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Stephen Pickering

Author: Stephen Pickering

  • Thoughts on Music, Social Media, and a New Song, “The Night Was You”

    Man, I hate producing, even with the beautiful, large screen Apple Garageband interface. I hate editing. I want to do everything in one take. And plus, even if I were a good producer, it’s frustrating separating your brain from creating to objectively producing. Producing is an art in itself. You almost need someone else, even if they weren’t the greatest producer in the world, to take the material you’ve recorded and objectively put it together.

    I have so many songs. But it seems it takes me weeks to produce just one. Oh well, whine, whine, whine! I’ll continue to do it. Because it satisfying listening on your ipod or CD to something that sounds almost as good as a professional studio recording. And these days, with a computer, especially a Mac, anyone can do it. That’s a great leap forward for creativity. I’m working on one now called “Take Me Home.” It’s almost done. Well, is it ever done? But anyway I’ll post it when it is.

    But in the meantime, I sort of like just sitting with my guitar and playing “raw” into the computer into something like this, “Cinch” There’s something fun and satisfying about just being raw and playing and singing at the same time, spontaneously. Plus it gets the material out there and gets the ball rolling for the subconscious mind to start working on a more professional production. It’s all good. The live playing and then the more “slick” studio recording really feed into each other. So it all eventually comes together.

    I need to stop being so uptight about the blog. Blog’s are meant to be “farm” clubs anyway for your more finished product. I just need to post my raw stuff and not worry about it being “perfect.” People engage with “real” anyway. I think my reticence it that my blog is my front facing web page. I’ll probably build a static front facing web page that features my finished work, and then make the blog a link on that where my more “raw,” spontaneous stuff gets posted. That’s kind of what blogs are meant for anyway.

    “The Night Was You”

    It’s nice
    Oh lord
    Please forgive me
    For this World

    They don’t
    Understand
    They’re sayin’ things
    It’s part of their plan

    And at night
    To sunrise
    they left you
    In disguise

    I want out
    I want in
    Want good things
    To begin

    Chorus:
    And the night
    Was filled with star-
    Light (It was you)

    And denial
    Can’t be the part
    Of life you want come true
    You want come true.

    Dismayed
    At this World
    So unhappy
    When it turns

    And you know
    When you die
    They put up buildings
    To the sky

    They got out
    We went in
    But they ain’t saying what’s
    About to begin

    It’s too late
    It’s too long
    All we got dear
    Is this song

    Verse: G-Em7-C-Am7-D7

    Chorus: C-G-D/F#-C

  • An Original Song: “Through the Night”

    Through the Night by spickeringlr

    iPhone/iPad Link

    This track is almost 2 years old, and its been almost that long since I’ve listened to it. But since I was on Myspace today for the first time in a long time checking out the band Beach House, whom I’d never heard of, but found out about by reading Daniel Tashian’s most recent blogpost, I thought I’d look at my page. I ran through a few of my songs. “Not bad,” I thought. I felt they kind of held their own against Beach House, whom remarkably has millions of plays on their site, and an album on iTunes, Teen Dream, with hundreds of 5 Star reviews. Then I noticed this song, of all of them had the most plays, even though it is buried pretty deep on the playlist. I listened to it and liked it. It’s a simple song, but it has flavor. I remember it started from a simple mood in the evening, and I came home and effortlessly wrote the music and lyrics. No stress involved, which is kind of the vibe of the song itself. I recorded it on a Boss BR-1600, not the best machine in the world, but satisfactory for its day, and although the vocals hit some weak spots, I thought all in all it was a pretty nice little tune. I realized I’d never blogged (it came before the blog was born) so I thought I’d sort of re-release it. I don’t even know where the lyrics are. I probably hand wrote them some where. Be nice to find that piece of paper. That was one of the first songs in which I had the insight to finish the song in one sitting. That was a good, productive tip because it gives you something to work with and a sense of accomplishment, that satisfactory sense, which is also kind of what the song is about.

  • The Secret of Songwriting and Art in General

    Groovin'

    If you’re looking for a how-to article, you’ll be disappointed. No, I don’t have a 10 point list, a “paint by numbers” step by step process to writing a hit song.

