Liner Notes: Sometimes I Draw Robots

It occurs to me that both with the advent of the oh so portable (but oh so tiny) Compact Disc, and with the current popularity of downloaded and streaming audio, the concept of liner notes--at least the way I remember them from the good old days of those big-ass record albums--has become something of a thing of the past.  And that's a shame, because I think it's nice to know what the artist had in mind when he/she/they created the music, how they were influenced and, in some cases, even what gear they used to make the recording (yes--I'm a guitarist, so naturally I'm hung up on gear).  With that in mind, I've decided to use my ever so popular blog to write "liner notes" for some of my CD's, all for the benefit of them what aren't afraid to venture inside the musty cobwebbery that makes up the creative portions of my mind.  I'm starting with my latest release, Sometimes I Draw Robots because it's all fresh in my mind and whatnot--so here goes:

Sometimes I Draw Robots is my second recording of entirely electronic music (the first, The Disorienting Appeal of Shiny New Things was released under the artist name "The Subterranean Philharmonic Orchestra".  Check out previous posts for why I have abandoned that artist name).  The aesthetic I'm pursuing with these compositions is informed and influenced a great deal by the creations of electronic music pioneers like Vladimir Ussachevsky, Milton Babbitt, Morton Subotnick, and Louis and Bebe Barron, to name a few.  More than anything else, I was driven to create music that explored some of the infinite variety of timbres, textures, and rhythms of which electronic instruments are capable and eschew a great deal of the "bass, beats, and glitches" ethos that drives so much of current electronic music.  Not that there's anything wrong with dance music or pop music--there's just so bloody much of it and I felt driven to explore somewhat more sophisticated harmonic and rhythmic textures with this recording.

I love the kind of music made by sonic explorers of the 50's, 60's and 70's and I'm especially drawn to compositions by the members of the Columbia Princeton Electronic Music Center.  I was absolutely knocked out the first time I watched the movie "Forbidden Planet" (incidentally, my favorite science fiction film of all time) and discovered that the music score was realized entirely on electronic instruments from the pre-Moog era--primitive stuff by today's standards, but capable of incredibly rich sonic expressiveness, and the Barrons were able to compose music that was not just atonal and alien, but also emotionally complex and genuinely beautiful.  The pieces on Sometimes I Draw Robots are strongly influenced by my feelings at listening to such amazing music. 

For tech heads, pretty much every sound on this recording was created using a variety of Virtual Studio Technology (VST) plugin instruments driven by MIDI sequences programmed into Mackie's Traction II DAW program.  If you're interested in the specific VST's used, shoot me an email and I'll be happy to give you a rundown.

As for the title and the cover artwork, both come from my late night sketchbook, which I often employ to help me wind down before bed.  I find that visual and audio abstractions are very helpful in diffusing the little mental loops that can often make sleep difficult; as a result of which, most of my sketches are of  a considerably more abstract nature than the robot that appears on the cover of the new album.  But "sometimes I draw robots"...which bagged me both cover art and a title for the new album. 

Comments on individual tracks:
1.  The Girl with the Pinkish Hue
The title is sort of a parody of Debussy's "The Girl with the Flaxen Hair", though the piece itself has no sonic or harmonic relation to Debussy's piece.  My intention was to capture a bit of the aesthetic of early works by Ussachevsky by improvising a synthesized flute part over a wash of colored sound. 

2.  Sometimes I Draw Robots: Futura
I'm fascinated with the idea of the repeating sequence, especially with the little accidental polyrhythms that occur when multiple sequences of different length are layered one on top of another.  This piece uses a 16 step and a 32 step sequence, each panned at a slightly different rate from across the stereo field--left to right and back again.  Futura is, of course, the mechanical woman created by Dr. Rotwang in Fritz Lang's silent film masterpiece, "Metropolis."

3 & 7.  Microsuites for Klavier Robotika
I'm not a particularly great keyboard player, but I've been a huge fan of solo piano works since the first time I heard Glenn Gould's recording of Bach's Goldberg Variations.  With a fairly decent grand piano emulator and a MIDI encoder, I'm now able to come reasonably close to the sound I hear in my head when I think of my own piano compositions, and the two "microsuites" on this album are a first step toward larger, more serious works I hope to accomplish in the future.  I like these a lot.

4.  Oort Cloud Sonata
This piece is all about Moog, using the amazing Arturia Moog Modular VST to produce spacey, harmonically rich timbres that evoke the bleak sonic landscapes of 1950's science fiction movies.  I love this piece!

5.  Morning Dew Makes Orb Weaver (Spider) Webs Conspicuous
Another repeating sequence piece, this one using four layered sequences of 7 and 11 steps progressing backward and forward.  As with #2, the combination of the individual sequences becomes more than the sum of the parts as polyrhthms and block chords appear and disappear at random.

