Dec
28
2009
Agh, the last couple of weeks have been crazy. Where to start…
I am now living in Malmö. It’s the third biggest city in Sweden, situated in the southern end of the country. Copenhagen, Denmark is about 30 minutes away by train, and from there you can fly to the rest of the world. I like Malmö, I lived here when I was in college. It feels great to be back in a city where there’s actually something to do and where you don’t have to take the car out as soon as you need some bread or milk. Bergeforsen is nice and quiet, but stay there for long without a car and you start going crazy.
I’m renting an apartment second hand from a friend. It’s a pretty nice apartment, within walking distance of pretty much everything. It’s 75 square meters in size and has 3 rooms plus a kitchen. The colors of the walls are a bit funky, but oh well. I had a bunch of furniture already, so we rented a trailer and dragged it all with us. It was quite the drive. 1006 km, it took us about 14 hours to get here. After a good night’s sleep, we hit IKEA and a few second hand stores and got whatever furniture we were missing, so now we’re pretty much set. I could do with another bookcase, though. One can never have too many of those, it seems…
So, new city, new apartment, new life. Things to do and see, and people to meet. I’m going back to college in January to get a degree in teaching. I’m going to look for places to do shows as well, there should be a few more opportunities here than back home. My class schedule doesn’t look too massive, so I’m going to look for a guitar teacher and get some more lessons. Maybe some singing lessons too, if I have the time for it.
I received some bad news as well. My dear grandfather passed away just before Christmas. Although it was not entirely unexpected – his health had been pretty bad for a while – it definitely put a damper on the holidays.
Much of my creativity and skills at woodworking and building things I owe to my grandfather. I used to watch him and my uncle build things in their enormous workshop when I was a little kid. They built all kinds of things; pendulum clock cabinets, furniture, even a row boat. It inspired me to try building things myself. Whenever I had an idea for something, he would always find me the tools and the materials I needed, teach me how to use them and help me build the strangest things. I didn’t get to meet him very often in the last years, as I was working and living too far away, but I did go see him in August this year. I’m very happy I did. The last time I visited was I think about four or five years before that. He was a great man, my grandfather. I’m really going to miss him.
Dec
5
2009
Criticism is something that every single musician will be subjected to in one form or another whether you want to or not, so here are some thoughts on how to make the most of criticism. These ideas should work for any musician, regardless of genre or instrument.
To accept it or not
The first thing you need to remember is that not all criticism is justified or valid. If you’re standing in front of your teacher in class, or if you’re at work playing in a band or orchestra, then it’s likely that some good points are being brought up and you should probably pay attention. If the person criticizing you is a friend or someone just randomly stopping you to tell you what they think about your playing, it is possible that they are doing it out of envy or just to cut you down. Some people are just the know-it-all type who will have something to “teach” you, no matter how you play, and regardless of if they actually know something about the subject or not. So you need to learn to recognize if the critique is valid or not, and whether it will do you any good to listen to it. If you don’t think the critique is justified or valid, then simply ignore it.
But there’s a big “But” here: Don’t take it too far. Don’t ignore the critique just because you don’t like it. Critique is important for your progress, so if you become the kind of person who never listens to what anyone has to say and just does what he/she wants anyway, you are likely to not improve as much as you would otherwise, and people might start thinking you’re an arrogant bastard. Not worrying too much about what others think is one thing. Making yourself blind to things that could help you is a different thing altogether.
Separate yourself from your work
Some people just can’t give critique in a good way, even if the critique itself is justified. They might have excellent points to make, they just can’t make them in a way that isn’t offensive and mean. So to avoid feeling like you’ve just been axed along the ankles, you need to learn how to interpret any kind of critique in a constructive way, regardless of how it was expressed. This will take some practice and getting used to, but believe me, it’s an incredibly useful skill to have.
So how does one accomplish this? One way is to learn how to separate “you” from “the result of your work”.
Let’s say you’ve just performed a piece of music, and your teacher/boss/other person tells you something like “Wow, that really sucked. Your tone is horrible, and that phrasing was way off.”
Ok, so first of all, that person is not very competent with giving critique. But more importantly, you can choose to interpret this in two ways: You can either take it personally and feel crushed and sad because you think you suck. OR you can interpret it in a more constructive way: You didn’t play very well this specific time.
Everything that person said can be taken to mean that what you just did wasn’t the best performance you’ve ever made. It doesn’t mean that “you” suck as a performer, it only means that “the result of your work” wasn’t optimal, and that is easy to fix. No-one plays optimally all the time. It doesn’t matter if you’re a beginner or the best musician in the world – there is not one single musician out there who doesn’t at least occasionally perform at a lower level than their best. It doesn’t mean they are worse musicians than they were the week before, it only means that that particular performance wasn’t as good. The solution is simple: Just practice it some more and the next time you perform it, it will be a lot better.
Constructive or not
Critique can be interpreted in several ways. It’s very much up to you to decide how you take it. If someone tells you that what you just did sucked, you can choose to take the actual words personally: “I suck.” Or you can focus on how you can make the most of that critique: “Ok, so if that sucked, what do I need to change to make it better next time?”
