Why I Can't Stand Amanda Palmer as a Human Being

It's been eight months since my last update here, which coincidentally was a review of an Amanda Palmer show.  Since then, her got to do a TED talk on her crowd funding artistic lifestyle.  I've seen it linked everywhere and praised to the heavens all over the place.  And each time, I glared angrily at my news feed but said nothing, because who goes starting shit on other people's news feed?  Well if you give me five dollars up front, I'll tell you why I think Amanda's business model sucks for music.  You'll receive a thanks at the end of my rant and a sticker valued at fifty cents. 

If you're not aware what all the fuss was about, Amanda Palmer did a Kickstarter to crowd fund her new album.  Fan support was overwhelming, and she made what I would describe as a fuckton of money.  Over a million dollars.  So far, so good.  The controversy came when it came out that Amanda Palmer was soliciting volunteer musicians to play on her tour dates.  She claimed that, despite making 10 times the Kickstarter goal, she simply could not afford to actually pay her musicians.  Steve Albini had one of the more notable rants. 

I'm not saying that Amanda Palmer is an idiot or mismanaged her funds like Albini.  I think she managed them just the way she wanted to.  And I think it's terrible for music, art, and whatever tatters of value labor still holds in this country. 

The new face of anti-labor aristocracy

So we see that Amanda Palmer is able to get quality - and they were quality, she had them doing audition tapes and everything - performers on a volunteer basis. Because no one gets paid other than Amanda, these musicians are either giving up paying gigs or hobbyists to take this job. Thus, these are people who can afford to give out their services for free, and considering music is a notoriously hard profession to get by in, that's a small subset of the professional music community. And poor people are the people who need not apply. Anyone who wants to go out on tour with Amanda in the future has to justify their paycheck against someone willing to do the same work, of similar quality, free. If you were Amanda, who would you take?

So there go like five or six touring jobs a year and the average salary for musicians decreases just a little bit. But that's really not the end of it. Say Sir Paul McCartney reads an article on this, and he says "Well that's brilliant! If I do this, I don't have to split any of my take of the door money! I'll make like $2 million a show." So Paul McCartney starts soliciting volunteers.

Yeah, you'd still pay to play with him.

Paul McCartney's ad hits the internet, and well, what musician WOULDN'T want to play with Sir Paul, arguably the most beloved musician on the face of the planet. He would have a line of very talented musicians a mile long signing up to play his gigs. Because people would literally pay to play with Paul McCartney. And then top tier studio musicians have to compete with the rate of free. And the average earnings of professional musicians who aren't already megastars again drops.

Prince notices. Sting notices. Madonna notices. Lady Gaga notices. Paul Simon, Herbie Hancock, Bruno Mars, Ceelo Green, Katy Perry, etc etc. Suddenly the lifestyle of the working gigging professional musician no longer exists. They're competing against competent amateurs willing to work for free - there's no way they're making a living wage anymore. You're a megastar or you're not a professional musician. The only people who can now afford to make music are the ones who are not financially dependent on it.

Congrats, Amanda. You just destroyed the lives and hopes and dreams of millions of musicians everywhere. You've made it impossible for us to find the next Jimi Hendrix, Ray Charles, Louis Armstrong, or, fuck, Amanda Palmer.  You've made music into fucking polo.

In Amanda's world, this is all Hendricks would have had to eat.

I hope you're right well pleased with yourself, Amanda. Maybe next time you'd think to pay your musicians a little extra for the work and time and knowledge that they give you, and instead make the lives of musicians everywhere just a little bit better.

For the record, Amanda is married to a man whose net worth is estimated at $20 million. She could have funded this album out of pocket. Neil could have given it to her as a birthday gift. Or a "happy Tuesday, we're rich" present.  It's why even the initial kickstarter just reeked of exploitation to me. There are people who actually need Kickstarter to get their dreams off the ground. Amanda needed Kickstarter because why pay for things your much less well off fanbase will give you for free?  Why take the financial risk when she can just ask her fans to take it for her?  She doesn't just crowd source her musicians and production budget; she applies this same ethos to accommodations, couch surfing in her fan's living rooms (see the TED talk), giving them the gift of her presence, when she has more than enough money to afford a bus / hotel / pay her fans for their accommodations.

