Like I explained a long time ago before, improvisation is the most overlooked technique in music whether either playing live on the stage or in the studio. I think the reason is that a lot of musicians don’t understand improv. A lot of musicians find it too difficult for them. I’m not the best at improv yet but I wanna be someday and am working on it, practicing my ear training skills. My goal is to one day become an improv master on guitar! Whether you agree with it or not, improv is the most important part of music. So many bands don’t wanna write songs or play guitar solos in that way. That’s why I prefer to mostly listen to a lot of jam band stuff and rock n’ roll from the 70’s ’cause they did all the improv work in their music. That’s why I love bands such as the Dead, Phish, Led Zep, Hendrix, etc. Bands that just simply love to jam.

Why bands shouldn’t really ignore improvisation??? I can think of 5 reasons…

• Improv will make you better musicians – When you get up to that point when you can play everything you hear that is when you’ll be ready to be called an actual musician. You’ll get more respect from other musicians around you too if you can follow everything they’re doing.
• It makes music more unpredictable and more interesting – I can’t stand written guitar solos ’cause you already know what’s going to come up ahead. If you improvise stuff and wing it out, you’ll never know what’s coming. Whatever comes from your mind and from the heart. That’s why I prefer to listen to a lot of virtuoso guitar players ’cause they are all unpredictable guitar players.
• It makes live performances even more fun – Longer solos and more jamming will for sure, put a thrill to your audience at a gig. A lot of people make assumptions that people get bored at really long solos. Not exactly true. As long as you can play guitar really well, they won’t mind the long solo jams and the audience will stick through them as long as the solos are musical and tasteful.
• You don’t have to sing much – The best part of long jamming and improv is that you don’t have to sing a whole lot. It’ll give you a nice break from the vocals. If you listen to jam band music and rock n’ roll from the 70’s… you would notice they don’t write too many lyrics in their songs ’cause all they wanna do is jam most of the time.
• It’s just an important technique that all musicians should do – Improv is an important technique ’cause if you wanna become a professional musician, you gotta know some improv. If you don’t know anything about it, then you’re screwed. There are way too many musicians out there playing in bands who don’t know anything about improv, they just write everything beforehand. If you play with other musicians and then they start playing for no reason, you get lost, what are you gonna do? This is why you have to learn to train your ears. When you get out there playing music with other professionals, other musicians are gonna expect you to have a good ear.

I’m trying the best I can to become that kind of guitar player. Ear training is pretty challenging. It takes years to have a good ear, it doesn’t happen over night. You have to memorize the sound of each note in your head and it’s tough to do. The key to getting good at ear training is knowing what the intervals sound like. After you memorize the sound of the intervals, you’ll be able to play just about anything.

I know bands just wanna get together and play but telling everybody what chords to play or what key to play in is not the way to do it in my opinion. Bands would just get together and play songs right off the bat just out of jamming on them. Just start playing and off you go. I respect bands who can play like that. Who just get together and play just about anything and everything. They don’t just sit down writing stuff on paper. They just rock out!

I love improv music. That’s what I prefer to listen to the most. It’s why I love to listen to a lot of live albums ’cause they are more exciting to listen to than studio albums.

Kev

Another big thing that seems to be happening more lately around the Capital Region’s music scene are local bands and solo artists opening for famous national touring acts. A lot of musicians want to mistakenly believe that is the holy grail of success. Meaning, once they get that opportunity… they’ll jerk themselves off with their accomplishments by thinking that’s a huge step in the right direction to getting signed, they’ll think they’re big and successful and I can go on and on. Don’t get me wrong. Opening for a national band may sound pretty exciting but it’s really nothing all that special. Opening for a national act is not that big of a deal as I’ll just treat it like a regular local gig if I ever get that opportunity. I don’t think I would care to get something like that to begin with. If I wanted to open for a big national act… I would open for somebody who I would like and admire. Somebody who I’m a big fan of. Local bands & musicians would open for any random national act just because they are nationally famous. A local band would open for any national act even if they know nothing about them. They’ll take that opportunity anyway hoping that will help move them forward to the next level and hoping that’ll get them signed. If I get asked to open for somebody big & famous, I’m not gonna jump on the opportunity right away. I’ll want to know who I’m opening for and if I like this band’s music enough. I would turn it down if I don’t agree with it.

