West of East

Part 3 - Steel Bridge Construction Zone

2011-07-20T08:48:00.000-07:00

This is part 3 of 3 of my experience writing and recording at the Steel Bridge Songfest Construction Zone. Please see my previous blogs for the whole story!

(In Photo: The crew from the Beach Harbor Studio)

I am finally getting around to my last song written and recorded at Steel Bridge! Last, but by no means least! I am very fond of this song and it's charming nature. It turned into a waltz and for those of you who don't know, a waltz is written in 3/4 time. I don't know why, but I had never attempted to write in 3/4 before. So once it got going, I really wanted to stick with it just because it was a first for me. I figure, part of the spirit of the Steel Bridge is to step outside your comfort zone, so we went with it!

At first our challenges were more logistical than anything. We needed to find a place to write! With an astonishing lack of transportation (none of us had a car!), we somehow all made our way to the Beach Harbor Resort to my hotel room where we could have some quiet to get the creativity going. One of the biggest challenges with writing at the construction zone is finding your group a little solitude. There are musicians literally everywhere and all of them working out a tune. While this is very inspirational, it also makes for a lot of musical distraction!

My co-writers were Landon Capelle and Chenoa Moore. Landon's background is in rap and Chenoa is just starting out in music and still trying to define her sound. So we had two chick singers and a rapper. Not a likely bunch to write a song! But somehow we put together this very sweet waltz. In the beginning, I was worried we were leaving Landon out of the process because I was having a hard time picturing rap in this dear little waltz. I was willing to give it a shot because you never know, sometimes the most opposite thing really fits! But in the end, we all decided it just wasn't necessary. Landon contributed about 3/4 of the lyrics and I was extra excited when Landon expressed how it was a new experience for him to write lyrics for girls to sing. Firsts going all around in this song! I love it!

One of the song topics that is encouraged at Steel Bridge is to use the idea of a bridge either metaphorically or physically and what ever that means to you. Our song is about lovers separated by a very wide river with no bridge to connect them. The main hook is "I'm just sitting here on the other side of the shore".

We recorded at the Beach Harbor Studio with Dan Stoffels of the Madison Media Institute. Here is a run down of the participants:

Landon Capelle - lyrics
Chenoa Moore - vocals
Sara Moilanen - guitar and vocals

Also Featuring:
Ronnie Sanchez (of Groove Session)- bass
Alessandro Saso Angeletti (of Solo per Adulti)- drums
Zack Vogel - lead guitar

I hope you enjoy it! Let me know what you think!
Sara

Landon's Waltz 01 by Sara Moilanen

Part 2 - Steel Bridge Construction Zone

2011-06-17T10:55:00.000-07:00

This is part 2 and song 2 of my experience writing and recording at the Steel Bridge Songfest Construction Zone. Please see my previous blog for the whole story!

Song #2 of the week was super fun! My writing partners were Brandon Seyferth of Chicago, Illinois and Alessandro Saso Angeletti of the Italian band, Solo per Adulti. Two really great guys and one super song. Brandon was staying in a small apartment above a workshop in Sturgeon Bay, so we retreated to the loft to start on our song. Luckily, there was a drum kit up there, which worked out perfectly for Saso, since he is a drummer. He worked out a really great drum part for the song. Pulled the whole thing together.

When we got there, Brandon's roommate for the week, Tim Severns was there. He had sat out of that day's spin the bottle, but ended up helping us with our song instead. I think he just wanted to go to sleep, but got sucked into the process. Tim was a wealth of knowledge about the Door County area and he told us about how the canal had been dug out completely by hand. Just what we needed to get us started. The first line to our song is, "Diggin this hole, all day long, knee deep in muck but I'm moving on".

We recorded the song in Steve Hamilton's studio. You can see some photos of us on my facebook page. Brandon sang and played acoustic guitar. Saso was on drums. Saso's brother, Carlo Angeletti played bass. Chrissy Dzioba sang back-up and Tony Hodges played some mean dobro. It ended up taking on a countrified, Fleetwood Mac vibe in the end.

We decided the main character was a musician stuck in a dead end job and a complicated life that seemed to all work against him being able to pursue his passion for music. Sound familiar to anyone? The hook line was something I'd had in my back pocket for a while. I don't even remember who said it. But somewhere along the line, I heard someone say, "I've never been one to borrow trouble" and it stuck with me. I wrote it down in my songwriting book and figured I'd use it someday. Well, it's day has come. This is Borrowed Trouble. I hope you enjoy!

Borrowed Trouble SH V1.1_01 by Sara Moilanen

Part 1 - Steel Bridge Construction Zone

2011-06-15T11:32:00.000-07:00

This is part one of a three part series on my experience songwriting last week. I collaborated with amazing artists to write and record 3 songs. Song number one is called Moscato. It got this name because we drank a bottle of Moscato wine during its creation. I later found out that the word Moscato translated means hangover in Italian. Sounds about right!

So, where was I doing this songwriting? Well, myself and fellow Whiskeybelle, Chrissy Dzioba, drove up to beautiful Door County to participate in the Steel Bridge Songfest Construction Zone in Sturgeon Bay.

For those who are not familiar, it is a week long songwriters workshop that culminates in a four day Music Festival. Every evening after dinner, an array of talented musicians from all over the world stand in a circle and play spin the bottle to choose their writing partners for the next 24 hours. In groups of three or four, the goal is to write and record a song before dinner the next day. What? Crazy you say!

But, talk about intense and fun! There are two recording studios at the Holiday Music Hotel and one more at the Beach Harbor Resort. I was lucky enough to record in all three studios over the course of the week!

Our first song, Moscato, was a collaboration with Sarven Manguiat from the band Groove Session, Ellie Maybe of the Maybenauts and Luca Coppari of Solo per Adulti.

What a talented group! Ellie's got some serious bass chops and Sarven is an amazing guitar player. He did both the rhythm and lead on this track. And in one take! Luca, who is from Italy, melts all the ladies with his smooth voice. Together we made this latin/world music sort of thing about two lovers fishing under a bridge. I think that's what Luca talks about anyway! Who cares, he sounds awesome!

We recorded with Sound Engineer, Billy Triplett. Now, keep in mind, these tracks are demo's, thrown together very quickly. We recorded ours at 3:00 AM, that's in the morning! The sun was rising on my way back to the hotel. You can hear the tired in my voice, but over-all I think it's super! Manny Sanchez, also of Groove Session, sat in on drums. It's so different from anything I would have ever come up with on my own. I guess that's the beauty of the construction zone....

Play the song below.

Moscato V.1.0 by Sara Moilanen

WAMI Awards

2011-04-21T10:21:00.001-07:00

DSC_8925, originally uploaded by WAMI Music.

How exciting is this! Tim and I won not one, but TWO WAMI awards this past weekend! Americana Artist of the Year and yours truly won Female Vocalist of the year in a tie with the sultry Heidi Spencer. I love, love Heidi and it's an honor to be in such good company.

We are totally taken aback by this show of recognition. So excited to be a part of the WAMI organization. When we first joined, we really just wanted to meet and connect with people like us. Musicians struggling to find their way. And we did just that. We have made so many good friends along the way, winning the awards is just like icing on the cake.

We had a great time at the party. It was our first awards show and I thought the whole thing ran really smooth and kept everyone entertained. The house band, The Jazz Orgy, were amazing! Check them out!

Thanks so much to WAMI and everyone who supported the award ceremony, all of our friends, we can't thank you enough!

Congratulations to our friends who won awards also, Jim Linneman for Best Venue, The Sandcarvers for Rock Artist and Allen Cote for Specialty Instrument among many others!

