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Lyrically Stuck? Think Like Eddie Vedder

Thursday, January 26th, 2012

Earlier this week, Eddie Vedder announced the venues for his upcoming solo tour, stopping in 13 cities to promote his 2011 solo album “Ukelele Songs.”  The tour begins on April 11th in Las Vegas, and then works across the country, ending on May 16th in Orlando.  Pearl Jam embarks on its European tour just one month after.

Vedder’s passion-filled lyrics, ranging in topics from personal to political, have made him one of the most prominent songwriters of the rock and roll genre.  Pair that with his signature singing style, and you’ve got the makings of one of the most influential bands of all time.

If songwriting is something that you want to improve on, honing in on your creativity is an important skill to learn.  We suggest checking out our previous posts on writing lyrics and breaking songwriter’s block, but if you’re still not feeling creative, don’t stress too much.  For many musicians like yourself, finding new and unique ideas – and just plain motivation – are the hardest parts.  In order to help you out of that rut, here are 3 more exercises to find inspiration for song lyrics:

1.  Location Inspiration: Find lyric-writing inspiration through location

Location is very important when writing, because atmosphere affects your creative energy.

For example, it may be difficult to write sad or painful lyrics in a park. At a park you’d probably feel relaxed and maybe a little content or happy. This atmosphere wouldn’t work to channel sadness, unless you have a sad memory attached to the park (more on object inspiration next). In an empty and run-down apartment, you probably wouldn’t feel happiness, so it’d be the best location to write a “painful” lyric or two. Even your kitchen is different from your living room in evoking creative emotion. Choose the best location to write your song lyrics.

2. Object Inspiration: Find lyric-writing inspiration through objects

Rarely does inspiration just come from within. Songwriters surround themselves with things that will inspire their next creative work.

- Open a photo album and reminisce on old memories attached to your target emotion.
- Read old letters and remember where you were and what you felt when you first read them.
- Visit friends or family member you haven’t seen in a while, to get inspired.
- Watch a television show or film where your target emotion is prevalent.
- Go to a familiar place and think about old memories from there.

Use whatever object you need to channel your target emotion.

3. Topic Inspiration: Find lyric-writing inspiration through a topic or idea

Imagine yourself in particular situation. It could be a situation that’s happened to you, someone close to you, a group of people, or someone well-known.  Now put yourself there mentally and emotionally. How does it make you feel? Explore those feelings until you’ve found your target emotion. One way to make sure your lyric idea has the strongest inspiration is to brainstorm on universal topics – issues that large groups of people are experiencing.  Successful topics are often ones that many people find relatable.

 

Where do you go for inspiration?  Do you write in a specific room or place to get the creativity flowing?  Share your tips with the community on our Facebook page!

 


Photo by marco annunziata.

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5 Ways to Practice Without Your Guitar

Wednesday, January 25th, 2012

Former Oasis guitarist Noel Gallagher can now add “Godlike Genius” to his resume.  NME, a UK-based music publication, gives the award to one musician each year, to be presented at the annual NME awards gala in February.

What makes a guitarist a genius, exactly?  With previous winners like Dave Grohl, the Clash, and the Cure, Gallagher has some big shoes to fill.

Don’t have hours upon hours to commit to practicing?  That’s ok.  In fact, there are ways of practicing your guitar skills without actually having your guitar with you.  Check out these great tips from Jemsite.com about how to practice sans guitar:

1. Learn The Fretboard
The better you know your fretboard, the better you know your instrument and the more easily you can move around it. Here’s one technique to try: slip a small fretboard diagram into your wallet so you’ll carry it around with you everywhere. When you have two spare minutes, you can pull out your chart and name notes to help memorize them. If you don’t have the slip of paper handy, you can use visualization exercises. Picture a fretboard in your mind, pick some notes, and “see” where they occur on the fretboard image.

2. Learn About Chords
No matter how long you’ve been playing, there is always something new to learn about chords. Look around for sources of new ideas or information, find yourself some chord theory books, or study the chords used by great songwriters.

3. Visualization
Use visualization to work on all kinds of guitar skills. Visualization is the process of picturing a situation in your mind as if it were real. It has been proven that visualization stimulates the same nerve paths as actually performing actions, so it helps to reinforce your learning.  Use visualization to practice chord changes and progressions, scales and licks, picking patterns, and whole songs.

4. Develop Your Ears
As you listen to music and other sounds in the street, try to pick out the sound of certain intervals or notes. For example, you can designate a “major thirds day” where you try to spot major third sounds around you.