Opening for a national act may give you a little more exposure, yes, no doubt about that; however, you’re still a local band. That’s the thing with local musicians. They think once they get that opportunity and after they performed that gig, they’ll think they’re the world’s biggest music star or something. To be honest, you already have been successful even before then. You got success just by making the music and attracting fans who support it.

In my opinion, success in music is not getting signed to a label or opening for famous acts. Success is making the music and getting people to like it. Bands are pretty obsessed with big opportunities and you don’t have to be. Bands shouldn’t focus on trying to get fame. They need to focus on making the art for the fans who helped get them up there to begin with. They think opening for national acts means a lot to them but with me, it would be pretty meaningless. Not important.

I would enjoy it, sure, and would have fun opening for someone famous but I wouldn’t go acting like it’s the biggest thing that ever happened to me, ya know?

I’m more worried about writing the good songs and that’s all I’ll care about the most.

Kev

There is a facebook group that is aimed toward local musicians around the Capital Region’s music scene. A facebook group (or a forum as I would rather call it) which is for musicians to get together to discuss how to move forward in your careers. There was a guy that should be nameless at this time who tried to promote this well-known solo-artist (he should be nameless too) by saying “This (solo artist) here is a good example of moving forward in your career…” and kept going on and on about how great this solo artist is. Next thing you know a few other musicians in this forum started to criticize this solo artist that this guy tried to promote. The other musicians were saying that they don’t like the way this guy promotes himself online. On how this solo artist begs/demands for support and promotes himself everywhere. These other musicians were saying how this solo artist has an egotistical way of promoting himself. This solo artist expects to be supported by everyone as if he was saying, “Here I am, like me”. That type of promotion.

Then I get immediately into it and joined in on the action by saying that I agree with those guys and wrote in some more of my thoughts. I started criticizing this solo artist’s music, his attitude, professionalism, etc. Sure enough, this nameless solo artist blocked me from facebook. The guy who tried to promote this solo artist got into a heated argument with me. He was defending this solo artist like he was a die-hard fan. A fanboy type.

Later on in the discussion, I’ve had a few more musicians giving me the thumbs up on my comments and even had one other musician who said they agreed with everything. This guy that was trying to promote this solo artist was saying that I shouldn’t bash him in a negative direction when I don’t really know him and stuff. He started calling me hateful and being jealous, blah blah blah.

So yeah, other musicians have no problem with my band criticism. Like always the responses toward my band criticism has always been a mixed bag.

The weird thing is that the band/artist you’re criticizing will always think you’re hateful, insane, delusional, etc…. while other musicians will agree with what you say and have no problem with it. Fans of this artist will also try to help defend them. This is where I came to believe that musicians can’t handle criticism well at all. They really are sensitive people and they usually get all defensive when criticized by other musicians. When you see the band/artist becoming upset and defensive… I just believe they don’t like hearing the truth. It’s just bothers them. The band/artist you’re criticizing will always think they’re in the right and everyone else is wrong. The band/artist will always want to think they’re good at everything no matter what people think of them. Whenever you see bands/artists being defensive… you’re not doing anything wrong… all it’s proving is that it shows that you’re right and proves how much of an asshole they really are.

It’s an alright thing to do to be critical about bands/artists and the local music scene overall. I try my best to leave names out of things on my blog ’cause I don’t need no controversy over it and I don’t need a huge debate with their fanbase/supporters or even worse, possible lawsuit threats.

If musicians get upset with my criticism. Who cares. It’s not the end of the world, let ’em go. You should have every right to say what you want about them. When you want to become a musician or play in a band, and you put this stuff out there… it opens the doors for criticism and honesty. Musicians are better at telling the truth than anybody. They aren’t afraid to be honest about other bands music and everything else. I know because musicians can be pretty honest about me. They’re pretty smart & intelligent people.

It’s good to keep the world of unsigned music as honest as possible. We don’t do it out of hate and jealousy, however, we just want what is best for all musicians. That’s all. We all look after everybody. We just don’t want to see certain bands & musicians get in trouble and stuff. We depend on other bands & artists like family. If some of them musicians don’t want to discuss things with us like an adult, that’s their problem.