Amanda's no folk hero. She's a woman of means living off the back of her fans for no other reason than because she can.

Amanda Palmer Concert Review

I am vindicated.  Amanda Palmer played "Call Me Maybe."  Instant four stars on that alone.

Not really.  But sort of.

Solid concert experience.  It dragged on a little more and was a little overblown in its own artistic self-importance, but entertaining and engaging.  The level of musicianship was pretty much top notch, especially for the whole goth punk cabaret thing they've got going on.  But while Steve Vai's (far superior) musicianship was numbing, the Grand Theft Orchestra's musicianship was enthralling.  Probably because they were fun, witty, and musically concise.  But then, brevity soul wit, so that's redundant.  It shows that you don't really need the thirteen hour practice sessions for forty years to be an amazing musician though, so that was inspiring.

On the other hand, I think they were somewhat over distorted - the harmonics were often difficult to hear over the muddy layers - and Amanda is certainly not the best technical singer, though she is quite charismatic.  She's a pretty good song writer when she's not being overly serious though, and her band carried the rest of the show. 

"Pictures or It Didn't Happen" was the highlight for me.

Not paying her string or horn section was definitely the low point.  Pay your f*&%ing musicians, lady.

I Will Never Be Steve Vai... and That's Okay.

So I Saw Steve Vai Friday Night ...

And boy, what mixed feelings.  It's amazing to watch and be impressed by his technical mastery of his instrument, but it's just not as easy to care.  Some thoughts:

• If you start at eleven, where do you go from there?  Vai's playing lacked the dynamic range to make the virtuosic work exciting.  It was like listening to a Bach piece - the whole thing is so complicated that you never truly realize it's complexity.  Unfortunately, Vai's music lacked the melodic appeal of Bach's music.  As Vai's appeal is essentially as a virtuoso musician, he should be doing everything in his power to emphasize his virtuosity.  This includes playing like a normal person sometimes.
• Keep It Simple, Stupid.  He said a lot, but there were multiple place where even I realized that he could have said practically the same thing in a more concise way, and I think I would have enjoyed it more.
• Keep your playing human - he was at his most interesting when he was singing along to the notes he was playing or when playing simple clear melodies.  The shredding?  Totally not that interesting.
• I have a new found respect for Eddie Van Halen.  His more melodic approach to the same style made for far more memorable guitar work.  Whilst Vai is undoubtedly more technically skilled, it's obvious why Eddie is the one who attained superstardom. 
• Very few musicians have enough ideas to single-handedly carry an entire two hour concert, no matter how proficient they are.  This is why you have supporting musician.  The concert was most interesting when Vai was interacting with the musicians around him.  Unfortunately, these moments were too few.  He has a truly all star backing crew - his failure to utilize them was his undoing.  It's why his instrumental porn grew stale and the Flecktones, Maceo Parker, John Coltrane, etc. remain consistently fresh.

The Number One Thing I Learned:
I can be the amazing musician I want to become without needing to exhaustively master my instrument.  What I do need: A good sense of dynamics, harmony, rhythm, and melody; a moderate technical proficiency; an ear for music; and the ability to play well with others.
I can do those things, possibly with only a few years of diligent study. 
I will never be Steve Vai, but I don't have to be.  Which is great, because I don't really want to be him anyway.

A Wild Steve Vai Appears

So the bad news is that I probably won't get my intended practice time in today...

The good news?  I see Steve Vai tonight.  For free.  Because Kate is a bamf and spent all day hanging out with him making a music video.

Sometimes, life is awesome.

I imagine I will be extra motivated to practice tomorrow.

Guitar Lesson Four

Guitar is getting rough.  We're moving at a break neck pace, now firmly in barre chord territory.  I am not a fan.  On the other hand, I think I've accomplished a lot in a month.  Certainly more than I did on my other guitar learning attempts.  Having a teacher is really forcing me to get things done, so that was a great investment.

So I went into this with the ability to play the F Maj shape clearly and to move it down the neck to a limited degree.  However, I do not have the finger strength to hold it, and it falls apart whenever I have to move up the neck.  This is going to take continued practice.  Lots of it.  And I kinda didn't do a great job of that this week.

My calluses are getting callused.  This is great news.