    Since Christmas, a lot of song ideas have been coming to my head very spontaneously. OK, I’ll take back that first sentence with one little tidbit you can put to work right away

    • When a song idea comes to your head, usually in the form of an opening riff and first line, finish the song in one sitting. Give birth to that baby, no matter how bad you think the lyrics are. Finish a first draft. You’ll find it takes less than 30 minutes.

    What has happened to me in the past is that an attractive melody and first line or first verse will come to me out of nowhere, and it feels right, but then I’ll bring my “editorial” complex in and nothing I write after feels right. So I’ll stop it there. Record a few moments of the idea, with the thought I’ll come back to it later. Well, guess what? You’ll never come back to it. I literally have a 100 iomega zip drives full of these ideas, that I never have gone back to. Complete the song, right then and there. And what is more, don’t let your editorial complex in. Just write whatever comes to your head until you have a complete song. What happens then? You have a something that takes on a life of its own and doesn’t disappear in your drawer forever. You have material. And then the more you play and sing it, the more you’ll spontaneously edit it with subconscious sounds in your head that have lyrics buried in them just crying to get out. Getting that first draft down, complete, gives them that chance to breathe again.

    But really the point of this article is something more esoteric. Lately I have been doing the above and it has helped immensely. But I noticed that when an idea came, I wanted to finish it quickly and then start recording. It was fun at first, but then stress entered the picture. I asked myself, “What’s causing this?”

    Then I had a spontaneous thought that I tweeted: “The test of a good song is not whether anyone likes it, but, rather, whether you enjoy playing and singing it.”

    With the rush to record, I had gotten myself into this mode of trying to impress an audience. I don’t feel that’s the right attitude. Now I’m starting to have the feeling that, yes, I should finish the song immediately like I mentioned above, but before I start recording let’s play the song for a while, let it build some character, let it breath and start taking on a second life of its own. Then ask yourself, “Do I enjoy playing and singing this song?” The simple answer to that question is whether I’ll start taking the recording of it seriously. If I don’t enjoy it, well at least the process is taking me to a place where something I do enjoy will more likely spontaneously spring to life. It puts the intent into your subconscious mind. If I do enjoy it, playing and singing, then I’ve got something that’s worth the effort of putting down and releasing.

    I would apply this philosophy to art in general. Do you enjoy the process? That’s the key. Not the end result. It’s very much in the sense of the Bhagavad Gita: You attach yourself to the process and be unattached to the result. In other words you don’t stress about the result. You don’t stress about anything. You immerse yourself and enjoy the process. You live in the process. The irony is, of course, your end result will not only be better, but more an authentic representation of the archetypal spontaneity that drives your fulfillment to begin with.

    • So, make it interesting to yourself first, the process that is, and then it will more likely be interesting to others.
    • Here’s another way to put it, “Don’t be concerned about making something like other people are making. Be concerned about expressing what is bubbling up from your own subconscious.”

    What do you think?

