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Bold Standard

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I knew it! I knew I had an attention disorder! I have the rest of the symptoms as well: inability to focus on homework assignments, inability to do boring tasks or to listen to something boring. I am a classic fit :P .
You might talk to a psychiatrist then.. There are some amazing drugs on the market for ADD.. Taking Ritalin, Adderall, or Concerta are the equivalent of putting on glasses for me, for my whole mind. They also make me much more alert than coffee, without the jittery side effects of caffeine (they're all amphetamines).

Definitely not objective, it is subjective, in the same way that your sensation of how much time passes by is subjective and may depend on the activity you're doing ("time flies by when you're having fun").

This perception of the "pace" of the "outside world" also changes with mood and external conditions such as weather/time of day. For me the day has a much faster pace than the night, and a sunny day has a faster pace than a rainy day.

Yeah, I think I understand what you're getting at..

What do you mean by that?
I'd like to make more songs set to the pace of the outside world.. I know a lot of my songs as well as a lot of my mental habits are geared more towards introspection. I want to make more music for enjoying the world outside, too. A lot of 1920's music is like that for me.. I've been studying and trying to learn to play in that style for a while now. It's a lot of pretty complicated theory and difficult finger-work for guitar and piano, but I expect that when I finally master it, and integrate it with what I already know about tone and so forth, it will be way better than anything I've done so far.

lol!! I don't think so Bold... Was this intended to be a joke?

Maybe it is easier to engage in thoughts about the "inner world", but it is more difficult to have those thoughts in focus, conscious and organized than thoughts about things you perceive with your eyes.

Ha.. Sort of a joke.. But maybe there is something to it.

The ideal would be an ability to think of all your "inner world thoughts" in an organized, conscious manner when it is possible to analyze them.

I think it is more difficult to think clearly about the reasons for your emotions, than think clearly about the rout of the car which you see in the street before you. The first requires more effort I think, and the second is clear without a lot of effort, but automatically.

I think both can be automatized only with practice.

Two misunderstanding (and a question):

1) I wasn't talking about your songs, I was talking about The doors'.

Yeah, I know. Riders on the Storm has lots of reverb, as do my songs, and I think that might be what makes the atmosphere seem strange, detached, and indistinct to you.

2) I need to phrase what I said better: by "clear and sharp sounds" I was talking about the melody more than about the sounds: about the combination and not about each specific note.
Hmmm.. In that case, I'm not sure why you think the sounds are not clear and sharp.. The melody seems to me to be rather easy to distinguish.. It's something you can easily hum to yourself in your head, and it's a memorable melody, which I would think would be impossible unless it were clear and sharp. Melodies that I would consider unclear and unsharp would be, for instance, free form jazz, or some type of random avant-garde classical music, that defies tonality and even modality, and goes off in every direction without any distinguishable pattern.

The exact distinction between tonality and modality remains an elusive subject for me.. Every time I think I understand what is supposed to be the difference, I read another explanation or interpretation of it that makes it seem like I was wrong about their definitions and what makes a piece tonal vs modal. But I *think* that both that Doors song at least several of the songs I posted are modal.. Which might lead to less distinct melodies than tonal music. But... That's just kind of a semi-educated guess.

3) What is a reverb? is that like an echo?
Yes.. But it's an indistinct echo. It's not like, if you shouted from the mountains, "HELLO..hello...ello...llo....lo..." But more like the echo you hear when you're in the bathtub, or in a sports arena, where the sound just kind of keeps going, and fades off into a whisper-y kind of ambient remnant of the original sound.

Actually, one of my top favorite musicians and producers, Robin Guthrie of the band Cocteau Twins (the originators of a style of music that people sometimes refer to as "dream pop") says that he hates reverb. He says, if he ever wants to have an echo sound, he will use delay instead.

Delay is a more distinct type of echo.. More like shouting from the mountains. It was originally achieved by recording the sound onto a 1/4'' tape in real time, and looping it, so that the sound keeps repeating (the speed and duration of the repeats are adjustable). Now they can do this digitally, too. Today, I've been listening to Cocteau Twins with this in mind, and I think I might start using delay instead of reverb, too. Maybe my songs won't sound quite so escapist or surreal that way.

Holly cow, no!

I said "drugs can cause exactly this: to blure one's perception of reality and instead [make one] focused on some illusions or inner thoughts"

There is an "or" between illusions and inner thoughts.

Oh.. but there's also an "instead" between "reality" and "inner thoughts."

:) Fantasy art can be good if there is some idea which is clear and is centered in the painting.

I hope this doesn't offend you but to me Bonus sounds like it lacks that certain clear idea or motive in the core of it. I'll try listening to it again though and see if I missed something.

Hmmm.. maybe so. I'm going to put some more thought into the technical idea behind the melody and voice leading, and maybe I can think of some improvements to make it make more sense. The note "e" is very important, but it's not in the key of E major.. hmm, I think it's E Lydian, at least for the first part.. The truth is, if the melody is supposed to be the central idea, I haven't thought that out extremely well yet. It was kind of spur of the moment/improvised. Actually, I'd started out playing one of my other completed songs, and I messed up on part of it and that came to me. Still, there's something about it that really captures my imagination. (Oh, not offended, btw, I think you have a point.)

Edited by Bold Standard
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  • 2 months later...

I not only think that lyrical songs can be written "lyrics first", but I think that _they often should be_ written that way. Considering that it's hardly likely that the state of pop music will change without some attention paid to the condition of lyrical ideas... Also, there's no maybe about it(!!!) since I've been doing it since over 15 years ago.

More to the point, I think instrumentals should be written differently than lyrical songs. Certainly, some artists choose to write both types of songs "melody first", but that is NOT inherently ideal. Ultimately, I think the artist is to be mainly concerned with preserving and conveying an idea by any creative and rational means necessary. (That leaves a Hell of a lot of room for technique....) Nevertheless, there's an inherent mechanical difference... With instrumentals, there is next to no choice.... Hypothetically, someone could write an instrumental that was previously based on a lyric (and the lyric may subsequently be dropped), but that rarely happens. Since an instrumental has melody as its focus, melody "carries the burden" of the song. With a lyrical song, there's a division of labor between the melody and the lyric. In turn, a song can be properly written regardless of whether the melody came before the lyric or vice versa.

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I love it, Bold Standard. These tracks are great quality for being home recordings, too. I really like Otto. It reminds me of the Velvet Underground. Were they one of your influences? The instrumentals remind me a bit of Air 10,000 KHZ. Very "alternative", but not in that mid-90's "Everyone's alternative since alternative is the new rock mainstream", but "alternative" as in the pioneers such as the aforementioned Velvet Underground, REM, etc. Anyway, I think your guitar work is genius. What kind of guitar are you using on Otto?

Is most of your stuff instrumental? I tried to click on the "lyrics" link for Otto but it didn't work. Can you post your lyrics?

Sorry for all the questions, but what parts of the whole thing do you do yourself? Singing, guitar, keyboards, bass, drums?

I'd love to get some MP3s of your stuff to put on my iPod, but if you're saving your content for an album to sell i would totally buy it.

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  • 12 years later...

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