Tosin Abasi of Animals as Leader

Getting older is a funny thing. “You just wait and see” must be on an endless subconscious loop in the minds of my parent’s generation. The younger you are, the more you think you know, and the more the older generation can’t wait for you to grow up a little bit and see the expression on your face when you finally “get it” and realize you don’t know everything.

But the burden isn’t just on the young guys. Quite often the older folks don’t give the younger guys enough credit. They just assume they know nothing, are unmotivated, and will never learn.

I am certainly, in some respects, a part of both groups. Being just a few weeks north of my 39th birthday I seem to straddle the line of being a grown-up with a wife and mortgage, and yet also being a kid who is still trying to figure out what to do when I grow up.

And so yesterday I found myself going to the Summer Slaughter 2010 metal show. I was there for one band in particular (I’ll get to that soon; bear with me) but managed to catch a few of the others. To say that my ears were assaulted would be an understatement. I didn’t hear one distinguishable note, not one single sung lyric that was actually articulated. Every singer sounded like they crap barbed wire and gargle with gun powder. As much as I try to embrace all forms of music, this just wasn’t my bag at all. I love Meshuggah, Opeth, and Periphery, and I get the cookie monster vibe. Though I’m not a huge fan of it, I can appreciate it when it’s done right.

WHEN it’s done right.

And so the old curmudgeon in me got a bit of a workout.

“They don’t know how to mosh.”

“What the f*&# is the name of the band on your shirt? It looks like vomit.”

You get the idea.

But I wasn’t there for those guys. I wasn’t really interested in the indistinguishable mass of death metal bands that sound exactly alike. I was there for one band and one band only. Furthermore, I was there to take a guitar lesson from a young guitarist who is not-so quietly making a name for himself as one of the shining stars in instrumental music.

The band? Animals as Leaders. The guitarist? Tosin Abasi.

After Animals as Leaders finished their set, Tosin and I set out for an hour lesson and talking shop. Since I’m definitely an old-school metal guitarist, there are a few things as a player that I’ve fallen behind on and wanted to get some insight into. Two in particular are two-hand tapping techniques and sweep picking. As you can see from the video above, Tosin has both of those pieces covered.

What struck me from the moment he started showing me things to work on is that he has the teaching thing figured out. Most young guys (I hesitate to call him a “kid”) will just shrug their shoulders and say “I don’t know, like, I just like, do it.” But not Tosin. Tosin is articulate, very well thought out and, most importantly, able to start teaching from a foundation and work up from there. He started me on some basic concepts and techniques to slowly build upon.

Tosin, Josh, and Jim's Steaks in the background. Welcome to Philly!

(At some point I’m sure I’ll post some of the things I came up with as a result, but I’m not quite there yet. Suffice it to say that in just one hour of his excellent teaching and another hour of practice at home I’ve already seen marked improvement in my playing.)

When it was my turn to try out what he was showing me he was patient (a very rare quality for most folks in their 20′s) and seemed genuinely excited to be sharing his guitar knowledge with someone else. In the very short period of time I got to talk to him I could tell that he truly loves the guitar and is very passionate about being the best player he can be and making great music.

It’s important to not only see where it starts, but also where it’s going. Towards the end of our time together we got a little bit outside of tapping and sweeping and spoke about his approach to guitar and guitar music in general. His is very unique, and it’s apparent that he spends lots and lots and lots of time working out his ideas in every conceivable permutation. With a penchant for jazzier sounds such as Maj7#11 chords, upper partials harmony, and  while his contemporaries are still chugging along with barre chords (not that there’s anything wrong with that), Tosin seems to be ever-reaching for the farthest star in the sky while remaining firmly planted on the ground.

Animals as Leaders Debut CD

I’m encouraged by meeting Tosin for two reasons. One, I got to peek into his bag of tricks and steal some really great things to work on. Two, and most importantly, the old curmudgeon in me that got a workout earlier in the day has been placated and is quite assured that the future of guitar is in capable hands. If you have not checked out Tosin and his work with Animals as Leaders, you really should. Their debut, self-titled CD is amazing, he’s currently on tour and needs to be seen live if he’s coming to your area, and he has extensive videos available for viewing on youTube (a few of which I’m posting here).

On a personal note: Tosin, your future is bright and I wish you the greatest success. I hope you like oysters, because the world is yours. Thanks for taking the time to show an old dog some new tricks. It’s never too late to improve your playing, no matter how old (or young) you are. And I still owe you some home-cooked Thai food.

It’s very easy to use: click on the “Add Link” button and fill out the form. I should note that all of the link approvals are manually done by me, so there may be some delay from the time you submit one to the time I put it up.

I would ask that you please not spam the system. I will be more than happy to share any relevant blog posts, stories, and links that you want to share. However, if you abuse the privilege and try to post something from your blog 100 times a day, or if you try to blatantly push a product on a repeated basis, I will reject you. (Instead, please consider taking out an ad on Fretterverse. It will give you more exposure and also help me to maintain the site and defray out-of-pocket expenses.)

Try it out and, more importantly, enjoy the new feature!

Get better by practicing less?

