Confusion

I always get the names Maynard James Keenan and John Maynard Keynes mixed up. But one had very important things to say about the world we live in, the other was an economist.

 Just kidding (sort of). I don't actually know anything about economics...

Who is the Better Guitarist?

So who is better anyway?

Tosin Abasi of Animals as Leaders:

or...

David Gilmour of Pink Floyd:

Who can play faster?: Tosin Abasi
Who has more rhythmic precision?: Tosin Abasi
Who has more advanced knowledge of music theory?: Tosin Abasi
Who has probably practiced more?: Tosin Abasi
Who can come up with more complex musical structures?: Tosin Abasi
Who can better play in obscure time signatures?: Tosin Abasi *
Who has more mastery of many different musical styles?: Tosin Abasi
Who better understands classical counterpoint?: Tosin Abasi
Who can more effectively layer and overdub contrasting guitar parts?: Tosin Abasi
Who dresses better?: Tosin Abasi (not a real category, but really T-shirt and jeans while playing in front of thousands of people???)
Who plays more beautiful melodies?: David Gilmour

Who is better? Tosin Abasi or David Gilmour?: It's a tie.



Feel free to weigh in.

Toothpaste For Dinner

Comic from Toothpaste For Dinner. Sounds about right...

How to Make the Backstreet Boys Sound Evil/Awesome

Ok, I've officially lost it. Anyway, I thought you'd enjoy this piece of serious art that I am now presenting to you. In the tradition of "Justin Bieber 800%" I am now adding my own creative talents to the emerging genre of "Making Pop Hits Sound Like Space Aliens." This was all done using a program called Mammut that I talked about in an earlier post. I promise, if you click "play" you will not be disappointed! (If you get bored, skip ahead to the "epic climax" at around 3:00).




(I have to admit, I always kind of liked this song...)

The Mars Volta and More Comments on Loud Sound Files

I wrote in an earlier post about the Loudness War. This refers to the idea that sound files are being mastered so that they are too loud, and they lose sound quality as a result. This idea should not be confused with idea of the musical quality of "heaviness." Heavy bands can have well-mastered albums, and non-heavy bands can have albums that are mastered too loud.

The Mars Volta provide an interesting study because they are a heavy band, but they also have very loud sound files. All of their albums, with the possible exception of "Octahedron," suffer sound quality problems as a result. The newest release "Noctourniquet" is the loudest Mars Volta album yet, and is one of the loudest albums I have ever heard by anyone. When I say this, I speaking from an engineering standpoint, not a musical standpoint.

As I wrote earlier, the album "Californication" by the Red Hot Chili Peppers is one of the most poorly-mastered albums ever. And so naturally, I was dismayed to find that "Noctourniquet" is about as loud as "Californication," though to my ears the audio damage is not as apparent on "Noctourniquet." I don't know enough about the science to know why this might be the case, but I do know that the two albums had different mastering engineers. In any case, both mastering jobs are unacceptable, in the absolute sense.

As for the music contained on "Noctourniquet," I think it's quite good. The Mars Volta is one of my favorite bands, and I think they have really pushed the "weirdness" boundaries, while still trying to maintain some level of accessibility. "Noctourniquet" continues that tradition without fail. Because I love this music, I find the production issues particularly frustrating.


So then there are three lessons I can take away from this whole thing:

1. Playing heavy music does not give you license to make your sound files sound terrible. The Mars Volta are a very heavy band. Distortion is part of their musical arsenal. However, the type of distortion resulting from excessive loudness is not in any way a good thing. Of course, if you were to crank the gain on a recording of Bach's Mass in B Minor, it would probably be more a more noticeable degradation than what is currently heard on Mars Volta albums (to my knowledge, no one has tried this yet, thankfully). In either case, it's degradation. I have trouble thinking of any situation where mastering an album too loud would be artistically beneficial.