6.  Phantasy 1 for Oscillatora Primitiva
This piece was an experiment in which I attempted to emulate the process (if not the sound) of early tape splice music.  A very simple home made oscillator was used to produce 12 distinct tones which I recorded into Traction and then segmented into pieces which were cut and pasted into the patterns of the composition.  Sonically, it's fairly simple and just under two minutes in length--but it took close to 12 hours to compose it.  I now have a new appreciation for the pioneers of this art!

8.  The Inscrutable Attractions of Antiparticles
For this piece, I used a simple 8-step repeating sequence and improvised a sound wash on top.  It's interesting to me how quickly the sequence becomes the rhythmic base for the piece and serves as a propulsive force to provide texture for the synth swells.

9.  Sometimes I Draw Robots: Brainiac
Brainiac was inspired by the sine wave compositions of Milton Babbitt and demonstrates the tremendous power of programmable, computer-driven synthesizers in creating non-traditional intervals and rhythms.

10.  I Want to Show You Something Amazing
This was meant to be part of the microsuites but didn't fit in well with the texture of those pieces, so I decided to make it a stand-alone composition instead.  I very much like the cautiously optimistic vibe of this piece mitigated by the tension produced by the 5/4 time signature.  This is another favorite of mine.

11. Sometimes I Draw Robots: Tik Tok
Another experiment using sine waves, this time passed through a ring modulator to give them a percussive sound.  It's probably the most "mechanical" sounding piece on the album, so I thought would be appropriate to give it the name of L. Frank Baum's mechanical man from the OZ books.

12.  Canals of Mars
My one concession to pop music on this album, Canals is also the first electronic piece on which I've used electric guitar (my lovely "birthday guitar" Fender Jazzmaster).  This is something of a teaser for things yet to come, so I hope you like this as much as I do...

Sometimes I Draw Robots will be available shortly in MP3 format from CD Baby, iTunes, Amazon.com and so on and in hard copy CD-R format directly from me.  I'll post a link to my CD Baby page as soon as it's available there.  If you're interested in a disc, send me an email and we'll work something out.  

As always, if you like what I'm doing, I would really appreciate it if you would spread the word and let others know--and tell me too.  I'm always happy to hear from folks who have discovered my music.  I'm tremendously proud of Sometimes I Draw Robots and I hope you'll like it too!

Until next time, eat your veggies, don't turn up the volume too loud and be sure to stop for pedestrians in the cross walk.

Be excellent to yourselves!

Rick

 

Items and Whatnottery

Item the First
OK, this was weird:   Mrs. Griffmakesmusic and I visited the Minnesota Renaissance Festival yesterday (Friday, October 1), and it was the first time we've attended on the now semi-traditional last weekend Friday, not knowing that the musical acts wouldn't be there (go figure that in oh-so-arts-friendly America musicians would have to have day jobs, huh?), and were freaked out by the stark oddness engendered by the lack of music on site.  Now, I'm one of the first folks to get in line with people who would like to see a whole lot more actual Renaissance music at the Minnesota Renaissance Festival and a fair amount less Potato Famine-era Irish music, and I have to admit that I was positively gobsmacked the day I witnessed one of the groups there performing Richard Thompson's "1952 Vincent Black Lightning" to a large crowd while I struggled to gather an audience of even two or three people to listen to me play the lute--but no music at all was just...disturbing.  I fully expected to see tumbleweeds rolling across the street to the accompaniment of a lone, spectral harmonica.  Weird.

Item the Second
Yep, the Twin Cities Lute Cooperative is coming back.  Don't know what shape or form it's gonna take, but we're going to make an effort to get some regular lute activity going--and promoted--in the Twin Cities again.  For what it's worth, we now have a Facebook presence (and who doesn't, right?), which you can access at: Twin Cities Lute Cooperative on Facebook.  Expect some news about concerts and other whatnottery (including a reprise of the Lute Summit show!) as soon as we get those duckies in a row. 

Item the Third
With the return of the TCLC will come the return of The Lute Cafe, which I plan to commence as part of the "First Fridays at the Madhatter" series starting in January.  Again, stay tuned and I'll drop the dime on the details as soon as they're available.   

Item the Fourth
The new electronic music CD, more than tentatively titled Sometimes I Draw Robots is almost done.  Just need to "put the eyebrows on" (as Frank Zappa would say), devise some case art and get it duplicated and I'll once again do my part to contribute to the sonic weirdness of the world.  Expect a release soon...

Item the Fifth
Robot Gas.  Say it with me now: Robot Gas!!!  Trust me, this will mean something to you soon...