  • Great Resources for How to Use Twitter

    Update: 6/23/11 - How To Answer The Question “How Often Should I Tweet?”http://j.mp/kyTYGR http://www.mediabistro.com/alltwitter/how-to-answer-the-question-how-often-should-i-tweet_b10529 I saw a tweet today by Chris Brogan called "50 Power Twitter Tips." I want to remember this post and go back and read it often. As a side note about blogging: A lot of times I think of my blog as a self serving tool, a second "brain" if you will, for storing stuff that I may need months later. I had this happen twice today. I was trying to network my Linux machine to my Mac to transfer some files. I had dug up the techno info months ago and made it a blog post. I can't keep that stuff in my brain all the time, especially when its something I use a few times a year, and its not a task that's in my everyday profession. So today, using WordPress's search function, I easily found the post and got my task done quickly and painlessly, because I had done the painful leg work of finding the info months before. Now, yes, I could just as easily store that same info on my Computer, no doubt. But the additional benefit of the blog platform is that it makes the information available simultaneously to anyone in the world who may have the same problem. The blog becomes a "scaling" solution as well as a self serving one, simultaneously. The great benefit of computers and the internet is not only in processing mundane work, but offloading mundane but necessary information onto your "second" brain, so as to free your organic brain to be more spontaneous. I'll keep adding to this list as I discover more great resources. Do you have any of your own you would like to recommend? Leave a comment. I'd love to read it.
    • 50 Power Twitter Tips - ChrisBrogan.com - I need to read this list every day, or at least every week. These tips are succinct (they are all short enough to be "tweeted" individually) , and they can be put into practice immediately. These tips will not only help you to get the most out of Twitter but also make it more fun and additionally increase your "influence" in the Twittersphere in a natural, authentic way. Chris Brogan is a special guy. He's a bonafied internet, blogging, twitter "celebrity" but he has no hubris. He really likes people. He really likes to help them. He's genuine, down to Earth. He's not trying to impress or be part of some "elite" class of individual, although as a by product of his activities he has become part of that group, maybe even at the top of it, through acting in a way that's the exact opposite of most of the Twitter "illuminati." A genuine "Trust Agent" as his book goes. And one of the most enjoyable speakers you'll ever watch.
    Update: 09/17/10: Just saw this blog post by Brian Solice: "The Science of Retweets on Twitter" It's a very interesting post about how to construct tweets to give them the most chance of being re-tweeted. Interesting read. I just tried it myself on a tweet I just did: I wrote a blog post and tweeted: "Please Retweet: New Blog Post: The Best Way You Can Use Twitter http://bit.ly/d9bgUi Stephen Pickering"  (link to tweet) I asked for the Retweet. I used the words Blog, Post, and You in there. I used a bit.ly shortened link also. But judging from the post, I should have waited until about 4pm EST to tweet it, instead of 6:30am. But according to the report Friday is the best day, so I did get that right. We'll see if I get any retweets. Update 9/18/10 Ran across this today. It's a similar topic as Brian's but more quixotically taken on by Tim Ferris: Blogging by Numbers: How to Create Headlines That Get Retweeted It's mostly about how to write headlines, headlines for blog posts, but then as those headlines also become Tweets, it fits nicely into this study.

  • Just Added A New Customer to My Rackspace Cloud Site: What I Learned
    Update 6-18-10 : I did add that 2nd Customer. Yeah! They emailed me yesterday. Set up their site in about 2 minutes. Now they are rocking in the Cloud with no extra effort. Actually, I thought I would add 2 customers, but I haven't heard back from the other one. Since I started re selling Rackspace Cloud Sites last summer, I've had lots of inqueries, some of which have become customers, some of which have not, but all have asked good questions, questions that many times I would have to call Rackspace Techs or Ping Chad Keck or Rob La Gesse on Twitter to answer. I just realized, "Why have I not been writing all these down to build an FAQ page?" Well, I'm going to do just that. I'll start with these most recent two inqueries, and then maybe I'll dig through my email and find the rest and slowly add to the page, or just start from scratch and start documenting fresh questions as they come in. Q: We have been looking at your basic rack space package & wonder if you could clear up how many separate domains we could host? Is it one domain per package or a set amount? A: You can put as many domains as you want on there, and I would only charge you extra if you're account as a whole exceeded the limits. (Here are the plans and the amounts for overages.) (Here's a good one! Solid, basic, and to the point!) Q: Are you still reselling rackspace cloud sites? A: Yes! Q: If I start off with the basic plan and find its not big enough, can I move up to an advanced plan without taking my site off line? A: Yes, I can change your plan without it affecting your site. I just click on your site, change the plan that's applied to it, and that's it. Nothing touches your site or database. Q: How big are the mailboxes? A: The mailboxes are 1GB each standard. I was just told by Rackspace they can be increased to 3GB upon special request, and they said it's no additional charge. Well, those are 4 good solid questions to start things off with. I'll add them to my FAQ page now, and continue building it as things roll along. Q:  Hi,  I saw that you are reselling couldsites for Rackspace. I'm interested. I have three or four websites right now. I'd like each of these to have its own public IP address. Is this possible with your hosting? A: Unfortunately no. With Cloud Sites, the ip address given is the ip for the server and not just the domain in question. This feature is available with Rackspace's "Cloud Servers" product, however. Here is the page with the details of my Rackspace Cloud Site hosting packages that this post refers to. Here is the page with the information I need to get you started hosting your site or blog in the cloud. Here is the FAQ Page I'm building for My Re-Selling Rackspace Cloud Sites Packages And as always you can email me at [email protected] or call or text me at +1(501)291-1375. You can also ping me on Twitter or Facebook.