As I might have mentioned, I've started working on my first lead licks - namely the piano line from "Closing Time" and the intro lick to "Surfin' U.S.A."  I am astoundingly bad at lead playing.  I also don't feel very good about those finger exercises.  I need to keep practicing them, and with a metronome.

Anyways, on to the actual lesson:  We spent a few minutes on "Creep," and Tony was satisfied with my progress, even though I wasn't.  I guess it's hard to judge if I'm progressing at a reasonable speed or not, having never seen anyone else progress through this stage, but I feel like I could be progressing faster.  The issue lies in my inefficient practice.

The vast majority of the lesson was spent on learning a Pixies song with a title I can't remember.  The song is tough.  It has three barre chords and an open chord, which means I need to be able to move between the two efficiently.  To add to the difficulty, it has my first real lead line we've worked on in a lesson.  And it's kicking my ass.  This song is going to take A LOT of practice, but I need these skills, so I'm thinking it's going to be the vast majority of my practice time.

Finally, I've been assigned my first real scale.  We skipped that whole pentatonic shit - thankfully - and dove right into the G Major scale.  It's going to take some practice, but it's gratifying that I was able to use a combination of my ear and theory knowledge to work out the notes of the scale.

Things to practice for the week:

• Practicing.  I will post an entirely new blog post with my thoughts on making my practice sessions more efficient.
• That Pixies song.  This is going to be the majority of my practice.  I will work on it every day till I can play it all the way through to a metronome.  Without messing up.  Reliably.
• Creep.  I'm going to use this as a workout for my fingers so I can hold a barre chord.  I'm going to focus on just the C Maj to C min to G Maj sequence.
• Closing Time, Wild Thing, Louie Louie, Call Me Maybe: These songs are down and feel good.  They are to be used to practice singing and playing, clean strumming, and for fun.  They should be practiced only when frustrated or with extra time, as the other pieces are far more important right now.
• Practice Autumn Leaves changes.  This should be a warm up exercise, but serious practice should be put into changing between the last four chords of the song and then back to the beginning, because that needs work. 
• Continue ear training and singing practice.  I think this will merit a separate blog post, as it's something I'm doing independent of the lessons structure.
• Get that G Major scale DOWN.
• Keep working on Surfing U.S.A. lick.  Just keep doing it and doing it till it works.  A little bit at a time every day.  Do it slowly to the metronome whenever frustrated with other things.

Well, the more I learn, the more there is to learn.  Crap that's a lot.  Hence the forthcoming blog on managing my practice time.

Guitar Lesson 3

Motherfucking barre chords time.  Holy crap do these things hurt.

Autumn Leaves is 90% down.  Just need to work on that F#min7 b5 chord.  Everything else is there.  At consistent metronome speed.  This has led Tony to tell me I'm ready for barre chords.  So we've started on the FMaj chord shape.  Specifically using it to play Radiohead's Creep.  What a bitch.

However, I'm pumped to get it, as it will let me rock out the Clash's "Should I Stay or Should I Go," which is my current side project, now that Closing Time is mostly down.

Also working on my first ever lead guitar line, the intro lick from "Surfing U.S.A."  Man, I am not ready for this lead stuff.  Still, gotta get it down eventually, and it will sound so good on my Danelectro.  Which I still need to name.

I've also started working on ear training.  I suck unbelievably at interval identification, but I'm getting better at singing them to a keyboard.  This will probably be a long process, but I strongly believe that ear training is pretty much the most important thing to musical development.  What does it matter what your fingers can do if you can't hear what they're doing?

Guitar Lesson 2

Guitar Quest 2012 continues with my first full length lesson.

Fortunately, I got a bit more practice time in the night before, including some metronome work, so I was feeling pretty good about where I was on last week's material.  This was validated when I went through the warm up exercises and chord work quite well with my teacher, henceforth to be known as Tony, even doing both at a much faster tempo then I'd been doing them in practice.

My teacher was pleased and possibly a little insane, because he started me right away on some jazz work.  Specifically, "Autumn Leaves."  This is wonderful, as it's easily one of my favorite standards, and a super pretty song.  This is insane because the chord voicings are significantly more challenging than the Counting Crows song he had me on last week.  Apparently he's pushing me in the deep end and hoping I can make myself swim.