And that's plenty for now.  Next time: more stuff.

Be excellent to yourselves!

Rick

You are not Milton Babbitt

The blah, blah, blah...
I'm about 96% certain I'm not going to use the fake band names any more.  I've decided that I no longer want to conventionalize my music under prefab rubrics that tell people "you should expect to hear this kind of music from this particular artist."  It's silly.  The artist isn't The Tool Factory Project.  The artist isn't The Subterranean Philharmonic Orchestra.  There is no Tool Factory Project.  There is no Subterranean Philharmonic Orchestra.  There's just me: an eclectic guy who plays a lot of different instruments (some of them well!) and likes making a lot of different kinds of music, and I just don't feel the need to "dilute the brand" (as Mrs. Griffmakesmusic would say) by releasing multiple recordings under multiple fake band names.  I am the brand.  I am the band.  Me.  Richard Griffith.

I noticed this was a problem for me when I was promoting "The Tool Factory Project" and I played gigs at local joints billing myself as The Tool Factory Project.  When I got to the gigs and started tuning my guitars and setting up my looper, the guy or gal running the place would invariably say something like "when is the band coming?" or "oh, I thought you were coming with a band tonight."  And I would have to tell them that The Tool Factory Project is my name for the fake band that played on my album titled "The Tool Factory Project"--which, I know, shouldn't be that baffling these days, considering the number of solo DJ's/laptop artists, et al, who perform under an ostensibly bandish name, but it seemed to throw folks--largely, I think, because the album is meant to sound like it was recorded by a band (well, actually about six or seven different bands, all working in different sub-genres of pop music, but I don't wanna get into that right now).  TFP was also meant to be an homage to a really fun group I played with in the '90's--the first group I ever played with that was completely OK with doing songs about robots, dogs, cheesy sci-fi, and whatnot.  Moreover, I thought sticking a band name (fake or otherwise) on my projects would eventually get me past the "who the hell is Richard Griffith" issue (completely overlooking the "who the hell is The Tool Factory Project" issue...).

OK, so cut to "Take the Stairs" which I released under my own name, and which I initially intended to be a collection of songs done in a sort of "singer/songwriter" idiom which I could easily perform live more or less just like they appeared on the CD.  This would make this CD easy and fun to promote. Well, the singer/songwriter idiom lasted about five seconds into the recording of the first track (which was "Living in Wednesday") which just had to have some keen electric guitar work and lots of digital delay and on and on and on....

...which left me with an album of songs released entirely under my own name that I couldn't perform live just as I'd recorded them, and that made it difficult and unpleasant to promote.  OK, I'm probably overselling that a bit.  I actually had a lot of fun with the "Take the Stairs" gigs, including the ones I did with my short-lived unfake band, The Atomic Panic, but I was unhappy with the fact that I wasn't performing the tunes as they were on the album.  For me, the recordings were the "art".  The performances, therefore, became, in many ways, commercials to try to sell the real art.   Which they didn't.  Well, not much anyway, but whaddyagonnadoaboutthat?

I went through much of the same mental process when I completed my first CD of electronic music, which I knew for a fact I would never be performing live, so I thought a fake band name would be just the ticket.  Hence The Subterranean Philharmonic Orchestra, a stupid band name I've wanted to use since college.  So I used it.   Also not selling well, which tells me that either (a) the music is just not something that people want or (b) the name isn't drawing people in or (c) both.

So here's the deal:  I can't control who's going to like or not like my music.  Sometimes I think of myself as the musical equivalent of those roadside sculptors who make giant pterodactyls from old milk bottles and tuna fish cans or build huge stone grottoes from quick-set cement encrusted with old wrist watches and fountain pens.  I love the attitude and the ethos of the outsider artist: create what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law, whether anyone else likes it or not.  And that's kind of where I want to be with my music.  Sure, I want people to like it, listen to it, purchase it and so on (and I know those folks are out there...somewhere), but that can't be the main reason that I make the stuff.  I have to make music for me that I like and will be proud of, and that says whatever it is I feel like saying at the moment I'm making it, whether it's Renaissance lute music or atonal electronic music or silly little songs about robots, candy and the devil.  I mean, why have a Secret Underground Laboratory if you're not going to use it to make giant mutant tarantulas once in a while?

The bottom line is this: it no longer works for me to try to establish an image for my music by pretending to be this or that fake band any more than it would work for me to hang my entire act--studio or live--on a fake Irish accent or a bad Tom Waits impersonation.  I'm not Irish.  I'm not Tom Waits.  I'm not The Tool Factory Project.  I'm Rick Griffith--sonic adventurer, robot hunter, mastermind--Griff Makes Music.  Expect much more to come...

