Author Archives: Glenn Schoonmaker

Road Maps

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I’m a true believer in “starting with the end in mind” as it can make all the difference in whether a project is completed or not. So when it came time to identify what I wanted to do for the 2019 Spring Concert I had a brainstorming session with my whiteboard:

For those that can’t read my scribbles, here’s what it says:

Spring Concert 2019
Location: Home Living Room
Duration: 30 – 60 Minutes
Theme: Spring, new life, budding, becoming, cycles
Genres: Acoustic and electric

TTD
Pre-Production:
Select Songs, Determine: length/arrangements/instrumentation/melodies/lyrics

Production:
Scratch Tracks, Determine tempos & keys, drums/percussion, bass, guitars, keyboards, vocals

Post-Production:
Editing
Mixing (template?)

Visuals:
Photos/videos (fractal generators?)

Prep for live performance:
Bounce tracks to RC 500 or to use in Ableton Live?
Determine live rig
Determine visual projection system & how to sync to music

Looking back I pretty much did everything listed on the board. Granted I ended up creating various spreadsheets to go into greater detail:

I also created an outline of how I would like the contour of the concert/album to be:

Here’s the translation:

Contour of Concert (Songs/Album)
• String Piece ( string quartet -> symphony)
• African Drums Piece
• Spacey Lead Guitar Piece (using the Dark Side and Freqout pedals) <- use “Thaw” for the inspiration and title?
• Piano Piece
• Electronic Piece (“Crushing Minimalism”?)
• Acoustic Guitar Piece (“Tempest”)
• Tibetan Bell and Bowl (perhaps to begin and end with or to use in the middle

All of which ended up being what I did for the concert and album. The String piece became “Enchantment”, the African Drums piece became part of the middle section in “Signs of Life”, the Spacey Lead Guitar piece became “The Thaw”, the Piano piece became “Frost”, the Electronic piece became “Signs of Life”, the Acoustic Guitar piece is “Tempest” and I used the Tibetan Bowl for the beginning of the concert.

Best Laid Plans…

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One of the things that I was hoping to do during the first quarter of this year was to continue my studies while making an album (and preparing to perform said album) for our 2019 Spring Equinox Concert. I estimated all the timelines needed for studies, pre-production, production, editing, mixing, concert prep and setup. I thought I had a reasonable plan.

I had a good run for most of the quarter, maintaining a daily study schedule of ~4 hours a day with ~4-5 hours of production/prep all throughout January and February. It felt really good to be making progress in so many areas on a daily basis.

That was until the beginning of March when I realized that I had exceeded the amount of time that I had allotted for pre-production and production. I was supposed to be editing and mixing when a majority of the songs were nowhere near being ready. I had a strong feeling that I could get everything done if I abandoned the study regimen.

So that’s what I did. Throughout March, I focused 100% on the production/editing/mixing of the songs with some concert prep along the way. This went on until the _very_ early morning of the Spring Equinox (3/23). I met my deadline, all the songs were finished but at the cost of not meeting my goals for other areas of development.

Looking to the future, I hope to return to my days of studies _and_ production. This time allowing more leeway for production either in the number of songs or as to when I expect them to be done. Perhaps I will spread things out over two quarters. One being dedicated to writing and pre-production of the songs with a concert of the stripped down/basic versions. The other being focused on production/editing/mixing and concert of the fully arranged songs. As of now this approach seems reasonable, then again I thought the plan for this past quarter was reasonable… We’ll have to try and see what happens!

Spring Concert 2019

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Well, the first quarter of 2019 has come to a close. Before it was over we had our first ever house concert – the “2019 Spring Equinox Concert”. All in all it was a great night with a bunch of firsts.

It was the first time that I:
– performed all new material, written for a specific event
– used Ableton Live for performance
– coordinated visuals (lights and video) to go with the music
– played keyboards live
– used my Gretsch White Falcon for performance

I’m planning on writing some additional blog entries covering the various aspects of what went into the past three months. A lot happened. Some of it according to plan, other parts not so much. I’ll be highlighting what I thought worked and what could have been better. That being said I think the first quarter of 2019 was a very rich and fruitful one. It was full of learning, creativity and growth. Looking forward to the next one.

Equinox

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Late last year my wife, Rachel, suggested that I do a house concert as I had been writing so much new material (50 new song ideas between October and December 2018). This morphed into the idea of doing quarterly albums/concerts based on entirely new music that I have never performed before.

The first of these albums/concerts is coming up rather quickly: March 23, just after the Spring Equinox. I have made really good progress so far, most of the songs are close to being finished. I’m estimating that production will be completed in the next six days, followed by five days of mixing. This will leave me with three days to configure/set up equipment and rehearse everything.

It’s been a very full and rewarding period of time taking these 50 songs and choosing 8 of them for charting/notation, writing melodies and lyrics, arrangements, pre-production, recording, editing, mixing and live performance all within 3 months. Very exciting times indeed!

Long Way Down (Re-revisited)

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Reposted this “revisited” after finding that I had another DeEsser (Waves) to use on the vocal track. Tweaked the “Pensado Lead 1” preset a bit, adjusted the volumes of the busses and bounced it down. Sounds even better to me.

Here are the notes from the previous post: New audio mix and visuals for Music Sketch #22 “Long Way Down”. Idea for the song happened while studying C# Locrian (b2, b3, b5, b6, b7).

Photo taken while visiting New York, NY.

Between (Revisited)

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Another “revisited” music sketch with new audio mix and visuals. This time it’s Music Sketch #21 “Between”. Took a bit longer to get this one completed as I was trying to incorporate what I’ve been learning about Photoshop over the past few weeks. Original idea for the song itself happened while studying F# Phrygian (b2, b3, b6, b7).

Photo taken while visiting Yellowstone National Park, WY.