I have never really considered myself a song writer though I have always said I’m a drummer and percussionist. Even then, when I refer to myself as a “percussionist”, I’m not saying I could play in an ensemble or orchestra, rather, I’m willing to make sounds and “music” by hitting things. This sits on the opposite spectrum of music making of guitarists and singers who either strum or pluck (which, I guess is a form of percussion) or use their voice. But they have to pay much more attention to the tune of what they’re playing rather than whether or not it rebounds properly.
So it was with some trepidation that I thought about participating in the Jamuary challenge month, something I learned about last year during the initial COVID lockdown. I faintly recall hearing about it years ago but never really looked into it. After all, I was a drummer, a percussionist, I had always formed a part of an ensemble or group rather then just myself.
It was that same attitude that had me go to Malaysia and record a jazz album by hiring a couple other musicians to fill in the parts I couldn’t do myself, notably the bass and piano. And the melody writing, and song composition and structure. Basically, I showed up with an idea and the ability to play drums.
I then later returned to Canada and tried to record a percussion album myself only to find that I didn’t know how to “finish” it. I thought I could learn how rather quickly, after all, we live in a digital world, how hard could it be? Turns out, even making my way through Garageband was a challenge. I still haven’t published those tracks.
And then just before moving to China I was in Montreal for a month and drinking at St. Bocks on St. Denis where I met another guy, Matt, a guitarist, and we got talking. The product of that drunken “Hey, wouldn’t it be funny if…” turned out to be a couple tracks of “drunk rock”, in which we slugged a bottle of vodka, rented a rehearsal space, and jammed for a few hours. The result was impressive and, again, I thought, I’ll finish that. Those tracks haven’t been released yet either.
So, as it stands, only the jazz project has been published although it has never been performed live. It never was supposed to, it was an idea I had to see if I could work outside of my group that I had assembled in my hometown of Winnipeg. It turns out, you can write songs and hire musicians from around the world and record in a studio just about anywhere you can think of. Finding those places can be tough at times, but they do exist. You don’t have to be in Los Angeles or New York, or London or wherever. There are a lot of good if not great studios all over the place.
And then there’s your computer. My computer. The tools you have and the extra ones you can purchase, such as Logic Pro or Final Cut. Yes, you can tempt yourself with programs like Avid or Pro Tools but, unless you’re making the money that would justify and practically require those tools, do you really need them? Audacity, Garageband, iMovie can be enough for most people’s creative ideas and realizations.
I thought of myself a little bit more, in that I wanted to learned at least the half way point of the production workflow: not the beginner’s tools of Audacity and Garageband, nor shell out the cash required for the licensing and hardware to run the “pro” tools, and, finally, not give into Adobe’s cash cow subscription service.
So it was those types of thoughts that were swirling around my head in December as I started committing myself to the idea of releasing a track each and every day in the month of January. To date I’ve released eight tracks, each fulfilling a “challenge” for that day. The only one that I’m not really happy with is the “Make a Sample” because I feel I could’ve simplified that a lot more and actually completed the challenge rather than have the five seconds that I finally managed to publish.
What I’ve found so far is that it’s very easy to say that you can do something, to say “Hey, why don’t you…” but then to actually follow through with it and get it done requires time and effort that, simply put, take time away from other things. And sometimes the time and effort you put in to your creative project leads to more frustration than had you simply gone for a walk or watched TV or “thought about things” or, even worse, “I’ll watch just one more video about how to use this tool and then I’ll really know how to use it… hey, look! Another topic I’m interested in!”
Music theory, instruments, “I don’t play guitar”, “that’s not how you play that”, “you’re doing it wrong” are all the criticisms that we hear, most often from ourselves. I know I was hearing them from the back of my head when I was thinking about making a guitar or piano track or, horror of horrors, using my voice! Would people laugh? Would they take me seriously?
Then I stopped caring, not in the sense of “You can’t tell me what to do,” but more in the sense of “I know my weaknesses but unless I actually sit down and try this out myself, then I’ll never learn if I’m even interested in doing this sort of thing.”
I can say and I have to admit that this Jamuary 2021 was a long time in the making. I’m not even talking about those projects I mentioned above, I mean sitting down to learn the tools involved. I have to give a shout out to my former colleague Steve Blaque who graciously sat down with me (and fed me dinner!) to show me how to use Abelton back in the summer of 2019. In addition to his guidance, there were countless YouTube videos (MusicTechHelpGuy’s video in particular) who helped wade through the daunting set up of Logic Pro’s outlay. And then people like Jake Sacher (who was a guest on my podcast a few months back) who helped understand the very concepts of mixing and audio production work. I’ll even give a shout out to John Turner, another actual sound engineer, who’s words have stuck with me for years: “It’s all just one’s and zero’s.”
Well, when you put it that way…
And so that brings me to this attempt at Jamuary.
I know I’m only one week in to the challenge but I’ve plugged all of the challenges into my calendar so that they pop up first thing in the morning. That way, I start thinking about what I could do for the track and then, once the sun sets and my monitors a little bit easier to see against the night lights, I get to work, having already thought through some of the things I think would be possible to do and some of the things that I am actually able to do. I stay away from alcohol most nights and it’s the same with coffee. With a five hour window to get things done, so far I’ve been successful in posting each track before 11.30 pm Beijing time, and then writing up a blog post about each track.
To be sure, this project has taken up a large portion of my life, from thinking about it all day to occupying my evenings with “just getting it done”. And as the night wears on and I find myself getting tired, that’s when I start simplifying even more and considering what I really want to accomplish with the track. The idea is to publish, not make some epic post. Just get it done. I even wrote a song about that (Jamuary 4: Just Get It Done). And now I have to listen to my own advice every single night until this thing is over!
With that, if you’re taking part, I hope you’re finding some success in what you’re doing and that you’re encouraged and motivated to keep going. Remember, #jamuary and by all means, tag me or let me know what you’re working on.