Ace Noface

2009-05-24T12:11:00.000-07:00

These videos should give you a good idea of what it takes for me to put together a song.

Fan Made Video

2009-05-11T17:29:00.000-07:00

2009 goals and a little history

2009-01-04T15:34:00.000-08:00

To put my 2009 goals in context, I need to briefly summarize my goals for the last four years.

In February 2005, I was diagnosed with ALS (Lou Gehrig's disease). After the shock wore off from receiving this news, I dropped out of graduate school, and I stopped my volunteer work at a telephone crisis center. I became withdrawn, spending all my time playing cards on the computer. It went on like this for a few months, then a friend of mine advised me to go back to the one thing that always gave me the most joy: music. He said that even though my physical condition prevented me from playing an actual instrument, I could still write music. But, since I was a bass player before I got sick, I didn't even know how to read treble clef. So I set out the following goals for the year:
-- visit my sister in New York city
-- learn how to use Finale, music notation software
-- come to terms with the diagnosis

In 2006, I discovered GarageBand, the music sequencer that comes with the Mac. I set a goal of learning how to use the program, and start getting in the habit of writing music on a regular basis.

My goals in 2007 were:
-- learn music theory
-- learn music business
-- learn the craft of songwriting

I got myself a college-level music theory book. I discovered that my current state of knowledge was about the level of someone who had taken one semester of music theory. So I started reading the book at a rate of two chapters a month, and I started lessons with a composition instructor. I started writing songs, and they got better as the year went along.

I also started taking classes at Berklee school of music online. My favorite classes were "writing lyrics to music" and "music marketing 101" in the first class, I read books about rhyme and lyrical positioning strategies. In the marketing class, I learned all that tactics of being an indie artist, meaning that I as a musician am responsible for personally building relationships with fans, and promote myself through my own efforts, not relying on a record label to do it for me.

My goals in 2008 were:
-- refine my musical style
-- crystallize a description of what my music is all about
-- write 20 songs

All through 2006-7, I had problems collaborating with vocalists and guitarists on the Internet. The guitarist would take way too long to record their part, and the vocalists took liberties with the way that I wanted the song performed. One day it occurred to me "who needs a guitar anyway?" "Why not find a local vocalist that I can have more control over?" So I rebranded my music as "piano rock" and came up with a tag line "Ace Noface: alternative piano rock for the brave." Two weeks ago, I finished my 20th song, and I recorded 12 of those songs in my home studio.

So my goals/dreams for 2009 are:
-- complete a studio CD with live instruments
-- get my CD reviewed in 20 blogs
-- increase my fan base (Hopefully with a little word -- of --mouth from you)
-- get a brick and mortar distribution deal

It's hard to say how realistic these dreams are. By the end of 2009, that will be five years after my ALS diagnosis. On average, 90% of people diagnosed with this disease are dead within five years of their diagnosis. So far, I've been pretty lucky. Up to now, the disease has only affected my breathing. It may be uncomfortable to be short of breath, but I can still speak and operate a computer with my right forefinger. I have done some preparations for when/if I am no longer able to speak or use my hands. I trained a computer program that "speaks" in a voice that sounds like me, so my voice won't sound mechanical when I need a computer to vocalize for me. I'm also working with a professor who is an expert in augmentative communications technology who will come up with a way to let me continue to write music with a device that tracks my eye movements. That way, I can still be productive even after I lose the ability to control the computer with my finger.

http://acenoface.com/

In search of the lost song

2008-12-14T17:25:00.000-08:00

Several of my freshman year hallmates joined ΖΨ fraternity, and I got invited to a lot of their parties later on in my college career. Their house was notorious, and was known as the skankiest On campus. The national office revoked their charter after a methacathadone lab was discovered in their house.

But the parties continued and the houses where the members lived after being kicked out of the fraternity house. During one these parties, something magical and unforgettable happened (it didn't have anything to do with drugs). A song was playing, with a typical verse -- chorus -- verse structure. Then there was a bridge section where everything cut out except for the vocals and guitars. The bridge ended with a melodic trombone section playing a happy melody, with the vocals singing the same melody with the words "ba ba ba, ba ba ba" Suddenly, everyone in the room converged on the dance floor in a huge group hug. I heard one of my friends say "these are the greatest days of our lives!" I felt a huge ecstatic rush.

A year hasn't gone by since then that I haven't thought about that song. I remembered a few things about it. It has a pretty fast tempo, the singer was English and sounded a little like Morrissey. The chord progression in the verse was Dm Bb F C. The only lyrics I could remember was that of the first verse started with "its 5 AM", the second verse started with "its 6 AM" and the third verse started with "its 7 AM".

I tried to track down some of the people who I was pretty sure where there using social networking sites, but I had no luck. It's entirely possible that they would have been too drunk to remember it anyway.