A competent conductor, boss or teacher will give you constructive criticism. They will give you suggestions or ideas on what you need to change and what you need to do better. Focus on those parts, not on the “that sucked” part. If your conductor/boss/teacher doesn’t give you any hints on what you need to do differently, ask for them (unless you already know yourself what you need to change, which is often the case if you actually did perform poorly).
When you don’t get any valid reasons
Some leaders will just make you play the same thing again, and again, and again… They’re clearly not happy with what you just did, but they won’t say anything helpful, they’ll just make you do it again. If they do that, and you’ve played the same thing a couple of times and they’re still not happy, ask them. Just straight out tell them that you’re not sure about what it is they expect you to do differently, and ask them what they would like you to change. Don’t worry about this making you look dumb or anything like that. If you ask, it will most likely help you solve the problem, and improve. If you don’t ask, you’ll just sit there and play the same thing 20 times without getting anywhere, and that would usually be more dumb than just asking. Keep in mind, though, that sometimes the leader will make you repeat things over and over because they are listening for something and are trying to pinpoint what it is you’re doing, and trying to figure out what it is they would like you to do, and not necessarily because you are doing anything wrong. So just be patient and don’t take it personally.
If the person criticizing you can’t give you any concrete suggestions or tell you what they thought was bad, chances are, the critique wasn’t really that valid at all, and they’re just trying to show you who’s boss or show off or something, which means you can just nod and smile, say that you’ll work on it, and then ignore every word they just said.
Think before you speak
Critique can be hard to take, and different people react differently to it. Some people just ignore it, some take it very personally and get sad or depressed, while others react by going into defence-mode and strike back. None of these reactions are all that useful for actually learning something from the critique. If you know yourself to be the kind of person that starts defending, there are a couple of things to keep in mind.
First of all, don’t attack the person doing the criticizing. If that person is a conductor, band leader or a professor, launching an attack can simply lead to you being kicked out of the room, which is not constructive or helpful for anyone. This doesn’t mean you have to just accept the criticism, just don’t attack back. If you feel that the critique is really unfair or seems more like a personal attack than constructive criticism, you can point this out by calmly telling that person that you disagree, and that while your performance may have been sub-par, you as a musician are not. Just keep it calm and polite and try to make everyone involved focus on being constructive about it. Insults serve no purpose from either side. If you know yourself to be the kind of person who immediately starts arguing back, do your best to keep your mouth shut and count to ten before you say anything at all. You don’t want to blurt out something you’ll regret.
Second, don’t make excuses. Regardless of if you played well or badly, if you get criticized, making excuses will change nothing and will probably just make you look silly. Making excuses like “Yeah, but I didn’t have time to practice much this week” or “Yeah, but I’m not feeling very well” or “Yeah, but my instrument is not working like it should” serve no purpose, and they will not help you improve.
Assuming that these things are true, and you’re not just using them as excuses: If you don’t have time to practice, then either make the time or don’t perform. Not practicing and then performing badly will just make everyone unhappy. If you are a professional musician it can easily lead to you not getting that phone call the next time someone needs a musician. It’s that simple, and no excuse will change that. The same goes if you’re not well. If you’re not feeling well enough to perform, then don’t perform. That’s all there is to it. Performing anyway and doing it badly will not help your reputation as a reliable musician. If your instrument doesn’t work the way it should, find a replacement or fix it. If you can’t, then don’t perform.
As a musician, it’s your responsibility and duty to make sure your instrument works when you need it to, but obviously accidents and unforeseen things do happen. If something happens, let your boss/teacher/conductor know as soon as possible, and then do whatever you need to do to fix it. Keeping quiet about it and then using it as an excuse after the performance will just make your boss unhappy with you, and it will definitely not be good for your career.
If you played badly, then fine – own up to it and move on. If you get criticized, focus on what you can do better next time, rather than taking it personally. The critique is about what you did in this one instance, not about you yourself or about what you are.
And finally:
One last tip: Always make sure you are as prepared as you can possibly be for every single performance. There is no such thing as a performance too small to take seriously, so either be sure to perform as well as you can every single time, or don’t accept the job in the first place. You want to be a respected musician? Act like one 100% of the time.
Of course, this doesn’t mean that you won’t sometimes get criticized anyway. There will always be people who have something to say about your performance, and that’s perfectly normal. One could even say that no musician ever performs at a 100% of their potential, there will always be things you can do better, and even if there isn’t there will still be differing opinions. But what it does mean is that you did everything you could to do a good job, and with the help of the tips I’ve written about here, whatever critique you do receive can help you improve rather than hold you back. So don’t be afraid of criticism. Just see it for what it is and use it to your advantage instead!
Good luck!
Do you know any other good ways of dealing with criticism? Tell me!
Nov
24
2009
I added some songs from my album to my Last.fm page a while ago, but because of technical problems, the uploads wouldn’t work, and the page where you edit the contents of your catalog was frozen so I couldn’t do anything about anything. The help forum was jammed with reports from users with similar problems, and it took them a couple of weeks to fix the issue it seems. Anyway, now it seems to be working, so you can listen to some of the tracks there if you like.
