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Post by Martin John Butler on Jun 15, 2018 8:10:52 GMT -6
Jeez, how old was Ryan Adam here, 23?
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Post by mythundreamt on Jun 15, 2018 8:37:51 GMT -6
Contrast that to Jason Isbell: I still cry almost every time I listen to "Elephant." (Wow. Thanks for introducing me to that.)
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Post by Bob Olhsson on Jun 15, 2018 9:25:29 GMT -6
What blows my mind is the number of egotistical contemporary vocals that would have never been allowed out of the studio at Motown. It blows my mind because I was only an amateur violinist and never a singer or producer of any kind. The first thing a singer should always do is teach the listener the song. Only after having done that should there be any fancy vocalizing.
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Post by the other mark williams on Jun 15, 2018 13:22:54 GMT -6
What blows my mind is the number of egotistical contemporary vocals that would have never been allowed out of the studio at Motown. It blows my mind because I was only an amateur violinist and never a singer or producer of any kind. The first thing a singer should always do is teach the listener the song. Only after having done that should there be any fancy vocalizing. YES. Great point, Bob.
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Post by the other mark williams on Jun 15, 2018 13:38:25 GMT -6
Jeez, how old was Ryan Adam here, 23? Yeah, from an artistic perspective, Ryan has usually shown himself to be an "old soul." But Ryan was also immersed in 70s music growing up. And he wasn't the only member of Whiskeytown: he paired up with some great artists who had been around for a bit. Like I said, some people pull it off. Dylan was young (21?) when Bob Dylan came out. Springsteen was young (24?) when Greetings... came out. Hell, Paul Simon was already releasing songs by the time he was what, 16 or 17?? Of course, those guys had all been playing the circuit for awhile before they started recording, too. That makes a big difference. By the way, Martin, I've been meaning to tell you I really dig your song "Heaven Knows." Really, really nice tune, man.
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Post by Bob Olhsson on Jun 15, 2018 13:48:18 GMT -6
Most of the stars of the '60s and '70s were teenagers when they were first signed.
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Post by the other mark williams on Jun 15, 2018 13:53:30 GMT -6
Most of the stars of the '60s and '70s were teenagers when they were first signed. OK, OK, good point. I suppose I concede.
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Post by Martin John Butler on Jun 15, 2018 14:13:32 GMT -6
I think being a teenager was different in those times. The culture expected teenagers to have some kind of work in addition to family support. I had after school jobs since I was 9 years old. By 15, I was in school, had a band that rehearsed 2-3 hours a day, and had an afterschool job to pay for rental of the space we rehearsed in. I began singing in my school's chorus at 5 years old. By the time I did my first pro recording, I'd finished a residency at a well known Jazz & Blues club, and done gigs at historic nightclubs in Manhattan. By 19, I'd recorded my second album and was on tour. That was normal then, today, kids are coddled for a much longer time, and the lack of experience shows in the music they make.
Of course there are exceptions like the ones we've mentioned.
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Post by chessparov on Jun 15, 2018 15:42:26 GMT -6
Yes, I've heard that North Carolina has some really good pockets of a vibrant local music scene-Thanks Mark for confirming that.
One of the Soul singer/songwriters I find fascinating, is Curtis Mayfield. No yelling, no vocal histrionics, yet an extremely effective vocalist. Of course Johnny Cash was the same way. Two of the great storytellers...
Chris
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Post by swurveman on Jun 15, 2018 18:29:51 GMT -6
I began singing in my school's chorus at 5 years old. By the time I did my first pro recording, I'd finished a residency at a well known Jazz & Blues club, done lots of gigs at historic nightclubs in Manhattan. By 19, I'd recorded my second album and was on tour. I was just thinking about the absence of jazz influences in modern music , the one main exception being Amy Winehouse who incorporated both jazz and blues in her music and was wildly successful. I'm thinking of the 70's with Steely Dan's "Katy Lied" and Joni Mitchell's "Court and Spark" etc. Those kinds of albums had jazz influenced arrangements with great musicians playing interesting parts, with the artist singing interesting vocal melodies with intelligent lyrics. Even Toto's "Rosanna"-which was pop-ier than the two- has jazz influences and bands like Chicago and Blood, Sweat and Tears all were jazz influenced and you can hear it in their arrangements.. Somewhere in the 80's there emerged this repetitive, loop- like piano sound (think Foreigner's "I Wanna Know What Love Is" ), that replaced the more interesting jazz piano influenced arrangements- and it's gotten even more simplistic today. Exhibit A is Adele's "Hello". Add that to the multitude of kick/snare -heavy, verse/chorus autotuned modern country/pop/rock and you have a lot of simplistic, predictable similar music. It's like we've traded in geometric arrangements for boxy ones. In fairness, I am guilty of this trend both as a writer and as a studio owner. Nonetheless, these kinds of threads are really good for reflecting on whether we want to be part of the problem, or part of the solution .
