I think of Minimize as my prog song. As I composed it I was reminded of Discipline-era King Crimson with some Steve Reich. There’s definitely a minimalist vibe to it.

I don’t really remember how the Griot came about, but I remember really liking the melody. The rhythm changes between an afro-beat groove in the verses, and straight-ahead rock in the choruses. I could lie and tell you that it’s a juxtaposition of different cultures or something or other, but it isn’t. It just sounded cool…

One idea I’ve been mulling over is: what if we take ideas from developer community? If you want a great example of online collaboration, look at any major open source project.

Using software like Trac, they share ideas and propose changes. Not just by stating, but also by actually adding the change. Then others can add to or improve it. Or provide another alternative. And all the changes are kept track of, so you can always go back. Or even break things off in another direction. Here’s WordPress’s Trac, for example.

This is how I imagine it: One guy provides and idea or song. This would include all the files and recordings. Then another guy could come in and make a ‘ticket’ saying “Hey, this part is really cool, but the transition into it could be better.” So he records a new transition.

Things are discussed, others provide different transitions. Eventually, depending on the nature of the project, either the community as a whole or the original composer decides which transition is better, or if a change was needed in the first place.  If it’s not taken, maybe the guy who made the transition could decide it’s such a cool transition, that he starts a whole other project with it. And so on and so forth.

Those who are more prone to work with sheet music, can do all the above, but with notation…which is probably more practical for this type of thing.

Some of you might be thinking  this seems pretty dry, but I find it pretty exciting. Programming can also be a very creative endeavor and we can learn a few things from these guys.

The real challenge though, is to make software with the given functionalities that’s geared towards musicians and not code monkeys. Maybe something exists already that can be used in this way?

So, what do you think? Useful idea or pointless musing?

But inspired by the new song Dream Theater released today, I decided to write about them.

I first heard Dream Theater back when Pull Me Under became a hit (or what constitutes a hit in the world of prog-metal). Needless to say, they made quite an impact on me. They were heavy, melodic and virtuosic. The perfect combination to impress a young guitarist.

The other thing I liked was that instead of just having solos, their songs also had a lot of ensemble-playing. This was taken to the extreme on Metropolis Part 1, which was probably the “you-gotta-hear-this-shit” song of ’92 amongst rock musicians…whether to listen in amazement, or laugh hysterically, depending on your tastes.

In any case, their music hit quite a nerve with me, and I became obsessed with it for the next couple of years. I bought all the CDs and videos, learned as many songs as I could…I wanted to be John Petrucci.

However, when I went to Berklee in ’98, and started listening to and playing a much broader range of music, I kinda did a 180. To be honest, their music started sounding a bit cheesy to me. I don’t know if it was simply a change of taste, or me “maturing”, whatever that means. But I think it was mostly me not being impressed by stuff that previously had blown my mind.

Still, when Metropolis Part 2 came out, I was pleasantly surprised. I bought it almost from a sense of duty, but I ended up liking it a lot. After that, though, their new stuff really didn’t do it for me. I still check out every new album, and there’s usually at least one or two songs that I like, but otherwise it really doesn’t do it for me.

But I still respect them greatly as a band and musicians, and the time I spent learning and practicing their songs improved my chops twenty-fold. I have to say though, I like this new song, and I’m very curious to see what direction they take with Mike Mangini onboard.

Dream Theater will always be one of those bands whose new stuff I’ll be checking out. And when I get the occasional nostalgia attack, I put on Images & Words or Awake and shred along.

It’s a very pretty chord, but it has this little bit of dissonance that gives it a twang of melancholy. This mixed with the circus-like waltz rhythm made me immediately think of Pierrot, the sad clown. Hence the title.

The middle section goes into a more classical/fingerstyle thing, which for some reason remind me of Opeth. The song as a whole flowed out pretty quickly, but I spent a lot of time hammering out the details: basslines, transitions, and other things. It took a while before I was completely happy with it.

Now the Muso/Tech-speak: This one also uses the C-G-C-G-C-Eb tuning, but with a capo on the 5th fret. The harmony is kinda weird…it’s mostly in F minor, but the constant use of minor chords leads to a very vague sense of tonality in the verse/choruses.

It’s only in the middle section where we solidly stay in F minor…another reason why that part contrasts so well with the rest of the song.

This song grew out of a desire to do a Aerial Boundaries-type composition, so it starts with a rhythmic pattern in 3 (which, for my fellow music nerds, can be subdivided into 5/16 + 7/16).

The other thing that happened was that I half-jokingly tuned down my low E string all the was down to a G. This is way down in bass territory, and most guitarists will tell you it’s flab city. But it ended up working out pretty well, and I’ve actually used the low G on a few songs already, including Post-.

Originally I played the song without any percussion, but after playing live a few times, I felt like my intentions weren’t really getting through. I almost gave up on it, until I started messing around with looping a percussive loop under it.

This made all the difference…it made the song more energetic and emphasized the groove underneath it.

By the way, the title comes from a Simpsons episode where Nelson and Lisa are meeting in a room somewhere in the school, and “Single Purpose Room” is painted on the door.

Of course I’m insanely proud of all the music I made in all those projects, but it also meant I ended up leaving a lot of my own music on the wayside. And well, being in bands can have other daunting sides, like organizing rehearsals and unwanted drama.