A couple of weeks ago, it occurred to me that I might be able to find the song using Google. I entered the query "five am lyrics" and one of the first results was a tablature chart for "From Under The Covers" which was on the first album from The Beautiful South. That album was not available on the iTunes store, so I ordered a used copy from Amazon.

Hearing the song after all this time made me feel very nostalgic and sometimes a little weepy, but I'm glad I found it. It's like reconnecting with an old friend.

No need to smoke and hide...

2008-11-05T10:29:00.000-08:00

... Because it will be a legal ride.

Yesterday, the voters of Michigan passed proposal one, which allows physicians to prescribe marijuana to treat the symptoms of terminally ill patients, and other seriously ill patients. I spent some time looking over the bill, and everything I found in it was good news to me. For one thing, ALS is explicitly listed as one of the diseases that doctors can prescribe marijuana for. The maximum amount a patient can possess is 2 1/2 ounces, a month's supply for even a prodigious stoner. The new law establishes an ID card system to be administered by the department of health. Patients are allowed to grow up to 12 plants, each of which would generate several ounces of smokable marijuana.

The most interesting part of the new law is the creation of "primary caregivers" who are granted the same protections against prosecution for possession or cultivation that the patients do. One of my caregivers is a tremendous pothead, and he seems excited about the opportunity of essentially getting a get out of jail free card. I think he might even be willing to grow some weed at his house if I supply the startup money.

I found an article in a journal for physical medicine doctors that made the argument for using marijuana to treat ALS. It gave eight reasons why the drug is effective, and admittedly euphoria was one of the benefits to treat the depression that can come with the disease, but the other seven reasons were more substantive. One of them is that cannabinoids have been shown to have neuroprotective properties, which means that smoking pot might actually make me live longer.

Pretty cool, eh?

Whiskey Bottle's Lyrics

2008-09-14T20:59:00.000-07:00

My bipolar illness was really out of control in the summer of 2001, and abruptly stopping taking baclofen, a muscle relaxant that causes physical dependency, threw me into a full-blown manic episode.

The first of many bizarre delusions I suffered happened when I was doing shots of Maker's Mark bourbon while working on my PC. For a split second, I saw the eye of God in the circle S IV logo on the label. I immediately started work on this image, which is based on that logo:

Everything in the image had quasi-religious symbolism. The circle represented the walls around the Garden of Eden. The S was the serpent, the I was Adam and the V was Eve. The four three-leafed clovers were about the animist worship of nature. The five pyramids (from a dollar bill) symbolize man's dominion over nature. The five lightning bots (taken from Schutzstaffel runes) was for natural forces' dominance over mankind. If you connect the lines between the small pyramids inside the circle in a certain way, you can make a six-pointed Star of David. The seven pointed figure on the inside of the circle looked like a police badge to me, so it represented Mosaic and Talmudic Law. The nine leafed pot image embedded in the circle represented a method by which mankind could return to Eden. Either I skipped eight when I made the image, or I don't remember how it was incorporated there.

Apparently these types of delusions are common among bipolars. In the film "The Devil and Daniel Johnston" Daniel is shown ranting to a nightclub audience saying "Man is five, the Devil is six, God is seven, number nine, number nine, number nine..."

Cooking Dates

2008-09-09T17:09:00.000-07:00

I posted this ad on craigslist and in my synagogue's bulletin:

I enjoy cooking Middle Eastern, Greek, Chinese, Thai, Ethiopian, Indian, Mexican, French, Italian, Indian, and Southern style comfort food, but due to physical limitations, I need help doing the work in the kitchen. I accommodate all dietary restrictions. For a fun and educational evening, answer this ad!

I have a few friends who come over intermittently, resulting in 1 or 2 cooking dates a month. They pick the culinary theme, I look up 4-5 recipes, which we narrow down to 2-3 via e-mail.

Last time our theme was fall vegetables. We chose 2 recipes, both calling for tomatoes. My guest grows tomatoes, but her dog likes them too, and ate all the tomatoes we were going to cook! Still, the stuffed zucchini with ground lamb and fresh mint, and the grilled eggplant with parsley ricotta and tomato relish were a smashing success and a delight for all the senses. The most fun we had was grilling the eggplant with the George Foreman grill I just bought. I can't decide if I like my grill or my lemon zester more.

I know that there will be a time, hopefully a long way off, when I won't be able to swallow anymore, so in addition to good meals, I always have Altoids peppermints, and Altoids apple, mango, raspberry, citrus and tangerine sours, plus Godiva truffles on my desk.