Kev

There seems to be a large number of musicians lately giving up playing original music live and they decide to play covers only at the gigs instead. This seems to be a new trend in the music scene lately. Why? Because a lot of musicians make assumptions that the Capital Region’s music scene doesn’t have much of an original music scene. Maybe they’re partly right that original music doesn’t get much of an audience. That’s why a lot of bands and solo artists has chosen to play covers instead ’cause covers get more of an audience than original music.

The thing is… you should never be a quitter. You should never doubt yourself. You should never be put down or disappointed ’cause you don’t have much of an audience toward your original songs. Nothing wrong with the switch but you should never stop playing original music live. We could have a bigger and more successful original scene again if musicians were more passionate to songwriting. A lot of musicians prefer to play covers more. I’m not knocking musicians who play covers ’cause I play covers too. I always felt it was pretty important to do both. I always did both covers and original songs. Check my youtube channel for proof.

The thing is, if you want the Capital Region’s original music scene to get big again… we need to get together and try harder. We need to work on this together and try to get people interested in original music. We can try. We can do this. I’ll never give up writing original music or performing original music live on the stage. You may not be getting too many fans with your original songs but keep trying. You just never know.

You should keep writing original songs ’cause you like doing it. If you’re not getting much of an audience, you need to look at the quality and talent of your songs. Ask yourself. Are my songs good enough? What can I do to improve them? I think it’s a proven fact that music fans only support music they like. Maybe your original songs isn’t good enough is why a lot of people don’t come out to your original shows? You need to write songs that will catch a listener’s ear. If they like what they hear, they will come out to your shows to see you perform them live. You can promote your original shows as much as you want to but no matter how much you promote yourself, people are still not gonna come out if they don’t like your music. Period.

With my own songwriting, I think I have a plan that might attract even more listeners to my songs. I’m thinking of changing my songwriting to a different direction some. I’m thinking of writing folk music. Topical/political songs. Write songs in poetic form. The type of folk music I’m planning to write is not what you think it is. Slower songs. Ballads. Singing songs with passion and with a little more heart. People seem to be turned off with my aggressive acoustic rock so I’m thinking of changing my genre around some. I’ll always play original rock n’ roll, I just want to change around some. If I want people to take my music a little more seriously, I figure I would write more serious songs that people of all ages and families can listen to.  I want to write music kind of in the likes of Neil Young, Springsteen and maybe Sharon Van Etten but write folk music in my own style, of course. I’m also thinking of ditching my Kev Brock name and release songs under my birth name ’cause I want the songs to be mine.

Never doubt yourself in original music. I never did. I kept going. Decided to take some time off from songwriting to focus on teaching myself guitar lessons and teaching myself how to sing better. I’m always trying to find ways to get better musically. You can do that too.

You shouldn’t give up playing original music live ’cause it’s good to showcase your talent no matter how many people show up. It’s about the passion and the love for music. Cover bands are still dominating the scene but we can still try and make original music big in this area again. We just need to try to focus on writing songs that you think people will like. People always say things like, “Music should be for you” but not really. If you want to be a respected songwriter, you have to write music that will appeal to listener’s ears. It’s good to switch to a different genre. Neil Young did it all the time. The same with Springsteen. It’s good to be versatile.

Kev

I think it’s a proven fact that bands/artists are pretty lousy at handling honest criticism. Why do many of them see what you’re doing is a personal attack when you know that’s not your intention? Whenever you criticize their music, the way they promote themselves, the way they handle things in their career, etc. — they all seem to get hurt and upset about it pretty easily. This has always been a problem. That’s why drama and feuds happen with other musicians. Why? Why do they usually get their panties in a bunch over your opinions on certain things? I’ve been dealing with this with musicians for many years. In other local music forums and social media. They would bash you in forums, block you in social media, and then they would want nothing to do with you. The world of musicians would seem like a big soap opera. This is part of why I have such a problem trying to get along with certain musicians who I always respected and was trying to support.

I’m just beginning to figure out why all of this is. I think the reason is that musicians really are ridiculously sensitive people. They take everything personally. I think the main thing is why musicians get upset easily is because musicians thrive on flattery. When they make music, and art… they put it out there publicly for the world to see… they expect all the feedback to be positive. It’s all ego, pretty much and they’ll never want to admit it.

