I'm currently up to my (rather small) ears in work right now so I'm kind of taking a break from making videos, however I'm going to continue blogging where I can.
So I've got a lot going on right now:
with the last film finished it's full steam ahead into the next one,
I'm in the process of organising both a podcast and some voice
recording for a super exciting project that I can't talk about,
Junebug are about to launch their E.P (click here for gig dates) and
then it's festival season...then we're potentially going on tour.
The key word there is 'potentially'.
It's a word I find myself using a lot when it comes to music projects
and jobs. On this path there are many 'potential' jobs/gigs/breaks.
The most common is that someone will see you at a gig and ask for
your contact details because they book gigs. Once you've given your
email, they become a 'potential gig'. Somebody says they might be
making a film that needs music (the other common word is 'might')
they become a 'potential job'. I did a soundtrack for a film
competition where you re-scored a short clip. If I win, I get paid
and I get to share it around, so that's a 'potential job' as well!
The end result is that when people ask
what I've been up to or (the quite frankly brilliant question) 'how's
the music going?' I end up saying something like:
'Well I'm potentially gigging at
[Coolsville Gig Emporium] and I've got this composing job that might
be a thing, and I've been asked if I can do this session for a group
so that could potentially be quite good'
All of this makes it sound like I spend
a lot of time waiting for people to email me...and to a certain
extent yes that is part of it.
The sad thing is that the majority of
these 'potentials' will amount to nothing; for every twenty times I
give my email to someone at a gig only one will ever contact me. For
every thirty emails I send out I get maybe one reply. When you're
starting out, this absolutely sucks, but you have to learn that this
is part of the process. Whenever I got a 'potential' I was telling
everyone about the awesome opportunity that had just arisen, only to
be disappointed later on.
The useful things to remember are all
the proverbs involving eggs:
don't put all your eggs in one basket,
and don't count your chickens before they've hatched.
Or: don't pin all your hopes on one
gig/job you might not get, and don't assume that a 'potential' is a
'definite' until it's confirmed.
I'm going to be super busy over the
next few weeks so my Youtube channel's probably going to become a
ghost town (again!) however my hope is to keep up with the blog posts
as I'm travelling around.
Last week I was resting as I had a few
exhausting shifts at work (including a Saturday that took me to 4am)
which triggered a few sleepless nights meaning I couldn't make any
videos and/or write anything.
I did however, make some music. I
posted a video on Facebook showing a small electronic song I made
while playing around with some new synth plugins (because I can't
afford a real synthesiser...yet) and I remarked to a couple of people
that it felt a bit direction-less and that I wish it was for
something. I've said before how much I prefer making music for other
people or for a purpose.
However last night after work I was up
on Skype with the team behind the film I keep talking about, doing
the final mix. I was told we needed some music. With no time to make
anything new I started scouring through my (rather large) back
catalogue of music I've made but not released for whatever reason. I
found a short bit of guitar music I'd recorded while coming up with
ideas for my E.P (which is still on track for a September release!).
It worked and will be used in the final film. As I mentioned in my
soundtrack blog, the main theme for The Cyclist came from a demo I'd
recorded and forgotten about, so it's not the first time I've
recorded something and then come back to it later on.
I was thinking about this today. I've
stopped recording every little idea I have. When I was back in
Aberdeen I had access to all my instruments and I had didn't have to
set up all my recording equipment each time I had an idea as it was
all set up in the spare room. Right now I've got Beverly with me (as
always) but other than her I've only got my little Korg Nano pads.
The Nanokey is doing me wonders right now, but it'd be nice to have a
slightly bigger keyboard I could play with both hands, right now I
have to record them separately.
my current workstation, laptop's below the camera...on a wooden chair, bass and mic are to the left
It is something I need to start doing
again. I'm lucky to have a very good working relationship with the
highly talented film maker that is Sarah Grant, so much so I know
there's nearly always going to be something to work on (which for me
is a super good thing) and having all these little fragments of music
stored up means there's always something I can check if I need
something quick.
With all the composing I've been doing
recently, it seems I'd stopped enjoying making music for the sake of
it. Getting back to that I think will be difficult, but the thought
that whatever I'm making may come in handy later, is a start.
In my vlog this week I talk about my
top 5 movie soundtracks:
The reason being that the past couple
of months have been pretty much all about film-making. After
soundtracking a film called The Cyclist (BAFTA-nominated!) the
director: the fantabulous Sarah Grant, decided to make another film
and asked me to help with the music side of things. I then ended up
being assistant director (a testament to saying yes before asking any
questions) and luckily I kept myself organised and we had a really
good shoot.
I've been trying to do more
soundtracks. I really enjoy making music for someone, or something
else (hence why my first E.P and album are both dedicated to people).
