Jeremy Larson

God Shined Down

It's been a great week so far here with Darren and Stacy.  Looks like we may have finally come up with a name for this project, but I will wait until it's official to announce.  They got here on my birthday (best gift ever!) but as the first day of working went on, my ever so slight ear-itation turned into a full fledged ear infection.  Mostly better now!  As always, I've been taking lots of pictures of our process.  Here are a few from yesterday:

Darren put some coins onto some dangling tape.  As you strike the keys, it sounds very much like a harpsichord.  When doubled with the Crumar DP-50, glorious things happen.

Stacy spend most of the day working on lyrics.  As you can see in the picture, God was shining down on the paper, dictating the words for her.  This never happens when I write...

Back to work!  By the way, I'm posting lots of this stuff in my Instagram as well.  Thanks for reading!

Jeremy

Some Notes On Collaboration

Last week when I was in Memphis, I heard some new music that I got really excited about.  I bought the _____ album and immediately started getting new ideas for how to process/record drums, harp, strings etc.  As soon as I got home I started putting these new ideas into practice by starting a new song for my project with Stacy and Darren.  I spent an entire day tracking drums and bass.  The next day I recorded 70 tracks of strings, then piano.  This idea was carrying all of my momentum forward and I had impressed myself with how much I was getting done in such a short time-span.  I bounced a copy of it down, and emailed it to Darren and Stacy.  Then I went through my usual routine of refreshing my inbox every few minutes to see if they loved it.

I know that they could tell that I had worked hard on this idea.  I know they could tell that I had just gone through a marathon of tracking to get it to them.  But the reality was this- It was all wrong.  It sounded nothing like the rest of the songs on the album.  It had abandoned all of the principles we laid out in the beginning.  Darren was very gentle in letting me down, but he was firm.  This is one of the most important parts of collaboration- the proper letdown.

That was a long winded intro, so I'll try to keep this next part straight to the point.

Bad:

The most frustrating part of collaboration with someone, is not the example above- that example is your saving grace.  The worst, is when you work on an idea that's no good, but everyone tells you it's "good" and "it just needs a little work".  When this happens, it's all hands on deck working on an idea that's a 2 out of 10, trying to bring it up to a 5 out of 10.  In the end, the idea's gonna get thrown away anyway.  Get tough (but kind) with yourself and your peers.  Letting someone take a wrong turn while driving is not "polite", it prolongs and increases conflict.

Good:

On the other hand, the BEST part of collaboration in my experience, is when you have checks and balances.  Left to my own devices, I will record layer after layer of instruments, until the vocal disappears.  A big part of my process working with other people, is having them chop through all the weeds.  I may write an idea with 10 things going on during the chorus.  It usually becomes the duty of my peers to narrow that down to a simple two or three, and improve on those ideas.  

Most bands are a collaboration of some kind.  It's a big part of growing up to learn to speak honestly and gently with each other.  Musicians can be emotional people, and it's easy to respond emotionally to criticism.  When someone says, "that drum part is too busy for that section" your brain will run it through a filter, and it gets interpreted as "that drum part is too busy, and you're looking chubby".  Be mindful of this emotional filter.  Learn to be the one that looks to his/her peers for improvement, not just validation.

Thanks for reading.

Jeremy

PS. I know I've been talking about this project with Darren and Stacy for quite a while now.  It may even seem as though it's simply a "hobby" that will never be completed.  But we are close!  We WILL finish this, and we WILL release something in the near future!

They Reappear on iTunes and Other News

I now have confirmation that "They Reappear" will officially be released on iTunes on November 15th.  Along with it, there will be an instrumental version of the album, and an instrumental version of my previous album "Salvation Club".  A few days before the release, I will be launching a new website.  The site will have streaming versions of all of these, a place where you can watch BOTH live DVD's, view all of my lyrics, plus tons of other fun stuff.  I'm SO excited to share this with all of you!

In other news, it looks like Darren and Stacy will be spending some time in Springfield in the coming months to work on more music.  I won't go into details at this point, but I will say that we have high hopes for the progress of this project.  Possibly even the release of a name for this project... We will see.  Hope your week is off to a great start.  Thanks for reading.

Jeremy

Ski Lift- "Give It Up" (My Process)

I'm a little late on blogging this, but this past year, I produced an album with my good friend Trey (Ski Lift).  It was a long distance collaboration that was done mostly through email.  He would send me tracks, and I would add to them.  For most of the songs, he had written and recorded the core of the song already, but wanted me to hype them up a bit, and then mix them.  

Oddly enough, this has become the norm for how I work on projects.  Bands will send me an Mp3 of an idea, and then I try to fill them out.  The benefit of this, is that I get to keep my own schedule, and work the hours that I want to alone.  I'm a lot less self-conscious when I work alone, and I usually feel a lot more inspired.  But it takes a lot of courage for a band to give me free reign over a song.  I have a tremendous amount of respect for the client who is able to hand over control to someone who lives in another state.  The process can be very rewarding when it works.  As a self proclaimed micro-manager, I have a very hard time handing my stuff over to anyone, even for mixing or mastering.  Trey is a micro-manager as well, and I commend him for letting go of some of that for this project.  

Above, is the song, "Give It Up" (you have to skip ahead to track three).  Some of you might remember this from the first Red Velvet dress line promo video.

Most of what you hear was already written and recorded before I got my hands on it.  Trey is a great songwriter, but he also has a great mind for production.  Most of the parts were already great.  If memory serves, Trey had some temporary electronic drums in there as a placeholder for the time being.  I wanted to make the song much more "vibe-y", so I deleted them and started recording some drum ideas of my own.  I remember that I wrote an entire blog post about working on these drum sounds, you can read that post here.