  • Garageband Workflow and Productivity Tips

    Well, I’ll continue to add to this post as I go along. I use Garageband everyday. Of course now that I’ve started, this will quantumly move me on to Logic I’m sure, but maybe the same tips in Garageband will apply in Logic as well. Also, I’m sure I’ll never completely leave Garageband. It’s too much fun! Anyway if you have some tips you’d like to share too, put them in the comments and I’ll add them to the list. Or if you have questions leave a comment, and I’ll try to find the answer.

    • Copying a region – You can always select the region then in the Menu select Edit>Copy>Paste, but there’s an easier way: Select the region with your mouse pointer, hold down the option button and simply drag the region with your mouse.
    • Deleting a track – Select the track (mouse over the track and left click the mouse. You’ll know it’s selected when the region on the very left that contains the tracks controls, which is normally gray, turns a color, either blue or green, depending on whether its a real or software instrument track. Once the track is selected, hit Command + delete, and it will delete the whole track.
    • Mastering – Well, this isn’t a tip about mastering per se. I know close to little about the subject, and desperately want to learn more. But if you haven’t already noticed after cutting what you think is a good sounding song, the export feature with Garageband is atrocious. It’s so bad I don’t see how the product can ship with it. If you check the “Auto Normalize” feature in preferences the tune will sound fine but the volume is way too low, which I find ironic because it touts itself as a feature that gives you “full” loudness. If you don’t check that feature you’ll get the volume you want, the volume you hear when you play the song in Garageband, but the exported MP3 will sound annoyingly fuzzy. Both unusable. Why can’t I have an MP3 that sounds like what I’m hearing when I play the tune in Garageband itself? Well you can only it’ll cost you $60. There’s a program called “Wire Tap” for Mac which records accurately any sounds coming from your Mac’s sound card. You fire up Wire Tap hit record and then press play on Garageband, and it will capture the tune exactly as you are hearing it. $60 sounds too high for this feature and it is, although Wire Tap is a solid program from a solid company and it’s useful in other situations as well. Having not moved up to Logic or Logic Express, I’m wondering what their exporting features are like. Anyone know?
    • Recording – Hit the “R” key to start recording and the Space bar to stop recording. A little easier than using your mouse to click the record button and the stop button, especially when you have a guitar in your lap.
    • Relieving an Overtaxed CPU – I’ve noticed especially when I have a lot of tracks, the play head will stop in the middle of a song or my Midi Controller is not being as responsive as it should. I learned today that you should “lock” all the software instrument tracks in this case. This temporarily turns the software tracks into sound tracks which relieves the CPU usage. The Lock feature is that little padlock icon underneath the name of the track. You simply click it. Then later you can un click it to restore it to a “green” software track.
    • Splitting a Region: Again this can be accomplished with Edit>Split once the track is selected and the play head is in the right spot where you want it split. But I also find it easier to simply hit Command + T
    • Vocal Recording – Well this tip may only apply to me but the general principle may apply to more. I bought a condenser mic from Guitar Center 5 years ago for about $200.00. It’s a good looking solid device: Audio-Technica AT-3035. I used it for years with a stand alone BOSS-1600 DAW. Seemed to work fine. In Garageband, although overall the sound was great, I got a lot of hiss and popping especially on my “S,” “Ch,” and “T” sounds. I scratched my head for I do have a screen in front of it. Well yesterday I Googled it. Turns out it has a couple of switches on it that reduce that very thing. Tried it out last night and a new World opened up. I could get a clear, loud sound without all that nasty popping. 5 years later I learn this! So if you run into some kind of problem like this, check your mic’s documentation for all the settings, or if you’ve lost them Google it. By the way this AT-3035 has glowing reviews from all the places I surfed. Everyone of them said its the best diaphragm mic for the money hands down. I think you can get one for only $100 now. So if you’re in the market for a vocal mic, you might check it out.
    Other Resources:
    • Synthopia.com – “Garageband Tips & Tricks” by Jeff Tolbert – Nice page of tips. I especially like the last one which deals with editing the drum loops that Garageband comes with to add some fills and variation to make them sound less monotonous and more spontaneous. Learned what the word “paradiddle” means: 4 16th note snare hits in succession. I knew the sound. Didn’t know there was a word for it. I can hear it in my head during a song when I want a “paradiddle” and he shows you how to make one.