Some musicians seem to get all butthurt when the truth is told about the songwriting process. Sure, there maybe no right or wrong way to write original music but that maybe okay for beginner or amateur musicians, though. It’s okay for beginner/amateur musicians to write chords, tab or other things down on paper to write songs but when you want to become part of the professional musicians community… you really gotta learn your shit. Learn music theory, learn to develop your ear, and learn how to write songs on a professional level.

How long does it usually take me to write a full song from start to finish? It should take no more than a full day to write a song. Some songwriters would spend months and months on it. The way I do things, I like to get songs done right away. I’m the type of guy who has this special rule, “If I start it, I finish it.”. I never sit on a unfinished song for a long period of time. I usually write songs pretty quickly. That new song I wrote, “Leave This Place” was done in a couple of hours. I could come up with 4 or 5 songs a day if I wanted to. Sometimes it does take a long time for me to finish a song but it rarely happens. I used to write the lyrics first but from this point on, I’m doing it the other way around. Write the music first, and then lyrics. I’m finding it much easier that way.

Like I said, it’s okay to write songs however you want to as a beginner/amateur musician but when you’re playing for years and still playing random stuff until you find something you like… then there’s something wrong there. You’re not the actual musician you say you are.

There’s nothing wrong with me saying that songwriters should write songs from the heart and writing songs you hear in your head ’cause that’s how most songs in the music industry have came up with songs over the years. They just think of them in their head and try to get it out of them on their instrument. That’s how most of my songs have been written in the past. I just think of them in my head and get ’em out of me. I’m not the best at improvisation yet but I am still able to find ways to get songs out of my mind by humming along to the melody in my head and try to get it on the guitar the best I can.

If you wanna get great at songwriting, playing from the heart is the only way to do it. Play with feeling and let the fingers do the talking.

I’m not really trying to tell you how to make your art but if you want to be taken seriously as a songwriter, you must learn to play a little more professionally. Music theory is probably the most important skill which a lot of songwriters around here ignore. Theory will help your songwriting. Learn it all… the scales/modes, learn how chords are built, the circle of fifths, intervals, etc. Learn theory and that’ll take your songwriting on the guitar to the next level.

I’ve taken a lot of time off from songwriting so I can focus on guitar playing. Wanted to improve and get better on that. Learn some theory and all of this stuff. I’ve been criticized about my musicianship in the past and I wanted to get better by teaching myself more guitar. It helps, trust me.

I’m just not afraid to take a realistic approach when it comes to music in songwriting and music over all. I’m not afraid to expose all the fakes in musicians. My posts aren’t aimed at a certain band in particular, they’re aimed at pretty much all of them, in fact.

I’m not acting like a better musician than everyone else, believe me, as I know there are talented musicians out there that are way better than me. I’m not the best musician myself but I’m always trying to improve every time. You can’t always think you’re good all the time. You have to admit that you are bad at some things and it’s not that hard to do — people won’t care. By the way, I never saw myself as a professional musician or a god at music — I’m just a regular guy who likes to play music. I just wanna write songs, be the best I can be, and just enjoy. I never took myself serious.

Kev

I remove comments on my site for a couple of reasons. I remove them if they don’t add any value to a discussion (in other words, not taking the discussion seriously) or if I feel comments are ridiculously stupid, doesn’t make any sense and most importantly of all, I don’t accept asshole and negative comments. Mostly the people trying to reply are nothing but assholes. Almost every reply by certain readers try to write an asshole comment to me and I can’t accept that here. There is nothing wrong with my posts at all. I try to keep my posts positive and entertaining the best I can but as always I get nothing but haters trying to be an asshole to me — pretty much, all the time.

I never understood why people think it’s okay to be negative to me all they want to. Personally, I think they do it ’cause they find it funny to them to harass me. That’s the only reason they do it. They’re like bullies in high school. Period. End of story.

I don’t accept criticism toward myself and my writing on this site.

