Building Your Band

A better conversation about music, with David Loftis and Peter Bulanow

Toto Masterclass

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When we hold a workshop, we start out by talking about the roles for each instrument. Knowing the role of each instrument goes far to inform what everyone should play.

But even without that understanding, we have clear examples of the kinds of things we should play all around us: original studio tracks. If your playing doesn’t line up with basically the kinds of things you hear on records, you may be overplaying.

Session players are the ones that get the call to play in the studio while the tape is rolling and there are a bunch of people sitting around charging by the minute for their time – when you need to get it right the first time. Toto is a band that formed out of session players – so in many ways, they are a textbook.

This is a breakdown of a famous song of Toto’s from the 80’s called “Rosanna” which you can read all about at the wikipedia page. Other than the fact the announcers talk too much over the tracks, this really does go far to break down just how little is needed, yet how significant each contribution is. If your playing is significantly different than what is on here, it’s time to rethink some things.

A couple things jump out at me listening to this:

Jeff Porcaro on Drums – he is famous for just playing the groove and not playing a lot of fills. My kind of drummer, and exactly what you need most Sunday mornings.

Steve Porcaro on Keys – This really is textbook keyboard playing. Something as simple as a roll down at the right time can shift the whole song.

Steve Lukather on Guitar – Note just how tasteful his playing is when called to play rhythm. Don’t be afraid to step out a little when asked to solo.

Vocal Harmonies – Everything should start out with melody. You build harmonies slowly. Blend is everything. You can actually get away with a lot of harmonies if you’re tasteful and intentional.

Finally, everybody uses contrasts to make certain things speak, and other things lay back.

What jumps out at you?

Season 1 Remix | Kaleidoscope Edition

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While recording and editing the first 18 episodes of the podcast, I began to notice some of the content commented on some of the other content. I began to think how awesome it might be to hear these ideas back-to-back, remixed into a super-episode, which would demonstrate both the importance of the ideas, as well as some of the different ways they’re approached. When my amazing wife suggested I do a “kaleidoscope” edition, I poured through all 18 episodes, finding clips to put together, resulting in this fascinating overview of Season 1.  Special thanks to all my guests who shared their quality content.

If you missed Season 1 of the Building Your Band podcast, this is a great way to catch up! It is also an invitation to go back and revisit specific episodes.

I would love to hear your comments right in the Soundcloud stream or below in the comments section. For all the episodes past and future, subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher!

Season 2 will be coming soon! Please contact me if you would like to be featured!

“Almighty“- Produced, Mixed & Mastered by Peter Bulanow | http://meltingearth.com

Featuring: Taylor Carson | http://taylorcarson.com
Additional Vocals:  Eileen Graham | http://eileengrahammusic.com
Cello: Michael Thomas | facebook.com/CelloMT
Bass: Aron “Teo” Lee | facebook.com/teo.lee

Special thanks to all the musicians for their collaboration, and to Dan Rebeiz (http://danieljackproductions.com) for his advice and mentorship.

Eileen Graham, ‘Wax On, Wax Off”

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Eileen’s love for singing is the subtext throughout this episode during which she surveys the typical range of vocal responsibilities in a church – that of worship leader and backing vocalist – and contrasts both of those with the role of the soloist.

Eileen goes on to provide all kinds of ideas for how to improve as a vocalist and how churches can be more effective in employing songs to facilitate worship.

For vocal lessons with Eileen, or to find out more, please visit her website at: EileenGrahamMusic.com.

Connect on Twitter & Facebook, and check out her Youtube page for videos.

Buy her music at iTunes or Amazon.

Playing the Mic

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I generally haul in $5k of hardware and $5k of software when I play a keyboard gig, even if I have access to a house grand piano. An electric guitarist probably has as much investment in what he is doing. A drum kit is in the neighborhood of $10k, and a good acoustic guitar is at least $5k. A good cello is more. Setting up all of that equipment takes a bit of time. Loading in and setting up a keyboard or guitar rig probably takes twenty minutes, a drum kit even more. We show up early; it comes with the territory.

Backing vocalists, by comparison, have no equivalent investment to make either financially or in set up. Quite honestly, it seems like sometimes their commitment suffers because they have so little skin in the game. The one investment they could make, that I argue they should make, is in selecting and owning their own microphone.

A microphone is very personal thing. Not only is it very close to your lips, allowing it to serve a dual purpose as both a germ repository and a voice-amplifying device, but not all microphones pair equally well with all voices. Each kind of mic has its own frequency response, its own dynamics, its own proximity effect. All of these are things that a vocalist should care about, and should ideally be matched to the voice.