This self-indulgent manifesto has been brought to you by the good people at Soylent Corporation.  Soylent Green is people.

Be excellent to yourselves!

Rick

If a tree falls in the woods...

The blah, blah, blah:
I had an interesting experience some weeks back at the CONVergence sci-fi/fantasy convention in Bloomington, MN.  Taking a much needed break from my labors in the dealer's room, I wandered down to catch a musical duo calling themselves "The Japanese Space Program" in the Harmonic Convergence suite.  I'd never seen or heard these cats before, but the name intrigued me and, a few minutes into the set, I decided I was a fan. They were just two skinny guys playing electric guitars (one of them a wacky Danelectro baritone) through a floor full of effects pedals, with beats provided by an iPhone app, and a sound that was weird, goofy and occasionally disturbing.  I'm not particularly good at identifying the various pigeon holes and rubrics under which current music is classified, but I would say their sound was sort of avante-garde, post-rock noise music--which doesn't really say much, but it definitely worked for me.  Check them out on your favorite social networking site if you're curious.

What I found remarkable about the experience was that, aside from me, the guys in the band, the sound guy and a rotating cast of two or three other spectators, there was no one else there to watch these cats make their sublimely weird noises.  This was disappointing, as I felt that what they were doing musically was significantly more in keeping with the mission of an event like CONVergence than the vast majority of the hip-hop, fake Irish folk and "filk" groups which fleshed out the remainder of the con's musical schedule.  If a name like "Japanese Space Program" and music that could easily be used for the sound track of any Philip K. Dick movie adaptation can't pique the curiosity of a hotel full of sci-fi fans, then I clearly have no concept of demographic-based music promotion.

Clearly, I have no concept of demographic-based music promotion.  What else I found remarkable about this experience was how much I still wanted "the full show" from these guys regardless of how many people were or weren't hip enough to get that they were The Band to see at Con.  My enjoyment of their act was not diminished by the fact that I wasn't surrounded by screaming fans, though I suspect the guys would have had more fun if the room had been full of attentive, Japanese Space Program-focused human bodies.  In fact, I know the guys would have had more fun if the room had been full, because I've been there far more often than not these past few years, and the realization of this sparked an epiphany.  Too often have I given a performance wherein I found myself apologizing--sometimes figuratively, sometimes literally--to the two or three people in the room for what I perceived as a clearly sub-entertaining performance, as evidenced by the fact that the room wasn't brimming with attentive, Griff Makes Music-focused human bodies.  It's not entirely unreasonable to assume that what you're doing lacks appeal if few or no people come to see you doing it, but it's a sophistry to leap to that conclusion based solely on the size of your audience. And it's downright unforgivable to give anything less than "the full show" if the audience size doesn't meet your expectations or wishes.  Clearly, the people who have come to see your act--and stay for your entire act--are Exactly the Right People to see your act, and they deserve "the full show," no apologies required.  

OK, I'm gonna end this rant by saying that I'm ridiculously grateful to every single Usual Suspect that has supported me, my performances and my recordings over the past five or six years.  If you've come to see me once, twice or twenty times since I got serious about playing music publicly, I thank you unequivocally.  I'd like to play for more people more often.  I'd like for lots more people to hear--and hopefully, purchase--my recordings. The key to meeting both of these wishes is to reach Exactly the Right People with the message about what it is I do.  I know those people are out there.  Some already come to my gigs.  Most of them have never heard of me, but I bet you know some of them, and it would be just dandy if you'd help me spread the word.  Send folks that you think would like my music to this blog, or to the Griff Makes Music page on Facebook, and let them know about my albums on iTunes, CD Baby and just about everywhere else on the IntraWeb.  And while you're at it, tell them about The Japanese Space Program.  Those guys are hot!

Item the First: The Prince's Masque: Royal Music for Romance and Revelry is now available on CD Baby and iTunes.  Click on the album picture at the left to go to the CD Baby site or search for "The Prince's Masque" or Richard Griffith on iTunes (and check out some of my other stuff while you're there). 

Item the Second: I can't access Spotify, cuz I'm in the US, but folks in Finland, the UK and several other European countries, principalities and the like can, and it appears that they've discovered my discography.  I've seen a fair number of streams of both of my first lute albums and Take the Stairs which is amazingly gratifying.  Spotify streams don't pay a lot, but I can't tell you how just how gigantically buzzed I am that people are listening. If you're one of them, give me a shout and say hello!

Item the Third: There will be no "First Friday at the Madhatter" performance in August, as I will be on a Secret Mission that night.  Shhhh! It's a secret!  Regular performances will resume in September.

Item the Fourth: The Twin Cities Lute Co-op is coming back.  Stay tuned!!!