New Music Video

2008-07-27T19:07:00.000-07:00

Idea Farmer

2008-07-23T11:50:00.000-07:00

My songwriting process could be compared to what a farmer does. I am constantly receiving tiny bits of inspiration from above, like a field of grain constantly receives sunshine to make it grow. Just like a farmer harvests his grain and refines it into flour to make bread, I have a method of harvesting the small bits of inspiration I receive into a finished product.

My songs usually start late at night. I open up the text editor and imagine myself having a guitar in my hands and, as I play my imaginary guitar, most of the time I’ll come up with a chord progression that ends up being the backbone of a new song. Then, I turn the chord progression into a piano part by, first of all, deciding the rhythmic expression of the chords, and then decide on the voicing of the chords so that I have an effective voice leading in the right handed part of the piano line and colorful expression in the piano part. Then I add the bass and the drum parts to the section.

Very often, I will write the music for the verse to a song one night and the chorus or bridge the next night. A lot of the time, I have to make small changes to the end of one part or the beginning of another to make them sound cohesive. Once the piano and drums are arranged, I work on writing a melody. Writing a melody is kind of similar to the way the chord changes come about. At this time I have the rhythm section to help inspire the melodic phrasing. I play one section of the song again and again until I’m able to sing a melody that comes to me and then I write it down and listen to it again. Sometimes I end up needing to make changes to the rhythm or pitch of the melody, but most of the time the inspiration of the melody provides a satisfying result.

My lyric writing also has a farmer-like method to it, but the process involves gathering and refining small inspirations that I harvest once a week by following Julia Cameron’s book “The Artist’s Way.” The first thing I do every morning is write at least ten stream of consciousness short sentences. At the end of the week, I condense all of the morning pages into a single document. Then I take a song with a completed melody and decide what the rhyme scheme will be for it. I try to see if I could use any of the short sentences in the song. Very often, using just one of the short sentences in the chorus will make me decide what the song will be about.

When writing the lyrics, that is the time when I feel most closely connected to my source of inspiration. Once I decide the title, most of the time from a sentence in my morning pages, I use it in the strongest part of the melody in the chorus, sometimes more than once. Then I decide what points I’m going to make in the verses. The verses are really where the magic happens for me. I usually write the first line of the verse and then the last line and then the middle two are dictated by the rhymes being called for by the melody. So the first line rhymes with the third and the second with the fourth. Sometimes it happens differently, but that’s usually how it goes. Then I use the rhyming dictionary as a catalyst to fill in the middle, and as soon as I see the word I want to use I get an instant inspiration as to how to use it. So it’s when I’m writing my lyrics that I feel most connected to my muse.

I’ll be the first to admit that I have a very analytical and formulaic method of writing my songs, but the most important thing to keep in mind is that everything I do, from the chord changes—to the harmonization—to the melody—and to the lyrics, all come to me like a gift from heaven.

The Artist's Way

2008-05-11T11:21:00.000-07:00

The Artist's Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity is a book I started reading 3 days ago. It leads you through a comprehensive twelve-week program to recover your creativity from a variety of blocks, including limiting beliefs, fear, self-sabotage, jealousy, guilt, addictions, and other inhibiting forces, replacing them with artistic confidence and productivity

The first week's assignment included creating a list of affirmations. The book warned that while reading them the first time, I would hear lots of negative attitudes that rebut the positive affirmation I was reading. Well that's exactly what happened, and I wrote them down as I "heard" them. I was shocked at the viciousness, variety, and the sheer numbers of negative responces my mind came up with.

For example, when I read"

"My creativity heals myself, and others"

I heard in my head:

"No one notices your art"

In a Skype session with my sister (who wrote my artist bio), we inverted each negative thought and turned it into an affirmation designed to counter it. So:

"No one notices your art"

Became:

"I am receiving more and more recognition."

I made a recording of me reading my affirmations. It's in the jukebox on the "music" page.

A second exersize the book teaches is writing "morning pages" of stream-of-consciousness writing. I adapt that to my situation by starting the day writing a stream of nouns. They look like this:

cannon cluster sheep boy necklace disbelief fig tooth trim orange field lake injustice bowling casino whiskey irritation vengeance sadist sunshine supermarket bass copper centrifuge president chaos election refusal newspaper video grandmother flower peppermint fetish loyalty sniper kindness bell pew candlestick paint truck hat marijuana medicine name tag promotion failure hospital brightness list

candlestick tin.can avalanche steel.belt banana swift.boat recycling fridge tabasco iced.tea oranges milk.carton.photo swimming.pool antenna ice.cream salad whisky moss sludge broom yankee organ scalpel bed.rest director south.america self.sustainability ensure.shate rottenness rabbi blue.cartoon.creature

keyboard turtle oxygen tissue orange cinnamon grace alcohol blueberry tabletop knife magazine soldier victim silence flood rice lagoon airplane vendor ambiance sourness crust serration blimp bullet football strangeness flesh outhouse clap period intensity thumb.tack name.tag closet pain fish breading herb vapor tube shuffle audiology perfection simplicity recommendation partition tradition mud flower flour break pressure illiteracy

I read a newspaper article that said that picking up new hobbies and listening to different music creates new neural pathways and even new brain cells, both of which measurably boost creativity.

