Preview the opening theme and title track to my new album, Tributary:

Summer of 2008. That’s when I first started working on Tributary. Two of the tunes actually began as ideas for the Dunham Van Durham album Simpler Times, but were deemed too harmonically or rhythmically dense for the project. After coming to terms with the concept that the follow up to Life Is Loud doesn’t have to be a funk album, I started incorporating a far wider spectrum of influences. Around the time I started really writing for this album, I’d been listening to a lot of Americana music and learned to play blues harmonica. I also wrote a ballad for the first time in years. While it’s always good to have a focused vision with your music, I’d been thinking too narrowly about what my own music should be.

Now don’t get me wrong, at least half of Tributary is backbeat-ridden funk that will make your head bob, but those tracks are (hopefully) complimented by the rest of the album. I guess I know what I think of the music, but we’ll have to wait and see what your take is.

I must also add that Brad Whiteley and Kenneth Salters have done a great service to my vision of this music, it’s been an honor to have them involved. On the sheet music for the opening track, in the bars before the melody begins, I simply wrote “Open drum solo / D Pedal” and left the rest up to interpretation. Similarly, as I brought new tunes to rehearsals or gigs, we’d break them in over several months until the arrangement felt most natural. These guys have been far more than just hired guns–the music was written specifically for them to play the parts.

We’re nearing the mixing stage of production, and I’ve started talking to my friend and talented designer Philip Manning, who has designed CDs for Herbie Hancock, Lizz Wright, John Coltrane box sets, and countless others including Life Is Loud, to create the album art.

And if you haven’t heard the other track I’ve posted from this album, click here to listen to “Swell” on my Tumblr blog.

Stay tuned for more, and thanks for reading!

I’ve written an article for MusicianWages.com called “15 Guitar Tips for Non-Guitarists” geared towards professional musicians that are picking up the guitar as a secondary instrument. The article covers the basics: how to hold the guitar comfortably, strumming and picking techniques, and tips for playing chords. These are tips I give my beginning students as well, or even remind intermediate players from time to time.

As the title suggests, that article is written for non-guitarists–people that have a lot of experience learning another instrument and simply want to play some guitar as well. Here are some extra tips for beginners who have never learned another instrument. And although I’m writing with guitar students in mind, I believe these concepts can help relieve some of the frustration that comes with learning any instrument.

1. Warm Up

When you first pick the guitar up every day, take a few minutes to play slowly. Let your fingers get used to feeling the instrument. Whatever you’re learning, slow it down and play it with very little tension. If you’re a beginner, you’re exercising new muscles in your hands and they’re going to get a little sore. Even after you’ve been playing for a while, you still need to warm up to avoid injuries.

2. Visualize

If you’re having trouble with a chord change or picking out a solo line, stop playing. Take your hands off the guitar and just imagine yourself playing it a few times. Picture your hands moving and imagine the sound the guitar will create. Then try playing it slowly. The physical coordination of your fingers might still be difficult, but once your mind understands what you are trying to do, it’s much easier to get it right.

3. Repetition

Repetition creates new connections between neurons in your brain, called synapses. When you learn something new, like a C major scale, your brain creates new synapses. The connections are reinforced with repetition. There is no shortcut to this process, you simply have to put in the practice time. But even 15 minutes of focused repetition will help you learn very quickly.

4. Break It Down

When you’re learning a new song on guitar, break it into pieces that can be practiced easily, then connect the pieces together. For new songs, spend a little time on each section individually before you try to play it start to finish. If you’re working on a new solo, focus on one phrase at a time, and then practice connecting each phrase. It’s a lot easier to handle many smaller pieces than one big piece.

5. Sleep On It

When you sleep your brain continues working on those synapses. Just like lifting weights requires recovery time for your muscles to get stronger, your brain needs some recovery time to process what you’ve just learned. Practicing right before bed (or a nap) is probably the best way to learn something new. Try it for yourself–go over something brand new in the half hour before you go to bed. The next morning, pick up your guitar and try playing it. It’s much easier than it was last night, right? Noticing progress one day to the next is a great motivator to keep practicing.