I had no trouble physically voicing the chords, which impressed Tony but not me; just making shapes is easy enough, but the real meat of the challenge is moving between them at tempo.  And these chords are not going to be easy to change between at any level of constant speed.  So I've got my work cut out for me.

Also we're starting sight reading.  I'm less than enthused about this, but it will help me learn where the notes are on the guitar, which can't be a bad thing.  It's also a more manageable than I'd previously attempted, as we're focusing on just two strings a week - basically six notes.  While I'm not a fan of the reading aspect, learning where these notes are is going to be pretty key to figuring out chord voicings for myself - one of the skills I was most pumped to learn.

And we're continuing with the mindless finger exercises.  I'm kinda antsy to get to scales, but I think there's definitely a value in developing my technique more evenly across fingers and fret board initially.  If I'm still really bummed about it, I can work on it myself.

No lesson next week; the school is closed.  This is actually pretty fortunate, because I don't think I'll be able to practice again till Sunday or Monday due to dancing / work / social life.  This whole having a life thing might need to stop soon.

Since I will have some extra time, and I kind of want to be impressive, I might try and learn both the melody and chords to "Autumn Leaves," but we'll have to see how quickly the chords are going.  They're first priority.

To do for the week:

• Continue finger exercises.  Practice with proper finger technique or a pic, rather than just Wes Montgomery-ing everything with my thumb.
• Continue practicing already known chords:  G, C, D, F, A, E, Am, Em.
• Begin learning "Autumn Leaves" chords:  Am7, D7, GM7, CM7, F#m7 b5, B7
• Begin reading training.
• Increase metronome usage to all the time.
• Stop being a bum and actually tune my guitar.
• If time permits, begin working on basic strumming patterns.
• If time permits, learn the melody to "Autumn Leaves."

Of note: I finally played till my fingers bled.  Well a finger bled.  Regardless, awesome.

Hey, I just heard this, and this is crazy...

... But here's a song, so like it maybe?

"Call Me Maybe."  Though my love of all things Muppets had already let the Cookie Monster parody worm its way into my ear, I'd been doing my best to avoid this song.  After all, it was everything I hated about music - a shallow exercise in top 40 commercialism created for easy mass consumption by a third place Canadian Idol finisher.

And now that I've actually heard it, I have confirmed my suspicions that I'm a pretentious ass.  This is the best pop song since Bruno Mars' "Marry You" of last August, and the best chart topper since Cee Lo's "Fuck You" two years ago.  Yes, I'm on the record with that.

"Call Me Maybe" has that kind of pop magic where the only natural response is to smile.  I often get caught up in the intellectualism of analyzing and critiquing art - what does it say about the world, what does it say about me, etc.  So it's wonderful when a piece of art comes along that bypasses all those analytical centers of my brain and just hits my emotions.  And really, isn't connecting with your audience on an emotional level one of the most important tasks of successful art?

So why do I, general hater of cynical, slick Top 40 cash grabs, completely love this song?  Well, because it is impossible for me to think of this song as cynical.  It crosses the line of bubblegum pop cliche so thoroughly and completely that it bypasses the territory all together, landing in that rare zone of pop music that feels plain honest.  Like Meat Loaf's absurd teenage rock and roll angst of Bat Out of Hell, it's delivered with such unabashed conviction that the cliche becomes charm.

This is a time honored tradition of pop.  Think Paul McCartney.  Or the Beach Boys.  Or the Four Seasons.  None of them were afraid to sound cheesy, silly, or uncomplicated.  It's part of their charm.  It used to be part of pop music's charm.  In this age of Patron posturing and Gagaesque over-dramatics, the simplicity and honesty is the breath of fresh air that I hadn't realized I needed. 

And it's catchy and dancey as all fuck.

Before you came into my life I missed you so bad.  I missed you so bad, and you should know that, I missed you so so bad.

Guitar Journal: Week 1

Week one is almost done.  Lesson number two is tomorrow.  And I'm basically Jimi Hendrix now.  Now that I'm done with the wishful thinking, I am both pleased and disappointed with my progress.  

