Hey guys, I know I haven't been around for a long time.... I've been bad an d not practiced for quite a while, but I've been doing creative stuff in other genres.

The Stick has been on my mind lately and I was wondering if anyone can help point me towards resources that I think will yield better results for me in the land of the Stick. I don't see myself becoming a brilliant performer on the Stick, but I'd like to be successful in making music with it.

I think the two things I'd like to help me get this done are:

- A good resource for the building blocks of music composition. I haven't been happy with the music theory books I've tried so far from the perspective of laying out simply the relationships and groupings of music.

- Software (or hardware, I guess) for assembling a song. I don't think a live looper is quite what I want, but I'd like something similar. I want to record different sections of a song and layer them together, but then also be able to re-arrange the sections for different parts of the song. Also I'd like to incorporate recordings of other instruments, for example a drum loop. If this needs more explanation, let me know but basically I think I want something somewhere between a 'tracker' and a looper.

Thanks, everyone, and it's good to be back.

Chose some music you have heard and copy it. Then change around its parts. Next time make up the music by yourself instead of copying existing music. If the task is too difficult in the beginning, just change some parts and stick with original parts here and there.
Any multi track recorder that allows cycle mode overdub/recording would do fine. Some multi effect pedalboards have built-in recorder/looper, but those tend to not allow adding drums and stuff. You could look into software like Garageband, Cubase, Logic, Ableton Live. The way you're phrasing the questions give me the feeling that Ableton Live would answer well to your needs.

Hey there - good to hear from you. I thought for sure you would be at the Northeast Stick Seminar, which was great by the way...

As far as software, I think you are looking for "Sequencing" software. I use Cakewalk Home Studio (version 7.0 XL). It is perfect for my needs and isn't too expensive. You can use these packages to record audio clips and combine different tracks (layers) with MIDI data for triggering a drum machine or other hardward/software synthesizer.

I have found the same challenges with composition resources. I have yet to come across a good book that was truly 100 % helpful in this area. Two that were somewhat helpful for me were:

1) Ron Gorow - Hearing and Writing Music
2) Wlliam Russo - Composing Music

Per makes a great suggestion - deconstruct and reconstruct.

Cheers

John

Awesome, Per. That looks exactly like what I was thinking of.

Funny thing about Cakewalk - a friend of mine used to be the lead product manager there until she moved to a new job at Avid a couple weeks ago. My impression of it is that Cakewalk is more like Pro Tools - multitrack recording and editing, but not quite as dynamic as Ableton live seems to be from the little I've looked.

I'll definitely check out those books, and I also think Per's suggestion, combined with a different approach of a focus on creating a recording rather than live performance, will work well for me.

Thanks for the suggestions!

I agree with what others have said about Ableton. It has more potential to be a playable instrument than other software that's geared specifically toward recording (DAWs). Devices like the Novation Launchpad have been developed to "play" it by controlling loops, sequences, effects, etc all on the fly:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WyT7f1H0JqA[/youtube]

No financial interest - just think this stuff is pretty cool!

Eric

Hey man.

I followed your journal for a bit when I got my stick this year then you disappeared! Nice to see you back. Sounds like you are in a slump.

Perhaps taking a few lessons is what you need instead of those other outside influences (software,hardware). That stuff is all very cool but I don't think that's the kind of help you require if you want to become a better player, and I say that with staunch newbiness.

kev

Well, I think what I realized was that I like having something to show for what I've done - that was the videos I was making. But what I was doing there was trying to build up and be able to play as much of a piece as possible well, but I think what I'd really rather do is perfect little parts of songs and record them, then assemble the really well executed small parts together and be able to have the whole, well done song to show for my effort.

From there I think I could build up and get to the point where I can execute a full song well.

What I found was that I could work to play a small part well, but when I put it all together I'd screw up somewhere or lose the tempo somewhere, or whatever.

It makes sense in my head, but maybe it's not a good practice strategy. I figure it's worth trying though, right?

Practice, and from that, muscle memory will help you along the way. This is not an easy instrument to play well, although it's I think it's made to be.

Hi Powagoat,

Did you ever get a hold of Bartok's Mikrokosmos...? I remember you had expressed some interest, and since you play mirrored fourths I can't recommend it highly enough. The whole point of learning pieces starting from near-zero difficulty is to quickly give you something to show for your efforts. The first pieces may not be concert material, but they would be perfect for the journal format you've established, each being just a little more complicated than the last. And they lead naturally to pieces suitable for public performance while you learn how the grand staff relates to the the fretboard; that's essential if you want to study composition.

Mad Monk.

I've ordered Mikrokosmos and the Harmony and Voice Leading book you mentioned in the mirrored 4ths thread, Right now I'm using the Ableton Live demo and it's awesome. Before I was just using Audacity, which has a metronome, but I could only see how far off the beat I was by watching the line. Here I can see precisely because Ableton understands the notion of the beat intimately.

Good stuff. I need to go study and remember my scales so I can work on those, but then I can move on and try some kosmos.

I also ordered a cheap midi controller since I think some of the musical concepts will be clearer to start by looking at the keyboard with all the notes lined up in a row, and then I can take what I learn about music and apply it to the Stick. I'm in such a deficit compared to all you folks who have studied music seriously for so long, but I'm pretty sure I can catch up and understand what's going on.

The awesome thing is that I've been on this creative kick for a couple months now and I've been kicking butt (in genres completely different from music) but that project is in pretty good shape and now I'm still feeling the creative juices flowing, so I'm excited to get back to the Stick.