6. Playing vs. Practicing

There’s a difference between playing the guitar and learning the guitar. Be aware of which one you’re doing. I’ve had students come to a lesson and play a new song they learned, but they stumble through the whole thing because they never slowed down to work out the rough spots. I encourage everyone to learn a few songs early on just so they have something fun to play, but I also make sure they dedicate some of their playing time as practice time.

7. Don’t be Afraid of Mistakes

When you learn something new, you will make a lot of mistakes. I always tell myself those mistakes are bound to happen, so I might as well get them out of the way now. What’s more important is that you identify the trouble spots, and then break the passage down to fix the trouble spots. This is where a good teacher can really come in handy.

8. Practice Recovering from Mistakes

Since mistakes are bound to happen from time to time, learn how to get through it and keep playing. A metronome is a great tool for this exercise. The beat keeps moving and so should the music, whether you hit the chord or not. Don’t stop every time you mess up, just catch up at the next downbeat. Imagine the music happening on it’s own, your job is to simply play along not sabotage it.

9. Learn with Friends

Learn the same songs as your friends. You don’t have to start a band, but having other people to play with will motivate you to learn your part and learn it well. Not to mention it’s a lot of fun.

10. Get a Good Instrument

Now, I never like to use gear as an excuse, but most cheap guitars are simply difficult to play. If your strings are too high from the fretboard or the guitar keeps going out of tune, you won’t enjoy playing every day. If you really want to play guitar, it’s worth the investment to buy a decent instrument and pay to have it set up by a guitar tech for optimal performance. If you need more advice in these areas, I’ve also written articles about buying your first guitar and basic set ups for fretted instruments.

Guitar lessons

If you’d like some personalized help with your guitar playing, I am available to teach private lessons in person or via Skype. I can do weekly lessons (30-60 minutes, limited spots available) or one-off brush up lessons (1 hour minimum). Please email me for more details.

Back in 2004, before I came to NYC, I recorded my two bands in Indiana–an 8 piece funk band called The Eddie Goza 7, and my original jazz trio. You can download the album for free over at Bandcamp.

To me, this music sounds like a past life. Once I moved to Brooklyn, I merged the two bands into a jazz/funk trio and began working on the music for Life Is Loud. But since this album might be completely new to some of you, I’d like you to have it. If you’ve bought it already, I thank you for your support and promise there are more goodies in store for you soon!

I’m working hard on my third album, and in preparation of it’s release, I want as many people as possible to be aware of my music. If you feel inclined, please tell your friends, use the ShareThis link below the post, or even embed one of the Bandcamp players on your blog.

Thanks again for all the support!

- Cameron

A more in depth preview of the whole album will be posted here on my site in the coming weeks!

Being among the first to adapt to a new idea can either be a huge advantage or a huge waste of time. Adapting to a new idea after everyone else is almost always a huge waste of time.

I’ve been thinking about this more and more as people ask me about building a web presence and developing internet marking strategies for musicians. We don’t need to look any further than the major record labels to see what happens when you resist change. The world might be a very different place, at least for musicians, if labels had been quick to monetize downloads. But they missed the bus are having a really hard time adapting to the new landscape.

When it comes to independent musicians, especially those like me that are relatively obscure, the only advantage we have is our adaptability. Change while the changing is good and stay ahead of the curve.

One way to avoid getting lost in the crowd is to arrive before the crowd. When MOG first hit the internet back in 2006, I immediately created a profile and started talking about the music I was listening to and the music I was making. A few months in I was one of their first featured artists. I don’t use MOG anymore and the site has changed quite a bit, but I know I’m still in the sphere of consciousness (or iTunes’ library) of several of the Moggers I connected with because they either joined my mailing list or we’ve since connected on similar music sites. I credit a number of these connections to having that feature early on.

I’ve been seeing a similar pattern on Twitter.  I was nowhere near the first to use Twitter, but luckily some friends pestered me enough to create a profile that in 2008 I signed up. At first I was just one more person staring at my screen, scratching my head over what I could possibly write in 140 characters that anybody would care about. Eventually I got in my own groove and figured out how to make Twitter work for me.

As more of my musician friends start using Twitter, I notice they have greater difficulty getting followers. The site has grown so much that people are less likely to follow others. Once you’re following a few hundred people, it’s hard to follow many more and be able to pay attention to what’s going on. I wouldn’t go as far as to say joining Twitter at this point is a waste of time, but it definitely takes more patience and effort to make it effective.

