The First Test

Today is song day again, and it's the first time since starting this when I feel a little up against it. The first couple of weeks of January are always a little bit less busy for me, with a lighter workload, the post-Christmas lull, etc. Now, however, things are starting to gear up again. I'm having a very busy week, and it's only going to get busier in the coming weeks and months. The time available to sit and write songs is shrinking. Other priorities are starting to snap at my ankles. Add to this that this is the first week since starting this project that I haven't really been in the mood, and it suddenly feels a little harder.

It could potentially be argued, then, that there is a certain sense in charging people and being paid for the process, in order to keep it high priority, but I still don't buy that. The temptation to throw out any old tat and fulfil obligations with as little consideration as possible hasn't yet been higher - though I suspect it will get higher as external pressures mount - yet, I can't see how having to justify a payment is going to do anything to alter that. It may make you a bit more careful about mentioning it, but you'd feel it just the same.

In fact, the thing that makes it easier is the knowledge that I'm under no obligation to do it at all. It's just a challenge I've set myself, and I could stop at any time. If I had to do it to fulfil a financial obligation, it would suddenly be feeling very much like putting a shift in at a factory or somesuch; it would start feeling depressingly like work. I thank my lucky stars I don't owe you anything. I can crack on with this week's song, lighter of heart because of it.

Which is just as well, as I've decided to make the song quite dark. Last week I did a song with quite an upbeat, optimistic lyrical content, and I felt it was a bit of a dud. There were people who liked it, but I didn't feel it was quite 'me' - a view expressed by a couple of other people too.

Of course, that hardly matters. The finished song isn't the point, and public reaction to it barely figures. It's the process that is important. The point is to write a song a week, record it, and disseminate it, free of charge, to whoever wants it. That's the principle. What the actual song is and whether you or I like it is irrelevant. No offence.

Anyway, it's 12:45pm and I want this done by 2pm at the latest - I have things to do - and so far, all I've got is the idea I want it a bit darker, a blank page and a couple of hours. There's no music running round my head, no lyrics, nothing.

This should be interesting.

*UPDATE - from blank page to uploaded mp3 took exactly one hour. Properly thrown together, only four tracks, only one vocal.

The song is called: 'A Pat on the Back (We're all rubbish), and here it is:

http://www.box.com/s/2mz55x6tfdharxexqdy7

Week Three Song

I figured if I was going to use anger and annoyance as my only motivator in songwriting, I'd end up having a coronary before too long, never mind the songs going down the tubes. So this week I wrote a particularly optimistic song called: 'On a Day Like Today (anything's possible).'

It was inspired by a friend called Mary Agnes, who is the single most upbeat person outside of a religious cult it is possible to meet.

I'm kind of getting used to my preferred setup, of soprano uke, baritone uke, double bass and vocal, so I added a melodica for a bit of a change. I think that arrangement might become my preferred generally (anyone want to buy a guitar or a mandolin?). It's almost feeling like a band.

The setup:

Anyway, here's the tune:

http://www.box.com/s/0xpmjzhbgsxmzykxid2a

Unexpected items in the Bagging Area

Last night's pre-bed noodlings wove their magic, as they are sometimes wont to do, and I woke up this morning with a fully-formed new song on my lips. Now, I'm waiting for the delivery of one or two items for the impending tour, but unless the Man from Parcelforce ends up doing a sterling impersonation of the Man from Porlock, it's pretty much in there, and I'm rather pleased with it.

It's still rough, and needs considerable panel-beating, but it has the potential to be a cracking little number - kind of late 50's Sinatra in style. Probably one in ten songs I write get the kind of thumbs-up I gave this one.

What I found interesting about it, however, was that my first reaction was: "There's no way I'm putting this one out as a 'weekly freebie'. I'm saving this one."

So, I'm beginning to change my Quality Control perameters; the reject bin has been relabelled the Giveaway Bucket, and those diamonds in the rough are being filtered away to safety.

The implications of this are manifold. Would I only release the B-stock if they weren't freebies? Am I in the proper position to judge what's a good song and what isn't, even when I wrote them? What am I going to do with the A-stock? If I only release the seconds, will people think that's the best I can do? Does that matter?

I don't have the answers; I'm just ruminating out loud really. I don't even think I'm trying to make a specific point - I just thought it was an interesting development.