So it was nice to just make music by myself again, not worrying about scheduling rehearsals, or figuring out a way to take all the equipment to the gig, etc…

But now that I’m starting to work with other musicians, it’s made me appreciate much more how important collaboration is. Just adding one musician to the equation can open up a whole new world.

This led me to think a lot about classical music…I think one of the issues with modern classical music, or “new music” as it’s called, is the way it’s made. One guy writes the music, the others perform it.

Sure, the performer has certain liberties in interpreting a piece, but from what I gather, the general idea is to be as faithful the composer’s original intent as possible.

Why must it be ONE guy writing the music? Why can’t it be two or three? What if a couple of them were the performers?

I think we’re missing out on a lot of great music because of this. It’s my experience that sharing and collaborating with others only leads to better music.

So my advice to any budding composers out there: get together with a fellow composer or two. Bounce some ideas around, see what you can come up with together. Or bring a piece to the performers and tell them to be ruthlessly honest about what they think…see if they have any suggestions or ideas. The results could be very exciting and could take the music in directions you’ve never imagined.

And if what you have really is all that and a bag o’ chips, most people will tell you that you should just leave it as is.

So let’s start with the very first song on the album: Build. Here it is, in case you haven’t heard it:

This is one of the first songs I wrote for this album. I had been messing around with a C minor tuning, and I came up with the pounding bass that starts the song.

It kinda just grew from there, to be quite honest. This was one of those rare songs that just write themselves. I don’t remember thinking too much about it…just playing it a lot and letting it grow.

Originally, it was meant to be entirely in 5/8, and it does start the way. But once the melody starts, the rhythms adapt around it, making for a lot of tricky time changes.

Again, I don’t remember thinking too much about it, I was focusing on the melody. I didn’t even realize how complex it was until I had to write it down for other musicians! I guess all those years of listening to prog, Stravinsky, and eastern music finally came through.

The title ‘Build’ refers to the overall structure of the song…I know, not very romantic. But it also brings images of anything that builds up…like the clouds that gather before a storm. I think the song already creates quite a lot of imagery, so I didn’t want the title to be too specific. Better leave it to the listener to give it their own meaning I say…

By the way, this is one of favorite songs to play live. The hypnotic quality seems to really get people’s attention and I always get a good reaction.

The result?

Well, I definitely got more views. All things considered, I’d say the click-through rate was pretty good. For every Euro spent, I got around 2000 impressions and 10 clicks.

That being said, is it worth it? I got about 100 views in total, but very little interaction. Only one or two comments and new subscribers.

So I’d say it’s only worth it if you’re looking for raw views. And i guess if you got enough views, you’d start seeing more interaction as well, but that would get expensive fast.

If we assume we’ll keep getting the same results, you’d need to spend 100 bucks just to get 1000 views.

So, conclusion? Meh. I think I can find better uses for my money.

Here’s the video I was promoting, by the way:

Back in pre-internet Panama, it was pretty difficult trying out new music that wasn’t mainstream. There was a store that let you do special orders, but that could get very expensive, very fast.

Luckily, my family had access to the library in one of the U.S. Military bases, which had a relatively small but eclectic music selection. Everytime I ran into something I had read about in a guitar magazine or somewhere else, I’d check it out.

One of these was Michael Hedges’ Taproot, which I loved from the minute I pressed play and heard this gorgeous tune:

And when I heard The Rootwitch, I was sold:

A few years later, right before I was going to start my studies at Berklee, I got the very shocking news that he had died in a car accident. This only made me delve deeper into his music.

As soon as I got to Boston, the first thing I did was go to Tower Records and buy Aerial Boundaries. Pretty soon I had his entire discography along with Stropes’ book, and was learning as much of his music as I could. Needless to say, it’s a huge part of my musical DNA and the reason why I got seriously into acoustic guitar and fingerstyle playing.

To this day, Michael is unique among other acoustic guitarists. Few come close to the emotional deepness of his music (among them Stefano Barone and Jon Gomm).

It’s a shame that his musical legacy hasn’t gotten the attention it deserves. Thankfully there is now a ton of unreleased concert footage to be found on Youtube, and a new generation of guitarists are being influenced by him.

I haven’t heard many of them in a very long time, completely unaware of what a big influence on my music they’ve become. Going back and listening to those moments/songs/artists really helps put things in perspective…and makes me realize that my musical roots are always present, no matter what kind of music I’m making.

My first subject? Joe Satriani, simply because I was listening to his music yesterday.

When I was around 15, I got my first Satriani album, The Extremist. To this day I still think it’s his best work, great songs all around. Having Andy Johns produce it probably didn’t hurt either.

What sets Joe apart from his shred-peers is that apart from being a crazy-good guitarist, he also writes good melodies. He seems to be genuinely concerned with writing good songs and not showing off how good he is. Well…most of the time.

And yet, there’s a certain weirdness to his music (in a good way). He’s always sneaking some exotic scale or strange guitar technique into his music.

One technique that really caught my attention were those whammy-bar harmonic dives. The one he does on New Blues is particularly awesome. Listen between 2:10 and 2:25. (Urgh, just realized the grooveshark widget doesn’t show the time. Well, it’s about halfway through the song, right where the solo kicks in…)

It sounds eerily human, like somebody screaming. I spent a lot of time trying to recreate it…never succesful. There are other great moments in Satch’s music, but this is the one that’s forever etched in my brain.

I don’t listen to Satriani’s music much at all anymore, but when I was 15 I listened to The Extremist day and night, trying to learn all of the songs on it.

Emphasis on trying.