A third and final example would be the use of iMixes to promote your music on iTunes. I started doing this with a few other musicians in 2006. We all saw a significant bump in our sales. Four years later, the strategy is still helpful but not nearly as effective. Not only are more musicians are doing it, but the iTunes Store has evolved and unfortunately doesn’t recommend music as deeply as it once did.

I guess my point here is that regardless of how pointless a new social media website appears, or how few people are doing it, you have to give it a shot.  You may end up wasting some time, but the hits will be well worth the misses. At the very least, you’re building a larger internet footprint, making it easier for more people to follow links back to your website. Your website, naturally, should be at the center of your web presence.

If you want to know where to go next, get your music on Bandcamp and The Sixty One. I’m also checking out Fairtalizer. There’s something new every week. Good luck!

Since returning from Nashville I’ve finally been able to really get my head around the nearly 50 gigabytes of music Brad, Kenneth and I recorded at Seaside Lounge last September. We recorded to 16 track, 2″ tape and then imported each track of each take into the computer. In December I got a brand spankin’ new iMac and Logic Pro to help edit and mix the album. Since I was new to Logic, I had to spend some time poking around and honing my skills on other tracks. No way I was going to use the new trio album as a testing ground!

Taking some time away from the recordings has helped give me a fresh perspective on the music, which really helps with this next step. I hear the tunes differently now. I’m a bit more objective. I’ve cut down some of the vamps and chosen shorter or simpler solos when appropriate. Some of the “mistakes” that initially bothered me now sound like the kind of rawness an album like this needs. This was three guys sweating it out in a tracking room for two 10 hour days, just having a good time. That’s how it needs to sound.

The music isn’t ready for the world to hear just yet, and I don’t have a release date, but I do have a title: Tributary.

Writing music for the guitar, just like any other instrument, is an acquired skill. Since most composers and arrangers don’t play guitar, they simply don’t understand the limitations of the instrument. Many people write music at a piano, but a straight piano part does not typically translate well to the guitar. However, if you learn a few tricks, you can turn virtually any piano accompaniment into music for the guitar.

The guitar is a very versatile instrument with a huge range, great for lead lines or comping chords, and electric guitarists can use effects to create a wide variety of tones. When I get music that’s well written for my instrument, I’m able to focus more energy on making the real music happen rather than trying to figure out what to play.

To help the cause, I’ve written an article on MusicianWages.com explaining basic notation techniques for guitar. To read the article, go here:

Music Notation for Guitar – MusicianWages.com

If you need assistance notating, arranging, or writing guitar parts for your music, I can help. Please email me details of your project and I’ll quote you my rate and estimated turn around time.

Every week, I look at different people’s “How To” blogs about online marketing for musicians. There’s good advice and bad advice, but most of the time it’s theoretical. Here’s a little example of how this stuff can actually work.

I recently joined my friends’ band, Little Grey Girlfriend. Along with adding some guitar parts, I took it upon myself to encourage them to beef up their internet presence. The band is led by Erika Lloyd and Brad Whiteley, a couple of the most talented and creative people I know. But beyond the music being available at all the usual suspects, there wasn’t much about the people behind the band floating around the internet.

Erika handles the online presence for the band, but for many understandable reasons she just hadn’t been able to get beyond the MySpace and Facebook pages. I started a Twitter account for the band and showed her how to use it. She started posting links to videos and music that she likes. A great idea, especially for musicians. If you want to give people an idea of what your music sounds like, tell them about the music you love.

To take advantage of links she was posting on Twitter, I set up a blog on Tumblr for the band. I wanted to keep it simple, embed Bandcamp music players, list the band members, and include a few links. In many respects, that is all the promoting needed on a blog. 90% of the time, the blog itself should talk about anything else.

I choose Tumblr because it’s simple, has a built in community of passionate music fans, and easily links to Twitter. This way, instead of just linking to videos and music on Twitter, Erika can embed the media on the blog, and then links are automatically sent to Twitter (see the picture above). When she wants to share a video she likes, she can share it on a site framed with information about Little Grey Girlfriend instead of just sending people to YouTube.