I can handle criticism toward my own music just fine. If you want to hate me, fine go for it. I know I can’t please everybody. The world doesn’t work like that.

It’s okay to critique bands/artists signed in the major labels… people will have no problem but when you criticize the local acts, they’ll get all hurt about it.

If music is what you want to do, you got to be strong and tough. Don’t let the critics bring you down. I’ve had so many anonymous blogs bashing me, and people using youtube to make fun of me. All that is fine and good but honestly, I find that stuff to be pretty hilarious. I actually have a good laugh and find it amusing that people would take the time to do that stuff. I don’t allow bashing and criticism aimed against me here, in facebook or my youtube channel but everywhere else you can feel free to bash me all you want to.

You have to learn that feedback and responses to what you do is not all going to be positive. People have been treating me in a negative direction for years so I only speak from experience.

You have to learn how to handle the criticism in the world of music ’cause if you want to forward your career… maybe go as far as getting signed… there’s going to be all kinds of negative people the more you move forward in your career. You will get more bloggers, music critics, people in the industry trashing you publicly, trust me. It’ll happen. If you let the negative feedback get you down, it’ll be career suicide in the future.

So you have to learn not to take what people seriously. I never did.

Musicians just want to be flattered all the time by the positive feedback. This may seem pretty weird to you but I honestly feel pretty flattered and humbled when people hate me. That feels good too. Whether you like me or hate me, either one is good. That’s part of being a musician. You have to be able to take the hate just fine and I can do exactly that as you can see. I know I’m one of those musicians that you either love or hate and I’m all good with that.

Like the old saying goes, “if you can’t take the heat, then get out of the kitchen?”. Well, that’s what you should do if you can’t handle the criticism in the world of music. Being a “professional” musician is not for you if you can’t handle it, believe me.

Kev

One thing facebook proves is the way fans react to bands & artists. Not only bands & artists can have weird and strange attitudes, fans can be a lot weirder. I’m not knocking fans supporting bands in any way, am not jealous, there is just something I don’t get about them. Fans would stay loyal to their favorite unsigned band or solo artist. They would go to almost all of their shows. Buy all of their records, merch, etc. They would “like” every post they put up in band pages. Whenever people are trash talking this band/artist in a negative direction their fans would defend them and have their back no matter what. Fans would also like everything they do no matter if the guys in the bands are idiots and they sometimes do crazy things. You get the idea.

All of this is really strange to me.

I understand fans want to see their favorite band/artist succeed and move on up in their careers. That’s why fans do what they do. It’s their way of showing their support to this band and to make them feel proud and happy. It’s their way of supporting unsigned acts and the music scene. Trying to be nice and supportive. They don’t want to see bands get setbacks or to be put down by other people. Everything have to be positive about them. It’s the same thing with national music too. Fans can get pretty obsessed with artists in the major labels.

A lot of fans don’t want to look at bands with reality and honesty like I do. It is hard to be honest about unsigned bands without their supporters getting all over you and I’ve had that problem for years. It should be perfectly okay to be honest and have an opinion on local bands/artists but when you do people will call you a “hater” and will say things that you’re just “jealous”, and nothing more. The thing that people don’t understand is that music is here to be open for honest critique. That’s what we listen to music for. Review it, critique it. Listen to a band/artist and be able to tell if we like it or not. Or if you want to disagree with how a band does things, you should be able to say all that too. There should be absolutely nothing wrong with critiquing a band.

Again, I don’t understand fans obsessions with bands/artists. Do they really love them that much? I may be a fan of certain bands/artists myself but I’m not that obsessed with them. I maybe supportive of local music but I’m not gonna like and agree with everything they do. Sometimes I don’t understand people at all.

Kev

There’s a lot of musicians who mistakenly believe that you must promote and market yourself everywhere as much as possible. Especially on the internet. There are musicians who get so obsessed with promoting themselves a bit too much… not naming names. Is it a good idea? They would do a lot more than just facebook online. Local bands would use other stuff such as other local music websites and they would promote themselves everywhere as much as possible. The sad truth is… no… it’s not a good idea to promote yourself to death like that… and here is why…

1. It’ll annoy people – It’ll make it seem like you’re sending spam out to them. Shoving your music in front of their faces. Not cool.
2. You need to focus more on your music – Wasting your time on the internet promoting yourself is the same thing as playing video games for hours.
3. It’ll make you look desperate – Enough said?