And finally...thanks to all of them what made the scene at my CD release party this past Saturday.  The weather was weird, there were a lot of events going on in the Twin Cities...and still you came.  Can't wait to do sumpin' like it again, and soon.

...and that's it fer now, cats and kittens.  Until next time, play nice, eat right and don't be too hip for the room.
Be excellent to yourselves!!!

Rick

Items, items, and more items....

I

Item the First
My new lute CD, The Prince's Masque: Royal Music for Romance and Revelry, has finally returned from the duplicators and is now available for purchase.  I'm really excited about this disc because it's my first lute release in three years (and my third lute CD so far...) and it's loaded with some of my personal favorites and some rare and underplayed gems that I've culled up from the back pages of various and sundry lute manuscripts.  I hope to be performing a fair amount in support of this new CD, and you can check the "Recent and Upcoming Performances" listing at the bottom of this page for info on all of that, including the Big Danged CD Release Party scheduled for July 17th.  As with all of my previous releases, this disc will be available from CD Baby, iTunes, Amazon.com and so on once all those duckies have been put in their proper order, so stay tuned for that info if you're looking to download the album as an mp3 or make a purchase from the IntraWeb.  If you're not local to the Twin Cities and/or don't expect to be in the vicinity of any of my live shows, and you're really hot to get your copy of the disc, send me an email at griffmakesmusic@earthlink.net and we'll work out the details for an olde-fashioned mail order purchase.  

Item the Second
Mrs. Griffmakesmusic and I spent last weekend (June 12th &13th) performing and hob-nobbing at the annual Olde World Renaissance Faire in lovely Twig, MN and had a truly excellent time playing lute, singing a song or two (OK, Ann did the singing) reconnecting with friends, making new friends and marveling at the squadrons of Blackhawk-sized dragonflies keeping the grounds more or less clear of evil, blood-sucking skeeties.  We had some genuinely memorable little moments performing for intimate groups of people, and caught some really amazing performances by several of the other acts at the Faire, and the sometimes dreary weather did nothing to dampen our spirits (though I did have to dodge a few drops here and there to keep the lute dry).  Love OWRF.  Love the people.  Can't wait to do it again next year.  Big thanks to Mark, Dale Ann and the rest of the crew for putting on another really fine weekend of Festing!

Item the Third
Though most of my attention is currently directed at luting in support of the new CD (and that's a good thing, gang--performing on the lute can be mighty therapeutic, and arriving at a gig with just the one instrument is way less stressful than schlepping in a PA system, amps, electronic gear and whatnot), I've recently returned to the Secret Underground Laboratory to commence work on at least two (and quite probably three) new albums all involving significant use of electronic instrumentation.  At the top of the list is a new Tool Factory Project disc, tentatively titled "Surfing on the Moon" which will include a bunch of more or less new songs (some of which I've been singing here and there for the past year or so) and instrumentals all accompanied by an electronic rhythm section (ala Kraftwerk, Gary Numan, et al) with bits of twangy, surfy guitar and the usual quirky absurdist vocalizing that's pretty much the modus operandi of my songwriting.  I'm also working on a bunch of new pieces for the Subterranean Philharmonic Orchestra which will probably be released as two separate discs: one of which will be primarily experimental, atonal and/or improvisational music, the other of which will be more on the ambient side (ala The Orb, Brian Eno, etc.).  I'm having great fun working on all of this stuff and it's a really nice reset button for my brain to have some more abstract music to work on in addition to the sweet, tasty melodic music of the lute.  Stay tuned for updates...

Item the Fourth
Yes, and speaking of abstract music, keep your eyes peeled for an announcement of an upcoming gig or two featuring a new project I've recently become involved in.  Keywords: Robot Gas.  More on this later...

Item the Fifth
Finally, for those of you who have been asking: Yes, Mrs. Griffmakesmusic and I are planning on putting together another program of songs, lute, guitar and whatnot, but we need to get past some other commitments (including a musical production of "Little Women" for which Ann is currently in rehearsal) in order to practice.  Patience, grasshopper.  It's gonna happen.

Well, that's plenty for now, innit?  It's going to be a busy summer and I wouldn't have it any other way. I'll drop the dime on more stuff as soon as I know about it, and share some pics here and there of previous shows (including a couple choice snaps from OWRF).  Until next time, be nice to everyone, don't get too much sun, and eat your veggies.

Be excellent to yourselves!!!

Rick

The Story So Far...