Erika’s first post was about what she listens to when she paints, and how it affects her painting. The link went to Twitter, and a couple hours later somebody bought the music from Bandcamp. That’s exactly how it’s supposed to work! If that happened every time I’d be worth my weight in paid downloads, but I don’t think we’ll always be so fortunate. That’s why you have to stick with it, be consistent and casually persistent.

To make the story even better, the guy who bought the album is an artist/musician himself. Check out Kristian Purcell’s blog, which is also very well integrated into other social networks. Connecting with other musicians is inevitable.

If you’re not doing anything like this for yourself, what are you waiting for?

Last November, Lauren and I went down to Nashville for a few shows and meetings. It was a really productive trip and we knew we needed to go back, so we booked a show and made plans to work with a team of producers we met the first time around. Things didn’t go exactly as planned, but we still had a good trip.

We left NYC on January 28th and got to Nashville right as a huge winter storm was coming through. Nashville isn’t equipped for that kind of weather. The venue canceled our gig and the entire town closed shop. The roads were a mess. I think the news reported over 80 accidents that weekend. We spent most of the weekend snowed in at a friend’s apartment. The picture above, taken by Dannielle as everyone was winding down for the night, shows the living room full of temporary bedding surrounded by instruments and suitcases. Fairly typical of life on the road, when you’re lucky enough to have friends that let you crash at their apartment!

Even though our show was canceled, we decided to turn the living room into our own venue. Our friend Allison Weiss, who was supposed to play the show with us, set up a live video stream so we could perform via the internet. We spread the word using Twitter and played music for two hours to about 90 people, literally all over the world.

Lauren and I also enlisted the help of some of the girls to record another ukulele/mandolin cover song, Go West’s “King of Wishful Thinking”:

The following week we did a lot of writing and practicing new songs. There is a new Lauren Zettler album somewhere in the works, it’s just a matter of continuing to develop the new material. This time around, we’re enlisting the help of a couple producers to give us a fresh perspective on our music. We recorded one song on this trip, are really excited about how it’s sounding, and will make plans soon to return to Nashville and continue recording.

Meanwhile, I have a lot on my plate. I’ve been working on my trio album and just did some recording with Erika and Brad for a new Little Grey Girlfriend EP (or album, they’re not sure yet). I’ve also started playing mandolin for the City Billies. My first show with them is this Thursday, 2/18 at Southpaw in Brooklyn. For those of you in southern New Jersey, Lauren and I will be playing a benefit for St. Jude’s on Saturday with Bo Rains.

Stay tuned for more! Thanks for reading.

- Cameron

]]> http://www.cameronmizell.com/tour/recent-trip-to-nashville/feed/ 0 http://www.cameronmizell.com/guitar/building-my-pedalboard/ http://www.cameronmizell.com/guitar/building-my-pedalboard/#comments Wed, 20 Jan 2010 14:00:06 +0000 Cameron http://www.cameronmizell.com/?p=887 Warning: Today’s post is incredibly guitar-centric. Enjoy.

I’m not sure if it’s my distaste of digital multi-effects pedals or my lack of a gym membership, but I have come to terms with the fact that I will be dragging around a heavy pedalboard for the rest of my roadie-less career as an electric guitarist.  In the past I’ve given mobility higher priority than durability, yet as careful as I tried to be, the board took a beating and fell apart. So for the latest edition of my effects rig, I decided to go with something heavy duty and easily customized.

The old pedalboard.

Here’s my old board–a cheap wooden self-powered pedalboard that came with a gigbag style carrying case. The board itself is actually still in perfect working order (if you don’t mind the smell of stale booze), but the AC adapter that went from the board to the wall crapped out long ago (partially due to said booze), and the zipper on the gigbag has been smashed and scuffed so often it can’t be opened all the way (this too might have something to do with the booze). Getting set up and broken down before and after a set was becoming a huge hassle. You’ll also notice this thing is packed. I wanted to bring my Turbo Rat back into my life, so I needed more room!

PT-2 w/ hard case

After shopping around, I decided to go with the Pedaltrain PT-2 board with a heavy duty case. I’m confident the case will open quickly and easily every time I get on stage. The metal frame is about the same weight as my old wooden board, but it’s got room for more pedals. The only strike against it so far is that the spacing of the cross bars adds some limitations to the way you layout your pedals, especially smaller pedals. However, the spaces do allow your wiring to pass underneath, and the included zip-ties keep everything neat.

