Weekly Update - January 25th - 31st - A Break

The last week in January was relatively quiet at Ghost in My House Studio.  This was actually a nice break after a few busy weeks completing Nick Shattuck's new album, Chorus & Verse.  Nick has posted a handful of songs from the record on his Myspace, check them out by clicking here.

On Monday the weather was a bit unpleasant so I didn't end up doing my Decorah lesson, just spent extra time carefully driving home from work.

On Tuesday, Wigglepuppy drummer Jaran Carson came over for another rehearsal in preparation for our upcoming show on February 5th at JB's Speakeasy in La Crosse, WI with Porcupine, Dream 13 & ConQueso. I am really looking forward to this show and have really been enjoying Jaran and I getting more comfortable playing together now that we have had a couple of shows and few practices.

On Wednesday the physical copies of Animist arrived, so I spent a majority of the day distributing those to retailers and mailing out promotional copies.  For more info on that check out last week's blog post "Animist gets Physical".  I also received the additional external hard-drive I ordered for the studio and am happy to say that I am now double-backed up.

Thursday was spent working and Friday was mostly spent taking a continuing education test in Rochester.  I did get some time in the afternoon to test out some new kick drum beaters I ordered and am really preferring the attack of the wood-beater at this point, haven't had a chance to record with it yet though.  I also had time to continue working on a new song entitled Reactions Inertia.  I can't decide if I should do it on guitar or the Casio keyboard as I do want to force myself to branch out musically as much as possible for the next record.

Saturday and Sunday were spent doing errands, chores and working on home improvement projects.

Balance is key to an enjoyable life and this week was a nice break from studio work that has allowed me some time to rest my ears and plot the next project.

Less Is More

Less is more.  The less we have of some-thing the more we enjoy it. Whether that thing be music, relationships, food, alcohol etc... Contrast is the spice of our corporeal reality.

In our youth the value of a $ is much higher than in our adult life. Aging not only changes our value systems but also changes what we value.

I recently sold all my cds (those in good enough condition for re-sale) to the local Deaf Ear Records.  I have about thirty cds left that didn't go to Deaf Ear or Goodwill.  I got rid of the cds because the mp3 revolution reduced their use.   Ironically, since I got rid of the majority of my cds I have actually been listening to cds more often.  Because I have less choices it is easier to make a choice.  I have rediscovered the value of the cd by having less of them.

The mp3, ipod, web 2.0 revolution has altered our experience of music in amazing ways.  One now has the ability to store hundreds of albums worth of music in a handheld device, purchase music online and discover and enjoy millions of artists from around the world.  In other words there is more music available, more ways to hear it and more ways to store it for later listening.  This "more" has altered our perception and enjoyment of music.

The iPod and similar devices are great tools for musicians.  The ability to store and have ready access to the entire catalog of music I have written all on one device is very useful.  Besides my own music, I have hundreds of my favorite songs and albums on my ipod.  While very convenient, this has reduced the value of any one album, artist or song because there is always more to listen to.  For example, I often find myself downloading a new album I am interested in, loading it on the ipod, I will listen to it once, but, if it doesn't grab me right away it inevitably becomes lost amongst the hundreds of albums already on the ipod as I choose something more familiar.

Any independent musician would be a fool not to embrace the web for networking and promotional reasons...