For musicians who would like to rise above the flotsam and jetsam of todays music!
Extract from 'Use a synthesizer, go to jail - it's the law, and it's a good one.'
by Jim Aikin, taken from KEYBOARD magazine Volume 18, No. 2 (Issue #190) FEBRUARY 1992
- Listen to some music that you don't understand. Don't just listen to it casually. Sit down and listen attentively from start to finish. Resist the impulse to raid the refrigerator. When it's finished, listen to it again. Listen to a single piece five or six times in a row.
- Instead of playin with yourself, play with some other musicians. Argue with them about what's important in music. Get passionate. Make a commitment to one another, and then keep the commitment.
- Get some rigorous musical training. Take a college-level course. Read a serious, difficult book on classical music. Practice your instrument three hours a day for a year, using a metronome and books of exercises.
- Put an ax through your television. (You will immediately think of several strong reasons why you can't possibly do this, even though you understand why really you should. Such resistance is normal. Do it anyway.)
- Put off buying that new synthesizer for a few weeks. Instead, spend the time finding new ways to make music with the equipment you already have. If you find that you're getting bored with the sounds, persevere. Boredom is a sign that your creative intelligence is about to wake up. (I love a new electronic wonder-toy at least as much as the next guy, and sometimes buying a new synth can provide a wonderful creative impetus - but they keep telling us this stuff is limited only by our imagination, and that means one synthesizer can do literally anything, right? Right!)
- When a radio station plays putrid sludge, phone them and tell them what you think about it. Be offensive. Make a list of the station's advertisers. Phone them and be offensive. Ask - no, demand that radio stations in your area flush-handle their cookie-cutter playlist and program serious music by local artists.
- Experiment at length with musical materials that you can't figure out how to fit into your current style. Write pieces using these materials, and play the pieces proudly for your friends. It is esspecially important to be proud of the pieces if you don't feel that they're entirely successful, if they feel exploratory or tentative.
- Don't play for a demographic. Play for a single imaginary ideal listener. Pretend that that listener is patient, attentive, intelligent, and musically literate.
- Refuse to compromise in order to attract or sustain a relationship with a record company or concert promoter. Do what please you. If somebody tries to get you to change your music in ways that they feel will make it more appealing to an audience, insist on testing their theory by playing it your way in front of a variety of actual audiences. If they insist that they're right and don't need this kind of proof, yell at them and stomp out.
You want to be a better musician? Start with these suggestions, add talent, and stir. Results are guaranteed.
What results exactly? I haven't the faintest idea.
If you can predict the results, in ain't art.