Musical ideas to work on and pontificate

So I thought I'd jot down some more musical ideas.

I would become the drummer for the potential punk/metal band that friends wanna start. I really like drums and I was even thinking about buying a kit some months ago but ended up not doing it. I was supposed to buy a drum machine but I haven't done that yet either. Even the drum machine would be great to keep time because we have a bass and two guitars already.

Start a project with my drummer friend. This guy seems to be super into music and perhaps hes dedicated as as drummer as well. I'm not quite sure but what I do know is that he travels to a lot of shows. I have no idea as to what his musical skill level is at but I am curious. I had this great idea for a two man band just me and him where I do vocals and play guitar, something like the Black Keys or the White Stripes.

Jam with another guitarist. I know a guy that I met through a mutual friend that wants to jam with me. I'm shooting for a jam with him on Wednesday. All I know is that he sings and plays a stratocaster but he said he's down to play some jazz standards when we jam. Should be interesting. That same night I'll probably go to the open jam this week.

Open jam night attendance. I should definitely attend the open jam this week. I've been missing them the last few weeks and I want to play out, perhaps even sing a song while playing guitar. I was thinking something like George Harrison's My Sweet Lord. Or another simple easy Beatles tune like Come Together. If not I am also down to just jam out.

Contact the bass player I was working with a few weeks ago. I was actually working with a talented bass player but it seems I haven't been able to contact him for weeks after we got together and jammed a few times. It's a shame because he's probably the best bass player I've ever played with. I'll continue trying to reach him but at this point it seems like he doesn't want to work together.

Work on and write original songs with lyrics. I have been working on songs. A non-musical friend of mine wrote three songs of a pretty dark nature and sent me the lyrics and he wanted me to add music to it. I've been edited the lyrics to make the songs make more sense and have some kind of theme to it. I'll probably be done editing those songs soon and I'll try putting music to it. Then I'll record it with myself doing the vocals.

Listen to new music. I was thinking I could write more original and cool sounding music if I learn more about pop music. I want to start listening to rappers, pop singers, even country and bluegrass, and more indie rock stuff.

Record original stuff and learn Ableton more. I've taken a bit of a break away from recording because me and the producer I was working with finished one song and then I'm going to finish a short guitar solo for this other tune than I'm going to be done working with him. I was doing it all at night and I realized I'm not really at my best playing guitar and recording at night, especially because sometimes my dad is listening to other music or watching the news around that time. Trying to figure out good times to record during the afternoon but lately I'm either hanging out with friends or at work. Should be back at it soon though. I've still been practicing a lot of guitar everyday.

Play more acoustic guitar. Lately I've been getting into more acoustic guitar playing. Maybe further down the road I'll even buy an acoustic electric guitar. So much to do, so little time and money.

Spawning more musicians

So I've been pretty busy jamming acoustic guitars with my friends lately. I'm spawning more musicians! It doesn't get any better than that other than getting paid for playing music. This past weekend my friend and I went down to Guitar Center Sherman Oaks and he bought his first guitar. I helped him pick out this stunning Luna acoustic electric guitar that sounds really nice.

Today we were at another friends house and they were playing together. Basic acoustic guitar stuff like power chords and simple riffs. It was fun. The Luna sounds great when its plugged into an amp, we learned that today for sure. One of the coolest attributes about the Luna is the moon half moon inlays on the first couple fret markers and the artistic headstock it has. It has this sharpie look black art on the body that looks awesome. Its smooth.

One of them is already showing good signs as a guitarist. I feel like acoustic guitar is better for beginners so I told my friend he would be better off with an acoustic electric that way he could still buy an amp later and plug it in, or buy an electric later once he's got the basics down. He wanted this Schecter electric that sounded so deep and bass-y (because of super heavy strings) but in the end we decided not to go with it. I told him it was a much more metal sort of guitar that's more about playing in drop c or c sharp and chugging metal riffs on the low strings. Definitely not his forte yet.

Usually when I hang out with friends we always play guitar now. In a way I've become kind of a guitar sempai because I'm taken up a teacher role even though that wasn't necessarily what I wanted. I wanted them to work a lot more on the guitar themselves but so far the guys only really play when I'm around. We have a friend that me and my other friend bought a bass for and he had a circuit problem with the pickups and he hasn't played it much ever since despite me telling him that they can fix his sound issue for as little as twenty bucks. 

