What Makes Up A Groove...

What makes up a groove?  Have you ever thought about that?  Your listening to your favorite bass player and you say “man...John Paul Jones is grooving”.  John Paul Jones is one of my favorite.  Maybe yours is James Jamerson, Rocco Prestia, Victor Wooten or whoever.  Well if you have ever noticed that a bass player is grooving what is usually the next thing you do... for me it is the tapping of the foot or the head moving to the groove.  Then you start noticing the accents of the groove and before you know it you are drawn in to jam with that song all the way through.  

It does not matter how many notes you play but rather what you do with the notes that you play.  This is key to creating a groove.  You do not have to fill every space with a lick or always follow drum rolls to the next phrase.  Bass players have a tendency to over play and walk all over the vocals and get out of sync with the band.  Busy bass lines work if they are done correctly.  Listen to the song “Can You See The Real Me” by The Who.  This is one of the greatest bass lines ever played but it is also very busy.  Why does it work?  Listen to the interaction between the bass and vocals.  It is like they trade licks throughout the song.  The guitar jams but stays out of the way of the bass.  It all works well because the bass takes all the solos.  The choruses the bass goes to pedal tone of sorts and allows the song to breath.  It is quite the masterful bass line.  I am sure John Entwistle enjoyed playing this one live.  He incorporates all the mechanics for grooving.  The choke, playing on the upbeat and dead notes or some call them, ghost notes.  

Dead notes is really the major key to creating the groove.  Dead notes are played by choking the note and then plucking that string to create a thud type sound.  Just go to youtube and type “dead note bass” in the search box and you will find a lot of videos to give you a better understanding of what I am talking about.  Once you do this I challenge you to take a simple groove that you have written or one from someone else and as you play it add some dead notes and see how it helps the groove and solidifies the pocket a little better.  It might even change the groove a little bit.  That’s okay...sometimes changing up the groove is a good thing.  As you expound on a groove you will find that after a while you become more confident.  Creating the pocket starts with being confident with groove.  Dead notes is one way to help make this happen.

No Pocket....No Groove....

There is no groove without a pocket....

Lets think about this for a moment. What is the pocket and what is the groove? As a bass player I know that it is essential that I stay in the pocket. You ever play with a drummer and you just could not feel the groove. It is like you we out of sync with one another. That is being out of the pocket. Where there is no pocket there is no groove.

The pocket gives you that feeling of direction. Lets expound on giving the band a feeling of direction. Bass players are quiet leaders for the band. If the bass is unsure or lacks confidence it is very noticeable and can lead to a dysfunctional rhythm section. For example, if the bass player is playing behind the beat and the drummer is trying to push the beat it will feel like the band is dragging. This will usually cause the singer to turn around and do that circular motion with their hand to say “speed up band you are dragging”. No pocket there. You see where ever the downbeat is supposed to be that is where the drummers kick and bass are supposed to be. Fundamentals man... get to the downbeat of one. This is where bass players are supposed to start when developing basics. Feel one and get there. No matter what play that downbeat to hold the whole band together. It does not matter what style of music you play. Downbeat of one is king. Listen to jazz bass players like Charles Mingus or Rufus Reid. If you are a rock or classic rock bass player then listen to John Paul Jones. He was my hugest influence and he is the one I learned about pocket and groove.

Bass players also give direction for the band by letting everyone know where they are going in the song. You ever listen to a song where the bass starts walking up and you know as a listener that there is a change coming up. Typically it would be like a chorus would come next or a solo of some sort. Notes that are walking up or down going to the next chord give everyone direction. This is crucial as well. Country and blues bass players live off of this. Any bass player who walks bas line lives off of this. Anytime there is a direction of walking up or walking down it is screaming “hello we are about to change to something”. So the next time you listen to a bass player see if you can hear what I am talking about. Find some other bass players to listen to to help you get some ideas of what you can do to create direction for the band you are in.

Anti-Piracy (Part Five)

      Songwriting is where it is at in the music industry, but if piracy continues there will be less and less songwriters in the business which means not as much fresh music.  These reasons alone are enough to pass the PROTECT-IP bill.  The writing on the wall is evident.  There is no gray area as to why the music industry is suffering.  If the record labels did not have to depend on their top 15 percent to support the business then there would be a wider variety of music.  The record labels cannot find new talent and develop the new talent when they are losing money to pirates.  Artist need to be developed and seasoned over time and this does require that the record label takes a loss on the investment into new talent.  It is just how it works.  If copyright infringement was brought under control then there would be more money to develop new talent.  This means that there would be job creation and retention in the music industry.  Recording engineers would be able to stay busy recording and songwriters would get more publishing deals which would lead to fresh music.  This would make the consumer happy and he or she would buy more legal downloads.