Another interesting development leads me to concede at least one point. The sudden need to come up with a new, original song - as well as at least one new piece of writing - every week has stimulated creative muscles long-since withered and ossified. I'm noting down ideas I would have previously allowed to slip back out of my mind, and my ears and imagination are more open. If it continues in this way, I think it likely I'll be a far better songwriter this time next year than I am currently, and possibly more creative, self-disciplined and productive in general.

Of course, the recipients of the freebies may not necessarily directly feel that benefit. We're back to the implications of the internal Quality Control Inspector. We'll have to see how it pans out.

The final interesting point is raised by the notion of cheating. It would be very easy to cheat at this, and I'm sure when my schedule is ramped up to fever pitch later in the year it may be very tempting, but I find I have no desire to do that. I've got notebooks going back years, containing literally hundreds of songs that have never seen the light of day. It would be all too easy on a busy week to pull one of those out of the bag. But I won't. Partly, I won't because cheating this challenge would be cheating myself, and would weaken, even if only in my mind, the principle that has driven me to do this. Partly, I won't because the vast majority of those songs are bloody awful, which is why they've never seen the light of day in the first place. Anything I'd consider good enough to use, or even to cannibalise, I'd rather put somewhere else than in the weekly freebie bin. So I won't cheat.

Anyway, stuff to do. I'll probably do the next song on Thursday - it's always a good day for it. It probably won't be called '50 Ways to Leave Your Mother' as someone suggested - the Quality Control Inspector wouldn't stand for it.

I've done the second song now. I decided to try doing the music first. I used a soprano uke, Bari uke and double bass, jammed out a few chords, then I added the voice last, writing the lyrics moments before. I decided to do the whole thing on 4 tracks, with no bouncing down, so I made up the instrumental break (which I'd been informed was missing from the first song) without overdubbing, which is why it's a bit crap.

Again, it's rough and ready, and the eagle-eyed will spot plenty of bum notes, buzzes, etc. in it, but as I said before, that's kind of the point. It has to be done quickly, with the minimum correction, and no consideration towards actually honing it into something better.

I promise not every song will be inspired by spite, but this one's about just how creative you can be with no external input, like if you were just dossing about at home all the time. The lyrics aren't great, but they only took 10 minutes, so I'm up on last week, which took 20.

Ooh, and I also added a weird intro, as I had my 4-track to hand last night, but no instruments, so did a sort of vocal sting for it. Ironically, the intro was recorded on three times as many tracks and took longer than the actual song.

Anyway, here it is:

http://www.box.com/s/jbz4nzsygg9cz51pulee

I'll try to get them collected into one place on a side page or something.

I'll start off with a small apology. I'm a bit of a dunce with technology, and last week I decided to put my polemic into blog form, in order to avoid all those pointless, circular arguments that would come if I put it directly onto a bulletin board or social media site. However, I've never really done a blog before, and I'm unfamiliar with the etiquette and mechanics of blogging, so if I'm supposed to have done things like follow back or befriend or what have you, I apologise for my negligence. If I've broken any unwritten codes of internet fraternity, it's only because I don't know what they are. Feel free to put me right on that front.

It has been an interesting week, however, and I have had a fair bit of feedback. I've had messages of support on various other bits of webspace, I've had texts and calls, and even one or two offers of money (some more ironic than others, and none of which I accepted). I've also had a fair few counter-arguments thrown at me, enough to warrant a few answers and clarifications regarding my position. Some of the counter-arguments have also given me a firm idea of what I want the second (and much more ambitious) 'No Packet Required' project to be.

Firstly, although I used some specific examples of projects I believed were particularly cynical and exploitative, for illustrative purposes only, I named no names. Of course, it didn't take Sherlock Holmes to discover their identities, and names have been mentioned elsewhere - particularly: 'One Song a Week' girl. I want it made clear I used this as an example, and took it as a workable model for demonstrating certain excesses, but I don't want to get fixated on some personal vendetta against her. I'm sure she's perfectly charming, and I'm not out to get her, even if I do find her project morally and artistically lacking. Saying that, by tweeting that she's finding it difficult to get up and dressed in the mornings, found time to bake raisin bread, and intends to base her second song on a new instrument she received only the day before, she's really not helping her own case. Inexpert, distracted fumblings on a new toy hardly inspire confidence that something is about to be created to give Beethoven's 9th a run for its money.

Ah, Beethoven. "Beethoven and Mozart both received money from rich patrons, so that they could concentrate on the art." True enough, though they did also receive it in the form of commisions for specific work, toured constantly, took on students and produced some of the greatest music ever achieved by homo sapiens. Not a hastily dashed-off whimsical tale about toenails to be found in their entire canon. If Beethoven had been given access to fundraiser sites, what joys may we have now? We could have hundreds of rubbish Beethoven symphonies to enjoy, instead of the nine astonishing ones we currently have to make do with.