Cheers!
Sara

Sad Songs

2011-01-27T11:55:00.000-08:00

Ah, I love a good sad song. Can't help myself. I was reminded of this today when I was listening to PRI radio program, To The Best Of Our Knowledge. The show was called, Why Do We Love Sad Songs? Here is a link to the podcast on their web site. http://www.wpr.org/book/101212b.cfm
I highly recommend giving it a listen. It is soo good. Like a sad song.

I've found myself writing a lot of sad songs lately. Yet, I am the happiest I have been in most of my adult life! What I find is true for me anyway, is that I can express the full range of my emotions best when I am in a grounded place. My creativity spikes when I feel contented and nurtured. The old idea that artists need to be tortured in order to be creative just doesn't work for me. If I am feeling bad, I may not write at all, and if I do, my work is of a much narrower scope. In fact, I may just write happy songs in an effort to channel the positive mood. But when I am feeling good, I can go to any place in my mind and feel safe there. Does that make sense to anyone else? Tell me about your creative motivations!
Til next time,
Sara

Ricky Ganiere and The Great Lakes Drifters

2011-01-21T13:09:00.001-08:00

Ricky_Ganiere_072, originally uploaded by West Of East.

Last fall, I had the opportunity to take some photos of our good friend Ricky Ganiere. He was just branching out on his own to start a new solo project and has recently created The Great Lakes Drifters as a new conduit for his song-writing. They are made up of two members of The New Red Moons( Kavinath Laud: drums and Jeff Brueggeman: bass) and guitarist from The Form (Ryan Elliot).

They are currently working on a recording project of Ricky's original tunes that Tim and I are thrilled to be helping out with. They have a show coming up next Friday, Jan. 28th at Linneman's Riverwest Inn. If you are in the area, I highly recommend you check out this show! We'll be there, so come out and hang with us! Oh, and I get to sing on one of his songs, too! It will be loads of fun!
Sara

New CD Coming In 2011!

2011-01-13T11:49:00.000-08:00

Tim and I are in the planning stages of recording a new CD. It is really exciting! We've pulled together some of the most talented musicians in Milwaukee to help us.

Ricky Ganiere is helping us by co-producing and playing electric and upright bass. Ricky is one of the best kept secrets of Milwaukee. As the driving force behind The Buskers, he built a loyal Milwaukee following from his infectious guitar licks combined with catchy, stick-in-your-head lyrics and melodies. These days, he's gone solo and some of you may remember him opening at our first CD release party. His new stuff is just as crafty, but stripped down and rootsy, highlighting Ricky's raspy, captivating voice. He's got a show coming up this January 28 at Linneman's in Milwaukee. Check it out if you can, and you'll get to see me join him for a song, too!

Chrissy Dzioba will be singing back-up and she has been in the Milwaukee music scene since she was a teenager sneaking into bars to play her music (she swears she never drank back then!). She became the main singer/song-writer for Blonde On Blonde who released their first CD, Folk and Soul in '08. Their music is Joni Mitchell-esque and will leave you charmed and captivated by their beautiful vocals and soothing melodic nature. More recently, Chrissy has joined up with The Whiskeybelles, a three piece country girl band that will blow you away with their three part harmonies and energetic and entertaining stage presence. From country ballads to foot stompin' hoe downs, you can't help singing along and tappin' your feet! Chrissy's next show with Blonde On Blonde is this January 20 at Brocach in Milwaukee and The Whiskeybelles can be found at the Yardarm in Racine, January 26 and The Fox & Hounds in Hubertus WI on January 29. Check it out!

Adam Sullivan is our amazing drummer! I have to take a moment here to say that I am so glad we have Adam with us. The bands he plays with, The Up and Atoms and Upside Groove Coalition, are a combination of rock, jazz, neo-soul, powerpop, jam and funk. Everything that we absolutely are not! It just goes to show what an all around good musician Adam is because he can fit in so perfectly with us folkies! Don't miss the Upside Groove Coalition, they will be at The Milwaukee Art Museum for the 13th annual Food and Froth Fest on Feb 19. You can also catch the Up and Atoms at Linneman's in Milwaukee on March 4.

Allen Cote will be adding his talents on lap-steel. What can I say about Allen except that he seems to have his hand in everything music in Milwaukee! He is a multi-instrumentalist who has collaborated with so many musicians, they are too many to list here, you can read about it on his Facebook page. He is a composer for the local culinary show, Wisconsin Foodie, and he also creates his own original music, which harkens of Jeff Tweedy with a stark honesty to his lyrics that draws you right into his intimate world. His next solo show is at the East Town Market at Discovery World in Milwaukee on April 9, 11:30am. You can also catch him at UW-Madison backing up Pezzettino on Feb. 4 and at The Circle A in Milwaukee w/ Jonathan Burks on Feb 19.

This group of people really gets what we are going for and so far the demos are right on track! I feel we have a really good batch of songs, and this time around, we are at the controls from start to finish! Our aim is to let the songs really take on a life of their own through rehearsal and open minds. So far, we are right on target.

We've scheduled time at the end of March to do the tracking, but we are not rushing ourselves. We are gonna take our time with this one, hopefully sometime this summer, we will have our finished product.

We plan to release some fan exclusives along the way, so if you want to be the first on the block to hear the new tracks, sign up for our mailing list on our web site. We won't bombard you with a lot of email and we promise to never share your personal information.

If you are in Milwaukee February 19, you get to pick your poison! If you are into Jazz/Funk/Blues, go see The Upside Coalition at The Milwaukee Art Museum. If Folk/Indie/Country/Singer-songwriter music is more your thing, go see Allen Cote and Jonathan Burks at the Circle A. Or if you want a dose of a more feminine variety of Singer-songwriter/Folk/Alt-country come see us at Conway's Smokin' Bar & Grill. Also with us at Conway's is The Form. The Form plays a blend of Rock styles reminicent of Neil Young, Pink Floyd, and the Grateful Dead. The Form really connects their energy and spirit with their audience until everyone is rockin'!

Take care everybody and we will have more coming soon!
Sara

John Prine Show

2010-11-23T13:02:00.000-08:00

My friend, Lisa Ridgely, posted a video of John Prine performing live on facebook yesterday and it reminded me of our trip to see him perform live in Manitowoc earlier this fall. What a great show on so many levels. Not only did we get to see the amazing John Prine, but when we got there, we found our friend Derek Pritzl, busking in front of the theatre! What luck! We sat down and talked with his girlfriend, Lanore and met up with them for a beer after the show. Lisa took the photo above. Thanks Lisa!

Derek and Lanore told us a story that blew me away! On their way home from a tour, they were driving through South Dakota and saw a little baby pig running on the road. Long story short, they were able to catch the little piglet and rescue her from a desperate situation. She was injured, severely sunburned and dehydrated. Lanore nursed her back to health. If it hadn't been for Lanore's efforts, she would have surely succumb to the elements.

The sad thing about this story is the fact that the pig fell off of a transport truck. What kind of company allows that sort of thing to happen? It is really appalling in my opinion. You can read an article about their ordeal here:
http://petnewsandviews.com/2010/07/rock-‘n-roll-couple-rescue-piglet/

In the story, they call them a Rock 'n Roll couple. How funny! Journalists are always trying to hype a story! Derek's music is amazing, but I wouldn't call it Rock 'n Roll. He plays a blend of Folk, Americana and Roots music. He has a wonderfully rich and raspy voice that brings immediate warmth to his music. Learn more about him here:
http://derekpritzl.com/

Alright, back to the John Prine concert! I was moved to tears at that show, I just couldn't help myself! I never realized how much influence his music has had on me not just musically, but personally. I identify with his music. He takes these complicated ideas and truths about the world and weaves them into these wonderfully bold songs that I really connect with.