I’m a bit confused about the whole page, though. I can’t find any kind of promotional tool to use, I can’t add similar artists, tags or anything that would make it easier for people to find the album, so how exactly are people supposed to find it and listen to it? Even though there is an artist profile for Rainhat, as well as an album with songs you can listen to, if you do a search for “Rainhat” with the search function, it finds nothing at all. While you’re typing in the name, both the artist profile, the album and tracks pop up, but as soon as you actually click “Search” all that disappears and you get a message that says “Your search “Rainhat” did not match anything on Last.fm”. I’m starting to get the impression that the only ones who are actually going to get to listen to any of my stuff there are the ones that already know for sure it’s there, and are tenacious enough to turn the place upside down to find it.
I’m not impressed. Maybe I’m missing something, but if putting stuff up there makes it about as available to listeners as putting the album in a box and throwing it out in the middle of a big forest and hoping that someone will accidentally stumble across it, then what’s the point? I might as well spend the energy it would take to promote my Last.fm page and use it on promoting this page or my Bandcamp page instead.
Do you use Last.fm? Am I missing something?
Nov
14
2009
My album is finally done! You can download the whole album right here for free:
The files come in a .zip file about 90 Mb in size. You can also download individual songs from my Music page. If you don’t have a program that you can unpack .zip files with, I suggest you google “7-zip”. It’s an open source program that works fine.
If you like it, you can share the music with anyone you like, online or otherwise, but you may not use the music for any kind of commercial purpose without permission from me.
Recording the album took a whole lot longer than I thought because of many things. Since I did everything myself, basically starting from nothing, I had to make sure I had the equipment and instruments I needed, the software to record and edit with, and I had to learn how to use all these things well enough. The whole process was also dependant on other things, like the house being quiet enough for me to record without getting a bunch of noise on the recording as well. This house is not soundproof. It’s just a regular house, so if the other people in the house were watching TV, doing laundry, taking a shower or anything like that, my microphones would pick it up straight through the walls. So progress was a bit slow, but piece by piece I managed to record all of it. I’m pretty happy with the result! Sure, it would probably sound better if the whole thing was done in a professional studio that had all the right equipment and with a bunch of experts behind the controls, but for being an album that I recorded in my basement all on my own, I think the quality is not bad at all. Whether the actual music is any good, I leave for you to decide. So download the album and let me know what you think! 
If you feel like supporting me, the album is also available on my Bandcamp page. There you can buy the album and download it in a range of different file formats. You can also use the Paypal button on the right if you want to help me out. You name the price, even if it’s only $2, it helps.
Nov
5
2009
I’ve been struggling with an annoying cold for the last week, the kind that makes your head, muscles and joints ache, your nose run like the Niagara falls, and just knocks you flat on your back in general. And no, my dear worried friends, I don’t think it was the swine flu, unless I have an immune system of epic proportions, since I’m pretty much through it already and it has only been about a week. I feel pretty much fine, only my voice is still a bit funky.
On top of this cold I managed to find out the hard way that those red glowing things inside ovens, you know those metal bars at the top, are actually quite hot. Slapping the back of your hand into one of them is not a great idea. I’m now the not-so-proud owner of a rather nasty red gash on my hand. Yeah, that’s gonna leave a scar, methinks… All in all, it hasn’t been the greatest week.
But I did a bunch of recording today, and I can finally say that the countdown has started for real! Pretty much everything is done except for the vocals for the last song, so as soon as my voice gets back to normal, I’m going to record the vocals, and then my album will finally be done! Woohoo! 
I don’t remember if I’ve mentioned it before, but I’m studying part time right now, a course called “How to survive as a musician” at the Malmö Academy of Music. I’m learning about all kinds of useful stuff, like how and where to find gigs, marketing, what to keep in mind about contracts with concert venues, etc. Good stuff!
Oct
29
2009
Blog memes are a viral game where you generate links and relationships by asking other bloggers to participate. Awards are one kind of memes, and Timethief at This time this space selected my Rainhat blog for this One Lovely Blog Award.
Here are the rules of the “One Lovely Blog Award”:
1. Accept the award.
2. Post it (the image) on your blog together with the name of the person who has granted the award, and his or her blog link.
3. Pass the award to other blogs that you’ve newly discovered. Remember to contact the bloggers to let them know they have been chosen for this award.
1. Baxter – The Celtic Music Fan. Excellent blog with articles and interviews with bands and musicians, focusing on music from Ireland, Scotland, Wales, Cornwall, Isle of Man, Brittany and Galicia.
2. Mark – Guitar Tutorials Now. Like the name says, guitar tutorials and articles about guitars and guitar playing. Great place for any guitarist!
3. Melinda – The Melindaville Blog. The fascinating life story of a woman who has experienced more than most people do in a lifetime.
4. Mel – The Not-Pop Jukebox. A treasure chest of fun and interesting music that you may have forgotten, or never even heard of.
5. The unknown author – Active Leisure. Humor and sharp observations about unemployment. Always an entertaining read.
6. Claire – A little piece of me. An interesting blog about life, family and counselling by a counselor in training.
http://crpitt.blogspot.com/
