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Alex Pancho
Hey!
So I was feeling inspired and wrote a massive post with links to song examples, artists, and people. Upon completing it, however, I realized that I had been logged out of the system for taking too long. Here is a second take on the post, though perhaps a bit toned down. My apologies on that, but I still wanted to share with you all the same! Take two:
Long story short, I have not yet Officially begun learning over at @FlagshipStudios, but I've already managed to pick up two things in the process of joining The Recording Connection. One thing is, for me, MIND BLOWING. The other, a trick I've been trying to figure out in electronic music that I have had the pleasure of being shared with me purely by chance encounter.
The first thing I picked up, that absolutely BLOWS MY MIND, is a totally new way of listening to music. For some background, I am a classically trained operatic tenor with many years spent in choirs. Because of this I like to think I have an excellent ear for melody, countermelody, harmonies, and chords. Because of this my tastes in music tend to be towards things with intricate and beautiful notation. Among the many genres I listen to, my tastes in metal tend to lean toward symphonic metal (see: Nightwish, Sabaton, Kamelot) and its derivatives like pirate metal (see: Korpiklaani, Alestorm [a second, NSFW song]) and comedy metal (see: Dethklok, Gloryhammer, Psychostick). These choices are usually for clever words, delightful and inspiring melodic lines. Then, I went to visit Flagship Studios for my interview with @Matthew_Cooley.
The interview went quickly enough and went well. Then I ended up hanging out for the next 2 1/2 hours. During that time we ended up sharing music, and they introduced me to Between the Buried and the Dead. When they had me listen here they kept pointing out individual bits of the drums, bells, and percussion that they found great. In actuality it took me a few times and concentration to hear what they were pointing out. It then dawned on me that due to my background I tend to gloss over percussion unless it becomes highly relevant to the melodics. When I went and listened to the song again I had to hear it with a totally new ear. Suddenly the instruments and voices that seemed entirely chaotic came together under the magic of the drum. This idea of listening to music while focusing on the percussion is something so very simple, and yet I had never really considered it! A whole new world of music and listening has opened before me and I haven't even begun to attend! Before leaving I was jokingly tasked with listening to their The Parallax: Hypersleep Dialogues and Colors albums. I have. I dig it.
The other thing I picked up was in my orientation with @Lucas_Abend. We ran through orientation quickly enough. Basic textbook setup, familiarization with the Recording Connection's web pages and such. Nothing big really. But during the course of it he mentioned being a mentor for Ableton Live. For those not in the know, Ableton Live it is a Digital Audio Workstation (DAW) most commonly used by electronic musicians. Consequently it is also the program I use for making music everyday. When we finished the orientation, I then went ahead and took the opportunity to ask if he could pass along a quick trick I might have missed in the program since I have been self-taught. What he taught me was one of those things that you can hear in a ton of electronic music nowadays, but I had not been able to figure out on my own: that being the sidechaining with compressors. Its a simple effect, but exactly something I had been trying to teach myself for awhile now!
All said, I am excited to begin working with Flagship Studios through the Recording Connection. My goal is to gain enough skills, experience, and connections to be able to obtain a job in the audio engineering/production field and then to keep it while being able to pay my bills. Such is the dream am I right? If you care to, keep up with me and we'll see where this goes. Hopefully I'll have some good music and stories to share with you along the way. Should be fun! If nothing else take care! I'll see you around!
-Alex