I'm listening to Jewish religious pop and choir music, and I'm studying chess.

New Year's Resolutions

2007-12-19T15:47:00.000-08:00

I've accomplished a lot this year! Looking back at the files I was working on this time last year, I can see that I've progressed musically and lyrically. Looking at this site, I can see that I've achieved a strong musical identity and purpose. This took a lot of work and studying. Here's how I did it:

Music Lessons with a university composition professor. Every week or so, we get together to analyze whatever I wrote, or any song by Steely Dan, Radiohead, Beatles, Zeppelin, Depeche Mode, jazz standard or Bach prelude I'm into.
Classes from Berklee School of Music Online. "Hit Song Forms" taught me how to arrange music to make it accessible to more listeners. "Music Publishing 101" was about getting my music heard more widely and how to collaborate with other writers. "Writing Lyrics to Music" was about putting strong syllables on strong beats, and various rhyme and lyrical strategies. My current class, "Music Marketing 101," is about creating a strategy for success as an "indie" artist, without the support of a major record label.
I read the second half of a college level music theory textbook. Each chapter expanded my musical vocabulary, and I tried to incorporate what I'd learned in a new piece.
"The Songwriter's Idea Book" by Sheila Davis. This provides a fusion of personality psychology and grammatical/literary theory to provide a "whole brain" songwriting method. I learned that my brain is very left hemisphere dominant, which means I seek closure. This book helped me break the habit of spending 15 minutes writing lyrics to a tune I'd just spent 7 hours composing.

I did all this without setting any specific goals, but this year I make these resolutions:

To set aside an hour each day for writing lyrics or music
To spend half an hour every day improving my craft by either reading about songwriting or getting inspiration from analyzing music or lyrics.
To spend an hour every day reading blogs, listening to podcasts, reading music publications, or cultivating relationships with the bloggers, podcasters or journalists to promote my music
To keep my mind uncluttered by applying the "Getting Things Done" method by David Allen, keeping a list of projects and action items.
To keep a diary of whatever I'm doing in my calendar, and review the calendar each Saturday.

Inspired by movies: Story behind the two latest songs

2007-11-15T15:25:00.000-08:00

An Honest Ten Percent

This is a result of both a musical and lyrical rewrite of a song I wrote six months ago called "Deliver Arnica." This song has a chorus that borrows some chord progression ideas from Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit." I just changed the order you hear the chords. The verses use a simpler I IV V chord progression with a jazzy tritone substitution turnaround. The melody in the verses was inspired by The Who's "Baba O'Riley" as it is almost all pentatonic major. The melody in the chorus is also Nirvana inspired. It starts with a phrase in the minor key, but alternates with a phrase that ends on the major third.

The lyrics for Arnica were not thought through too carefully, like a lot of my early songs (before I took the "writing lyrics to music" class at Berklee School of Music Online). No thought went in to the title; I was just looked around the room and saw the tube of arnica homeopathic pain relief gel, and 15 minutes later, the lyrics were done. It took me about 5 hours to write the music (I type with a touch pad and an on-screen keyboard) and another couple hours to mix it in GarageBand. Now, after taking that class, and reading Sheila Davis' lyric writing books, I put equal time into the music and the words.

When I got the song critique from TAXI, they suggested rewriting the lyrics, and add a prechorus and a bridge. Then in mid September I woke up thinking about the WWII POW movie "King Rat", and knew I had to write a song about it. I rented it from Netflix, and wrote down images and dialogue that affected me. The main character, an American corporal who runs the camp's black market, was asked how much he profited from a transaction he brokered. His reply, his tagline, "An Honest Ten Percent." I realized this phrase has the same syllabic stress as arnica:

de LIV er AR ni CA
an HON est TEN per CENT

I knew I had my title. I answered the who, what, when and where questions in the first verse:

Nineteen fourty five
Men barely alive
Japanese and barbwire and pain
Life in camp is cruel
Black market I rule
You eat bugs this king drinks champagne

The chorus and bridge came next. They comment the main event of the film:

Chorus:

An honest ten percent
Your hunger's keeping me fat
An honest ten percent
I'll trade your watch for a rat

Bridge:

Takes a cold heart to capitalize
Eating rat meat is rationalized

No one lies (about being lonely)

I wrote the lyrics first. The title is a line from the movie "From Here To Eternity"

The music borrows idea from Depeche Mode's "Never Let Me Down Again"