       The independent artist would also have a chance at profiting with their business.  As the independent artist looks at the music industry right now it does not look good to pursue anything.  The independent artist does not have a name for themselves so it would be next to impossible to tour and sell merchandise.  Putting songs up on MySpace or Facebook is not going to do much for aspiring artist.  Finding someone to financially back them is what all artist need.  Again, record labels cannot become that financial backer if the record labels themselves are broke because pirates sell the music illegally.

       Copyright infringement has stolen billions and billions of dollars from the film, music and software industries.  Why would anyone be opposed to the PROTECT-IP bill or anyone of the others that have been passed over the years?  Songwriters and musicians have sued each other for illegally using their song.  Vanilla Ice comes to mind, MC Hammer stealing “Super Freak”.  Why not just own up to it and pay the royalties.  That is the right thing to do.  Anyone can record any song if they pay the royalties.  You can use up to 8 seconds of someone else’s song and put it into your song.  George Clinton did this a lot.  He would sample other songs and record those samples into his and then sell those songs and make money.  There are laws that say you can record and use other people’s songs.  The artist needs to stay within the law.  When a download is sold everyone involved gets a cut of the money.  It is usually 50/50 split.  Pirates would be better off following the law and making the money rather than create huge losses for industries that depend on royalties and sales of merchandise.

       I believe if you do the crime you should do the time.  Film companies are suffering astronomical losses because of a society that wants to watch movies for free instead of paying for them.  People’s lives are at steak with all of this piracy going on.  Even if you are not a creative type of person and you just enjoy the music and movies you should support these bills help get them passed into law.  If everyone was to be held accountable in this arena then there would be probably a lot of people in jail and a healthier film and music industry.  Piracy is like a cancer that won’t go away.  The PROTECT-IP bill would help level the playing field and give these industries some breathing room and time to regroup.

        I take this personal because I am an aspiring artist who is trying to make a name for myself and create a livable income doing it.  Record labels are not as willing to invest into artist like me because I will be a lot of work in the beginning not making them a dime. The social media sites are ways for people to hear your music but they will normally stream your music and not buy it.  It seems you have to give everything away for free to get people to notice you.  For people like me maybe if I was to let pirates distribute my music I would reach a bigger fan base.  It is not worth the consequences of fines and jail time.  Besides the law is the law and no matter what you should follow the law.  Copyright infringement laws need to be set in place to protect intellectual property, period.  As a society we need creative people to create and give them all opportunities to succeed.  Musicians, film makers, inventors, software writers and so on.  If people start becoming disinterested in these professions then we will see a stagnant world with thieves winning and honest people losing out.  Why should we let thieves run rampant when there is a solution, or at least a way of combating this huge problem of pirates on the internet?

Anti-Piracy (Part Four)

       The music industry is hugely affected by pirating as well.  Record labels can barely stay afloat.  Everyone thinks they have all this money because of huge artist selling millions of records or legitimate downloads.  The truth is, only fifteen percent of record labels top artist support the whole business.  The other eighty five percent is bands that incur a loss or just get the bills paid.  They call these bands developing new artists.  Where do the pirates go to when stealing songs to sell?  The top fifteen percent is what is attacked by pirates.  These are the songs that are played on the radio and what people want to buy.  According to the website www.timmygotsoul.com the list of the 10 most illegally downloaded song, album and video has all big sellers in the music industry.  For example, Brittney Spears song Telephone was the number one illegally downloaded track of 2010 followed by Lady Gaga, Christie Aguilera, and Katy Perry.  The number one illegally downloaded video was by Brittney Spears with the same top four of illegally downloaded song.  Miley Cyrus and Justin Bieber were in the top 10 as well of both categories. There is a staggering stat that came out of Britain December of 2010.   There were 1.2 billion songs downloaded illegally last year.  The projected legal download sale for 2010 was 370 million.  That is an 870 million difference in sales of legal and illegal download sales.  That is a lot of revenue that is lost and cannot be made up anywhere by the record companies.  It was reported that the Black Eyed Peas sold over one million downloads last year and Lady Gaga sold over 250,000 downloads and the rest of the bands made up the difference.