5. Study Music Notation
Many self-taught guitarists neglect music reading and writing skills. Carry around some sheet music and you can practice reading it during your lunch break or on the bus.

 

And there you have it – now having a “day job” is no excuse to forgo practicing!  Even if you’re strained for time, you can find a way to make it work.  What do you think of these tips? Anything you’d like to add?  Sound off on our Facebook page – and don’t forget to share with your friends if you liked these ideas!

 

 

Photo by Anirudh Koul.

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Posted in Guitar, Practice Tips & How To's... | 1 Comment »

Stop Stressing: 3 Remedies For Musical Frustration

Tuesday, January 24th, 2012

The 2012 Oscar nominations were released today, although only two songs (“Man or Muppet” from The Muppets and “Real In Rio” from Rio) are up for the Best Original Song category. This is the first time only two songs have been nominated, which came as a big surprise seeing as how 39 contenders were originally noted back in December.

Still, the music industry has several other opportunities to shine throughout the year, such as the American Music Awards, the Billboard Music Awards, and the upcoming Grammy Awards.  And if you dream of one day taking home one of those awards, you better start working hard!

With hard work, however, may come frustration.  Maybe you’re not mastering a piece as quickly as you’d like, or you’re having trouble with a specific section.  Perhaps it’s stage fright that’s holding you back.  Wherever your frustration stems from, it’s important to learn how to handle it to your advantage.  Read on for a few helpful tips for dealing with those musical frustrations:

Tip #1. Give Yourself Credit – Before looking to improve something, look at the progress that has already been made. Appreciate and be thankful for that. Remember when you were a beginner and you couldn’t play at all? You would have been happy to have the skills you have now.  Appreciate this, and feel good about what you have achieved up to this point.  Many people beat themselves up over their own playing when they are pretty good already. This does not mean that you should become complacent or lose motivation to improve, it only means be happy with yourself and your playing as you continue to improve and move forward as a musician.

Tip #2. Become Aware of That Which Empowers and Inspires You – There may be certain things, moments, scenarios, events, places or people that make you feel good about yourself as a musician.  These things are different for each musician.  Perhaps you become very inspired by going to see a concert.  Or maybe you get very motivated by watching or jamming with musicians who are currently better than you.  Or, maybe you become inspired by revisiting some of your old recordings and seeing how much you have improved.  Being able to realize (and have tangible proof of) how much you have grown as a musician is a powerful inspirational force for some people.  Whatever these things are, anything that gets you away from concentrating on the temporary frustrations and setbacks and focuses you on your motivation and inspiration is what you should surround yourself with.

Tip #3. Let Time Be On Your Side – Many musicians feel frustrated when big progress does not seem to come in a short period of time.  As a result, time is perceived as an enemy.  However, if you are making at least some progress over time and you are patient enough and let accumulated time work for you, then time in fact becomes your biggest advantage. Learning an instrument is much like investing money with a fixed rate of compound interest.  In the beginning, the investment seems to grow so slowly that it seems like you are watching grass grow, but over the years, the growth will explode because of the exponential power of compound interest. If you know that time is on your side, you will be sure to feel much better about your musical future.

How do you handle your stress when you’re feeling frustrated?  Let us know – leave a comment on our Facebook page and share with the community!

 

 

Photo by Saltmiser.

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Posted in Music And The World, Performing, Practice Tips & How To's... | 1 Comment »

How to Build Up Your On-Stage Confidence

Friday, January 20th, 2012

Today we lost legendary R&B singer Etta James, whose adaptable style, powerhouse voice, and fiery hit “At Last” made her one of the most recognizable blues performers of all time.  Her talent has been recognized in several different ways, with an induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and several Grammy awards, including a Lifetime Achievement Award.

As with many soul singers, a voice that powerful demands a commanding stage presence as well.  If you’re on the shy side, sometimes all it takes is some extra performing experience to break out of that habit.  Anytime you see an opportunity to perform, grab it!  And yes, that includes karaoke, as cheesy as it sounds.  Check out this great list of other ways to gain experience and increase your on-stage confidence:

- Open mic nights. Great for getting used to singing with a live band, and for getting seen.  Many bands started as a result of people meeting each other at open mic nights.
- Peruse Craigslist for bands looking for lead or backup singers.  (Being a backup singer is a great place to start if you have no prior live band experience.  You’ll learn a lot even as a backup singer.)
- Start or join an a cappella group.
- Student recitals. If you are taking lessons with a voice coach or at a music school, there are probably performance opportunities through there.  They may not be the rock-star performance situations you ultimately envision yourself in, but they’re valuable stage time nonetheless.
- Start a duo. Team up with a pianist, develop a repertoire, and start playing in restaurants and bars.
- Start a band. Easiest if you are a teen or twenty-something, before your peers have real jobs, kids, and mortgages.
- Hire a band. For those with deep pockets:  if you’re willing to pay for a professional band’s rehearsal time, even a novice could start a rock trio and play standard covers in bars.
- Try out for a role in a musical theater production.
- Join a choir. There are lots of community choirs – some are open to all ages and levels, others require auditions.
- Prepare yourself to sub in a party band. Even if you don’t win an audition to be a party band’s new lead singer, they may find themselves in a tight spot one day if their lead singer gets sick.  If you prepare a standard party repertoire, you’ll be ready to step in if and when a last-minute opportunity arises.
- Make a live music video. Design a stage area somewhere – your basement, your garage – and videotape yourself performing to backing tracks.  When you’re ready, call some musician friends and have them come over and play the song(s) live with you performing up front.  Videotape that and put it up on YouTube and on your own web site to help you connect with bands looking for singers.
- Learn an instrument. If you don’t play any instruments, guitar is a great one to start with because an acoustic guitar is very portable and is enough accompaniment.  This opens the door for you to write your own music and get hired for small gigs.
- Play on the street. If you do play guitar – or, once you have learned a few chords – go out somewhere and practice playing in front of people.

What are YOUR favorite ways to get performing experience, and what has helped your on-stage confidence?  Stop by our Facebook page and let us know!

 

 

Photo by Roland Godefroy.

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Posted in Becoming A Rockstar, Performing, Practice Tips & How To's..., Singing | 1 Comment »

5 Secrets to an Awesome Audition

Thursday, January 19th, 2012

American Idol‘s 11th season premiered last night, but according to ratings, it ended up with the biggest viewer drop in its decade-long history.  What do you think – has Idol finally passed its peak?  Or are you still as entertained by the audition favorites and busts as we are?

Whether you’re auditioning for American Idol or your school orchestra, a lot of factors tie into preparing for an audition, beyond just practicing your piece – we’re talking what you eat, what you wear, and what you think about beforehand.  Here, The Bulletproof Musician gives us 5 non-conventional things to consider when preparing for an audition:

1. Food
What are you going to eat the night before? The morning of? What are you going to drink? How much? If you are a regular coffee drinker, are you going to wean yourself off weeks ahead of your audition so you don’t get caffeine withdrawal headaches? Plan all of this out and test it in advance, so that it is part of a familiar routine come audition day.

Keep in mind that you may be out of town on audition day, and may not feel like dragging yourself around in a new neighborhood just to find breakfast. Be sure to practice being somewhat flexible and adaptable in your preparation.

2. Clothing
Practice performing in the clothes you plan on wearing, even down to the socks and shoes you plan on wearing (this impacts pianists more than other instrumentalists, but still).

Here, too, practice being somewhat flexible – if you’re flying to an audition, you never know when the airline might misplace your luggage and lose your lucky socks.

3. Instrument
Run a few mock auditions on different pianos, a sub-par set of timpani, or a string slightly out of tune. Don’t allow yourself to be thrown off, even if the instruments aren’t exactly to your liking.

4. Environment
Conduct your mock auditions in less than ideal environments. Try big rooms, small rooms, cold rooms, hot rooms and rooms with acoustics of various types.  If at all possible, scope out the room you will be auditioning in the day before. Walk around in it, play a few notes if you can, and take a mental snapshot of the space so that you can mentally rehearse having a great audition in that space.

5.  Sleep
Think of all the practicing you are doing, and combine this with the other daily responsibilities and demands that life and school place on you. What is the result? Physical, mental and emotional fatigue. In a study of Stanford University athletes, researchers found that increasing sleep led to greater alertness and vigor, faster reaction times, greater accuracy, speed, and explosive power.  Note that just a couple nights of good sleep won’t cut it. Since most of us are operating on what sleep researchers call a sleep debt, you’ll probably need at least several weeks of sleeping 9-10 hours a day in order to begin reaping the benefits.

Keep things in mind and you’ll be prepared for anything that may come up during your audition.  Readers, what other tips have helped you ace your auditions?  Head on over to our Facebook page and share them with the community!

 

 

Photo by eflon, licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic.

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