2. If you take it as a given that your sound files must be excessively loud (of course, this is a ridiculous thing to take as a given), that doesn't mean you shouldn't still work to make things as good as they possibly can. "Noctourniquet" sounds less clipped than "Californication," at least to an untrained ear, even though both albums are about the same loudness. Fake it 'til you make it, I guess. But don't get me wrong, the mastering job on "Noctourniquet" still has major problems, and I certainly don't advocate a policy of "let's crank it as much as we can and then see if we can trick people into thinking that this sound quality isn't actually as poor as it is."

3. Is the end in sight? I'm sure people asked this question back in 1999 with the release of "Californication," but in 13 years we don't seem to have come very far. I think record companies need to make a musical version of a nuclear disarmament treaty. With things as they are, everyone is losing. But there is a natural limit. I'm pretty sure if anyone tried to make an album louder than "Noctourniquet," all listeners would start to notice that something was not right.


It could be that the biggest problem is us. We're the earbud generation. We're the Youtube generation. We listen to music for convenience, not quality, and we keep consuming these albums that have major problems. The only way to turn this around is to educate ourselves and each other about this issue, so that higher-ups in the companies will start to notice. It's all about supply and demand, after all. Unfortunately, however, Warner Bros. Records know that I'll still buy a Mars Volta album whether the volume is cranked or not. I guess I'll just listen angrily.

Music From a Time and Place

It's Novemember 2007 and I'm sitting in a piano practice room at the University of Rochester. This room was remotely located in the basement of the old gym, not one of the fancy rooms reserved for senior music majors. None of the pianos down there quite had the right action to the keys, but that was half the fun. You never knew what you might get. It had been a stressful day, and the harsh Rochester winter was on the horizon. As I got into the room I had this flood of energy, like some sort of angsty calling. "There's an emotion I'm feeling right now that I just need to record musically before I lose it."

This mad dash to the practice room with manuscript paper in hand resulted in a piano piece called "All the Right and Wrong Reasons," the title track for my album of similarly moody piano music from that time period. What I was so upset about is anyone's guess, and of course, when you're 20 years old, all emotions seem more melodramatic than anything a supposedly mature person might come up with. But this is precisely why "Reasons" intrigues me. Some fires you can only light once, and I'm just glad I got it on paper and on tape. Here it the original recording:



But now four and a half years later, I realize the same stuff is still there. Life is still confusing. There's confusion about life direction, confusion about politics, confusion about spirituality, confusion about romance, but somehow I've never really wanted to totally figure things out, because that would take away the impetus for the art. Now as I plan out a new album "Hydrogen" I have come to realize pretty quickly that "Reasons" needs to appear, albeit in a re-arranged and re-produced form, not because it is a particularly good piece of music, but because it means something to me. There is something intriguing about a remnant from the past that speaks with new clarity. Just because a piece is associated with a particular time, that does not mean the emotions it brings are out of date.

There's a certain intrigue about filtering your recent experiences through the lens of nostalgia. And the coming re-recording has a great appeal, as if I'm hoping the new me can provide, both as a producer and as a person, a more mature spin. Good luck.

I remember once I went to a talk by Prof. John Covach at the University of Rochester, and he said something that I found really interesting. "The music you listen to when you're young, say 18, 19, or 20, that music sticks with you forever." Now I wonder if that's also true of the music we write, not just the music we listen to. Maybe even more so.

Think about important events in your life, and the music associated with them. You might be intrigued by the connections you find for yourself. And I just want you to realize, it's not a sign of weakness, it's human.

In Remembrance of Earl Scruggs

Earl Scruggs, one of the greatest banjo players ever, has passed away at the age of 88. Scruggs was a key figure in the history of bluegrass, and he helped develop the three-finger style. If you are not familiar with Scruggs, check out this video of his instrumental hit "Foggy Mountain Breakdown."



When I hear Scruggs play, I am reminded that complex music can provide for just as much fun as simple music. Scruggs was a player of unparalleled ability, but he played music that appealed to all listeners. The joy contained in this music just overflows.