Pictured above: The originally mastered CD with extremely HIGH QUALITY and my Espresso Machine (RIP).
Creating original music is an art and takes time. It’s not possible to teach someone how to be original. Similarly, teaching “voice” in my English Class is challenging. Voice represents something fresh and original; Moreover, voice is the character and narrator speaking to the reader. I don’t have a magical formula for voice, but I can show examples of it…The same analogy holds true for music. I’ve been a musician for almost 3 decades. During that time, I’ve practiced my drums to the best of my ability, attended hundreds of live performances, watched many instructional videos, taught private drum lessons, and ACTIVELY listened to every musical genre. Generally speaking, active listening is becoming a dying art, but it is a way to develop voice. People seem to be more stimulated by visuals, distractions, and overkill. More specifically, I have about 12,000 songs on my ipod. I’ve listened to most of them; I know they are embedded within my ears, DNA, right brain, and hopefully feeding my creative juices. Ipods are great, but the ability to overload them with tons of lesser-quality recorded music is problematic for me. Perhaps, I’m old school and really cherish my elaborate stereo system comprised of separate components. When comparing vinyl or CD to a compressed MP3, the quality on my stereo system is surreal–naturally, that is coming from my objective opinion. 🙂 Many of my friends have incredible stereo systems, but it requires quality time to sit down, pay attention, and actively listen. In contrast, the ipod is cute, transportable, convenient, and ingenious on many levels–a shout out to Apple…
What does this have to do with voice and creating original music? When I’m not teaching English, I’m always listening and creating music. Inspiration comes from a myriad of places, many of which I mentioned earlier. At other times, inspiration can come from a dream. Ironically, I believe that Trevor Rabin of the legendary group, YES, developed the riff for “owner of a lonely heart” while he was in the bathroom–TMI perhaps? My inspiration for my song “GIMME CHAI COMMA YO” came from my love of CHAI TEA (a popular Tea in India, a little spicy, and made with Cardamom) and teaching comma lessons during my English Classes. Starbucks sells Chai Tea either hot or cold. I usually order it with frothy Soy and No Whipped Cream. It comma works like this: “Can you get me a glass, Tommy?” In the classroom, it is taught like this: “Gimme back my ipod yo!” It should be: “Give me back my ipod, yo (comma yo)! I’ve been teaching this lesson for years. A comma usually appears before a subject/person’s name prior to the end of a sentence. This rule was being butchered so much by my students that I decided to roll with it, and then the musical inspiration occurred… I’m not a fan of rap music (another tangential blog TBA), but it seemed like the perfect vehicle to deliver my message. I recorded all of the tracks in 2006 on a Tascam 24 track machine:
Kenny Glass: The Bass Legend
I wrote the lyrics, my awesome friend Kenny played the bass line to anchor the foundational groove, and Johnny G., played both guitar parts. Additionally, I played all of the drums and percussion, mixed, mastered, and produced it. It took several days and over 20 hours of time to squeeze out the final product. It sat in my basement for awhile, and then people convinced me to get it going on itunes. By the way, connecting all of the creativity was challenging, but I had FUN, especially singing or rapping the lyrics; it was a labor of love. I needed some kind of band name–I decided to use the moniker: BREADLESSinJERSEY. Don’t ask! Ed Levy, the Broadway guitar guy, bought this shirt for My 40th Birthday:
Just tilt your head to the side to see the tour dates…
Gimme Merch, Yo!
My music can be found on iTunes, Spotify, and www.songtradr.com amidst other sites…SEARCH FOR Breadless in Jersey… Commercial pricing can be found if you want to license Gimme Chai, Yo! for commercials and movies…