It inspires me to be more adventurous in my own song writing and I am really excited that we have started working on our next album. Some of the songs on this new record are going to hit a few nerves and for the first time in my life, I'm not afraid of that. Thank you John Prine for your inspiration!

That's it from me, everybody have a wonderful Thanksgiving!
Sara

Inspiration in Eau Claire

2010-11-09T11:25:00.001-08:00

WellnessShack_AcousticCafe_012, originally uploaded by West Of East.

Recently, we had the privilege of performing at an awareness/ fundraiser event for an organization in Eau Claire called The Wellness Shack. They are an out patient recovery center for people with mental illnesses. In addition, they are one darn great group of people!

I just wanted to write a little about this because I was really moved by the wonderful community that came together to support this group of people. I was inspired by the bravery of the participants who overcame their fears of public speaking to share their stories. The Wellness Shack provides hope to those struggling that they have a safe place where community and support are right at hand.

I was also very impressed with The Acoustic Cafe for hosting the event. Kind and helpful, they set up a stage, let us use the house PA and generously donated a meal for us. So, if you are in Eau Claire, make sure you stop in at the Acoustic Cafe for a beverage and a sandwich. Their food is the best!

Learn more at wellnessshack.org. And if you feel so inclined, send them a donation to keep their organization going strong!
Sara

Week 8 - Music Success Blog Challenge

2010-10-08T08:09:00.000-07:00

This weeks lesson is one that does not come easy to us as artists. It’s about money. We, and a good solid chunk of other musicians really just want to focus on the playing music part of our music careers and not on the money part. After all, its about the music moving you, not about money, right? Well, the operative phrase a sentence or so back was “music career,” and that means that at some point it has to be about more than art and it has to be a little bit about money. Otherwise I would have said music hobby.

Now we’re not talking about advances from record company money, or royalties from music in a feature film money, we are talking about money from merchandise and from playing live. The ugly truth of the matter is that people don’t buy CDs in record stores any more and as a result of that, record labels don’t set artists up with sweet record contracts any more (usually) which means that if artists are going to survive long enough to make more art, they have to have stuff to sell.

You might be surprised to know that most non-major label bands make almost all of their money on tour from selling merch. That’s right, you buying a t-shirt, or tour poster from the next band you go see might very well be the difference between them having gas money to get to their next show or not. Which is exactly where this lesson comes in.

Week 8 is all about developing the kind of merch that suits your audience. Lets be honest, we’ve all gone to see bands that we thought were really great and bought a shirt at the end of the night. Then we’ve worn that shirt for years and remembered the great time we had at the show every time we put that shirt on. I have a Wilco poster in my office that makes me think about the show I bought it at every morning when I get to work! So the key is to not just try to sell a bunch of crap that nobody wants, its to create things that enhance the experience of music or to help us remember the experience we had. And getting a little gas money in return does’t hurt! Enhancing the experience doesn’t necessarily need to come in tangible form either.

Ariel is excellent at pointing out that the single most important thing you can do as a band is to connect with your fans. She is also good at pointing out that you will have fans on many different levels. Some will come to see you play, some will buy a t-shirt while they’re there, but a smaller group of them will go much farther to help support you. This is where the idea of non-tangible items helps you really give these types of fans a deeper experience.

These items might be a custom written song, or a private performance and discussion with the band. These are ideas that we would have never thought of and yet they are so great. Great for us and great for fans who really want to get involved in what we are trying to do and quite frankly, are willing to pay a little more to do it. At first I thought it was a little bit crazy, but think about it, would you pay to have your favorite band do one of these things for you? If I could send Wilco a hundred bucks and they would custom write a song for me, there would already be a check in the mail.

So what do you think? Posters? Beer Coozies? Custom written and recorded songs based on topics you choose, complete with high quality, behind the scenes, “the making of” style video included? Let us know in the comments section below!

Until next week,

Tim

Week 7 - Ariel Hyatt Blog Challenge

2010-09-30T19:11:00.001-07:00

Week seven is here, only two more to go! This weeks lesson is very refreshing because it is focuses on the exact opposite of everything that’s been talked about so far. We’ve been mostly working on our online presence. Now it’s time to turn off the computer (Yay!) and get out into the world for some real-life networking. Wha? I can’t just sit at my computer and get fans and sell CD’s? Dang it!

There is some great real-world advice in this lesson, and while most of it seems like common sense, I think the most important piece of advice is to resist the temptation to be constantly promoting yourself. When you are passionate about what you do, its easy to get caught up in the mind-set of seeing each person you meet as someone to get on your mailing list or to get a CD in their hands, but really, it’s o.k. to just be yourself and get to know people. Honestly, most of the time, this is exactly what we do. When we are out at an event where we should be networking, we end up just chatting with people and forgetting about the mailing list or our CD or the fact that we even have business cards! We walk out the door smiling until we realize that maybe we should have given that person we talked to all night a CD or that we missed the perfect opportunity to get them on the mailing list; why didn’t we take it? We can definitely work on our real-life networking!

But, on the other hand, I’ve also been assaulted by musicians who walk right up, introduce themselves, proceeded to try and “sell” me on what they are doing without even asking my name, then they shove a demo or card in my hand and walk away. What’s up with that? Maybe they can canvas a whole room quickly, but how many people do they actually make a connection with?

So, I guess the point of the lesson, among other things, is to find the balance between your life and your music and to use common sense. I thank my lucky stars that I have Tim on my team because he is the king (in my eyes) of face to face networking and a genuinely interesting person to talk to plus an over-all nice guy! Don’t you agree? If you’ve never met Tim, make a point to seek him out, I guarantee you will be laughing and carrying-on in no time!
Sara

We Were Winners at the WAMI CD Roulette

2010-09-27T13:42:00.000-07:00

We, and three other bands, won the WAMI CD Roulette contest on Sunday!

The Wisconsin Area Music Industry, or WAMI for short, hosted an event yesterday called the WAMI CD Roulette, in which musicians entered one song to be critiqued by a panel of judges, all with experience in the Music Industry. The judges were played a 90 second clip of each entry and were asked to rate it (and provide feedback) in each of the following categories: Originality, Performance quality, Commercial appeal, and Overall impression. The top four entries we're awarded performance slots at either Bastille Days in Milwaukee's Cathedral Square, The Wisconsin State Fair, The Milwaukee County Parks Summer Music Series, or Summerfest. They'll let us know soon which spot we won!

The judging was done in two sessions and we were in the first. The judges we faced were pretty tough and at times quite harsh in their feedback. To quote a judge from the second session "I sat in and listened to some of the critiques from the first session and was pretty sure the suicide rate was going to go up." We entered our song "The Long Road" and we faired pretty well in the critiques. The judges all seemed to think that our song was well put together and well played. They had a few minor criticisms but all in all, we did well. One of the judges, a radio DJ even asked that we submit it to her station!

There were 15 entries in our session, 26 overall, and many of them were very strong contenders so we were extremely surprised to win.

Among the other winners were The Liberty Bluegrass Band, World Minus One, and Katie Lafond.

Week 6 - Ariel Hyatt Blog Challenge

2010-09-23T08:19:00.000-07:00

Even though we have fallen a bit behind in our blog posts for the Ariel Hyatt Blog Challenge. I am pretty impressed that we have made it this far. And, in the process, I think we found that writing a blog a week is really not that hard to do. I hope that we have not been boring our readers (I think we have readers:) to death with all the serious talk. I promise, more interesting stuff is on the way, we have a great story to tell about going to see John Prine play at the Capitol Civic Center in Manitowoc. It involves a chance meeting with friends and a real live pig, so check back soon!

