ilovefuzz.com

Most of my time spent playing music, I'm alone, like most people I'm sure. I'm pretty much constantly in between bands, and time spent playing with others usually happens in short bursts. After many guitarists not working out/not meshing well/not being reliable, I've been trying to write stuff that could be played with just myself on bass and a drummer. The only thing is, the stuff Im writing is all over the map. Some stuff is really chill, some stuff is really heavy, some is really energetic and noisy, some really happy, some dark. While I like that I can come up with versatile parts/songs, I can't seem to write more than a couple songs that sound like the same band.

Now, I figure most people's reaction will be "just play everything," I don't necessarily want to do that. I want whatever I do to have some kind of focus. I've tried changing riffs to make them fit more with different songs or whatever, like taking a noisy hardcore type thing and slowing it down, focusing on the groove, to make it sound like the stoner desert rock stuff I wrote. As an example.

I'm sure other people have similar musical brains, so what do you do? Are you in like 5 bands? I can't even get one band to last more than a few months.

Maybe if I had a recording setup and maybe learned drums, I would feel a little more satisfied, being able to make bedroom demos and whatnot. I've tried using drum software and sequencers and stuff, but I'm pretty bad at it. I just want a solid drummer and a rotating cast of guitar players with different styles.

I wish I lived closer to other ILFers.


I'm sort of rambling. 3am internet access should be prohibited.

I haven't been in a band for a while so I've been able to just record whatever I come up with myself and it doesn't matter what style anything I write is.

The best writing situation for a consistent sound I've had is being in a band where me and the singer/keyboard player wrote pretty much every song in the same room together, so while maybe one of us would have an idea that didn't seem to fit the band, the influence of the other guy would swing it into sounding like us somehow. It was pretty cool.

I have terrible creative ADD.. my interests span just about every genre known to man and i often get bored of things or become more interested in a new approach to music.
If you can get into a mode of creating and producing music then i think it shouldn't really matter what 'style' it is or how it turns out, it will still sound like 'you'.
i play in 2 bands currently, right now its a good balance because one band is quite serious and i'm not on the same page as the others as far as our beliefs and creative influences go, but we have the technical ability and commitment for it to work somehow. it just gets tense because the other guys are brothers and sometimes write songs for me to put parts to and i hate that, i put group free improvisation above everything else when it comes to writing so being left out of things pisses me off.
the other is just writing at the moment but its with guys that i'm quite close with and can trust to have fun and just do what we want without overthinking things or being too critical of each other. they seem to even out well.
i produce electro-acoustic music on my own as well, but i literally just start projects and ditch them before they're finished because i have stupidly high standards and lose interest before i can make something decent enough.
i find that playing with others sort of forces you into limiting yourself to a certain position, so being in a band is sort of the easy option sometimes but there's nothing wrong with going that route.
just remember, there's no 'right' way to make music. the world would be a boring place if every one of us HAD to have a guitarist or a drummer or whatever.

I have about 2-3 albums worth of finished material sitting on my computer because most of them don't fit together. OTL Generally I've been looking for someone to play with for this reason, to narrow me down to something that's more concise.

Either that or I can take the Devin Townsend route and not give a single fuck.

This thread is my life. I can't ever appreciate anything I create so I always scrap it instantly. I'm currently working on a band with some dudes from a local folk/Bon Iver type group who recently went on hiatus. We've jammed a couple of times but I'm already feeling uneasy about it for some reason. I'm supposed to jam with this other dude in a couple days but I have no idea how that will go. I also wanna start a 2 piece noise/Hella/Lighting Bolt band but I just don't have the connections. I also have someweird desire to make a lofi album with all of my 80s cheap keyboards. Fuck Casiotone for the Painfully Alone. Fuck music.

ThurberMingus wrote: Fuck Casiotone for the Painfully Alone. Fuck music.

That about sums it up.

One of my favorite bands is Secret Chiefs 3. They're mostly known for the middle-eastern sound that dominates most of their music, but they also throw in a lot of metal, surf, what sounds like the soundtrack to some kind of adventure or sword and sorcery flick, and a healthy dose of electronic music.

("Spruance" being Trey Spruance)
From wikipedia: "In 2007, it was announced Secret Chiefs 3 has always been a general name for seven different bands, each representing a different aspect of Spruance's musical and philosophical interests.[1] The seven bands are The Electromagnetic Azoth, UR, Ishraqiyun, Traditionalists, Holy Vehm, FORMS,[2] and NT Fan"

Look at a dude like Mike Patton.

Who gives a shit about playing in genres?

As far as I can tell, you're in a better spot to make the music you want. It's just a LOT of work to make whole songs all by yourself. If you're in a band, it can be easier to write songs because you don't have to write all the other parts. Also, all the guys I can think of that play in multiple bands do it for a living. So think about it this way: if you played in five different bands, you wouldn't have much time to be with your family, and you'd hardly be in one place for long. That all sounds fine to me but only because I don't have a girlfriend and I hate my job.

