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| Mosquitos October 27th, 2005 -- I've been reading about how to raise a website's status in Google-land, a process known to us insiders as "SEO", which stands for "Search Engine Optimization", or possibly "Super Excellent Oatmeal". They say you should update your site regularly and always talk about the things that are important to your site, so, of course, today I'm writing about mosquitos. What is up with mosquitos? An insect that lives off of blood? They're so slow and weak and thin and easy to smash. You'd think that an animal that lives off of the very life force of mammals, a group of animals containing many of the largest and strongest species in existence, would have the tenacity to ward off your average pinky finger. But no, if you see it on your arm, it just sits there waiting for you to smash it. What a sorry, sorry, creature. What's worse is that after it's bitten you, and most likely been smashed, it leaves an itchy bump. Ugh. Listen up, mosquito kingdom -- I have a lot of blood. Blood to spare, even. Go ahead, take whatever blood you want, I'll replenish and I'll be fine. All I ask is that you don't make me itch for two days. Until that time comes, death awaits upon my arm. Keith |
| Not Much News Right Now October 21st, 2005 -- I'm in the process of starting up a new career, joining several bands, renovating a house, trying to manage debt effectively, help finish a bonus room, upgrade an electrical system, get an HVAC installed before it gets cold, plan a new kitchen, and make some money all at the same time. Things are CRAZY. So, not much in Wind-Upsland. I finally got a real webhost for my guitar teaching studio, and I'm probably going to use the same host for this site when my contract with my current host expires. What does this mean? Well, it means that I won't have to ration downloads anymore, and I can put up as many videos, mp3s, pictures, real forums, etc. on the site as I want to. We'll have ten times as much space (for 1/3rd of the price, no less), so that means more room to play around with. Should be cool. Also, tentatively, I'm trying to plan a recording session to do an updated demo sometime in the very near future. Our demo is currently a year and a half old and contains only 1/3rd of the current members (guess which 1/3rd), so it needs a little updatin'. I've gotten addicted to TapeOp, so I want to try out some of my new skillz. Lay-tah. Keith |
| Hook Collections October 4th, 2005 -- Stuck again on songwriting. Writing songs is easy. It really is. Finishing songs, however, is another matter entirely. I heard Loretta Lynn once say that she writes about fifteen to twenty songs a week. "Most of them are trash, though", she said. When she says she writes a song she's talking not about writing a melody line, chord changes, hooks, etc., she's talking about lyrics. I'm not nearly as prolific, but I probably do come up with the beginnings of about five songs a week. But, instead of lyrics, most of the time I start with a hook. The hook is, in case you don't know, the catchy element of a song that grabs your attention. It can be a variety of different things -- a clever turn of phrase, a memorable guitar line, a melody line that gets stuck in your head, or even an unusual sound. For instance, the guitar part at the beginning of "Sweet Home Alabama" is a great guitar hook. It's memorable, it's interesting, and distinctive. The chorus to The Killers' "Somebody Told Me" has a great lyrical hook, the "Somebody told me/you had a boyfriend/who looked a girlfriend/that I had in February of last year" part. The rest of the lyrics of that song are completely incoherent trash, but that chorus is clever, memorable, and it at least appears to be loaded with meaning. But sometimes the catchiest songs aren't necessarily the ones with the best hooks, but the ones that have several subtle hooks that are all just a little effective, and then you have this appearance of depth. That appearance of depth thing is important, because you have to be deep relative to your genre. If Sigor Ros released a song that was merely six minutes long and it had a halfway hum-able chorus with a few catchy lyrics, it's fans would deride it as the ultimate sellout song, the ultimate in shallowness. But if Justin Timberlake did the same, it would be about the "deepest" song ever released to pop radio. I say "appearance" because, relative to much of western music's musical heritage, our music, regardless of whether it's sung in Hopelandic or not, is completely devoid of depth. Mahler would take a simple theme, a melody line that was maybe fifteen seconds long, and develop it for forty-five minutes. And when I say that a melody line is "developed", what I mean is that the melody and it's harmony is revealed in bits and pieces, until it's completely unvieled in all of it's glory. It's really a lot like a plotline in a movie or book. You don't see a dead body at the beginning of Law and Order and, while the cops are looking at it, the killer jumps out from behind a tree and says "I did it! I killed her with this knife for insurance money because I run an illegal gambling ring on the side and I got fired from my job three months ago and the mob is after me!" No, because if that happens there is no drama, and the show would be done with in about two and a half minutes, ie, the average time of a pop song. Pop songs are music distilled down to its essence -- it's all creamy center, all climax, all "you had me at hello". Is this a good thing? Well, if you hate real music, then yes. It is. I shouldn't say that. If you've never experienced transcendant music, then it works out pretty well. You say, "hey that's funky, it's catchy, therefore it's a good song." Ten years down the road, if you hear it again and remember it from that first time, you say "that's funky, catchy, and it's old, therefore it's a great song." Music that's developed, though, can be great. Really great. Not just great-for-a-pop-song great, but great-with-no-qualifiers great. I don't remember the last time that a three minute song brought me to tears, or made me truly think, or challenged me. I've liked a lot of them, but I like them like I like candy. Ultimately, I have to realize, they're simply hook collections. Keith |
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Older posts can be found here.
Write Keith at keith@thewind-ups.com Also, if you're looking for a guitar teacher in Greenville, visit keithgroover.com to find out more about the Guitar Studio of Keith Groover. Keith has taught more than 4,000 guitar lessons on the acoustic guitar, electric guitar, and bass guitar to students in the Greenville, Taylors, Simpsonville, Greer, and Travelers Rest areas. |
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