On with this weeks lesson! This is all about the importance of building your email list. Social networking sites like Facebook are great for communicating with your fans, but you can’t count on them being there forever.

For example, MySpace was once the best thing since sliced bread, but now it is being replaced with the likes of Facebook and Twitter. And what if it shuts down completely? All of the connections made there may be gone forever. This is why an email list that you control is so important. Keeping our fans up to date on our shows, releases and lives is paramount to keeping our music going!

There are many tactics to getting people on your list. I won’t go into them all, but just asking people to join is not the answer. Just like any favor, it needs a return favor, so I think the most important thing we gleaned out of this lesson is to thank fans that sign up with a gift that they can’t get anywhere else. Right now, our fans have access to exclusive song downloads through Reverb Nation. And we are trying to figure out how to do video, too.

The lesson also stresses that you have to come up with creative ways to get fans on your list and block out the time required to get the job done. We are working on this. Time, there just are not enough hours in the day!

So, if you’re not on our list, join today! We won’t bombard you with emails and we never share your information with anyone, ever! And if we annoy you, well, you can easily unsubscribe. So, what have you got to lose!

Sara

Week 5 - Music Success Blog Challenge

2010-09-16T08:52:00.000-07:00

The week 5 lesson in Ariel Hyatt's "Music Success in Nine Weeks" book focuses on your newsletter and having a feel for the people on your email list and the kinds of things they are interested in. Fans who receive emails from you that interest them are more likely to stay fans. The assumption is that most of your fans are probably going to be a lot like you and share a lot of your interests, since like-minded people usually enjoy similar music, but there are a lot of people out there who enjoy a wide genre of music and reaching them is equally important.

So, what does Ariel have to say about it? Well, she suggests that you start off by writing down who your fans are (male, female, single, married, old, young, etc…) and then what they like to do and where they might hang out. Excellent advice. But how are we supposed to know all of this information? Not every name and email address on our fan list is put there as a result of a handshake and a five minute conversation. Some fans are added from our Web Site/blog/Facebook page and some are added through raffles and sign up forms at our shows. We have decided to take two approaches to solve this problem.

The first is that we can use some of the information that the internet has available. Facebook does a pretty good job of showing you some of the demographics of your fans. There is an insights section that tells you how many of your fans are male, female, single, married, their age ranges and all sorts of other things. Thats a pretty good start! Google Analytics is also a really powerful tool because you can dig a little deeper. It shows you the sections of your Web Site that people visit the most, where in the world they are, and how they are finding your site. So, we know roughly how old they are, and if they're boys or girls and if they're married or not, but we still don't really know what they're into. This is where another part of the weeks lesson comes in and where we really need to trust a piece of advice that Ariel gives about our fans.

The second approach that we're going to take in the quest to learn about our fans is something relatively obvious. We're going to ask them. At the end of the chapter Ariel mentions sending your fans surveys and we think it's a pretty good idea. So that's exactly what we're going to do. We are in the process of writing up a short, not too intrusive list of questions we want to know about our fans and we're going to ask them. This raises a few concerns about over communicating with people and driving them to unsubscribe from the list, but Ariel has the following piece of advice on that subject and we agree with her: People who ask to be removed from your list probably aren't interested in what you're doing anyway, so remove them with joy and get on with bonding with the core that want to hear from you. Well said.

The information that we gather will help us to create a more in-depth relationship with our fans, the people we are asking to support us in the increasingly difficult music career journey, and in the end will help us give them more of what they want. Or, everyone will just unsubscribe from our list....lets hope not!

What do you think? If we asked you to answer questions about what you're into would you do it or would you be offended and unsubscribe? Do you have any ideas to improve our newsletter or other communications with you? Lets hear 'em.

Until next week,

Tim

Week 4 - Ariel Hyatt Blog Challenge

2010-09-08T11:56:00.000-07:00

In case you're just finding our blog now and haven't read the last four posts or so, we have been participating in a 9 week blog challenge put on by Ariel Hyatt. Ariel's book "Music Success in 9 Weeks" very smartly lays out 9 lessons on how to improve your approach to marketing your music. We are now on week four and are quickly realizing we probably should have thought about the fact that we were going to be honeymooning in a remote location with no internet access during the weeks when the internet is the focus of the lessons. As a result, this blog entry is already 3 days overdue!

Week four is is all about using the internet interactively. Using forums where people don't just stare at a page, but enter in the discussion. The message that we took away from this weeks lesson is that the internet and the way people find and view information is changing and becoming more community based. It is no longer effective to put up a digital version of a brochure for yourself, call it a Web Site and be set in the online advertising department. The music scene has changed. It has moved from record shops to the internet and finding the dirt on your favorite bands has moved from black and white fan 'zines to places like Flickr, Facebook, Twitter, blogs, vlogs, Myspace, Youtube...lions and tiger and bears, oh my! The book discusses many of these places in detail (blogs, photo sites, social networks, etc…) and makes it quite clear that you must be involved in the online community in order to make it work for you. Being involved doesn't mean just having a Facebook page and hoping that people find it, it means actually reading and participating in discussions on the blogs that you hope will write about your music. It means giving your fans a window into your world with photos on Flickr and videos on Youtube. Don't just post and walk away; Start a conversation and be fans of your fans!

It's a lot to take in and maintain. Ariel likens it to your web garden. You must feed, weed and water on a continual basis to keep things growing. We've been doing a lot of this for a while now. Some well, some not at all. We're alright at the planting part, but we miss the weeding and watering sometimes. This week we will focus on what parts we've been neglecting and try to give them a little TLC.

One of the parts of this lesson that we do fairly well is our Flickr page. Photography used to be a career for me(Sara) and I now enjoy using my skills to photograph other musicians and document our lives together for my own enjoyment. It's easy to do something well when you have a passion for it! Flickr is an excellent way to not only show your fans what you've been up to (not only as a band, but as people) but also a way to attract new fans. We have attracted more than a few hits to our Web Site and blog from our Flickr page. We include tags on each of our photos and participate in several groups, which has definitely had a positive effect. Have a look at our Flickr page HERE

The blog section of this chapter is without a doubt an area that we need some work on. We both read plenty of blogs, music related and otherwise, but we aren't very active commenters. We have both started organizing our Google Reader pages and have started to focus more on blogs that we have something to say about.

This weeks lesson is something that you cultivate over months and years so taking a big breath and diving in is good, but understanding that it won't be done overnight is a must! One foot in front of the other....

Until next week,

Sara and Tim

Optimizing Our Web Site: Week Three of Ariel Hyatt's Blog Challenge

2010-08-30T15:55:00.000-07:00

Week three of the Ariel Hyatt blog challenge is about optimizing your Web Site. We really thought that this week was going to be impossible for us because we are on our honeymoon. An extended period of time at a music festival and in the woods in a place without mobile phone service and readily available internet access. Lucky for us, this is a portion of the book that we have spent a lot of time with in the past. But there's always some room for improvement, right?

So we took a good look at our Web Site before we left and decided that while we wouldn't be able to make actual changes from where we are, we would read each section of the chapter and discuss how we felt our site stacked up. Then make any changes when we get back home.