      This poses a huge problem for the aspiring artist wanting to make a living in the music industry.  This would include songwriters, producers, publishers, singers and musicians.  It is a ripple effect.  When songwriters receive low royalty checks because of piracy everyone is affected.  Producers usually work on a point system which gives them a percentage of sales which is more lucrative than a hourly rate.  Obviously if songs are not being bought legally by consumers then producers and songwriters suffer financial loss.  When that happens then the musicians and singers wages are driven down to record and perform.  Twenty years ago musicians could make 500.00 a day recording.  Now they would be lucky to make 100.00 a day.  Road musicians are not nearly paid as well as they used to be too.  If the top of the record label is suffering financial loss it will trickle down and affect everyone involved.  Artist now depend on ticket sales and merchandise sales when they tour.  That is why ticket sales are so high.  One way or another, consumers will pick up the tab of pirating.

      I support the legislation to protect creative people and companies from copyright infringement.  I support the PROTECT-IP bill that is in Washington right now.  Intellectual property should not be pirated at all.  Let’s look at the facts.  In the music industry there has been yearly losses in the billions.  What once was a vibrant industry has become very fragile.  The state that it is in right now I would not be surprised if there is more increases of song downloads and merchandise prices will be on the rise.  There are a few bands that embrace the illegal downloads of their songs.  The band Dream Theater does not care if they make a dime off of downloads or cd sales.  They have decided that they will market their tours and make their money there.  I guess if you cannot beat them you might as well join them.

      

Anti-Piracy Laws (Part Three)

          The bill that former President George W. Bush signed in 2008 called the PRO-IP Act was designed to have greater efforts to control the pirating that has been running rampant.  There was another bill that was put together since then called the COICO which has been intensely criticized because of its vague definitions of what is considered a infringement website or what they called a rogue website.  There is another bill that is waiting to be signed into law today called the Preventing Real Online Threats to Economic Creativity and Theft of Intellectual Property, otherwise known as PROTECT-IP.  This bill is a rewrite of the COICO.  It is more specific of the websites that would be considered illegal.  This bill would have a huge impact on illegal copyrights all around the world.  They would be able to go after the foreign websites that sell or allow you to stream movies for free that they stole.

       According to the Creative America coalition there are two millions jobs in the film and TV sector that could be affected by ongoing piracy.  They claim that 140,000 jobs have been lost as an effect of piracy of film and TV shows. Billions of dollars are lost each year due to illegal sales of stolen IP in the TV and film world.  According to the Institute if Policy Innovation the film industry lost 20 billion dollars in 2005 to illegal downloads of movies and TV shows.  If this was to happen every year imagine the affect it will have year in and year out.  This means that there will be less money to make new movies.  This will create more job loss and affect the pensions of those who have already retired from the film business.  The unions of the film business like AFTRA totally support the PROTECT-IP bill that is sitting in Washington right now.  The film industry would benefit so much from this bill.  They would be able to stop foreign websites from providing movies that are copyrighting.  

             According to the RIAA the music industry loses 4.2 billion dollars to piracy each year.  There are three types of people who lose out because of the piracy.  First, is the consumer loses out.  Those who are downloading music illegally drive up the cost of legitimate product that a honest consumer will have to pay.  That is why CD’s are so expensive.  Also, have you ever wondered why ticket sales of your favorite artist are so extraordinarily high?  It is because of illegal downloads and revenue being lost because of that.  Artists have to make it up somehow.  To go along with that retailers are having hard time convincing consumers to pay more money for the same product.  We always gravitate to the lowest price as a society.  If consumers can find the music online and save a few bucks why not.  The problem with that is, if retailers cannot compete with online sales of illegal downloads than what will happen?   Well, jobs will be lost because retailers cannot justify more employees.

Anti-Piracy Laws (Part Two)

Lime Wire has also been the center of attention being accused of copyright infringement.  The RIAA has been successful in shutting down the official site of Lime Wire.  Eight music publishers have also filed suit charging there was pervasive online infringement of copyrights.  A statement from the publishers stated they will seek "equitable relief and damages" from LimeWire for the alleged copyright infringement. Copyright statutes provide for statutory damages of up to $150,000 per violation.”  Lime Wire was supposed to make it harder to share files between users.  Lime Wire did not make it harder for its users to share files with one another by putting up technical barriers.  The music publishers believe that this would have deterred users from illegally sharing files of music.  Alternatives to Lime Wire have come out of the wood works.  It is like a cancer that never dies.

