Latch Music Blog

Learn To Let Go
by Dave Latchaw

As I am finishing my current recording project, “Transitions”, the hardest part of being creative is to know when to let it go. Trying to decide whether a few more hours of sonic tweaking or rerecording parts is going to make a noticeable improvement to a current musical statement is not easy to do. More is not always better. There comes a point where one has to become detached from their creative project and move on.

Spending hours dedicated to recording and composing will improve your skill. Part of improving your creative ability is learning when to let go the current project and move on to the next. If you have an attitude of constantly chasing your musical growth, then what you do today will be different from what you can do six months from now. So, do you wait and fiddle around with the current project or move on to the next? If you do wait six months perhaps you’ll have an even better result, but will you be able to let go then? You may work another six months on your project with improvements, but if you don’t let it go then, you are now into another year with the same project that still hasn’t seen the light of day! The truth is, more tweaking of an old project won’t necessarily make it better. It is sometimes best to let go, take from it what you’ve learned, and apply it to the next effort.

If you can think of each project as a snapshot of your skill for that time moving on becomes easier. When you can become detached from a project it becomes easier to take what you’ve learned from it and move on to the next. Each project your skills should be improving which will make each new project even better. If you don’t let go there will come a point where you get decreaseing returns for the effort you put in, which is a waste of time. A creative person always works on their craft. My first manager, Luke O’Reilly, used to say, “You are only as good as the last song you wrote”. Don’t linger on a project, let it go at some point so you can move on to the next. You’ll be glad you did.

To Riff Or Not To Riff?
by Dave Latchaw

To Riff Or Not To Riff, that is the question. Early on in my musical adventures, inspired by players that could do cartwheels up and down their ax and compose equally extreme music, so of course that was what I tried to match. I wanted every tune I soloed on or composed to have in-your-face riffage. Not that I could pull it off, but that was how I wanted to play and write. As a young player and composer I thought that music could only be valid if it is complex. Exploring simple ideas just was not part of the early routine. Like most musicians in their early development, the knowledge of what was musically suitable and hip was not always obvious to me! Fortunately, if a musician is honest and open with themselves, musical appropriateness and the diversity between simple and complex ideas can evolve, especially as one musically matures and develops their own voice.

Now, as a player, composer and music educator I have to laugh at myself when I think about those early musical days. I was keen with no clue or ability. Thankfully at some point I realized that you have to walk before you can run, which is a fundamental idea for practicing and developing interesting solos and compositions, and as well as over-all musicianship. If one doesn’t take the time to develop a good musical foundation there will be gaps in capacity and a certain instability in playing and composing. With the way society is, it is hard to be patient and take the fundamental steps to develop one’s ability.

Being pratical about your current musical skill is important. How does anyone think they are going to be able to solo over a harmonic progression with quintuplelets if they can’t do it in quarter notes? How can someone think they can solo over a tune at 300 bpm when they are not solid at 100 bpm? Younger players sometimes think they are being heavy when they go for the “sheets of sound” riffing when they solo. They mainly think they sound heavy because they are not on any one given note long enough to make it obvious to them they do not know the changes. Denial can occur in the younger musician who receives praises for being able to play many notes. There becomes a point though when the young improvisor needs to ask themself, do I know what I’m doing or am I just developing “confident jive”? When a player can analyze their capacities, growth is possible.

Learning as much as you can about harmony will make both riffing and compositions more valid. If you don’t know which notes belong to a certain set of chord changes, you are using the “search and destroy” method of improvising. Knowing about harmony makes one able to manipulate tension and release both compositionally and improvisationally. Harmonic knowledge increases development of the artistic voice. If one can walk through any set of harmonic changes it will be easier to run. There also has to be rhythmic control that goes with harmonic capacity.

With composition, if every tune you write makes the veins in the player’s head pop out like Clint Eastwood, you will reduce the effect of that intensity! Even bands like Metallica realize if there is no contrast to the fast and loud with slow and soft you are losing potential musicallity. I used to think the challenge to writing music was to make it complex enough, then it would automatically be cool. When I was in the Scottish Rock band “The Heat”, I began to realize that it is just as challenging to write music for the masses. Writing music that only other musicians can value is cool, but it becomes easy to be tragically hip. One shouldn’t dismiss the ability to write something that nonmusicians can dig also. There is an art to that too.

As a musician matures it is most important to keep finding where the gaps are in their musical foundation and fill them in. Being self-aware is essential for the growth of one’s musical ability. If we don’t try to expand our musical foundation in both complex and simple directions we will stand still in our musical lives, which is never good.

Synthesizers, Samples and Loops - Oh My!
by Dave Latchaw

Creating and recording music is constantly getting easier and more affordable by using technology. This is both a blessing and a curse. It is great for artists to be able to record and document their musical growth and use the Internet for their distribution. However, technology gives the hobbyist those opportunities as well. Technology has much average music on-line, with much great and varied music. Finding cool music becomes a lot like panning for gold. One has to search through a fair amount of muck to find that gem of an artist or composition. The music consumer should continue to demand a high-level of craft from all artists in every style. The purist musician should not be all righteous and dismiss the use of electronic technology to create music. Three of my favorite tools to create music are Synthesizers, Samples and Loops.

The synthesizer is a logical extension of using electronic technology to create a different palette of sound for expression. In the right hands, it can make a valid and important contribution to music composition. A keyboardist can approach the synthesizer as a more portable means of bringing their piano or organ playing to a greater range of audiences. Having a portable means to make music is handy, but that isn’t the only reason the synthesizer is cool. For a musician creating their own vision, the keyboard can be a powerful tool for developing their own sounds and approach to playing. Check out these two keyboardists who are always raising the standard of synthesis, Joe Zawinul and Scott Kinsey.

Samples are great because they give an artist the ability to use familiar sounds, and develop unheard-of new sounds from those familiar sounds. Acoustic musicians get defensive when it comes to samples. Nothing is going to compare with a real orchestra playing your music, but as a composer, if you want to write symphonic music, samples are a thrifty way to work with a similar palette. The sounds have gotten good enough for the music to stand alone, but it is not an orchestra, it is something cool but different. Few people enough connections or have enough money to have a full-blown orchestra at their fingertips. The use of samples also makes creating music more accessible to more people. The novice can now make sounds at a sonically accepted level which is wonderful, but this doesn’t mean the novice is making great music just because they are using technology. One still has to develop knowledge and understanding to make the music complete. Nothing can get past the hours of practicing and tweeking sounds and layers. You need that time and study to gather a collection of sounds to be expressive with. Samples are a great tool for making music, but they will only be as interesting as the person using them.

Loops are cool because you can use them to create a sonic collage. Interesting combinations of loops can create a trance-like result. You can create an unheard-of direction in sound, yet keep it grounded like a tribal hypnotic groove. I am surprised by the number of people that dismiss using loops as a basis for composition. To me, these people are narrow in musical scope. I feel that loops are one of many ways to go about being creative and expressive. Computers, synthesizers, samples and loops are just tools for creating music. They are great fun and satisfying in their own way. Remember, just because you put a person in front of a piano, it doesn’t mean he is going to make great music. The same holds true if you put him in front of a computer with synthesizers, samples and loops!

Demand a high-level of artistic craft in all musical endeavors. It is cool if you are an acoustic musician and don’t dig electronic music, but please at least have enough sense to realize that it is just different way of doing music!