You don’t need to promote yourself too much. I agree that marketing and promoting are both extremely important but all you need to get the word out of your music are just a few things. Just a facebook, blog, website, twitter and that’s pretty much it.

Not a lot of people will come hear your music no matter how much you promote yourself. People will find it on their own. If your music is good, they’ll come find ya and check ya out. All you need is promote your projects or gigs like once or twice and you should let the people make the decision if they want to support ya or not. Musicians are pretty obsessed with being at the center of everyone’s attention.

Just let the music speak on it’s own and people will come to ya.

You also don’t want to update your facebook like pages every five seconds, all day long. That will lead people to unlike your page and you will lose their support. Only promote things that are worth it.

I hardly ever use my facebook like page for my music but when I get new songs written, I’ll get it rolling again. It’s pretty annoying how musicians promote themselves way too much. I “unlike” their pages ’cause of that reason alone. All you need on your facebook like pages is like 1 or 2 posts a day.

Musicians are really horrible at marketing and I’m not afraid to say things like this.

Kev

Now, when I respond to bands on how they do things in their careers, criticizing the way they do stuff on how they get themselves out there… some of these bands act like I’m trying to knock them and get all over them. Some act like I’m trying to put ’em down. No. That’s not my intention. I’m only looking after bands & artists as a fan of music and trying to help them. Trying to give them a realistic look at things, ya know? That’s all I’m pretty much doing. I’m not trying to put down the local music scene (if there ever is one) like I’ve been accused of doing many times. I’m only trying to improve the scene. Make it better so to do that, I must do it with a realistic approach.

There’s nothing wrong with being realistic about unsigned music as it’s actually a pretty professional and good thing to do. Anybody who comes back being all defensive… responding to me with a negative attitude — swearing, writing me hateful e-mails/comments, etc. — you don’t have what it takes to become a professional musician. A true professional musician would respond to me and discuss things in a mature manner or they would just ignore it if they don’t like what I have to say.

I really believe there are so many young bands out there who don’t even know what they are doing and they have a lot to learn in trying to play music on a professional level. I just want them to be careful with things. That’s all I’m doing. Looking after them. That’s why they mistakenly believe they feel the need to enter contests & competitions, go through Pay to Play venues like Red Square in order to get somewhere. They also need to run their shows a little better and I’ll have a post about that soon. They also don’t need promoters/managers either.

That’s all I’m doing, really. Just looking after the music scene. Not trying to put it down in any way. If musicians want to hate on me for this, that’s their call.

There are musicians out there who have gotten success and have done it in a smart way. Like take Sean Rowe for example. I have followed Sean’s career for years. Way back when he was just playing gigs around the Albany area and now he’s signed to a big independent label. Already made his debut TV performance on Jimmy Kimmel. Sean got there by doing all the work himself. I watched him. He never had a promoter/manager. Never entered into battle of the bands and other ridiculous competitions. Never went through pay to play scams to get where he is. He opened for big national acts as well. He toured around the states and other countries just by himself, pretty much. That’s why I respect him as a musician more than anybody else. So you all should look after him for inspiration. That guy absolutely knew what he was doing.

You see? There are good ways of getting yourself out there successfully… you just gotta know how to get yourself out there, do it responsibly, and carefully.

I’m not trying to put down the scene at all. Only trying to improve it to make it better. Trying to get musicians to have friendlier and more professional attitudes and things like that. This area doesn’t have a friendly attitude at all. Albany’s been ranked #7 as the most unfriendly cities in America so go figure.

Kev

Edit to add: Post corrected for spelling errors and grammar mistakes. Should be better now.

There are quite a lot of band contests and competitions in the area. Local radio stations and venues hosting contests for bands/artists to enter to win big prizes such as studio time, open for a national act, merchandise, money, etc. Why are there so many of them? It’s because there is a lot of talent in the area. So they feel in order to promote their radio station or venue they would host these contests. There’s a lot of lame Battle of The Bands and Songwriter’s Night kind of contests where you can hope to win big opportunities. They register online. With the most votes, they get to go and compete by performing so people can go to that show to vote. Who’s ever the winner is gets the grand prize. The winner is usually chosen by the judges and the most votes.