Now, there are better ways of writing to me about things you disagree with. Instead of slamming or bashing me, why don’t you kindly correct me on things? Teach me things in a friendly way instead of saying immature shit like, “You don’t know nothing”, “you’re not smart”, and on and on and on. You get the idea, right?

I get angry readers writing nasty shit that I don’t care to read so I just delete them. I don’t care who the reader is. Wanna be an asshole? The comment will be gone. Don’t like it? Then leave my blog.

I’m a human being. I take what people say seriously too and I’m not gonna let people think it’s okay to write to me how they want and people have had this problem with me for many years. I try to stay positive and everyone else just want to be negative. I’m tired of it.

If you want your comment approved publicly, just play it cool and treat me like a human being, it’ll get posted. It’s that simple, right?

I treat my other social networking sites the same way: Facebook, youtube, twitter, etc. If people start to act like an asshole and if things get out of hand… goodbye. I get too many trolls following everything I do and obsessing with everything I say… I never understood why. Just a bunch of losers with no lives. I’m strict on moderating comments for a good reason. Pretty much that reason is all the haters and trolls on here. I’m trying to keep ’em all away.

As for the Obamacare defunding getting passed in the House is good news. I plan to give that post a re-write. Leaving the comments closed in this post ’cause it was meant to be a read and not reply kind of thing.

Kev

There are a lot of singers out there who worry that you can’t improve. They always think what you hear is what you get. Not true. Your singing voice is like an instrument. You can get better with your singing just like you can get better on guitar or bass or whatever instrument you play. In the past, I used to never take vocals seriously and from this point on, I think I will take vocals more seriously. I want to sing good. I’ve been practicing as you can tell. I’m trying to sing with more range, passion and to sing a little higher as well. I am not a screamer yet but I would like to get there someday.

A few quick tips on how you can be able to sing better are: 1) Never hire a vocal coach to work with. Always be self taught. You want your own style of singing. You learn from someone else you’re gonna get their style. 2) Always drink warm liquids… either warm water or hot green tea are recommended. Forget coffee. You want your throat to be dry when singing. When you’re done singing for the day, then you can go back to drinking cold liquids. 3) Practice vocal exercises through singing instructional books/DVD’s (they are always helpful) 4) Practice 20/30 minutes a day, don’t over do it. 4) The goal is to have that buzzing sensation in your head… you want to get all of that sound out 5) Listen to your other favorite singers like I do for example my favorite singers are Robert Plant, David Bowie, Johnny Cash and Neil Young. They are my inspiration of me wanting to sing myself.

If you want to become a better singer, go for it. There are always ways of making your voice sound different. I don’t mean to sound egotistical or jerk myself off but I feel that I’ve gotten better with my singing. I found that I can’t sing my older songs anymore and that says something. I’m sure you’ve noticed a slight improvement… hopefully, I’ve been working on trying to sing every word clearly too… working very hard. Hard work pays off.

Kev

Yes, I definitely plan on getting the new “Grand Theft Auto V”. Like most people out there, I am a huge fan of the GTA franchise. So far,  I still think “San Andreas” and “GTA IV” are the best of the series. Will “GTA 5” be just as good? I’m sure it will be a bad ass game to play.

I also plan on getting the new Stephen King book, “Doctor Sleep” (the sequel to “The Shining”) and that book comes out this month.

Don’t have the cash for these right now but will in a couple of weeks.

Kev

I think I just found a way to hook up my Maudio interface into the Ipad without using “too much power” which is the error that comes up. After seeing this how to video in youtube and doing more googling on it, I found that you would need a powered usb hub. Next time I go to Best Buy, I’ll still see if they have that Irig Pre adapter in stock — if not — I’ll look into buying a powered usb hub there instead. I’m sure you can find a usb hub that would cost around $10 – $30.

I think a power usb hub would definitely take care of all the ground loop problems too.

