March 17, 2016 Too often, our first instinct when measuring “success” is by the amount of money that’s in your bank account. One year Joe Shmo is making 30K annually, and the next year he gets a raise to 45k. Now he’s more successful, right? However, in music you’ll notice that unlike most other professional fields, “success” is a far more intangible and complicated concept to measure.
February 22, 2016 Touting his supreme confidence, Ice Cube once said, “If It was all about me, I’d do a whole lot of pop records, make a whole lot of money.” For Ice Cube, and many other people who share this belief, producing a popular song is a choice. From this perspective, some musicians have decided to make pop music, while others have chosen more alternative routes.
Songwriting tagged Artist, Hit Song Science, pop February 19, 2016 There’s sometimes a stigma associated to co-writing – as if there’s a purity to the “solitary creator” in music. We’d like to dispel the bad reputation of co-writing and say, categorically, these lone geniuses are a dime a dozen. All you have to do is look to some of your biggest musical idols like Bowie, who knew that good creation comes from good collaboration.
January 22, 2016 My first real passion is drums. I started playing when I was 4 years old and studied pretty hard through college. I was lucky enough to have some incredible mentors and teachers along the way, from guys like Mike Shapiro (Sergio Mendes, Macy Gray, Justin Timberlake), Ralph Humphry (Frank Zappa, George Duke), and Craig Thatcher (October Project, Christopher Cross). But of all the lessons and ideas I picked up along the way, I’ve deduced that the single most important thing, as a rhythm player, is being able to confidently play while under pressure. With that, I’d like to tell you about the infamous “RLS”.
December 17, 2015 Whether it’s a chorus that sticks in your head for days, an infectious hook, a toe-tapping beat, or an ambient synth that somehow both warms and chills you at the same time – there are certain musical moments that make you stop in your tracks and wonder: How did they write that? As music fans, we’ve all been there. It’s easy to forget that these moments all started out the same: as ideas.