I am, of course, nowhere near Jimi Hendrix.  This is not disappointing.  It wasn't expected.  I've done this whole music thing before, and I know that achieving rock godhood is more than a week or two of work.  Hell I've been at the drums in some capacity, granted, mostly a fairly limited one, for the past sixteen years.  I consider myself passable.  My ambitions are to be a better than passable guitarist, but, then again, I always wanted to be a better than passable drummer as well, so we'll see what happens when I get to that stage.

The main thing I'm pleased with: I actually played every day.  Even if I didn't sit down for real diligent practice, I did pick the thing up every day.  That on it's own is a big success for me.  I was also shocked at how much I remembered - off the top of my head, I could still make G, D, C, Em, A, and F chords.  I have since added Dm, Am, and E to my vocabulary.  Nine chords in a week is pretty decent.

Less pleasing?  I'm still nowhere near speedy at moving between these chords.  I've gotten okay at moving around the chord progression of the Counting Crows song my teacher  assigned me, but I still struggle with adding a metronome and keeping the changes even.  I expect this to be an ongoing struggle for quite a while, especially with my high rhythm standards from my drumming background.  I'm also not pleased that I didn't spend much time with my metronome.  Or the general chromatic finger exercise assigned by my teacher.

Fortunately, I have some time today after work to revisit these areas.  I intend to spend at least an hour to an hour and a half working on them tonight.

My goal for next week, even before I hear from my teacher?  Metronome metronome metronome metronome.

The Guitar: Third Time's the Charm

Ah, the guitar.  My old nemesis.  We meet again.

I remember the first time we met.  You were so alluring, so promising.  You seduced me away from my beloved drum set with your promises of fancy solos and recognizable tunes.  Together, we played "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star," the intro of "Stairway to Heaven," and "Take it Easy."  You were polite; you didn't even comment on how cliche and boring my tastes were.  But you sensed I lacked commitment, always gravitating back to the old steady, Drum Set.  It was only a matter of time before I pushed you away for some cheap John Bonham fills.

You of course remember the last time I dusted you off.  It was two years ago.  We had some good times learning some open chords, half a Tom Waits song, and "Goodnight Irene."  But you defeated me with an F chord and delayed gratification. You're a cruel and demanding mistress. 

Well I'm back.  And I will master you for real this time.  Maybe.  I hope.

On 8/6/12 I dusted my old Epiphone - a gift from my sister, likewise defeated by the guitar - off and dragged you to a real guitar lesson with a real teacher.  At the Queens guitar school, just down the block.  I asked them for the biggest theory dork they had and bought a pack of five lessons.

This was a while coming:  The Queen's Guitar School?  I'd walked past it every day for almost a year, and I'd spent months entertaining lessons.  My inability to get a drum set into Queens meant I'd not played music seriously in a year.  I had always identified myself as a musician, but I recently had the startling epiphany that I was now at best a dancer first and a musician second.  At worst?  A former musician.  I had gone to college for music, but I sensed that all the amazing theory I'd learned was slowly draining from my head.  Use it or lose it.  I needed a melodic instrument to play, stat.  And Phyllis - that's the Epiphone's name, as of four seconds ago - was right there in my living room.

This blog was started in part to motivate me to really give this a solid go this time.  I'm going to track my progress here and, hopefully, use this place to keep me honest.

My short term goals:

• Basic instrument proficiency.  Duh.  I want to be a solid rhythm guitarist, able to jam with friends asap.
• Ear training.  I want to be able to hear all the things I learned in Jazz Theory class, not just conceptualize them.
• Expansion and recovery of my theory knowledge.  I have too much knowledge to lose, and not enough to use.  It's an awkward position.

My long term goals:

• Expert proficiency in rhythm guitar.  I want to be able to play with anyone, and I want them to want to play with me.
• Extensive harmonic theory knowledge. We're talking Paul McCartney / Bernie Worrell level here.
• Freddie Green, Slim Gaillard, David Gregory, Nick Drake, Marc Ribot, Eddie Hazel, Django, George Harrison, Prince, etc.  Well at least I don't have a problem aiming high.

I will log my general progress at least once between each lesson and once after each lesson.  I also think it will be interesting to record some of my musical opinions now, at the beginning of my journey, and track how they change after a year or two of guitaring.

Stay tuned for my first lesson and practice report.