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Post by popmann on Jun 15, 2018 20:03:40 GMT -6
....it's the lack of schooled musicianship. The cult of the amateur has "won". It's "won" in the engineering world, too--they go well together, people who think autotune sounds better, and people who NEED to be autotuned. Engineers who believe DR5 is "professional sounding" and people who want that bar lowered so that it DOES.
I get what your'e saying--but, it's learned musicianship. Ask here. Put up a poll for all the musicians here who write and record....how many went to music school? How many took lessons on an instrument longer than say a month?
I'm not suggesting that schooled musicians are the only ones with valuable musical....contributions....what I AM arguing is that a huge chunk of pop culture treats everything that doesn't sound like amateur hour as somehow suspect. And that breeds itself. I once read a review of Sara Bareilles as being "one of the few of her generation not ashamed to be slick"....I had never thought of it that way....
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Post by matt@IAA on Jun 15, 2018 20:08:03 GMT -6
Hard to justify the cost of music school these days.
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Post by johneppstein on Jun 15, 2018 23:16:59 GMT -6
Hard to justify the cost of music school these days. Music education used to be free as part of the public school system. Ronald Reagan went a long way toward killing that when he cut support for the arts in school. That's what you get when you remove government involvement in such things. Trickle down economics.
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Post by popmann on Jun 16, 2018 0:23:27 GMT -6
I didn't mean that four year music school is required. It's actually NOT where ANYONE learns music. You have to get INTO music college. Straight As are meaningless. Point being--you've already had lessons....at LEAST had some public school coaching combined with HELLA personal drive and talent....you've consumed materials. With the amount of infomration and tools available in the digital world, you can learn more about music for less money than ever in the past.
that's not the issue--it's that it's actively been DEvalued. That anything with a hint of sophistication is looked at as "lesser" by a huge chunk of the audience...as being somehow less sincere or something.
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Post by jcoutu1 on Jun 16, 2018 4:57:25 GMT -6
Pop into YouTube and check out live KEXP and NPR Tiny Desk. They consistently have good modern stuff.
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Post by matt@IAA on Jun 16, 2018 6:59:44 GMT -6
Hard to justify the cost of music school these days. Music education used to be free as part of the public school system. Ronald Reagan went a long way toward killing that when he cut support for the arts in school. That's what you get when you remove government involvement in such things. Trickle down economics. there is still music taught in public schools here in Texas. Maybe it’s just California where people no longer care about the arts?
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Post by matt@IAA on Jun 16, 2018 7:01:15 GMT -6
I didn't mean that four year music school is required. It's actually NOT where ANYONE learns music. You have to get INTO music college. Straight As are meaningless. Point being--you've already had lessons....at LEAST had some public school coaching combined with HELLA personal drive and talent....you've consumed materials. With the amount of infomration and tools available in the digital world, you can learn more about music for less money than ever in the past. that's not the issue--it's that it's actively been DEvalued. That anything with a hint of sophistication is looked at as "lesser" by a huge chunk of the audience...as being somehow less sincere or something. I think it’s also that people don’t look at music as a necessary component of education. We’re all reading writing arithmetic and sports. My goodness people care about sports. Really I think it is a part of a general shift in how people view education. It went from a true concept of creating a well rounded person to a purely vocational value metric. And, since music is not viewed as a “real” vocation it is less valued.
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Post by Guitar on Jun 16, 2018 7:02:07 GMT -6
Pop into YouTube and check out live KEXP and NPR Tiny Desk. They consistently have good modern stuff. Wow, they are great!
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Post by notneeson on Jun 16, 2018 9:25:25 GMT -6
Music education used to be free as part of the public school system. Ronald Reagan went a long way toward killing that when he cut support for the arts in school. That's what you get when you remove government involvement in such things. Trickle down economics. there is still music taught in public schools here in Texas. Maybe it’s just California where people no longer care about the arts? My daughter’s public charter school, here in N. CA, has a great music program, culminating in percussion and string ensembles. I’m quite excited about it.
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Post by matt@IAA on Jun 16, 2018 10:26:47 GMT -6
there is still music taught in public schools here in Texas. Maybe it’s just California where people no longer care about the arts? My daughter’s public charter school, here in N. CA, has a great music program, culminating in percussion and string ensembles. I’m quite excited about it. The elementary school me and my sister went to began piano, strings, and choir at kindergarten and you could start band at third grade. There is a music focus public middle school as well, and Houston actually has a public high school specifically for the arts (High School for the Performing and Visual Arts) that’s on an application basis. I don’t know of any middle or high schools that don’t have choir, band, and orchestra offered. The difference is that more people start their kids in club sports at four now, instead of on piano.