The chapter is fairly brief, but covers some really important stuff, it essentially lays out six things that your Web Site should or should not be and how and why those things are important. The main thread throughout the six things is that your Web Site should help you capture the fans that are coming to your site. I won't go through each of the six steps, but for the most part they ensure that you utilize the pitch from last week so people get a clear picture of who you are, have a Web Site that is not confusing to look at and that loads quickly when people get there, have a compelling reason for people to want to join your fan list, and make it extremely easy for them to join your list if the decide to.

We feel that our site has all of these things covered. The one thing that we do feel we could improve on quite a bit is offering more substantial exclusive content to people who join our fan list. We feel that this will help compel more people to join the list and will help us keep people that are on the list more engaged with what we have going on.

We do already offer some exclusive content for people that are on our fan list, but we don't do a very good job of linking to it from our site and we only have a song or two available. So we will be making changes to help direct fans to the exclusive items as soon as we get home and are already working on a few ideas for things we might like to put there. We've got a few video ideas involving some stripped down acoustic versions of some songs, that we think we can accomplish while we're on the road, so look for those very soon!

We are also pretty terrible at making sure that our newest newsletter is on the site, so that is something we need to look as well. This is mostly an ease of maintenance issue with the way our site is designed and is something that we are looking at re-designing very soon as well.

What do you think about it? Have a look at our site (http://www.westofeastmusic.com) and let us know what you think. Is the site easy to understand? Do you get a clear picture of who we are and what we do? Does it make you want to sign up for the fan list? If not, why not?

Until next week,

Tim

Our Pitch: Week Two of the Ariel Hyatt Blog Challenge

2010-08-22T16:11:00.001-07:00

I sort of thought this week was going to be a breeze seeing as we had already gone through this process when we first picked up Ariel’s book, a while ago, and made a fairly serious attempt at completing it. It turns out that it was kind of easy and kind of hard all at the same time.

This weeks lesson was to come up with a description of your bands sound that is short and to the point that will act as your “pitch.” Having a well thought out description is very valuable because when someone comes up to you and asks, "What kind of music do you play?" you don't just stand there with a dumb look on your face. It’s also a valuable tool to use on posters, your Web Site and basically anywhere else you advertise so that people can get an idea of your sound before they even hear you. And hopefully once they hear your description they will want to listen to you!

Like I said, we had already gone through this process and I thought it would be a breeze until we got to the part of the lesson that we had previously skipped. Apparently, you need to do the whole lesson in order for it to be truly effective. Who’d have thunk, right? After you have created your description, you are to stand in front of a mirror and repeat it several times. If you don't feel like a dork saying it, then you know you've got it right. Well, I felt like a dork.

In creating the description, Ariel suggests that you include the names of artists that other people say you sound like. This gives people who haven't heard you a more clear idea of your sound. So, I've had a lot of people say I sound like Norah Jones, or Neko Case and the occasional Jewel. And while I think our description is honest, I feel very weird saying out loud that I sound like these amazing women! They are so totally awesome that I never presume to be in their league.

So Tim and I came up with our own way of approaching this. Instead of one, all encompassing description, we’ve developed two. Each one essentially says the same thing, but one feels better to us in print and the other one feels much more natural when I say it out loud. Have a look at both descriptions below, then click on the link immediately following those descriptions to listen to some of our songs. Do you think that we’ve hit the mark? Are we way off? Part of the lesson is to discuss it with our friends to get a wider perspective. So, please leave a comment and let us know. We’re not afraid of honesty, so seriously, tell us what you think.

Written:
“Driven by vocals that mix the subtle, velvety style of Norah Jones with the power of Neko Case, West of East pairs intelligently crafted lyrics with their own blend of acoustic folk and gritty electric guitar soaked alt-country."

Spoken:
"Female, vocal driven blend of alt-country and folk."

Listen to a few songs here: http://westofeastmusic.bandcamp.com

Until next week,

Sara

Week One

2010-08-15T07:44:00.000-07:00

Today marks the beginning of a series of blog entries that Tim and I will be working on over the course of the coming weeks. We have entered into a challenge put on by author Ariel Hyatt. Her book, "Music Success In Nine Weeks", is a step by step guide for propelling your career in music. Don’t be fooled, despite the title the book does not actually promise to take you from no career in music to a rock star in nine weeks, nor do we expect it to. It is simply nine lessons that teach you skills, that if applied over the course of your career, will help you be more successful. We have agreed to do the lessons described in the book for - you guessed it - nine weeks, and to blog about our experiences every week.

Just for some back story, Tim and I have had this book in our possession for a while now and we have used parts of it with some success, but we have never actually done all of the lessons or in the order laid out in the book. That being said, the first week lesson was one of the ones we had totally skipped!

I describe the first week lesson as the self help portion of the book. It reads a little like an Oprah show, you know; think positive, celebrate your successes, write out your goals....yada yada yada. Anyway, since we agreed to do the challenge, we sat down together and seriously talked through the lesson.

Turns out it was way harder than I thought it would be and sort of scary, but also very inspiring and exciting at the same time. When you tell people that you want to become a musician as a full time job, they usually look at you like your off your rocker. Regular people just don't do that! What about insurance, retirement and um.....money? You can't make a living as a musician! You're seen as either just a dreamer with your head in the clouds or at worst, the crazy person who will screw up their entire life in pursuit of an unattainable pipe dream.

I've never been one to worry too much about what others think of my life choices, but there are legitimate concerns there. What the first lesson does well is to clearly plan out your goals and then put you in a positive frame of mind so that you can start to envision yourself actually doing it! Any career is built from small steps that added up, create a whole. By breaking things down into small daily tasks, you take the mystery out of the whole thing and it doesn't seem so overwhelming and you start to think.....maybe I can do this. Success of any kind is not possible without a well laid-out plan and a positive can-do attitude! hmmmmm.....seems like this Ariel Hyatt may be onto something. What do y'all think?
Sara

Songwriters Weekend

2010-07-14T19:02:00.001-07:00

SongwritersWeekend_029, originally uploaded by West Of East.

This past weekend, Tim and I invited a bunch of our songwriter friends to join us for a weekend in the U.P. for a getaway mixed with a songwriters workshop. Along for the ride were Ryan Elliott and James McMahon of The Form, Chrissy Dzioba of Blonde On Blonde and The Whiskeybelles, Lisa Ridgely, Jason Fields and of course, Tim and I. What a great group of folks and what a beautiful weekend!

First off, I do have to talk about the weather because it was one of those rare Silver City weekends in July when it really is perfect. Not too hot, not too cold and barely any bugs to speak of. For being right on Lake Superior, we totally lucked out! Both nights we sat on the shore and watched the stars and lightning storms way off across the lake. Natures fireworks.

Most of us arrived on Friday evening when we sat in our backyard for a fire and picked our song-writing assignments for the weekend. First we threw out ideas for songs and I wrote them all down on scraps of paper. Next we put our names in a hat and drew partners. We had lots of song ideas, more than we had pairs so each group drew three song ideas and we were charged with using some or all of the ideas in a song.

The next day we dragged ourselves up and out of the house at an incredible noon-thirty. I think this is fairly impressive given that we stayed up til after three. We are musicians after all. We thrive at night!

We then hiked to the Lake of The Clouds Escarpment where we were greeted by a spectacular view. A very inspirational setting to start our songs. We took along two "Little Martin" back packing guitars that we all shared. After a few hours we hiked back down and went to the house for "lunch". We were pleasantly surprised to find that James, the final addition to our group, had arrived and was waiting for us. Now we were complete.

Next we hiked to Greenwoods Falls also know as Bonanza Falls. We crossed the river to the shady side so we could spread out in our groups to finalize our songs. We nestled ourselves in along the banks of the Big Iron River. Even though the water was low, it was still a trick to get across. I think we all got wet feet (some of us more than others!), but it was warm and didn't really seem to matter.

