The Song Fight Bulletin Board

Bjam wrote:Specifically, what's yours? Do you have a degree in music? Did you just get an instrument and start bashing it? Ever been in a band? Ever done music stuff proffessionally? How did you get into music?

When I was 16, my best friend decided that we should start a band. We borrowed a Sears Silvertone bass guitar and amp from his neighbor, and despite lots of lowgrade electric shocks I recieved from the pair, I learned to play the bass guitar. The first and second songs I ever learned to play were "Pretty Vacant" by the Sex Pistols and "You Really Got Me" by the Kinks. I forget which was first and which was second.

He taught me how to make barre chords, and another friend of mine taught me how to make all the lame open chords about a year later. I practiced on other people's guitars until I was given my first guitar free of charge when I was in college by someone who learned that it was stolen and was nervous about being in posession of stolen property. I played the crap out of that guitar, despite it being a piece of crap. I just barely sold it last year. I was in a band about 7 years ago that played maybe like 4 or 5 drunken shows. I was in a band about 2 years ago that played maybe 2 or 3 not so drunken shows.

In 1994 after getting attacked by a group of assholes out for some random violence, I walked the two miles back home in shock singing to myself. It was the first time I think I'd sung in years. The next day, with my face properly broken and my ribs hurting from where they were kicking me I picked up the guitar and starting learning how to play.

I lived in a public boarding school and there was a guy a couple doors down who knew every single Beatles song and showed me how to play chords. I think the first song I learned was Plush by Stone Temple Pilots.

I began recording on a crappy 140lb single track tape deck, and if anyone ever wishes to blackmail me, all you have to do is aquire a copy of these tapes. Oh... my... god... was I awful.

But within three years I was in college and a friend and me did a monthly open mic night that had a $50 prize which we won every time until they shut it down because only three people would ever compete and no one else showed up .

Then I just kept playing until hearing "Golfpunk drives a Cadillac" on songfight. I then started saving up money and for the first time was able to think about how to compose layers and harmonies. I submitted a crappy song for "Piece of my heart" which the fightmaster thankfully ignored. After buying a decent computer and a Boss BR-8 I submitted "Need Stilts" and the rest is the rest.

Let's see... started violin in the 4th grade, then clarinet in the 5th grade, public school orchestra/band. Took a couple years of for-real private lessons on violin and then dropped it in junior high school because I couldn't play "Fiddler on the Roof" yet. Took a couple years of for-real private lessons on piano (classical) until I discovered jazz, stopped taking lessons, and started teaching myself to play standards from lead sheets. At some point in here my mom taught me some guitar chords, I wrote some really bad songs; taught myself the to play "Wish You Were Here" from some tabs I found online and "Summer of Love" by Peter Nelson; and learned how to play ninth chords and the blues in A. I can still do some of that, when nobody is watching. My sister though, she can play "Greensleeves" the way James Taylor plays it, because that's how she rolls.

Kept up the clarinet through high school with marching band, concert band. Got some sax fingering charts and taught myself alto and tenor so that they would let me into jazz band. Wanked around with the drum set at school, much to the dismay of anyone present at the time. By senior year, managed to schedule half of my classes in the band room, and divided the time equally between homestarrunner.com and teaching myself to play brass instruments (trumpet, flugel, trombone). Brass was a lot of fun but it's terrible for my clarinet embouchre so I had to stop. By that time the high school marching band was so desperate for brass players that the other drum major (a flautist) and I were playing flugel at football games.

Went to a summer program at Berklee all through high school, learning how to improvise and play jazz clarinet. Also learned a shitload of music theory. Studied classically during the school year with a professor from Berklee who volunteered his time for a local mentoring program, but did not practice. Confounded my math and science teachers by applying only to Berklee, and somehow managed to land a full tuition scholarship. Maybe they needed a Jew. They haven't taken it away from me yet, anyway. (Still Jewish.)

Was introduced to SongFight! by friends of mine during the Direct to Helmet fight. Played cowbell for them, turned an incomplete entry into a crappy gag that at least Eddiebangs got a kick out of (Goodbye Monster), lurked, submitted another crappy gag for ABCD Puppies, lurked, had a blast when Song Fight Live 2005 came to my hometown. Still lurking. Currently in the middle of my third year at Berklee, pursuing a bachelor's of music, majoring in film scoring, principal instrument clarinet.