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Post by Guitar on Jun 16, 2018 11:14:40 GMT -6
I got to play Tuba in the middle school band in a government school in Japan, on an Air Force base. It was in fact my first instrument.
To this day, I think that's when I started to form my sense of bass lines and counterpoint.
I didn't pick up guitar until high school. Come to think of it I must have been really frustrated when I had to give my tuba back to the school in Japan and didn't have anything to play in Florida.
That band director was sort of a saint for doing what he did.
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Post by jimwilliams on Jun 16, 2018 12:00:34 GMT -6
Music education used to be free as part of the public school system. Ronald Reagan went a long way toward killing that when he cut support for the arts in school. That's what you get when you remove government involvement in such things. Trickle down economics. there is still music taught in public schools here in Texas. Maybe it’s just California where people no longer care about the arts? California is a special case. We once had the best schools in the USA, now we are at 49th place. Graduation rates are very low, poverty is high here with 20% living below the poverty line, far above the US average.
Unlike other states we don't use local property taxes to fund our schools. We use the general fund. We spend more on schools here than any other state. That avoids "rich schools vs poor schools" but that doesn't mean much when you are at 49th place.
There are very good reasons why most parents here will place their kids in private schools here if they can afford it.
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Post by johneppstein on Jun 16, 2018 12:23:35 GMT -6
Music education used to be free as part of the public school system. Ronald Reagan went a long way toward killing that when he cut support for the arts in school. That's what you get when you remove government involvement in such things. Trickle down economics. there is still music taught in public schools here in Texas. Maybe it’s just California where people no longer care about the arts? California has its own funding.
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Post by M57 on Jun 16, 2018 18:59:09 GMT -6
....it's the lack of schooled musicianship. The cult of the amateur has "won". It's "won" in the engineering world, too--they go well together, people who think autotune sounds better, and people who NEED to be autotuned. Engineers who believe DR5 is "professional sounding" and people who want that bar lowered so that it DOES. I get what your'e saying--but, it's learned musicianship. Ask here. Put up a poll for all the musicians here who write and record....how many went to music school? How many took lessons on an instrument longer than say a month? I'm not suggesting that schooled musicians are the only ones with valuable musical....contributions....what I AM arguing is that a huge chunk of pop culture treats everything that doesn't sound like amateur hour as somehow suspect. And that breeds itself. I once read a review of Sara Bareilles as being "one of the few of her generation not ashamed to be slick"....I had never thought of it that way.... I'm still not sure what you're saying. If you're saying it's "different" now - I would point out that none of the 'inventors' of jazz studied music formally that I can think of. Even the more intellectual/artsy types. Did Duke Ellington study music in college, or in high school for that matter? Coltrane? Blakey? Bird? Monk? Mingus? Bassie? I don't think so. Wait.. Miles Davis (Julliard), but he didn't finish there. In fact, most next generation and current top jazz musicians didn't really study music in college - they were 'discovered' there ..so they may be "affiliated" with the college, but they were great musicians before they walked in the door - and that affiliation is more about PR than a reflection of where they learned their craft.
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Post by johneppstein on Jun 17, 2018 1:19:18 GMT -6
....it's the lack of schooled musicianship. The cult of the amateur has "won". It's "won" in the engineering world, too--they go well together, people who think autotune sounds better, and people who NEED to be autotuned. Engineers who believe DR5 is "professional sounding" and people who want that bar lowered so that it DOES. I get what your'e saying--but, it's learned musicianship. Ask here. Put up a poll for all the musicians here who write and record....how many went to music school? How many took lessons on an instrument longer than say a month? I'm not suggesting that schooled musicians are the only ones with valuable musical....contributions....what I AM arguing is that a huge chunk of pop culture treats everything that doesn't sound like amateur hour as somehow suspect. And that breeds itself. I once read a review of Sara Bareilles as being "one of the few of her generation not ashamed to be slick"....I had never thought of it that way.... I'm still not sure what you're saying. If you're saying it's "different" now - I would point out that none of the 'inventors' of jazz studied music formally that I can think of. Even the more intellectual/artsy types. Did Duke Ellington study music in college, or in high school for that matter? Coltrane? Blakey? Bird? Monk? Mingus? Bassie? I don't think so. Wait.. Miles Davis (Julliard), but he didn't finish there. In fact, most next generation and current top jazz musicians didn't really study music in college - they were 'discovered' there ..so they may be "affiliated" with the college, but they were great musicians before they walked in the door - and that affiliation is more about PR than a reflection of where they learned their craft. We're not talking about your hoity-toity college level music schools. We're talking about government sponsored public school and community music programs.
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