I wasn't sure what to expect from the group. I knew that even if no one wrote a song, it would still be a good exercise to expand our ways of approaching song-writing. I was so proud of everyone when each group came to the fire the that night with a completed song! If I'm right, I think everyone was able to incorporate all three of their song ideas. Bonus!

I can't wait to do this again and next time add a few extra days! I haven't laughed so much in one weekend in a long time. Thanks to everyone who participated. It was a truly charmed weekend!

Click on the above photo above to go to our Flickr page to see more photos of the weekend.

Sara

Bradford Beach, Milwaukee WI

2010-06-18T11:58:00.001-07:00

WestOfEast_BradfordBeach_014, originally uploaded by West Of East.

Last night we played a show at Bradford Beach. They are starting a music series called "Music By The Fire". They will have new musicians every week on Thursday nights starting at 7PM.

I have to say we had a great time last night! The weather was beautiful, the people were great and who doesn't love time at the beach!

If you live in Milwaukee, you have to check this out! It's a great alternative to Jazz in the park. They have a bar with beer, wine and cocktails; and a concession that even has some veggie options. The staff is friendly and the atmosphere couldn't be better; a beach fire on beautiful Lake Michigan. Also, a bonus in my book, they have REAL bathrooms with running water and hand dryers!

The series runs through September so you have plenty of time to get down there, maybe we will see you there!

Home Recording

2010-06-15T13:04:00.001-07:00

Lisa_Ridgely_001, originally uploaded by West Of East.

Wow, it's been a long time since I posted to our blog! I guess we've just been busy I guess, and lazy, don't forget lazy.

We've been working on some cool projects lately. As you may know, we have been delving into the world of home recording for some time now and we are also doing some projects for a few of our friends.

Our friend Lisa Ridgely is putting together a few songs and we had a great time recording her in our home studio. The finished product isn't quite done yet, but we are real close. I'll keep you posted when the songs get posted. In the mean time, you can check out Lisa at her facebook page:
Lisa Renee Ridgely
Cheers!
Sara

Live Local Music

2010-01-14T13:23:00.001-08:00

TheNewRedMoons_021_, originally uploaded by West Of East.

I am often amazed at the quality of music that I find in Milwaukee. I love the fact that on any given week there is some kind of amazing music happening minutes from my front door and for no more than $10, usually $5.

Just last week, we went to see The New Red Moons, an upcoming Milwaukee band. They sport some really tight harmonies and catchy songs to make the girls swoon. If you haven't heard their music, you should check them out online, or better yet, get out and see them live!

The New Red Moons on Myspace

I got a new camera!

2010-01-06T12:27:00.001-08:00

Whiskeybelles_003_
Originally uploaded by West Of East

I recently made a huge change in photography gear; I switched from my E-1 Olympus to the new Nikon D5000. It was a giant leap of faith and besides the Nikon zoom lenses rotating in the opposite direction of the Olympus, it has been smooth sailing so far.

I have nothing against Olympus cameras, they have treated me very well over the years, but my needs have changed as far as features are concerned. I am trying to make a point of photographing local Milwaukee music, so I needed a camera that is not only compact in size but also performs well in low light situations. Compactness means it will not be cumbersome in cramped, smokey bars and since most small venues do not have professional stage lighting, they are horribly dark, photographically speaking anyway, so good performance in low light is a must.

The above image is of The Whiskey Belles at The Dogs Bollocks Pub. I am extremely pleased with the performance of my new camera!
Check out more images on our flickr site:

West of East on Flickr

West of East is For Lovers

2009-09-14T12:31:00.000-07:00

Sara and I joke that our song "One Man" will catch on and become the "wedding song" of 2010. Its got all of the right things: It features three amazing female vocalists, it has a haunting yet beautiful lap steel part on it, Its a love song and you could most definitely dance to it for the first dance at your wedding. All of the new brides in the coming year will be rushing out to buy our CD just so they can dance to THE wedding song of the season. Funny Right?

Well, last Friday night we played "One Man" at Paradigm Coffee in Sheboygan. After our set a young couple came up to us and the girl told us, in a shaky and exited way, that while we played the song "One Man" her boyfriend had proposed to her. She proudly held up her hand, complete with engagement ring!

The couple bought a CD so they would always have a copy of the song that played while they got engaged. Who knows, maybe it will even play at their wedding!

Move over Virginia, because apparently, West of East is for Lovers.

Note: The State of Virginia has a slogan that says "Virginia is for Lovers."

The Metronome

2009-04-27T20:38:00.000-07:00

With all of the advances in technology and our investments in the latest greatest gear, Tim and I had neglected to buy one simple tool for our musical arsenal. A metronome.

We got to feeling like we needed to improve upon our rhythm so we both agreed it would be a great idea to procure a beat keepin device. This will be fun, right?! Wrong! All it did was affirm my suspicions that I have no rhythm. I've never been a counter so much as a feeler. However the music feels to me, that's how I find my rhythm. I speed up, I slow down, it's all part of the inflection for me. Someone once described my rhythm as "organic". I liked that. It suited me just fine. The idea of a metronome made me feel like I was going to be a slave to a robot! And while that may have it's appeal to some people, for me, not so much.

Things started out pretty shaky. I felt like I was pulling and pushing to stay in a steady rhythm. It was a fight and a struggle. I think we played about four songs like that and I just couldn't do it anymore. It wiped me out and took all the fun out of playing music. The next day, we tried again. This time things went a little better, but again not very long lived. In the mean time we got a different metronome that featured actual drum sounds for the "click" instead of the high pitched computer generated beep. I found this to be much easier to play along with and not so annoying. On the third day, something clicked (pardon the pun). All of a sudden, it started to feel more comfortable. Now I'm to the point where I can follow the beat without a lot of struggle so I guess I have some rhythm after all. At times I even find myself not thinking about it.

But I stand by my belief that songs are like people; inconsistent and fluid with ups and downs. Its what gives them their personality. I am hoping that these exercises will improve my consistency, but only to a point. For me at least, music needs room to breathe and flow.

I'd love to hear anyone else's experience with rhythm (or the lack there of it). Tell me your story!

Sara

Music Heals

2009-04-13T19:23:00.000-07:00

It's sounds pretty cliche to say that music heals, but when something becomes cliche it is usually true. What made me start thinking this way was an experience I had almost 4 years ago. I had taken a vacation with friends to their cabin in the Black Hills of South Dakota. It was a beautiful place with lots of recreational activities and I was looking forward to a great trip. Of course, I ended up getting the flu. Not just a typical cold but the kind of flu that makes you wish you could just knock yourself unconscious for a week.

In the beginning, it started out as the worst head cold I'd ever had. I had a nose that was running like a faucet yet completely clogged at the same time. I had brought my guitar along and my friends had never heard me play music before so they persuaded me to play a few songs. As I began to play, it was like a miracle. My sinuses opened up and cleared for the first time in a day or so. It was much needed relief! Doctors would probably say it was adrenalin that did the trick, but I like to think it was the vibrations of the sound coming from my throat that resonated through my sinuses combined with the reverberations of my guitar through my chest and body that eased my suffering. Maybe it's a little of both.