The first music I can remember liking is the music to Doom and the Super mario series. My first really positive encounter with non-game music was when my friends and I discovered Napalm Death in 4th grade thanks to the Mortal Kombat movie soundtrack (I'm pretty sure this is one of the most crucial points in my life).
Around 5th grade i was making music on my PC using Sound Recorder. I didn't have a mic, or any instruments, so I took sound effects from games and movies and chopped them up/layered them (again, this is all in Sound Recorder). I remember making beats with the Doom shotgun sound and samples of the demons from Evil Dead. Un/fortunately, those files are gone.
By the time I reached high school i had real software and began making experimental electronic music. Around this time I was also taking piano lessons, which I hated. I was the pianist in the school Jazz band, which was a pretty good time.
Eventually I started recording non-electronic music as well. I found Songfight, etc.
Currently I'm halfway through my sophomore year of college, working on a degree in music composition.

abecedarian wrote:In 1994 after getting attacked by a group of assholes out for some random violence, I walked the two miles back home in shock singing to myself. It was the first time I think I'd sung in years. The next day, with my face properly broken and my ribs hurting from where they were kicking me I picked up the guitar and starting learning how to play.

.

I like that story. It reminds anyone that music can heal the soul... cheesy cheesy I know, but IT's STILL FUCKIN TRUE in my world. Did you ever make it a song? Cause if not... it could rip.

Leaf wrote:Did you ever make it a song? Cause if not... it could rip.

If you've ever heard Tori Amos' "Me and a Gun", it was something to that effect in terms of the melody, but the words were just gobeldeygook. Now having listened to "Me and a Gun" I don't think there's any way I can honestly reconstruct the song I was singing without feeling that it was more about some sort of derivative melodrama than capturing how we cling to music in tough times.

Thanks for the suggestion, maybe it'll bubble up one day (you know how songs like to be)...

It's all KISS' fault

I always liked music as a kid and was always slightly off the beaten track. I grew up in a house full of R&B, especially Motown and found myself attracted to the one Queen 45 we owned. As I got older, I became obsessed with music. My parents would want to go to church and I'd bitch about not being able to make it home to listen to Casey's Top 40. See, I was fascinated with music charts. I was the owner of many dog earred copies of Joel Whitburn's Billboard Book of Top 40 hits (and I would memorize the stuff).

1989 came around and KISS released "Forever" and were back on the Top 40. A music chart show called "Smash Hits" ran a contest to go along with KISS' new success. It was a song contest and the winner would get to record a song with KISS. At all of 12 years old, I had no shot but I went for it anyway and put together my first band, The New Breed. I only had experience playing the trombone in the school band and had borrowed the next door neighbor's bass guitar. I got my pals Jason (drums) and Sam (vocals) to join in. The result was an ugly din that we never sent in to Smash Hits but that started my desire to have a real band.

A few months later, I would get the chance to learn guitar in school and I ran with it. By 1992, I had a few more crazy bands under my belt (with genius names like The Barrier) and I finally really started settling into what I really wanted to do musically. I decided that I loved acoustic guitars over electric. Eric Clapton came out with Unplugged and I decided that he was the only person who could pull off acoustic guitar solo that don't sound like plink-plink-plunk so I became a rhythm guitar. And my love of The Cure and Concrete Blonde was in full swing so all my music got very dark and brooding.

Went through a couple more bands with each getting better. Finally met up with a girl named Faryl and we became Fear Of Sleep. Faryl and my wife Charly were both very integral in getting me to really start crafting my music into something of worth. Eventually Faryl went off to be a great actress and I ended up in a bit of a musical limbo. I needed something to fire me up again. And that's when I found Songfight. I heard "Need Stilts" by G'n'R and was amazed. I had found a wonderful community of songwriters. And Niveous was born....

Grew up in a classical/jazz-oriented household, although I've found some of my dad's old ELP and Yes albums. Started piano in second grade, bassoon in sixth, and various saxophones since about seventh grade. I've been gigging on all of those (well, not piano) since about tenth grade or so. I picked up a cheapo acoustic guitar about a month and a half ago. I'm getting a solid recording soundcard pretty soon here and I'm looking into a decent microphone and pre-amp as well.