Churches have had to figure out how to get around the copyright laws.  Churches usually have to make copies of songs to give to their musicians to learn new music.  Also, they like to show videos that are copyrighted.  So what they do is pay a fee each year to the Christian Copyright Licensing, International (CCLI) and Christian Video Licensing International (CVLI).  Each one of these gives them permission to copy music and play videos without breaking the law.  It is like blanket coverage.  Some business has to be careful they do not cross the lines, like churches.  As long as they use it for congregational purposes they will not be fined.  But I must say the contemporary Christian music market does suffer because you know the worship team members put the songs on their computers for their own personal pleasure.  Almost all churches burn CDs to hand out to their teams.  With 170,000 churches paying the license fee each year that can add up to a lot of free downloads that can potentially be illegally downloaded to personal computers.

Pirating software has become a huge problem as well.  There are many torrent sites that have become very popular.  Try before you buy is what these consumers say.  Torrent sites give allow you to download a software program illegally for free or a fee.  Someone I went to school with had over 15,000 dollars of illegal software on his computer.  All the software was from torrent sites and was the latest software.  This can be expensive for software companies.  The company Steinberg found a good way to combat this problem.  They encourage you to register your software.  When you do with your product key a red flag goes up and they customer service rep gets all of your information and then you have police showing up at your door.  Other software makers do the same.  These companies also allow you to have a 30 day trail of their product.  Legally you can keep getting 30 day trials by signing up with different email addresses.

Anti-Piracy Laws (Part One)

Anti-Piracy Laws       

On October 13^th 2008 former President George W. Bush signed a bill called PRO-IP Act that gave greater protection to intellectual property (IP).  Intellectual property is the creative ideas and finished products that come from the mind of an individual.  Software, movies and music are examples of intellectual property.  Intellectual property comes in three forms; they are trademarks, patents, and copyrights.  Unfortunately, there has to be laws to protect the creativity of an individual.  Since the internet there has been an explosion of copyright infringement.  The black market or torrent websites have been profiting on the backs of creative people working hard to produce songs, movies and writing quality software programs.  There are also people who have ten thousand dollars of software on their computer and they did not pay a dime.  In the long run who is it who really gets the short end of the stick?  It is the honest consumer who does. 

            There are some opinions that anti-piracy laws need to be completely overturned.  Brandon Lee in the article, “Record Industry is becoming obsolete”, says “Progress should be the overturning of federal anti-piracy laws so that popular culture can be available to all people regardless of method of obtainment”.  There are opinions that with all of the technology and websites that are out there everything should be free to the public.  Specifically, digital music and movies.  This is partially coming from the fact that Citibank owns EMI records which are one of the biggest if no the biggest record company in the world.  If you remember the bank bailouts Citibank was one of the many banks bailed out by American taxpayers.  Therefore, American taxpayers own EMI records and should be able to download music for free.  This is a logical prospective from opponents of PROP-IP bill.

            Just recently Google chairman Eric Schmidt has vowed to fight against the bills like PROTECT IP, which want the pirate websites to be shut down.  Google’s concern is the government will have too much control and will shut down sites that have a freedom of expression rather than just piracy.  Google at one time was allowing torrent sites to advertise with AdSense, which is their advertising program.  So you could say that Google was profiting off of these pirate sites.  Google reminds us of the restrictions of freedom of speech that China has and thinks that these laws would restrict Americans freedom of speech.  The government promises to only target pirate sites.  Again it will be at the discretion of the government to decide what they think is criminal. 

            One of the biggest backers of anti-piracy laws is the Recording Industry Association of America, otherwise known as RIAA.  Over the years there has been a decrease in CD sales and The RIAA believes that illegal downloading of digital music is the cause of that decrease.  When Napster started in 1999 it was the first music sharing system on the internet where users could download music from computer to computer.  The reason why Napster was conceived was music consumers were tired of paying for a twelve to sixteen song CD and only getting two maybe three good songs for their money and the other songs were used to fill space on the CD.  Napster users could select what song or songs they wanted and share the music with each other and not pay for it.  This was considered infringement and violated copyright laws.  You cannot reproduce a work and then take the work into your possession without paying for it.  In 2001 the music industry filed a copyright infringement suit against Napster and shut it down after they were liable for copyright infringement.  That is why nowadays there are so many ways you can pay for your downloads from places like ITunes, Tune Core and others. 

            In RIAA’s attempt to stop pirates by trying to bully normal citizens with lawsuits they have left a bad taste in the mouth of music lover’s world-wide.  The RIAA and the music industry are trying combat pirates but in all reality they are not losing money only to pirates.  The industry has changed so much with only very few songs being played on the radio and there are way too many new releases that are coming out all the time.