Just a quick check-in by way of an update, and all that whatnottery:

• The "Surfing on the Moon" gig at Madhatter went reasonably well, even considering the pounding in my ears and the brand new bald spots at the sides of my head which resulted from four weeks of programming and about...um...two days of actual "rehearsing" prior to the event.  This was a great experiment which proved to me the following:  
1. My silly little pop tunes can be arranged to be played on sequencers and sound pretty good in public.
2. The brand new silly little pop tunes that I hope to put on the next Tool Factory Project album actually work as songs and ought to make for a dandy CD, and it should be less of an uphill battle to record them with most of the backing tracks already programmed into machines (the big payoff from those four weeks of programming, I guess.  My hair will grow back...).  Expect more news on this as it develops.
3. For them what's interested in seeing some quicky vid captures of the event, hie thee away to my Griff Makes Music page on Facebook:  Griff Makes Music on Facebook
• Caught an amazing lecture by Nicolas Collins at the U of M School of Music yesterday afternoon on the subject of digital vs. analog technology in the production of electronic music.  Nicolas is the author of an enjoyable and inspiring book on hands-on electronic music making titled "Handmade Electronic Music: the Art of Hardware Hacking", which I highly recommend.  His work is largely devoted to abstract sound art (including large-scale sound installations and that sort of thing) and it was encouraging to hear some examples of his work and be reminded yet again that the world of music composition is a completely open field where nearly anything that's possible is viable in some context.  I was particularly amused by Collins' comment that, when he referred to himself as a "musician and composer" he would invariably encounter individuals who, after a performance, would feel it their duty to say something along the lines of, "yeah, but that's not music."  Since he's become a "sound artist", he has yet to have anyone tell him what he's doing "isn't sound."  Brilliant, that.
• Speaking of electronic music, work proceeds apace for my lecture/performance at the Merriam Park Library on April 24th titled "A Century of Electronic Music."  As I've been researching for this presentation, I've been gobsmacked by the reality of just how incredibly vast this field is, and I'm hoping that in the course of a two-hour program I can give enough of a taste of the high points to inspire some folks to dig in and learn more about this subject on their own.  The more I read about it and the more I listen to electronic music, the more excited I am about producing more abstract music myself.  For more info on the program at Merriam Park, see the list of upcoming events at the bottom of this page.
• On the subject of abstract music, my friend Richard Cretan (who writes the "Glebe Cow Drooled" blog) recently clued me into the work of Morton Feldman, about whom I had previously been ignorant, and now I'm a huge fan.  Amazing the kinds of textures and emotions that can be evoked when one steps away from conventional concepts of rhythm, melody, phrasing and counterpoint.  Of particular interest to me is the recording of his "Piano and String Quartet" produced by the Kronos Quartet with Aki Takahashi on piano.  Mesmerizing piece of music of over an hour in length that is at once both disturbing and surprisingly calming.  Wonderful stuff.
• Finally, just today I made the first test burn of my new Renaissance lute CD, which I finished editing yesterday.  I'm fairly happy with the performances and the selection of material (mostly Scottish, a little bit English, and one or two pieces from Germany and France), and I'm looking forward to finally getting a master done once I've fooled about with the sound wrap, program order and so on.  Then it's off to the duplicators and on to the promotional gigs.  It will be fun to have my performing life center around the lute again for a time while my studio life gets back into the realm of oscillators, filters, and knob-twisting.  It's all good, baby!

If you're reading this for the first time or the fiftieth time, please check out my current palate of recorded material, available from CD Baby, iTunes, Amazon.com and just about everywhere else on the WWW.  Click on the little pictures at the left to go to the CD Baby page, where you can hear sound samples, read endless shameless self-promotional banter and, hopefully, make a purchase or two.

Until next time, eat your veggies, be nice to critters and trees, and for heaven's sake, hang up that danged phone when you're driving!

Be excellent to yourselves...

Rick

Playing Up and Playing Out, Part 2: Getting out of the Riff Rut

I'm gonna come clean here.  I've been in a Riff Rut for about 20 years.  Most guitar players know what I'm talking about (though they may not be willing to admit it): it's that feeling you get when you know you've been speaking with the same lexicon of riffs and licks and tricks and grooves that you've been using for just this side of forever and the more you listen to what it is you're playing, the more you begin to feel that it ain't you that's talking so much as it is the folks you stole all those riffs and licks and tricks and grooves from over the past 30-odd years or so... 