I was recently reminded of the experience I had in South Dakota when it happened to me again, but in a slightly different way. Tim and I had booked a show at the Nice Ash Cigar Bar a while ago. I had been feeling under the weather all day and it progressed into what I think was either me fighting off a stomach bug or a mild case of food poisoning. Not enough to stop me from playing the show, but enough to seriously compromise my mood and energy level. Regardless of the cause, as soon as we started playing music, all of my symptoms disappeared. I should add that in this incident and the last one in South Dakota, the effects of the music wore off within minutes after I stopped playing. We stopped for a set break and I felt terrible again, but when we started back up, it all went away. It's such a fleeting and elusive phenomenon! Has anyone else ever experienced this? I'd love to hear about it!

Sara

Please Get Warm Out Soon

2009-04-05T19:56:00.000-07:00

As I sit here at my desk, listening to the wind howl and the little ice pellets hitting my window I can't help thinking about how nice it will be when Mother Nature decides that we have had enough winter here in Wisconsin and finally shows us a little spring.

I am normally not this affected by the weather, but this winter has really been a drag for me. I have done plenty of fun winter things like cross country skiing and have taken full advantage of cold and snowy days to stay in, build a fire and work on music, but enough already. Seriously, it's time for warm weather!

One of the most relaxing things I can think of is taking an icy cold beer to the front porch and playing my guitar for hours on a nice warm summer evening. Shorts, no shoes, and a nice warm breeze blowing the leaves on the trees.

The sound of wind chimes violently blowing in the stiff 27 degree wind and the sight of snow falling outside my window on the 5th of April makes it feel so, so far away.

Please get warm out soon, I don't know how much more I can take!

-Tim

Do You Hear, Hear That Echo Echo?

2009-03-08T19:45:00.000-07:00

In a previous post, I was discussing moving into my home studio and left off at the point where the room was ready to be acoustically treated. In this post I'll discuss how I have solved some of the sound problems.

The room is 9' x 10' and has plaster walls. The ceiling is 9' and also flat plaster. The floor is hardwood. The things that make my room stand out from a typical rectangular room are that the door is on an angle, essentially eliminating one corner and the opposite corner is formed by a window meeting a closet. Hard to visualize, I know, so I will try to post a drawing if I can figure out how to draw it in some sort of web-postable format.

I have the desk at one end of the room, so the monitors point down the longer part of the room at the non-square cornered wall. It didn't sound awful, but you could definitely hear more or less bass depending on how far from the mix position you moved your head, and when listening to the same material in different rooms, you could tell that my room was stripping out some mid and high frequencies as well. Also if you sat at the mix position and clapped your hands, there was a very distinct echo.

After comparing the cost of commercially available acoustic treatments to the money in my wallet, I began searching the internet for some ideas on how to make my own. I found several different plans and ideas, but the basic concept was the same in almost all of them. Get some rigid fiberglass (which was not that easy to find), possibly build a frame to put said fiberglass into, and cover it with some type of acoustically transparent fabric. Then some how mount or hang these panels on the walls to absorb some of the high frequencies and help stop the echo.

I spent a fair amount of time searching for rigid fiberglass panels and was having no luck. Most places had no idea what I was even talking about. So I decided to go right to the source and I called the Owens Corning company directly and asked them if there were any distributors in good old Milwaukee. It turns out there are a few. I called the place in Brookfield that Owens said carried it (I think it was called MIDCO) and they were in fact able to get me what I needed. Owens Corning 703 rigid fiberglass panels, if you are reading this because you want to make some of your own. The fiberglass panels are 24" x 48" and I got twelve of them. I probably could have used less but they come in a box of twelve, so it was just easier.

I wanted to frame the panels with wood so the fiberglass would have less of a chance of breaking up, but I didn't want the finished product to be very heavy because I was going to be hanging them. Because of these two factors, I chose to use pine 1 x 4's to create the frames. Even though I thought I was being really picky about the lumber I bought, I ended up with a few pine boards that were way less than straight. This created some real difficulty when I was building the frames, but I eventually got them all together and they are all pretty straight. Except for one, which there was just no help for. Building the frames was pretty straightforward. Cut boards into the right lengths, put wood glue on the ends, and sink a few screws into them to hold them together.

With the frames built, I needed a way to keep the fiberglass from falling out, so I picked up a bunch of "furring strip" kinda wood which I cut into 4" pieces. I nailed these (3 on each long side and 1 on each short side) on the inside of the frame, flush with the front. The idea is that it would keep the fiberglass back from the fabric on the front and hold it in place.

Burlap is pretty acoustically transparent, cheap, and comes in earthy colors (which I like) so I decided that it was the best choice for the fabric on the front. Sara helped me cut it out, wrap the front side of the panels, and staple it down. She was a huge help and the project would have surely failed without her helping me get the fabric on. You basically wrap the front of the panel like a present, and If you have ever seen me wrap presents (or received one from me) you know why the project would have failed without Sara. There would have been burlap patches and unnecessary tape everywhere!

Once the fabric was stapled in place, I put the fiberglass panels into the frames from the back. Gloves are a very good thing to use for this part! After the fiberglass was in I nailed more of the 4" strips behind them to hold them in place. The backs of the panels are just open right now, which works fine because I am hanging these on the wall. I do want to find a good source for cardboard, though, so I can cover the backs of them too.

I screwed some eye hooks into the tops of them and was able to hang them from some clips that go over the trim along the ceiling in the room. This is ideal, because I didn't have to drill holes in the walls, and I can move them around to suit my needs. I hung two of them from the ceiling, so I did have to drill a few holes. I have them rigged up so that I can change the angle of the ones on the ceiling, which is pretty nice too.

So, did it work? Well, it definitely cut down the echo in the room to almost none. It hasn't made the room totally dead, but dampened pretty well, which is what I was after. When I play my acoustic guitar in the room it really sounds nice, whereas before, it didn't sound very good. The panels are designed to deal with mid to high frequency reflections, so they don't do a ton about bass problems, but they have helped a little. I think that for recording acoustic guitars and vocals the room is pretty much ready, but I may need to build some bass traps before I would try to make an attempt at mixing anything that I wouldn't label as a "rough mix."

Have you acoustically treated your home studio? How did you do it? Post a comment, I would love to hear about it.

Songwriting Part II

2009-03-01T09:16:00.000-08:00

In an earlier post, I mentioned that when I first started out as a songwriter my songs were written by spilling out whatever came into my head. Typically, there were no revisions. I felt that re-writing something would damage the integrity of the song. In order to maintain the raw emotion of the song, the words and chord structure had to stay in their most pure, original form.

Usually the topic was something I was emotionally charged about and the song would spill out quickly onto the paper. The problem with this approach is that it resulted in many unfinished snippets of songs. This may not hold true for every songwriter, but for me, songs don't always come quickly in a flurry of inspiration. Sometimes they need to be nurtured and fed over a stretch of time, possibly even months or years.

I have since shifted my idea about songwriting. I believe, like most other writing, that it is a craft that must be practiced and improved upon. The songs I write now are different than the songs of even 5 years ago because I take the time to really explore what I am trying to say by crafting the lyrics that get my point across. I am also more aware of how the melody and chord structure impact the feel of the song. Putting the two together is the key.

Honestly, I think that every chord progression has already been done a million times. The trick is to take that old thing and somehow make it new again. It isn't easy, and I probably don't always hit the mark. What keeps me going is the hope that the more I practice, the better I can become. My new best friends are now my dictionary, thesaurus, and rhyming dictionary.

If you have any thoughts on the subject, let me know, I'd love to hear from you!
Sara

Practice Makes Perfect. Or Does It?

2009-02-14T13:11:00.000-08:00

Everybody knows that practice makes perfect, right? Of course they do, but one of the things that I am learning in my journey as a guitar player is that it is truly the QUALITY of practice that matters and not necessarily the quantity of it.