The original idea was that me and two other friends would eventually create a metal band. The other two guys were suppose to practice their instruments and eventually get to like a beginner punk/metal level of musicianship. Then I would help out with supplying riffs and/or vocals. Its a great idea but its going to take a lot longer than I originally anticipated so that's why I'm working super hard recording and collaborating with other musicians.

I have been able to get some musical works with my friends though so its not like nothings been done. My metal band project will take a while because the guys need to learn how to play better and how to play fast clean but I have other friends and one of them wrote three songs. We even recorded vocals and guitar parts for them already with this super nice microphone that I bought. His vocals aren't the best because he isn't a musician but we did get to test out the mic and the quality was good.

I'm going to give his songs a bunch of edits and possibly rewrite and draft the songs again and see if I can give them more of a indie rock punk sorta vibe. As we recorded it was an indie rock kind of sound but it needs more bite, attack to it if you will. It needs a punk edge to it because the songs are dark.

So all together I'm working with two guitar players in the learning process (one pretty far along that already knows basic chords at the nut), a bass player in training (but still has a long way to go), and a songwriter that works on lyrics. Maybe in the end I'll have the whole Valley working with me on music haha. I have been jamming with a really talented bass player that I used to work with too but it seems that a lot of the time I can't get in contact with him. I rely on texting to contact him and sometimes it doesn't work. Calling never works either.

My main goal right now is to put up some solo guitar stuff, mostly jazz standards. I found out tonight that my Reverbnation account https://www.reverbnation.com/landofigueroaandtheelectricsaxophone?profile_view_source=header_icon_nav is ranked 70 on the indie jazz chart even though all that's on there is low quality jams of things I recorded back in 2015. I'm thinking of replacing what's on there with some better quality music, mostly jazz standards. With my current setup I can record multiple guitar tracks and do a sort of guitar orchestra type of thing. I want to have something up online soon, I'll post when I have it done.

Spawn additional music makers.

Ideas for music projects

So I'm planning on buying recording equipment soon and I figured I'd write some ideas down. That's what a blog is for right? Ideas and stuff. Here I'd like to outline some ideas I have for recording and/or music styles that I want to aim at working on. First and foremost I'll mostly be recording guitar and bass and be using a drum machine for drums so the music will be limited to just those three instruments at first. Oh yeah I'll probably also be singing. I'll have to sing because just instrumental music won't work if I want to get more attention. Now onto ideas for style.

Jazz Fusion-This would be the easiest thing for me to work on because I know jazz (but am no means a master) but I know enough to write some heads, changes, and I can improvise pretty well. I actually used to write jazz fusion tunes on music manuscript paper back when I was a kid in high school. This seems like the best bet. I could have it written down on sheet music and it would be easy to show other musicians. Plus I love fusion, its what got me into jazz originally.

Black Metal-I played in a metal band back when I lived in Wisconsin but it was more of a nu-metal kind of sound. More hardcore too. Think breakdowns meet Alice in Chains. I want to play metal but metal that is less based on technique and more based on soul but still gives off that evil sinister vibe that you get from bands like Mayhem. The term black metal to me is much more inclusive because of newer metal bands. I'm particularly speaking about my favorite metal bands from Sweden (sorry Opeth) Tribulation and Ghost. Ghost has an almost pop vibe to their brand of metal and Tribulation has a psychedelic sound but retains that characteristic metal vocals. I will probably start singing and writing vocals to achieve this.

Indie Rock- So this is another style I used to dabble in a bit as a songwriter back in high school. I used to write these songs based on vocals. The vocals always came first and then I'd write the changes to the words. Pretty good way of songwriting actually. Anyways, the songs were always of a popular nature, usually critique on society in some way. Too bad I lost all those songs. I'm a huge indie rock fan so working on this kind of material would be a good fit.

EDM/Electronic-This is a style I'm interested in because it sounds good. I like all the fake synthesizer instruments and computer generated sounds. Some purist musicians think it sounds like shit (can't blame 'em) but I think it sounds hip. This would be an easy style to get into because I already have a computer and laptop but at the same time I don't know how to use the programs. Who's to say I can't find someone who does though?

Rap/Hip Hop-Another style I'm interested in dabbling in. Mostly because of the Nujabes influence. I would never rap a day in my life but who's to say I wouldn't be down to play with a rapper? Also, I like the idea of rap beat instrumentals.

I guess the important thing to consider about all of this is the fact that I have to write songs and keep doing it until I become good and then keep getting better. Long road ahead of me. I'm already a pretty good guitar player and musician but I haven't written an original song since I was in high school. I've been playing popular tunes for a long time. Its back to the drawing board-literally.

Wish me luck