It's also nice composing something that isn't limited to the loop
pedal, although the ideas generally start there. The main theme The
Cyclist was originally a loop song which I'd recorded with other
instruments and then left alone for a few months. When Sarah asked me
to come up with some ideas for the soundtrack, I sent her the demo
and it worked! I'm still very proud of that soundtrack.
I also really enjoy watching films and
listening to how the soundtrack interacts with it. A good soundtrack
can completely change a film. Case in point being one of the films I
talked about in the vlog: The Terminator.
;
In essence, the film is a dumb action
movie, with Arnold Schwar...you know the guy. But the soundtrack here
contains so many emotions: fear, hope, strength, conflict, bravery,
loss, it adds so much more to what could've been a very
straightforward movie. There's also something very intimate about the
theme for the first movie, the time signature alone is the subject of
debate even now, and this resulted from the percussion loop Brad
Fiedel recorded for the track was slightly out, and he just went with
it. There's a great story on Fiedel's website about it.
Another great example of a good
soundtrack changing the tone of a film is one of the other films
discussed in the video: the Mr Bean movie. Just watch this and listen
to the music from about two and a half minutes in
HOW AWESOME IS THAT MUSIC! (although
whoever made that video did some shoddy editing there) You can't get
a sillier concept than Mr. Bean, but man that music, it chokes me up
just listening to it. That scene, featuring a security guard
desperately trying to unlock the bathroom after being drugged with a
laxative, used to make me cry, because the music was that good.
(This effect isn't always a good thing.
I love the song 'Love Me Like You Do' only it's officially the
soundtrack to the Fifty Shades movie.)
I deliberately missed out grand scale
orchestral soundtracks in my top 5. Films like Star Wars, Indiana
Jones, Inception, Pirates of the Caribbean, El Dorado...John Williams
and Hans Zimmer basically! These soundtracks are amazing, but with
the top 5 I was wanting to focus on the more minimal soundtracks.
With films like Blade Runner and The Terminator the scale is large
but the soundtracks are relatively small, a lot of it performed by
the composers (Vangelis and Brad Fiedel respectively). These
soundtracks inspire me because they make me feel like capable of
doing something large scale while still being relatively small. The
idea of scoring an entire film for an orchestra is terrifying, but
scoring an entire film where I'm using instruments and techniques I'm
familiar with, I want that.
I'm back in the Lake District for now,
playing around with some new ideas.
My vlog this week was about me being a bass player for ten whole years
And in making the blog it got me thinking about gigging:
I want to compare two gigs that I
played a couple of years ago, one was paid, one was not.
The first gig was at a tiny little pub
called The Settle Inn. I'd been booked to play last at a regular
monthly event called the Cave of Wonders (which is a fantastic gig
for both performers and audience). I went on, played my forty five
minutes, and it was one of the best gigs I've ever played. It was a
tiny space and the audience were inches from me. They were dancing,
bouncing, singing and I was feeding off their energy. It was hot, it
was sweaty, it was insane, but it was a fantastic gig. I was
fortunate enough to record the whole gig.
The second gig was at a place called
TwentyRocks (now closed) I'd been booked to play a two hour set in
the middle of the afternoon. It was a big place, and it was first
time I'd played that long a set before. The place had recently been
redone as a music venue and it used to be a sports bar. I set up, I
had football on behind me the whole time I was playing, and the place
was empty, other than the odd person requesting Oasis.
One of these gigs was paid, guess which
one?
I got paid £50 for playing at
TwentyRocks. I nearly gave up music after that gig, it was so bad.
I've met a lot of musicians who refuse
to play gigs unless they're paid, and I can see the logic. There's
about dozen of those pictures with text on them floating around
Facebook comparing being a waiter or barman to being a musician and
how unfair it is to not get paid. I get that, we are doing a job, and
most of the time there's transportation, accommodation and food to
think about, it makes sense we should be getting paid to perform to
people.
Paid gigs are tricky though. It depends
on what the venue is looking for. For a while I did a regular slot at
a jazz club in Glasgow. It was £50 per gig, I turned up, I played to
whoever was there, I got paid. There was never any pressure to bring
people, they just expected me to do my job, which I did, and I had a
great time. At its best I was playing to a packed jazz club and I'd
get back to the bar and there'd be drinks waiting for me that
customers had bought (my record was seven G&Ts after a
particularly good night) and at its worst I was playing to the bar
staff at the back of the room and they were really nice guys.
The other side of that was a restaurant
that asked me to play for them as background music. I played to a
basically empty room for two hours, and then the manager was annoyed
at me for not bringing a crowd into his business (he also paid me in
£5 notes which is an asshole thing to do, makes it look like they've
paid you more than they have). The place closed about a month later,
I think I was the only musician to play there.