I'm not against art patronage. If they were used responsibly and morally, I wouldn't even be against fundraiser sites. It's the excesses and the exploitation of what could be a decent system that annoys me. Working on the idea that they are to fund an artistic endeavour that couldn't be realised without funds, how can it be right to fund a project that requires no money to complete? Why doesn't the project fund close automatically as soon as the funding requirement has been met? If it's more about thinking of something to justify asking for money than it is about having an artistic vision which is stymied by lack of financial backing, how is that even art? It's profiteering. It may allow the 'artists' full control of their art, without the 'men in grey suits' getting their claws on all the money, and that would be a good thing, if it wasn't for the inevitable swing towards the artists actually becoming their own men in grey suits, or even men in grey suits cutting out the middle man and becoming the 'artist' themselves. Inside so many of todays 'artists', there's an accountant trying to get out.

Which leads me to another argument I heard, that paying one's dues by touring scuzzholes and wrangling roudy drunken crowds is no place for a lady, that the Rock 'n' Roll lifestyle is difficult and fraught with dangers. So many great artists have become casualties of the lifestyle, exploited by unscrupulous sharks, fed substances to keep them going, etc. etc. The tragedy of the '27 Club' and if there's a way of being a working musician without all that, especially for a woman, open to sexual exploitation too, it must be worth pursuing.

Now, apart from being massively patronising to women, the main flaw in this reasoning is that ... erm ... that's kind of the job description and kind of the point. Teaching would be much easier without having to deal with children; firefighting would be safer if they didn't have to go anywhere near fires. Paying your dues is also learning your trade. Rock and Roll without the Rock and Roll lifestyle is bland, asinine and banal. And it will -and does - make itself evident in the music. Jimi Hendrix sitting at home doing mp3s and the odd safe, local coffee shop gig? If Keith Moon had spent his days in his PJs posting stickers and baking raisin bread, I'd have killed the bugger myself, and he'd have thanked me for it. The idea of these people being wide-eyed babes-in-the-wood, mercilessly corrupted and destroyed by the machine is one I find difficult to swallow. Maybe that kind of habitat just attracts that kind of animal.

As for sexual exploitation, look at who raises ten times more money on these sites than everyone else, and how hard they fight against it. To quote Chief Wiggum: "Why's it always the pretty ones?" The internal grey suit kicks in again, eliminating the need for any external exploitative influence.

The froth around my mouth suggests I'm ranting again. There are other arguments to answer and clarifications to make, but I'm keeping them back for now, as I think they would be better answered within the context of another post, when I outline my plans for the second 'No Packet Required' project.

But I will quickly clarify one thing before I go. I can scarcely believe I have to reiterate this, but apparently I do. I am not against musicians making money from their skills. I earn a living playing music myself. I travel around and perform for money; I sell CDs; I take commisions to write specific pieces of music; if I believed I could do the job with any degree of success, I would take students. I'm not saying I'm the new Beethoven or Mozart - that's for you to decide on for yourself. ;0)

Seriously though, I'm not advocating that all music should be free, and all musicians should feel honoured to perform. That's obvious hogwash, designed to undervalue the hard work musicians put in- and it is hard work. I believe in a fair day's pay for a fair day's work. But I think these spurious fundraising projects detract from that and damage that idea. They make virtues out of greed and indolence; they make a musician's lot look easy and undemanding, by highlighting the side of things which is traditionally not the side you're paid for, and neatly sidestepping the actual hard work bit. They appeal to vanity, delusion and self-indulgence and roundly ignore the dedication, industry and professionalism required to make a go of a real musical career in the real world.

Keep music live, brothers and sisters!

I rattled off the first song this morning. So, that's a week's work done for some people. It took about 20 mins to write:

and a couple of hours to record. It's ragged at the edges, and hurriedly done, but I wanted to squeeze one in for this week,and am pushed for time. Nevertheless, I still got a few instruments out and gave it a bit of a fancifying.

It's about the subject that was already on my mind, and is called: 'Begging Bowl.' I did it in a sort of Johnny Cash style, as a huge Johnny Cash fan offered to pay me not to record any songs.

Anyway, here it is:

http://www.box.com/s/p71u88jeru4bdxfen27u

No Packet Required - does music really have to cost that much?