I have a confession to make: the first CD I ever owned was the Backstreet Boys... I was young, not-cool, and confused, alright? Not to say that I'm not any of those things now. Had to get that off of my chest anyway.

I didn't get seriously into listening to music, classical or otherwise, until about tenth or eleventh grade. My radio was always tuned to Rangers games in the summer, and they used to play a piece of that "Centerfield" song during the pregame show... anyway, that's one of my strongest early musical memories. Of course, my parents were always in the local community bands and jazz bands and listening to the classical radio station and such but I don't know, I just never really caught to the music-listening thing myself, mostly because a lot of the stuff that they play on classical radio is just boring. Light classical... pssh.

A few musical highlights in my life:

1) playing the Nutcracker with the Pensacola Symphony a few years back
2) listening to Spiderland for the first time
3) the discovery that I really did, in fact, want a guitar these past few years when I thought I wanted a guitar but also thought I'd get bored with it. I haven't.

Thanks for the thread, Bjam. It's nice. Wallowing in memory, mmm.

Niveous wrote:It's all KISS' fault

Dude,
I blame all my failings on KISS too.
It started when I was a little kid and I seen this guy on TV rolling around, spitting blood, wearing an evil costume and demon makeup, playing a guitar.
I remember thinkg to myself....'I wanna do THAT'

and then when I was older I watched a documovie called 'decline of western civilisation' And in it Paul Stanley assured me I could live like this.........
he said it whilst lying on a bed with 3 ...yup 3 scantily clad model types

I took him at his word, and practiced till my fingers hurt.

BASTARDS....Kiss lied to me

Mom listened to lots of Beethoven and Mozart and Bach and Stravinsky. First album I had was the Hermans Hermits. I loved the Beatles since I was very young and started guitar lessons when I was 8 to learn Beatles songs. I learned that Beatles songs are very very hard. I took jazz lessons (ala Wes Montgomery) in the junior high years, and classical guitar the last two years of high school.

First band was The Harmful Fumes (from the notice on Elmer's Glue "Contains no harmful fumes"), and on our first gig we won a talent show in 8th grade playing Lucy In the Sky With Diamonds, and Rocky Racoon. Also scored...uh...met my first girl friend because of that.

Played in an Aerosmith/Hendrix cover band, and then jazz band in high school. High school also was full of various avante gard ensembles (ala Fred Frith, David Allen, whack Zappa). All the while listening to Zappa, Yes, Genesis, Gentle Giant, Yes, King Crimson, Yes, and the Beatles. And John McLaughlin. And Stanley Clarke. And Stravinsky. And Yes.

Studied electronic music and theory for three years in high school. Got an undergrad degree in classic guitar and theory. Then studied with various guitarists or played in master classes (Robert Fripp, Leo Brouwer, David Starobin).

Had various bands with a close friend over many years playing originals that he and I wrote. Sort of prog pop. Then virtually stopped playing whilst building a career in publishing technologies. Was digging back into playing when I stumbled across Somesongs and then Songfight.

Now I finally really enjoy making music.

"Peter Edwards - Guitar. Peter has worked as a Brisbane-based professional guitarist for the past twenty years. Throughout this time he has performed in numerous acts covering rock, blues, jazz, funk, soul, folk, country and cabaret in original ensembles and covers bands. Live touring acts have taken Peter throughout Queensland, Australia and Europe, and he has been involved in television, film soundtrack and session recording work. Peter is currently performing throughout South-East Queensland with the Dave Ritter Band/duo and a jazz/blues duo, Caravan Ray."
http://www.queenslandmusicfestival.com. ... ronic.html

This Caravan Ray seems to have a better musical pedigree than me - so let's just pretend I'm him...(I can't believe there are only 2 Caravan Ray's on the internet - and we both live in Brisbane!)

roymond wrote: Was digging back into playing when I stumbled across Somesongs and then Songfight.

really, in that order? i could've sworn you were around before somesongs...

jb wrote:

roymond wrote: Was digging back into playing when I stumbled across Somesongs and then Songfight.

really, in that order? i could've sworn you were around before somesongs...