Whenever these things happen, a bunch of bands & artists will enter immediately. They’re all hoping to win and get some exposure out of this. That’s why they enter these things.

The reason I disagree with these contests and band competitions is because I think this is a bad way to get recognized for. Why would you want to be known for that? I would want my music to stay away from these. I look at these contests & competitions as a small version of those reality shows on TV (American Idol, America’s Got Talent, The Voice, etc.). That’s why these contests keep on coming because of those shows. That’s why there’s more of them. Not just SPAC’s Battle of the Bands, there are similar contests like these all over the area. For example, the most recent one is Qruption where a local artist get to open for national acts at SPAC.

I don’t need contests to give me free recognition and free popularity. I would want to get that stuff on my own without the help of these stupid contests. Don’t get me wrong, though, I would love to open for a national act or get some big opportunity but I’m not gonna get it by entering these stupid things. I would try to get that stuff by making the music and just play. There have been bands out there who have gotten opportunities to open for national acts without entering any type of contest. They got there with hard work and dedication. They know how to get contacts from people from the industry is how they get those good gigs.

On top of that, the voting in these contests are usually rigged so what’s the point? The winners are usually chosen even before the votes are counted and they usually pick the winners to those who they think are gonna create a lot of attention in the local media.

I can’t stand these things for a lot of reasons. They’re just a popularity contest, nothing more.

I think it’s crazy how bands/artists jump into these things but whatever, ya know? They’re weird. They’ll do anything to get recognition even if it’s something silly as this. I understand your goals and wanna make your dreams come true but these aren’t the way to go about it, in my opinion.

Just be proud of your work and don’t take yourself serious. Sometimes I feel they get way into their rock star dreams. All you need to get recognition and good opportunities is to make the music and gig as much as possible. That’s it.

Kev

I was just doing a little googling for research material on, “professional career vs. hobby”. I found this interesting little blog that kind of explains the whole thing of what I’m talking about better than I can. This article here. Take a few minutes and read it if you would.

It explains that if you decide to take your hobby — whatever your hobby will be: a musician, artist (painter), photographer, film maker, etc.) — into a professional career… it might take the passion out of what you love doing. If you turn it into a professional career, it’ll seem like a chore instead of something passionate to do. It’ll make you feel like working a job. You could get a lot of stress by working all the time on your creativity and making lots of money off of it.

You can still make a living off of something you love doing just keep your original hobby separate. You want your original creativity of your hobby to be yours and when you make money off of it… that might create a distraction in life.

If I were to make a living off of something I love, it wouldn’t be music. I would rather make a living off of working on computers and doing office work. That’s the kind of job I would rather work for. I’ve had years of training on computers and taught myself how to use them over the years. I’ve also had years of office experience. I haven’t gotten a new office job yet ’cause they’re hard to get nowadays. I did have an office job in the past that I worked at for about 9 years, though.

As far as music goes, it’s just something I want to do. Music helps me get through life and it helped me what I am today. It makes me a happy person. Music is what helps keep me strong, confident and keeps me going in life. If I make money off of it or try to get big with it… I don’t know, it’ll just feel different. I don’t think I have what it takes for a professional “career” thing.

Some of you probably would want to see me take it to a “career” but honestly, I don’t care to. It’s why I’m always willing to play free gigs and just hand out my music for nothing. I just write songs for me, ya know?

This is not about “putting down someone’s way of life”… it’s about looking at reality.

I never cared to be a rock star. I never took myself seriously. I just want to make art with my music and enjoy it. That’s what it should be about the passion of it.

I used to want to be a rock star. In fact, that’s the reason I picked up the guitar in the first place ’cause I dreamed of becoming a famous rock god like most but as I got older, I started to realize that those dreams are never going to happen so I kept music as a hobby.

I wouldn’t want to make money off of songs that I have written — especially if I’m proud of my work. I don’t need record labels telling me how my songs should be or how they should be written. Your music doesn’t need to be a cash making machine. Just be proud, be happy, and that’s all you need!

Kev