Now, I am not saying that it doesn't take a lot of practice to become good at something, because it does. But it takes a lot of QUALITY practice. I have recently become aware of this, and discovered that in addition to learning to play the guitar, I also needed to learn how to practice. Whoa, did he just say that you have to practice practicing? Yes.

Any of our friends will tell you that we have sort of dropped off the face of the planet in the last year or so because we spend all of our time practicing. I often play for an hour before work, I play for an hour during my lunch break almost every day, and we try to play through our whole list of songs each night after dinner. This means that some days I play for more than FOUR HOURS! But, even with all of that practicing, I still screw up the same parts in the same songs night after night. Hmmm...

I don't claim to be the sharpest tool in the shed, and while I might not become aware of things (even obvious ones) as quickly as some people, I eventually figure things out. What I have figured out lately is that I need to stop mindlessly playing through our list of songs and calling it practice. I need to identify the parts of the songs that give me trouble and focus on those parts.

I can play 95% of the songs we do really well. This means that when I play all the way through the songs, only 5% of the time is spent working on the stuff that really needs work.

I have changed my ways. In the past two weeks, whenever I practiced by myself, I only worked on the stuff that needed work. I still played all the way through the songs each night with Sara, but just the hard parts when I was by myself. So did it work?

We played a show this past Thursday at Linneman's on Milwaukee's East Side and I feel it was the best show I have ever played. Perfect? No, but I made far fewer mistakes than I usually do. I think I was able to hide them from the audience better than I have in the past too. Because I had spent so much more time working on the hard parts of the songs in practice, I played with more confidence than normal, and I think it made the whole performance feel better than ever. To both of us on stage as well as to the people listening.

So, does practice make you perfect? Well, I don't think that you can ever be perfect. I don't think that I would want to be a perfect guitar player, as a matter of fact. I think it would be kinda boring if you could play everything perfectly every time. So I guess that means that my motto is: Practice can't make you perfect, but perfect practice can make you pretty damn good.

Keep on practicing your practicing,

Tim

Moving Into My Home Studio

2009-02-07T10:54:00.000-08:00

Hello, my name is Tim and I am a shop-a-holic. Yes, its true, I have an equipment buying problem. Interestingly, it always shows itself whenever I am in a rut with my guitar playing. The downside is that I don't really have a savings account, but on the other hand, it usually helps get me back on track musically. I get all excited about the new gear I have which puts me in a creative mood, which gets me excited about playing again.

Lately, the focus of the gear buying as been on recording equipment. The growing caches of equipment all over the house have prompted me to focus my efforts and actually designate a space that I can call a home studio. The most logical space in our house for this is the back bedroom, so that's the one I chose. It is by far the quietest room in the house because it is the farthest from the street, and it is also the farthest away from our upstairs neighbor's living room and bedroom, which should allow me to work on projects a little later at night. Measuring out at a whopping 9' X 10', the space is definitely not huge, but I never intend on recording more than one or two people at a time, so I should be alright.

Once the room was decided on and completely cleared out (which was no small task) I began moving all of the equipment into the the new space. One of the smarter purchases that I made was a fairly large desk with 19" equipment racks built into it. The desk is pretty smartly designed and helps to keep everything pretty organized. There are some cable management trays in the back and as I put each piece of equipment into the desk, I routed its cabling neatly through that back. The desk is on wheels, so there is no crawling behind stuff to get to wiring, you just wheel the desk out a bit. One of the next equipment purchases is going to be a patch bay, which will also help me avoid a confusing cabling mess.

So with all of the equipment moved in, I was ready to sit down and start capturing some great recordings, right? Wrong. Even though I have a very usable space from a SPACE perspective, I don't have a very usable space from a SOUND perspective. The most talented recording engineers (I am not one of these yet) will tell you that you can have hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of gear, but if you have a bad sounding room (or a bad sounding performer for that matter) you are never going to capture a good recording. Garbage in, garbage out is the phrase they use, I believe. So far my room consisted of completely bare plaster walls and a hardwood floor which caused a lot of echos and other sound related problems. This meant that all I was going to get was garbage in!

The solution to this problem was to add some stuff to the room and to construct some wall panels that would absorb some of the sound and cut down the echos, which will be the subject of my next blog post. In the mean time, I would love to hear from you. Are you a musician and do you have a home studio? Tell me about it!!

My Songwriting Journey

2009-02-05T14:07:00.000-08:00

In the beginning of my songwriting, most of my songs were just raw emotion. Hastily scribbled down lyrics written in the moment of feverish emotion. At that time, between ages 19 and oh, about 22, I wasn't really thinking about the craft of songwriting so much as getting my young mixed up thoughts out into the world. The thing I hadn't prepared myself for was the reaction I would get from the people who took the time to listen. My skin was thin and while most of the responses I got were positive, sometimes people would say the most rude and insensitive things. Maybe they thought they were being helpful, but to a young, emotionally vulnerable girl, I took every not so glowing comment to the deepest part of my soul and let it sit there. The consequence of which, was a stretch of probably more than 3 years without writing a single song and after that a stretch of about 4 more years where I managed to write about a song a year.

For a long time I walked around pretending like I didn't care, and even though it wasn't conscious, I think I didn't write songs so that there would be less for others to critique. How can anyone say anything bad if there's nothing to say bad things about? Somewhere along the way I found my songwriting voice again. It was a function of growing up, hopefully becoming a little wiser to the ways of people in general and finding within myself the strength to say, "Here's my song, and I like it!" For me it was a long time between when I started saying those words to when I actually started believing them.

While I don't think I will ever be immune to the comments of others (good or bad), I have definitely gotten to a place where I can welcome criticism. Even if that criticism comes in a form that is hard to swallow, I will never let it stop me from writing a song ever again. A wise person once told me that no one will ever be as into your music as you are. Ain't that the truth! I envy the people who learn this lesson early on, or just have the strength of character to come by it naturally, because it seems like it took me a long time to get there. For anyone else who is struggling similarly, tell me your story and how you are dealing with it.

Sara

The Best Of Both Worlds

2009-02-03T13:15:00.000-08:00

As some of you may know, I spent the better portion of the 90's and through 2005 working at a photography studio. I fancy myself to be a semi-professional photographer. I've studied the ins and outs of lighting, exposure, composition, etc. My goal for 2009 is to document our musical lives in photos. It helps to give people a visual of what we've been up to. And while I have always believed this is highly important, my past record has been to always forget my camera at home! There is such a laundry list of equipment to remember for a show that I think I put it in the not-so-important category. I guess remembering my guitar is a little more important.

But anyway..... this same phenomenon of hauling too much equipment makes me hesitant to haul another heavy bag of camera stuff. (I weighed my camera bag today and it is a little over 20lbs!) So, I bought a souped-up point and shoot camera. It can be used in auto mode, but it also has a manual mode and enough custom settings to satisfy my need for control. The plus side to this is that it weighs about 9 oz. The down side is that I am very disappointed in the quality of my low light photos. They are so grainy that I end up making a lot of images black and white to compensate. And everywhere we play is a low light situation. Nighttime shows in dingy bar lighting make for a photography nightmare. I don't like to use flash because it is very distracting to the musicians and the on-camera flash offers no capability to bounce light off a ceiling or wall (this is a trick professionals use to simulate a more natural look from a flash).

So, why can't I have the best of both worlds? A small, light camera that takes great low light photos. I'm looking to find a new point and shoot, they keep improving them all the time so I am hoping one will come along to solve my problems. Anyone have any suggestions? Tell me about it!

Here are some images from this past year (all taken with my point and shoot camera).

Sara