I find that when I mutate my riffs to fit other songs, I end up liking them less. The riff will tell you what kind of song to write. Just write until you have a handful of songs that sound similar, and then you have an EP. If you wrote 15 songs that sound like three different bands, then voila, you have three EPs.

Also be happy that you can play different styles. Some people can't even when they try.

What the 'slinger said. I think it's really important to have a specific set of aesthetic criteria for any project -- if you make something that doesn't fall into that, that's another project and another day.

gunslinger_burrito wrote:I find that when I mutate my riffs to fit other songs, I end up liking them less. The riff will tell you what kind of song to write. Just write until you have a handful of songs that sound similar, and then you have an EP. If you wrote 15 songs that sound like three different bands, then voila, you have three EPs.

Also be happy that you can play different styles. Some people can't even when they try.

I definitely dont like it as much when I change riffs to different styles. Except that when I come up with something, I usually try playing it twice as fast and half as fast, just to see.

I definitely need to get a looper. I think that would really help. I have to be careful not to get in the mindset that I need a piece of gear to play the music I want. I have plenty of effects. A looper is more of a utility effect though.

I do need a cheap way to make decent recordings though. I know being able to record would let me get some of this stuff out there so it quits driving me nuts. I just think about riffs all day. But then of course as soon as the bass is in my hands, its all gone. I saw an M Audio interface for like 90 bucks. seemed like a pretty good deal.

http://calebpogyor.bandcamp.com/

This dude is the dude I play bass for. His songs range from Sufjan Stevens to Jesus Lizard. I love every song he writes because they all have their own identity. They are so different that the only thing tying them together is his voice. I haven't played bass on any of these recordings, but I did track on his most recent album. [edit: unreleased]

I suppose my point is that sometimes you only need 1 thing to tie an album together, and in his case it's his vocals.

For my personal songs, my vocal quality changes with every song so I don't think I can release an album like he has. I'm also super satisfied being a sideman for a band like this.

Look at Boris. Praparat was all over the place in terms of genre and sound, but you still knew it was Boris. Honestly if you have solid material, chances are even if the material is extremely different, there is still YOU in it, that would bind it together, you know?

I have a bunch of different recording projects, but honestly I've just pretty much stopped splitting them up and just started putting stuff out under one project.

jasonmitsch wrote:http://calebpogyor.bandcamp.com/

This dude is the dude I play bass for. His songs range from Sufjan Stevens to Jesus Lizard. I love every song he writes because they all have their own identity. They are so different that the only thing tying them together is his voice. I haven't played bass on any of these recordings, but I did track on his most recent album. [edit: unreleased]

I suppose my point is that sometimes you only need 1 thing to tie an album together, and in his case it's his vocals.

For my personal songs, my vocal quality changes with every song so I don't think I can release an album like he has. I'm also super satisfied being a sideman for a band like this.

I would love that. I know a guitar player like that, but he doesn't sing. We've made amazing music together, but he's been in a slump for the last 4 years and hasn't touched his guitar in just as long. His strat and pedals are all at my house and he never comes over.

skullservant wrote:Look at Boris. Praparat was all over the place in terms of genre and sound, but you still knew it was Boris. Honestly if you have solid material, chances are even if the material is extremely different, there is still YOU in it, that would bind it together, you know?

I have a bunch of different recording projects, but honestly I've just pretty much stopped splitting them up and just started putting stuff out under one project.

Man, good point. I think I'm just over thinking it. I just need to find something like Jason said that binds it together. Maybe there's already something there and I just don't see it. Admittedly, there is a guitarist that really wants to play with me, but he takes an extremely passive role, so much so that I sometimes think it's pointless playing with him. Anyways, he loves the stuff and showed some rough recordings to some people, and they loved it too.

So like I said, probably over thinking it.

Hey Skully, what drum software do you use? I've tried Helium but it lags and messes up the timing.

Garageband, the newest version with the virtual drummer. Between that and programming my own beats on it when I'm not being lazy

If I were you I'd invest in an interface, because you can get all sorts of music freeware, virtual amps and such that sound pretty good imo or you can be a bad person (like me) and torrent stuff because you're poor. I blame the system! That being said, addictive drums kicks ass.

Or you can go the route I've been meaning to go for years (but always spend my money on tattoos first) and slowly invest in drum machines and sequencers/loopers, so that you can play live without a computer. I don't know when I'll finally not be irritated by seeing the Apple logo glowing on stage during someone's performance. OR you can just use a laptop to play live. I won't judge, despite my griping.

Nothing worse than "this is my thing, and I do only this thing over and over again"