I should probably address pay-to-play
gigs here. Basically you only get paid if you sell a certain number
of tickets. I hate this. If you're good at plugging and nagging
and/or have a lot of friends it works, if you're like me though, it's
hard. The worst thing is that often there's no scaling for solo
artists and bands, so they both get the same number of tickets to
sell. I once had to shift twenty five tickets for a gig, I was the
only solo artist on the bill. The other bands got twenty five
tickets, but each band member only had to sell five to make up the
numbers. Luckily I've never been charged for not selling my tickets,
my saving grace is that my act tends to impress people.
While I understand the 'don't work for
nothing' ethic, I don't think free gigs should be disregarded. The
difference between being a musician (or indeed any 'arty' job) and a
barman or waiter is that there isn't really an application process.
There's no job interview or CV submission, we have to prove how good
we are by demonstrating our skills, on in some cases, showcasing our
popularity. There's also infinitely less pressure on you to bring
people and it gives you a chance to experiment without worrying about
whether or not the booker will like it or not. Some of my best gigs
have been ones where I haven't been paid.
There is a limit though. If you're only
playing free gigs and more often and not you're playing to an empty
room (as was the case with my first band) you need to reassess. If
you're wanting to make a living from music there needs to be a
feeling of progression. Everyone starts out playing to empty rooms
(or at least they should) but then the rooms fill, and then you start
getting paid and the rooms empty again, only to (hopefully) fill up
again.
Another way of looking at it was put to
me by a friend, he was studying marketing and said playing too many
free gigs can be detrimental. Yes more people will see you regularly,
but when it comes to a gig where you have to charge people to see
you, they're less likely to pay up when they know they can see you,
for free, doing the same set somewhere else the week after. Junebug
(my band) has got around this by only announcing our big ticketed
events in advance, and our free gigs on the day
It's probably worth mentioning open
mics as well. When I was living in Stirling there were two really
good open mic nights every week and I'd try and go along to at least
one of them every week. Becoming a regular at an open mic gives you a
regular crowd, a lot of whom will also be performers, who you can
test new material on. There's one song on my upcoming E.P that went
through three or four different versions, all of which were tested at
the Junk Jam open mic (which I believe is still going on, I really
hope it is)
So in short: paid gigs can be good,
sometimes bad. Free gigs can be good, sometimes bad. Open mics are
awesome
Next week I'll be blogging about making
music for films, as I've spent the last few days working on a
soundtrack and it's essentially all I can think about right now.
When I'm not working as a musician up
in Scotland I'm down in the Lake District, in the little village of
Ambleside, working as a barman (hence the blog title). I've been
working in various bars since I was old enough to work in them and as
stressful and exhausting as bar work can be, it's genuinely work I
enjoy doing; you're constantly busy, you get to talk to a wide
variety of different people and there's an element of performance
about the whole thing which can be quite fun sometimes.
With shifts generally being quieter,
I've been getting to know the people I work with. There's a
consistent theme with all the staff, including the chef and
supervisors, and it's that we're all moving towards a goal, we all
want to do something else, and we all think we'll get there.
To turn this into an academic thing: if
you want to learn what existentialism is, work in a bar.
(note: I'm about to talk about
existentialism, and while I feel that what I'm talking about is right
there's also a large part of me thinking that I'm probably wrong
about all of it, if I've got myself mixed up, please let me know)
Existentialism is all about purpose, or
rather a lack of one. People are free to be whoever they want to be.
It sounds fairly straightforward right? I assure you it's not. I
thought I had it worked out and told myself 'I've found a purpose,
I'm a musician' and thought from an existential perspective I was
doing okay.
I. Was. Wrong.
According to existentialism, that's
wrong. If we think we've found a purpose, we're not living
existential-y (?) anymore, we've become a 'thing'. A thing is
something created with a purpose, like a cup or a pencil. In his book
'Being and Nothingness' (optimistic title) Jean Paul Satre used the
example of a waiter. This particular waiter has decided that he is
only a waiter, and to Satre, this is bad, or as he puts it: 'bad
faith'. There's a really good video about it here.
To bring this back to my point about
working in a bar: nobody in the bar is living in 'bad faith'. Yes
they're working in a bar, but it doesn't define them. The chef is
saving up money so they can live and become a fireman, one of the
staff is taking a year out before going into teaching. Nobody
believes themselves to be essentially a waiter, everyone there has
hopes and ambitions. We're all working towards the same thing, but at
the same time different things.
It's motivating, being amongst people
who are of the same mindset, especially in a work environment. The
chef had his way of putting it that's stuck with me.
'For now we must survive, then we can
be free'
(I should stress our chef is Polish,
and quite dramatic)
I'm heading up to Glasgow next weekend to work on a film, doubtless the train journey will bring up some thoughts worth writing about.
