other topics -- there aren't as many sound designers in the world as there are, say, teaching assistants) can then be fed back into the program to set the controller states at the other end, effectively reproducing a sound in Austin moments after it was programmed in Osaka.

A little nutty, sure, but in a way this makes perfect sense -- "Tweet" is onomatopoeia, I think, right?

While Tweet A Sound creator Andrew Spitz doesn't seem to use the phrase "proof of concept" himself, I'll go ahead and apply it here simply because this points vaguely toward internet music sharing in a way that's quite different from what we've seen so far. Specifically, it's capturing sound in an extremely raw state -- synth settings, even before they're rendered to audio at all -- and then disseminating it using a platform predicated on immediacy. There's podcasting, yes, but here we're transmitting sound that isn't in a sound file yet. That's a quantum leap.

Now consider that the app is written in Max/MSP, which has pretty badass integration with Ableton Live on the horizon. Imagine running this as a plugin in a DAW; another quantum leap there, possibly.

Regular RSS can hold more content than tweets and there's no inherent delay any more than there is with a Twitter post (every account renders to RSS, in fact), which means that the leap after that would take us into plugins with RSS I/O functionality, which wouldn't be limited by Twitter's character limit and could be used to transmit things like MIDI in much larger chunks. (Note that we're not yet talking sample-accurate audio, though I've heard of academics with access to the Internet2 network getting usable latency for remote audio -- ie, black box with 1/4" audio input, CAT5 ethernet output, and then the same in reverse on the other end.) Server configuration to allow them to publish outgoing feeds probably won't be trivial for right-brained musicians, at least at first, but a fair number of the kids who are going to spend their graduation money on microphones this coming May won't be intimidated at all, and if the plugin makers host the feeds the way Ableton recently started hosting collaborative session repositories, configuration can pretty much be automated.

Once we're there, Osaka programs the sounds, Austin arranges them into chords, and the world gets a little bit smaller once again. Better get started on that staff paper notation wiki.

--

Via Twitter:
Indaba
Vijith
Streeter

Via RSS:
Indaba
Vijith
Streeter

Yours below, we hope.