Vocalists commonly refer to their voice as their “instrument”. By analogy, that would make my fingers my instrument. My fingers are what I warm up; they have the muscle memory. However, I would argue that the piano or keyboard is my instrument. Similarly, I argue a microphone is the instrument that a vocalist actually plays, that converts what their body does to electrical sound that goes down to a mixing board. Even if you don’t like my comparison on the basis that my fingers don’t actually create sound but vocal chords do, a carefully matched microphone is the last step a vocalist could and should take to impact their sound.

If you find yourself singing through a standard SM 58, or even a much improved Beta 58, you really owe it to yourself to check out a Beta 87A if you use traditional monitors, or Beta 87C if you use in-ear monitors.

BGVs

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If you were to ask me who has the better voice – lead vocalists or the background vocalists – I wouldn’t hesitate to say that background vocalists have the better set of pipes. Making sense of that requires that you understand these are really really different job descriptions. A great set of pipes is not what being a frontman is all about.

The DVD 20 feet from stardom (netflix streaming) does an incredible job of exploring that space, that tension, and is a great follow-on to “All This Time” by Sting.

I’ll be honest and say that my guilty pleasure is putting the background singers in my monitor. The truth is I can’t afford to put them in my monitor, I need to be listening to the  guitars and the kick and hat, but if I possibly can, I do. Shshshsh.

 

 

 

Serving the song as … [vocalists]

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Why do we have multiple vocalists? Any ideas?

Are they there to detract from the person fronting?  No. They remain the focal point.

Are they there to detract from the melody? No. That’s the main thing.

So why are they there?

They are there to make the lead vocalists sound good and fresh once our ears grow tired of their voice (which happens no matter how good they sound). So we probably don’t want any backing vocalists until that happens. We may not need to hear backing vocalists on the first verse at all. When they do join in, they shouldn’t sing a harmony unless the melody for that part has already been established.

One alternative is to start by singing unison for a while, and then give the lead plenty of chance to shine once again on their own before coming back in. But only do harmonies once the melody is well established!

Now a choir is a true gift! That being said, we probably don’t need to hear a choir sing the same thing on all four verses of a song. Once we’ve heard something once, we’re good. So why not pull out on the first two verses and come in with ooooohs or in unison on the third, and then bring full volume and harmonies on the fourth? Or just punctuate a song with several well chosen phrases? Or make a grand entrance when we loop the chorus after the bridge and the band drops down to just kick on 2 & 4… and then sing it out in full voice with the band. In my mind, that’s what the gates of heaven opening sounds like!

The possibilities are endless with a choir, but because they are such a big instrument, it’s so easy to just let them fill all the space, all the time, and quite honestly, even a choir can get boring.

Arranging vocals is a full time job. Much intentionality is required to do it right, and keep everyone sounding their best.

Keeping the main thing the main thing

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A few years back, before the era of DAWs, I was living not far from Nashville and took the opportunity to mix a MIDI project (that I had developed all on a Korg M1) at a “real Nashville studio”. It was one of the smaller recording studios, but still had records from Amy Grant, MWS, Larnelle Harris, and the Imperials up on the wall (that had, at least in part, been recorded there). It was a great and increasingly rare experience to have had, particularly in today’s age of home studios.

Back to my story…the engineer spent a fair amount of time mixing an instrumental track, and it was sounding great, ready for a lead vocal to go over the top of it. One problem though – there never was going to be a lead vocal. The song certainly had a melody line, often played by a solo instrument, but the engineer had apparently gone into auto-pilot and mixed the music as he normally does as a sound track with space for a lead vocal.

Once I figured out what was going on, I had to step up and discuss this with him. He cautioned me that perhaps I had “demo lust” (that affliction whereby you are asking for a professional mix, but really just want it to sound like the demo), but I assured him it wasn’t that, it was just that the melody wasn’t speaking. Several hundred dollars later, we had a great mix I could live with.

Making sure the melody speaks (is louder) is one of those things that gets drilled into you with piano lessons. When you get to a certain level, you even get to the point where you’re expected to voice the melody within a hand i.e. while playing other notes, even if other notes are above the melody. I can’t say I was ever highly successful at this, but I am at least aware of it (thanks, Alfreda Winninger!)

The lesson to learn is an important one, and one we have yet to learn well. As obvious as it may seem, as cliched as the title to this piece is, we have to be deliberate when we introduce harmonies, and ensure those harmonies never obscure the melody.

There are a number of practical steps we can take to ensure the melody speaks. Perhaps don’t use harmony vocals on the first verse at all so that everyone can learn the song (even the visitors!). If we need backing vocals on the chorus, sing them in unison with the melody the first time. Only after the melody is well established, should we introduce harmonies, and then, never let the harmonies be voiced louder than the melody (sound engineer – I’m looking your direction)!