Last year, dozens of ukulele artistes raised funds for new albums and projects through dedicated fundraising websites. Some raised a couple of hundred dollars. Others raised figures in the tens of thousands. One YouTube star raised $77,888 for her album. Another young lady raised $104,000 for hers. A well-known, self-styled ‘Burlesque Queen’ raised a staggering $133,341 in order to record a short tour to put out as a live album.

Does it cost this much to make an album? More to the point, does it cost this much for a relatively obscure ukulele player to make an album? Maybe it does; I don’t know. It just seems a little excessive to me.

Even during the course of writing this, I have become aware of another ukulele artiste (again, an attractive young woman, by sheer coincidence) who has raised over $14,000 for a project. The project? Writing a song a week for a year, recording the song on whatever she has available, and emailing the weekly mp3 to her backers. Bearing in mind you can write a song on a scrap of paper with a pencil stub, you can record an mp3 on most laptops and smartphones and you can email essentially free, what on Earth is the $14,000 supposed to fund? I find this genuinely baffling.

I have several issues with this approach to funding projects. One of the main ones is the seeming lack of accountability. You are told how much is apparently required to complete the project, and what you get (if anything - it’s often little or nothing – in some cases, contributors don’t even qualify for a copy of the finished CD) for your contribution, but what happens to the extra money generated? Do the contributors see how their money is spent? Do we have any idea how much of the requested funds are actually required to achieve the project? There is precious little information. Also, if the finished product turned out to be an ill-advised vanity project, you’ve contributed to a white elephant, destined to sit under someone’s bed for the next 300 years, whereas if it ends up becoming hugely commercially successful, the creators are under no obligation to share any of the profit with the investors. You’ve got your signed postcard, and that’ll have to do.

Of course, it isn’t seen as investment; it’s seen as patronage of the arts. But it’s odd how many people suddenly believe they are artists when there’s a chance to hound friends, family and internet acquaintances for free money, bypassing the necessity to risk your own money on your own project, circumventing any need to have any confidence whatsoever in the value of what you are doing. It’s very easy indeed to put someone else’s money where your mouth is. If you’re going to spend $100,000 on an album, you’d better be damned sure you’re the sort of artist who can make a $100,000 album commercially viable, or you’re just being deluded or vain, or at the very least criminally self-indulgent, asking others to finance you for playing at pop stars.

None of this applies, of course when talking about art, but as soon as you start asking other people for money before you've even produced anything - or, for that matter, fully demonstrated what you're going to produce - it serves a different master. It stops being art and starts being a commercial venture, and the rules are different.

Several of the big hitters in these funding schemes made what name they have in a resolutely lo-fi and understated way. The simplicity and accessibility of the ukulele is one of its chief appeals. It’s often at its best as an unadorned accompaniment to a singing voice, and though it works as an ensemble instrument, the ensembles where the uke shines tend to be less grandiose, more rustic affairs.

Or so it was. Perhaps it’s different now. Fancy hardware and fancier software is easy and cheap to obtain nowadays, and inexpensive instruments and equipment mean even people on a modest budget have the wherewithal to become multi-instrumentalist, one-man record companies. Most home computers have the capability to create astonishingly complex recordings, and much more besides. Even phones can give us Abbey Road in our pockets.

I’ve heard many, many amateur or semi-amateur recordings over the last couple of years that have been unbelievably complex affairs, with huge arrangements, string sections, drums, full choirs of harmony vocals, filled with effects and filtered and shaped to the nines, all knocked up at the kitchen table while the other half was watching the match or Coronation Street.

So why would a person with that kind of technology at their disposal, from that lo-fi background, need $100,000 to make an album?

I’m going to start a range of projects under the banner title: ‘No Packet Required’, where music can be created and hopefully enjoyed without costing me or anyone else a packet.

Project One:

I’m going to match ’One New Song on mp3 a week for a year’ girl’s offer. I’m going to write one new song every week for a year, record it on whatever device is freely available to me at the time, and give the mp3 to whoever wants it, gratis. Apart from the frequency, I, along with thousands of others (including many of the ‘fundraisers’), have been doing it on YouTube, social network sites and Bulletin Boards for years.

Of course, writing one new song every week isn’t necessarily conducive to writing quality material, so you may have to take the rough with the smooth, but then it’s the same for her, isn’t it? Also, she offers a $1 refund for every week she doesn’t write a song, which I won’t match, as I’m not looking for any money to begin with.

If I forget about doing this, please remind me.