Attaching the power supply.

The PT-2 does not have a power supply. However, it is designed to easily accomodate Voodoo Lab’s Pedal Power underneath with a couple included brackets.

To attach the power supply:

Line this up the power supply so the cables will fit through the access holes on the PT-2. I plugged the cable in through the holes to help hold it in place while I marked the bracket’s holes for drilling.

Next you’ll have to drill 1/8″ pilot holes to mount the brackets. Barring any velcro related accidents, this is the most dangerous part of assembly. As we learned in shop class: Measure twice, drill once.

Once I got the power supply in place I started to line up my pedals. There are three things to consider when placing pedals on the board:

1) Are the switches easy to hit with your feet? (Hint: Think about the shoes you wear when you gig.)

2) Is there enough room to plug your cables into the pedals? Input, output, and power supply.

3) In what order do you want the signal to pass from the guitar to the amp?

On a board like this, #3 is less of a concern because I can run wires underneath, easily zig-zagging the whole board. Instead, I try to put the pedals that I turn on and off during songs in the front, to accomodate #1.

Velcro on the front of the pedal

My layout can also accomodate a few effects that I don’t use very often, but could easily loop in before the tuner, between the Rat and delay, between the EQ and AC Booster, or even after the volume pedal.

Once my layout was complete, I started putting velcro on the bottom of the the pedals, but not the board. Save that for the end.

One of the problems I’ve encountered in the past is the velcro’s adhesive not holding firm to the rubber bottoms of Boss pedals. As a remedy, I cut the velcro longer than was needed so about 1/4″ extra could wrap around either end. You’ll notice I had to cut the velcro around the power supply input.

Once all the pedals have velcro, it’s time to wire up. I’ve been using George L’s cables for a long time. These can be cut to exactly the sizes you need and do not require soldering. Instead, you just cut the cable to the desired length, insert it into the plug. When you bend it through the gap and screw the back on, it cuts the outer part of the cable and creates a connection.

Set the pedals on the board (remember, no velcro on the actual board yet) and start sizing up the distance from the first pedal in your signal chain to the second and so on. Remember, these don’t have to be sitting next to each other on the board. Cut your cables one at a time, and plug them in before you measure the next one. With George L’s, it’s better to measure too much and trim them down.

Test your patch cables along the way to make sure each one works before you go on!

Here is the signal chain for my board. See the final picture below and you’ll notice some zig-zagging happening under the board.

1. Boss TU-2 Chromatic Tuner
2. Boss GE-7 Equalizer
3. Xotic AC Booster
4. Dunlop Crybaby 95-Q
5. ProCo Turbo Rat
6. Boss DD-20 Giga Delay (w/ FS-5U for tap tempo)
7. Boss TR-2 Tremolo
8. Boss BF-3 Flanger
9. Ernie Ball VP Jr. Volume Pedal

Untied wires

One advantage of custom patch cables: Unlike the pre-manufactured variety, you can point the right angle connectors in any direction you please. Take advantage of this to avoid unnecessary twisting of your cables.

If George L’s don’t suit your fancy, there are other brands (such as Lava) that will do a similar thing. Alternately, your local guitar store probably sells instrument cable by the foot and a variety of connectors. Whatever you do, don’t go cheap. Once you get everything tied down there is nothing worse than trying to find a bad patch cable.

The next to last step is putting velcro on the board, attaching the pedals, and hooking up the power supply. Once again, I do this one pedal at a time and hook each one up along the way. This way it’s all nice and tight. And be sure to look at the instructions for your power supply, because certain pedals will need to be plugged into specific outputs.

Wiring tied down

With everything wired up and plugged in, test the board before tying down the cables. This is your last chance to catch any bad patch cables before the zip ties are in place!

Finally, use zip-ties to secure the loose wires and cables.  Keep the cables neat and as close to the board as possible, but don’t kink any of them or they’ll break down sooner.  If you do this well, the cables can add a little extra support in keeping the pedals in place.

Now we have a pedalboard ready for the road! Here’s the final result (click the image for a closer view):