Here are some of the drums soloed:

Drummm

You may or may not be able to tell, but there are actually several full drum takes blended together.  Many times I will just record a bunch of ideas separate, and then stack them.  This allows me to get a more "layered" sound on the snare- which I like.

Bass and Crumar were added, but I won't spend time on that right now.

The EP is both fun and epic.  You can listen to it here:

http://skilift.bandcamp.com/album/romantic-ep

I'm very proud of this collaboration, though the greatness of it lies more in the songwriting than in anything I contributed.  Give it a listen!  Thanks for reading.

Jeremy

PS.  If you are interested in hiring me to do this type of thing, you can email me at band@jeremylarsonmusic.com .  When the new site is up, I will post a price sheet for collaborative work.

CR

(The title of this post is a hint to myself later so I can remember what I was working on tonight)

Most of my day was wasted.  I sat and tried working on some parts for a song, and I hated all of my ideas.  Around 5 this evening, I switched gears and started working on an old demo that Stacy sent me back in March.  I just want to say for the record, that the music I created tonight was probably the most beautiful thing I've ever written.  I felt in love with music again.  I chased this idea all evening, and left my studio about 15 minutes ago.  It felt like a first date- I didn't want it to end.  It would have been easy to work all night on this, but I'd rather save some of this inspiration for tomorrow.  

One more thing.  As I was driving home, I had the thought, "Wow, no one's music moves me the way that the music I wrote tonight does."  Then, I thought, "Don't even say that internally.  It's incredibly arrogant".  But I fought back.  I said to myself, "If I can't write music that moves me, then why should anyone else's music?".  These are my damn feelings coming out through the strings.  My music should move me more than anything else.  And I'm not ashamed to say that it usually does.  (I haven't forgotten that this is actually Stacy's song by the way...)  My hope for anyone reading this, is that you are able to say the same with the artistic ventures in your life.  Sleep well.

Thanks for reading.

Jeremy 

Wm F L Snare

I had a nice little thrifting day on Friday, and found this:

From what I gather, it's a WFL marching snare from the 30's or 40's.  It didn't actually have a badge, but there was a little logo on one of the hoops that said "Wm F L".  After doing some research, I learned that this is what WFL was called before 1939.  One of my best thrifting finds yet!

Most of the rest of Friday was spent working with the Juno keyboard that my brother loaned me.  I am going to have to buy one.  Great keyboard.  Darren and Stacy at work:

Darren and I at work:

Apparently, it takes two people to work this keyboard...

More to come soon.  Thanks for reading.

Jeremy

Day 4

More drum tracks with Darren today.  In case any of you are as nerdy as me about gear, here's our very simple setup:

Many of the drum tracks we've been working on are set up like this.  A snare, floor tom, and rack tom mic'd up with a Neumann M-149.  We moved the drums out into the hall to catch a little bit of natural reverb.  Another upside to this approach, is that it keeps Darren from having to work in the drum room- which gets really hot.  There is actually no AC up on the second floor, and it's a little rough.  Neither Darren nor Stacy have complained at all since we've started, and I appreciate that.  Last time they were here, it was the middle of winter and you could almost see your breath up there- which is why we have pictures of Stacy recording with an electric blanket on.  Nothing but positive vibes from these two fine friends!  Once again, Stacy is doing daily blogs about this process as well.  You can read her blog here.

Thanks for reading.

Jeremy

Day 3

I'm starting to get my days confused, since I'm blogging daily about the day before...  But yesterday was a good one.  LOTS more vocal tracking with Stacy.  Working with her and Darren is a very humbling thing.  They put more thought into 10 seconds of music, than I put into a whole song at times.  As much as I like to gush about Stacy, I could say the same about Darren regarding rhythm.  He is extremely mathematical in his approach.  I know that should go without saying for a drummer, but this is pretty rare.  Ideas must be perfectly executed before they are given the thumbs up or down.  Next time you listen to a MuteMath song, think about the fact that before the final drum track was recorded, there were probably hundreds of other ideas that were slaved over, and fought over, before deciding on the one that is heard- and that goes for every intro, verse, chorus and bridge.  I'm so thankful that my friends work so hard at what they do.  I need to be challenged in this way.  Special thanks to my brother Jonathan, for letting us borrow this keyboard.  Having tons of fun with it already.

Thanks for reading.

Jeremy

Day 1

Stacy sang her heart out yesterday.  That's all I can say.

Day 2 starts now.

Jeremy

Shoebox

I've been working up a storm over here these past few days.  Lots and lots of tracks of strings and harp.  My good friends Stacy and Darren are going to come into town in less than a week to do some more work on her album.  By the way, do any of you ever accidentally start typing @ signs in front of people's names outside Twitter?  When you think about it, that's a very strange habit to form...

So, Stacy has really hit her stride this past month.  The demo's she's been sending me are simply stunning.  Oh, if you're not sure who these people are, read the post I did last year about the project here.  After about a week of drowning in my own bad ideas, I finally fell in love with a few ideas last night.  The song is pretty simple; piano, vocals, drum loop, and harp for most of the song.  So I started messing around with doing some poly-rhythms with the strings later on in the song.  As I told Darren in a text after writing it, it's either a train wreck or it's brilliant.  Ok brilliant is a stretch...  So I'm off to work today to see if I still love my little idea.  That's always the ultimate test, listening the day after.  It's kind of like writing a love letter in Junior High.  You may write a masterpiece of a letter late at night, but when you read it the next day, you just end up tossing it into a shoe box.  So we will see.

Thanks for reading.

Jeremy