Happy Spring Everyone!
The sun is out and the birds are singing here at The Living Pen. Anyone who wants to share what their weather is or what the view from their window looks like is welcome to do that in the comment section. Although I see the birds, Blue Jays included, I don’t see any buds yet and no sign of the Crocuses.
I was really surprised to see so many of you were as interested as I was to find out how a musical artist goes about creating their music. The “Method to the Madness” series topic “Creating Music” has been received so well and I am very grateful to each and every one of you for stopping by each week, and for leaving comments as those comments have been so helpful and so very encouraging.
We have reached the midway point and I thought today would be a good time to look over the past conversations and kind of do a recap of things that were interesting before continuing on. So here goes…
The method to creating music is an individual thing. For Peter, the process often begins with a run. During that time he can focus his thoughts on the first step in his process, deciding on a concept. The concept album is when a series of songs connect to each other in one of several ways, tonal, lyric messaging or rhythm for example. He gave us Beethoven’s infamous riff in Symphony #5 as an example.
Peter’s inspirations are elements of the present, past memories and new musical discoveries. Once his concept is set, he then likes to invite guest artists. Thanks to the studio setup Peter has, artists from all over the world can participate. He puts out a social media message letting artists know if they are interested in being a guest artist they can sign up for consideration at his record label: Music With No Expiration
Peter shared pictures of the guitars he owns and uses. He introduced us to the word Luthier, which is the maker of string instruments. One of the most recognized luthiers for guitars would be Benedetto and for violins, it would be Stradivarius…
The pictures of his guitars can be seen in the blog titled “It’s The Wood That Makes It Good”. For the most part, when it comes to electric guitar, Peter has always been a Les Paul man but he was recently loving the Strat and shared what each sounded like so we could hear the difference.
Oh and we cannot forget that little piece of equipment they call a wah- wah pedal. Not only does it impart a unique sound, it is so much fun to say! (lol)
Although I could not squirrel any names of any guest artists that may be on Peter’s next album release as of yet, he did share a little something from one of those guest artists.
In the “Let’s Get Physical” episode, I found the pros and cons of how music is currently distributed surprising. Record label deals are hard to come by and if you are an indie artist, the marketing is all up to you. This can be a daunting task with a big learning curve. I would think that it takes a lot of time away from creating music. The other challenge is the digital access that is so prevalent. As consumers we easily fall into that, never knowing that the indie artist may not be getting paid fairly for their work. Without our, (the consumers), desire for the physical cd, or vinyl album the artists we love are at the mercy of streaming companies who pay them less than a penny per stream.
What do you prefer, streaming or the physical product? Feel free to share in the comment section.
For Peter, and I believe, for many artist like him, creating music is a must so you do whatever it takes. Here is that little sound appetizer from the album he is working on now.
Click to hear Violin with Strings
In the upcoming second half of this series, I have asked Peter to deconstruct a song for us and show us how it comes to life. He will share how he adds each instrument, how he composed it and he will take us from the beginning to the end, before it gets released to the world.
We will be a fly on his studio wall and we hear the song first, before it is released, before anyone else hears it!
Hope you join me next week.
Blu