This wasn't particularly painful for me when I was playing in cover bands, because...well...I was trying to sound like someone else, and it's not much of a problem when I play brass music, or lute music, or when I'm accompanying a singer, mostly because I'm playing someone else's music, and I can put my own spin on it and it feels like an interpretation rather than some kind of forgery.  It's a different feeling entirely when I'm playing my own music, however, which is supposed to be this personal statement of my own artistic voice but what's coming out of my guitar sounds to me as if I decided to rest on my laurels and give up growing as a musician after I learned to play the solo from "Sultans of Swing."  It's easy for me to curse [enter name of favorite "overrated" musician here] for not bothering to learn more than the six or seven riffs upon which he/she has built an entire career...and then I find myself doing much the same thing, but without the benefit of said musician's immense popularity (and/or massive record sales) to get me over my little self-indulgent snit.  It makes me wonder if somebody like Pat Metheny ever goes through this in his mind.  I mean, even though his riff/lick/trick/groove lexicon is vastly more voluminous than mine, he's still playing from a lexicon of riffs and licks and tricks and grooves, and his melodies and arrangements are informed by his influences and experiences and on and on and on, just like me.  Except...better.  I wonder if Pat ever feels as if what he's playing isn't "fresh."  I wonder if Pat ever says, "man, I gotta do me some woodshedding, cuz I am out of ideas!" 

When I'm thinking with a clearer head, the key to the puzzle (at least insofar as climbing the walls of my own Riff Rut is concerned) becomes obvious, and it's a lesson I expect that folks from Chuck Berry to Pat Metheny to Paul Desmond to Bootsy Collins to John Cage to that cat that used to show up at Knut Koupee back in the 80's and beat the snot out of the Marshall stacks have all chosen to embrace at one time or another: you is who you is and you plays what you plays and sometimes all you need is just to let your axe make whatever noise it's going to make. 

It's so tempting to get caught up in that big obsession with always needing to come up with something that's new or something that's different from what everyone else is playing, but forcing that process for the sake of trying to find a unique sound gets me no closer to my "true voice" (whatever the hell that is!) than just sitting in a corner and noodling (and the noodling is usually a lot more fun in the end).  This mindset also just about guarantees that I'm going to be doing all of my performing in the corner rather than out in the world where the music can have a chance to breathe a little bit, simply because self-improvement as a musician is a constantly moving target, and if you think you've got nothing to say, it's damned likely you're not going to want to say it in public.  As a drummer friend of mine puts it, "don't think--play."  Yeah, that's the ticket.

In recent weeks I've had a couple of good opportunities to apply some of that incredibly simple wisdom, and it's given me a lot of peace of mind with regard to my Riff Rut.  Playing a set of goofy pop tunes, fake jazz and acid rockabilly with The Atomic Panic on February 5th was, for me, a joyous reminder of why it is that I wanted to play the guitar in the first place, and why some of those riffs and licks and tricks and grooves that I appropriated back in my less self-conscious youth appealed to me enough that I wanted to add them to my riff lexicon.  Moreover, all forms of music have their particular lexicon of techniques, ornaments and so on, and if you're playing rock and roll, you're gonna play some power chords and you're gonna bend some strings and you're gonna do some pick slides, just like the Baroque cats are gonna play some trills, mordents and appoggiaturas.  Heck, when you think about it, symphony orchestras are really just big, highly educated, really well-paid cover bands, but that's a whole other slippery slope I'm not gonna get onto right now...

Just this past Saturday, four musician friends of mine joined me at the Secret Underground Laboratory for a three hour jam of experimental/improvisational music, which turned out to be an absolute eye- (and ear-) opener for me, both in terms of the quality of the music happening and my perspective on my Riff Rut.  Whereas I'm good friends with all of the folks involved and I know that we're all competent musicians, there was still some risk involved--getting together to make unscripted music and "just see what happens" invites the danger that "what happens" might be something no one likes or, worse yet, that "what happens" will be...nothing.

Fortunately, neither of those things occurred and we had a damned fine time making music that had nothing to do with endless I IV V blues jams, wooshy-gooshy newagey cloud music, or sludgy pots-n-pans banging (all of which, incidentally, have their appeal for me under the right circumstances).  There was...space...in the room (aurally, not physically--the S.U.L. is a tiny place indeed) and everyone had something to say that contributed to the whole.  I wish I had recorded it, but I'm just glad I was present for it, and I can't wait to do it again...hopefully sometime in public.

Both of these experiences helped me to take a different view of my riff/lick/trick/groove lexicon and see it for what it really is: a toolbox of sounds, phrases, and techniques that I've taken decades to assemble, some of which I use often, some of which haven't seen the light of day for years, some of which have very specialized applications, but all of which have validity given the proper musical context.  This is true of every musician at every level and it puts perspective both on my perception of my own performances as well as the performances of others (man, I love those student piano and cello recitals!).  The best way, it seems, for me to get out of my perceived musical rut has been to stop looking at it as a rut, seeing it instead as a track leading all the way back to the first time I tried to make cool noises with a musical instrument, and realize that the track leads forward as well as back; as long as I keep playing--out, up or noodling in the corner--I will continue to grow. That's really all any musician can ask for.  Well, that and the massive album sales, huge metro radio saturation, groupies, roadies, parties, million dollar guitar collections, multiple homes, endless nights touring, lawsuits, unflattering photos in the tabloids, stalkers...