Kev

After a little googling on what kind of mics I can use for the Ipad, I don’t really need to buy a separate USB mic at all. I can just get one of these Irig Pre adapters, and I’ll be able to use the two Shure mics that I have right now. I once tried to connect my MAudio interface into the Ipad but it doesn’t accept that kind of hook up. If I get that adapter, I’ll be able to use my condenser mic too. Next time I go to Best Buy in Saratoga, I’ll see if they have that adapter in stock. If not, I’ll have to order it online.

Kev

I think there is nothing I can do about background hissing when recording at home ’cause the room needs to be sound proofed. I don’t have a sound proofed room. I think I’ll keep getting hiss no matter what kind of recording gear, software or mic I use ’cause this room isn’t sound proofed. 

For musicians who do have their own home studios… they have sound proofed rooms. That’s why they are able to record perfectly clean successfully without any background noises. There’s gotta be simple and affordable ways to sound proof this room better. 

I’m still planning on re-recording the vocals for the “Leave This Place” song without the preamp and maybe that will reduce the hissing. 

I kind of wish I never got that preamp. I got it hoping that will help remove the hissing in the vocals and I guess that didn’t solve anything. Maybe the preamp needs a shorter XLR connection ’cause I did read somewhere that the connection needs to be a short cable connection. I’ll consider buying a shorter cable sometime. 

I’m still planning to buy a USB mic for the Ipad to give that a try. I heard that microphone sounds on the Ipad has good sound quality. 

As you can see, I’m still trying to investigate on how to find ways to get a clean sound at home when recording original music. If I can’t find a way, no matter what I do… I guess the only way to get a perfectly clean sound is that I will have to record at a local studio somewhere. 

Even though home recordings don’t have the best sound quality… they are just good for recording song ideas, at least. 

Kev

This morning, I just tested out my Behringer mic-preamp when recording vocals over guitar parts. On the preamp, you can’t hear the humming and the hissing that well. It’s barely noticeable the way I heard it. The preamp actually sounds pretty decent with the vocals. I guess the humming and hissing is pretty normal. Nothing you can do about it at all So, I guess I’m all good with the preamp so it’s actually worth the purchase.

Gonna record vocals for a song today.

Kev

I hate the kind of people
who appear to be nice and
friendly to you in person
but when you talk to them
online, they can be complete
assholes to you.

People like that piss me off.
All that really proves is that
certain people in your life
don’t really like you at all.
If you see me in person, do you
think I’m going to ignore
how you treated me online?

This is bad social behavior.
You need to learn how to communicate
with people better ’cause a lot of people
are absolute shit at it.

It’s hard to trust everyone
these days.
It’s even hard to trust
people you know well.
People are messed up
and crazy.
If I’m right there in front of your
face, why don’t you try and say
the same things you said
to me online?

Kev

Welp! I almost forgot that I have Garage Band for the Ipad. I remember recording guitar parts on it and it’s perfectly clean sounding guitar on the Ipad. No hum or too many background noises. So from this point on, I think I’ll record guitar parts on the Garage Band software for the Ipad. After I record the guitar parts, I’ll just bring the track to this computer to record vocals over. When I record vocals over the song, I won’t use the mic preamp until I get the preamp stuff figured out. I remember recording songs this way a couple of times before a long time ago. Recording guitar parts in Garage Band for the Ipad first and then record vocals on this computer. I think you remember me doing it that way and it sounds pretty decent.

I’m still gonna keep the preamp ’cause I want to learn more about it and hopefully use this thing when I get it all figured out down the road.

As for my SM86 condenser mic, I tried to use that on the preamp and the condenser mic wouldn’t work on it. So I looked up on google to figure out why and according to other forums and stuff… I think I’m gonna need a special XLR cable for the condenser mic so it can pick up the phantom power. A condenser mic won’t accept random microphone cables, needs a special cable for the SM86 too, I guess.

All this technology in music recording. Frustrating shit, I tell ya! Maybe I can hook up the preamp into the Ipad somehow? I’ll look into it.

For now, I’ll just record guitar parts in Garage Band first and then record the vocals. My only choice that I have now.

Kev