Yes, I heard Brick Pig's Tiny Room. Found some link to it on Somesongs, somehow. That led to downloading the month's highest rated, which included many SF legends. Which made me wonder...what is this Songfight! thing they speak of? Years of therapy later and I still don't know.

1962 - I am born - "The Lion Sleeps Tonight" is number one on Billboard charts
1966 - Mom starts me in piano lessons, age 4. Hated it.
1975 - Gave it up at 13 FINALLY
1980 - Started up again secretly at 18 (so my mom wouldn't find out and bug me to take lessons again)
1980-1982 - Wrote 150 songs from age 18-20. All but 7 sucked. I have recordings of every last one still.
1982-1986 Studied composition at U of Washington. Got degree in music history so I could graduate before turning 90.
1985 Got interested in musicals, started writing them
1985-1998 Got about to the triple-A leagues in that fallow biz.
2002 Burned out on musicals, realized I actually hated them all these years
2002 In the depths of the dot com depression, spammed the entire Puget Sound area with resumes. Spud was a lucky recipient, and brought me in for an interview, ostensibly about a job but probably actually because I had music stuff on my resume too. Spud told me about Songfight. Played Octothorpe for me at the interview.
2003 - Began doing the Songfight thang
2011 - Attempted suicide after losing court battle over U2's plagiarism of my Songfight song "Accelerator"
2014 - Fresh out of rehab, I win lottery. Purchase Songfight from Spud and JB for 8 million dollars
2014 - Songfight shuts down due to my business ineptitude surrounding the botched co-marketing deal with Dinty Moore Beef Stew - 2nd attempted suicide
2016 - Start learning harmonica
2019 - Start touring as the lead player in the Little Stevie Wonder Tribute Band


But this is a nice opportunity to show off my exciting wholly-template-driven Front Page web site.

See here to read my history.

Jim of Seattle wrote:Spud... played Octothorpe for me at the interview.

That's probably the coolest thing I've ever heard.

I was going to say the same thing. Even though I'm not that big a fan, if I went to an interview and my potential boss played me Octothorpe, it would make my day.

the Jazz wrote:I was going to say the same thing. Even though I'm not that big a fan, if I went to an interview and my potential boss played me Octothorpe, it would make my day.

I have a job interview tomorrow. Does Octothorpe have any links to the New South Wales government? I better just listen to some anyway, just in case...

abecedarian wrote:I submitted a crappy song for "Piece of my heart" which the fightmaster thankfully ignored.

now THERE is a songfight suggestion with merit. fightmaster, from now on, just ignore everyone's first entry.

I learned piano when I was like 6 up until about 13ish ... learned recorder in grade 6, trombone in grade 7 (played it until grade 10), tuba in grade 8, drums in grade 8, and most recently learned guitar in grade 11. I still mess around with keyboards and stuff, since I have at least basic knowledge of how to use them ... I don't play recorder anymore, and I quit band class after being sick of all the cliques. Band really bugged me ... so I joined Dr. Spectacular's Power Circus as a drummer ... I'm pretty sure that even with all those other instruments, drumming will always be my passion. Then Jeff Henderson introduced me to songfight, and I try to record songs. That's my musical background in a nutshell.

Rone Rivendale wrote:I don't play any insturments and I can't sing. But I can make music on the computer and rap to it.

No you can't.

Denyer wrote:

Rone Rivendale wrote:I don't play any insturments and I can't sing. But I can make music on the computer and rap to it.

No you can't.

You'd appreciate Rone's rapping if you heard me rap. The first song I ever recorded was an attempt at rap, as I used to enjoy rap far more than I do now. I listened to it the other day, and not only did my production suck even more than it does now, my rapping was TERRIBLE! Maybe someday I'll pick up on how to do it, but for now, there's going to be no rap going on for JR.

jolly roger wrote:

Denyer wrote:

Rone Rivendale wrote:I don't play any insturments and I can't sing. But I can make music on the computer and rap to it.

No you can't.

You'd appreciate Rone's rapping if you heard me rap. The first song I ever recorded was an attempt at rap, as I used to enjoy rap far more than I do now. I listened to it the other day, and not only did my production suck even more than it does now, my rapping was TERRIBLE! Maybe someday I'll pick up on how to do it, but for now, there's going to be no rap going on for JR.

I wish Rone would have the same attitude.