Ummmm...I think I'll go practice my euphonium now.

Until next time, keep your strings clean, don't defeat the ground, and...be excellent to yourselves!

Rick

Bloop, blorp, bleep, blorp!!

Electronic music has been on my mind a lot this past year or so.  I've always been a fan of groups like Tangerine Dream and Kraftwerk, and I've always enjoyed bits of "classical school" electronic composition (like the soundtrack to Forbidden Planet by Louis and Bebbe Barron--which you should own if you don't already--or the works of folks like Vladimir Ussachevsky, Alice Shields and Priscilla McClean), and I've owned a few decent synths over the years (my wife bought me a dandy little Moog Opus for a wedding present--which is now in need of some TLC, and I'm gonna get to it one of these days...), but it's only been in the last year that I've actually started seriously trying to create the music myself (largely as a result of a period of months when I couldn't play lute or guitar due to a tendon injury and I had to play something--which led me to discover the MIDI sequencer in my digital recording software.  I digress...).  New paragraph.  Take a breath.  Start your second sentence...

I know a lot of folks are turned off by what they consider to be the sterile, unnatural sound of electronic instruments, and I respect that point of view.  I don't particularly like the sound of soprano sax (OK, I guess I can get behind Wayne Shorter...) and I can only take just so much harpsichord before I start to wonder when Dr. Loveless is going to spring his latest Rube Goldberg trap on Jim and Artie, so I get it that people may be pushed away from electronic music by the sound of the instruments.  I disagree vociferously, however, with the argument that electronic music isn't "real music" because it's made with machines; all music (with the exception of unamplified vocal music) is made with machines, or rather, it's made by humans using machines.  To quote Bob Moog..."when a pianist sits down and does a virtuoso performance he is in a technical sense transmitting more information to a machine than any other human activity involving machinery allows."  Or, as Geddy Lee puts it, "...all of this machinery making modern music can still be open hearted..."

I expect it has been something of a stretch for some of the folks in the vast Cult O' Griff to make the leap with me from the sublime plinking of Renaissance lute music to my current mania for robot belches and microprocessor farts, but electronic music (and the harware associated with it--man, I love me some analog!) dovetails well with that aspect of my personality that still wants to own a functioning jetpack, is disappointed that the International Space Station doesn't look like a doughnut with spokes, and would like nothing better than a robot butler to shine my shoes and prepare my food pills for me.  As a composer (and I suppose I use that term rather loosely), it's exciting for me to build sounds from the ground up, and very freeing to let things sort of take their course as each sound/rhythm/texture is recorded, applying layers like a painter until a complete gestalt is achieved.  Moreover, the little kid sci fi geek in me gets a tactile buzz from twiddling the knobs of the synthesizer like a ham radio operator, and I find the whole process to be a nice, middleman-free way to directly access those timbres and grooves and bizarre little melodies that are floating around in the darker reaches of my personal hard drive.

This year I'm going to get a chance to take the latest machinations of the Secret Underground Laboratory (and its official musical organization, the Subterranean Philharmonic Orchestra) on the road, so to speak, as I step out to do some gigs of electronic music and electronically-augmented guitar music, from both a performance and an educational perspective.  I've been working feverishly on some new tunes that meld surf and pseudojazz guitar with electronic sounds, and adapting some of my existing canon (I have a canon--look how special I am!) of songs and instrumentals to the electronic/electric guitar vibe, and I'm crazy excited (and a little noivous) about taking this stuff to the liberries and coffee shops and wee little concert stages I play on.  I'll also be presenting a lecture/concert at the Merriam Park library focusing on the history and philosophy of electronic music, wherein I get to be the guy talking about how much I dig Clara Rockmore and explaining the difference between high pass, low pass and band pass filters.  I haven't yet decided whether I'll wear the tweed jacket with the elbow patches, the white lab coat, or something from the Brian Eno Collection (now available exclusively at Pamida!).  It's gonna be a groovy year!

You'll be hearing plenty from me over the next several months about upcoming recording projects--both robotic and otherwise--that are currently in the works, and you can keep abreast of upcoming live performances by scrolling to the bottom of this very page or checking out my artist page (also titled "Griff Makes Music") on Facebook.  I hope you'll give some of my new stuff a try and,  if you like it, spread the word to the robot lovers in your life. 

That's plenty for now.  Until next time, be nice to animals, eat your veggies and don't overdrive your oscillators.

Be excellent to yourselves!!!

Rick