Marketing guru Seth Godin recently wrote a small but very engaging blog post suggesting that users/customers/yourself could possibly achieve more by setting limits. One of his examples is this:

“The maximum number of tweets per day is 30.”

His point/opinion is that we might be more likely to achieve our goals if the end result is fixed and not some elusive, amorphous thing that allows us to just stop when we want to.

Godin is brilliant, in my humble opinion, and everything he writes usually gets a significant portion of my brain power for a while every day. This particular post got me thinking about my guitar practice sessions and which ones have ended up being the most successful for me.

So as it relates to guitar, Godin’s question becomes this: if you actually imposed a time limit on your practice sessions, will you accomplish more than if you sat down at the guitar to practice with unlimited time?

First, we’re going to have to go under the assumption that you have a practice goal in mind. Just sitting down and noodling on the guitar, whether you have an imposed time limit or not, is unproductive. It’s certainly fun as hell, but you probably won’t accomplish much.

Okay, so with that out of the way, the issue at hand is one of productivity, focus, and motivation. With a fixed time limit you obviously only have a certain amount of time in which to achieve certain milestones. In this scenario you will be focused and concentrating on exactly what needs to be worked on. Time won’t be wasted on whatever comes to the front of your mind, and you’ll know whether or not you are spending too much time (or not enough) on any specific piece of practice material.

In essence this is a very good thing. However, the downside is that you can very easily find yourself running out of time and rushing to get to everything you set out to do. That’s bad, perhaps even worse than having too much time.

Too much time, consequently, can be very good… if you have the ability to remain completely focused for long periods of time. Most of us can’t, so the potential to drift off into other things and noodle around is high. I can remember hundreds – perhaps even thousands – of practice sessions where I had unlimited time to do something important and ended up just riffing around and doing nothing.

So let’s get back to the original question; will you accomplish more with an imposed time limit?

My answer? I think for the majority of us the answer is “yes.” Since most of us are not hyper-focused OCD zombies it seems more likely that practice sessions with specific time limits is the way to go. There is a minority of people, however, who can practice for eight hours a day straight and be more productive than those of us spending twenty minutes. (Kudos to those people, for sure.)

Whichever end of the spectrum you may fall on, my suggestion as always is to make sure your practice sessions are focused and on point. What do you guys think about Godin’s point?

Meisel COM-90 Clip-On Tuner

Having a good tuner is a must. I think we can all agree that there is nothing worse than a guitar player whose guitar is out of tune.

When I first started learning jazz guitar (still learning…) I went on this mad search for the be-all clip-on tuner to use with my jazz box. It’s not like there were a ton available on the market, but there were enough to make me do a bunch of research before buying one.

I initially ended up getting the Intellitouch PT1 tuner, but I have to be honest and tell you that I didn’t like it. It simply wouldn’t tune my guitar accurately. The one single job it was supposed to perform, and it failed. So the search began again.

And then I had a conversation with my band mate Mark of Gollihur Music, and he told me to check out the company Meisel. They were a clip-on tuner manufacturer that produced what he thought to be excellent tuners. I told him to bring one home for me, I tried it, and instantly fell in love with it.

The problem was, Meisel had stopped making that tuner so although I was able to procure two, if they broke I was going to be SOL.

So you could imagine my surprise – if you are a geek like me and get excited about tuners – when Mark told me that Meisel had come out with an updated tuner called the COM-90.

So I don’t drag this out too much longer, I’ll tell you up front that I love this tuner. First, the display is much clearer than the old tuner (and most other tuners in general). The display is very large and changes color when you are in tune, eliminating the need to focus on the needle display.

The “neck” of the tuner is longer and much more flexible, and allows you to really position the display where it’s convenient for you to see. Lastly, the rubber they use for the clamp has been replaced with silica, which is much more sensitive to vibration and therefore produces a much more accurate tuning picture.

The tuner also has presets for commonly-tuned instruments to help you tune faster and with less hassle.

Here is a video demonstrating the tuner on an upright bass:

If you are looking for a new tuner, I highly recommend the Meisel COM-90. For the price ($25.00 at the time of writing) it simply cannot be beat.

Only a major idiot would do this...

A recent blog post reported on a Japanese guitar maker that is producing and selling guitars for the exclusive purpose of smashing them.

The guitar maker – K’s Japan – has created the “Smash” guitar, which sells for less than $60 USD. They are promoting the guitar as a way to let out one’s frustrations and get that rock n’ roll spirit back. (I should mention that at the time of this writing there were only 10 guitars left). They even went so far as to require you to sign a waiver stating that you are intentionally planning on smashing the guitar.

Now, I’ve spent a significant amount of time in Japan. I don’t claim to be a cultural expert or anything of that nature, but I have seen and experienced enough of the Japanese life to know that this is right up their ally. The problem I have is that it’s a guitar. Please, make it anything else but a guitar, I beg you!

It’s not even that I’m one of those “guitars must be pristine things of beauty with nary a scratch.” I just think that people who intentionally smash their guitars are jackasses.

Idiots, morons, knuckleheads, jerkoffs, assholes… take your pick. Guitars are meant to be played, not smashed as a part of some stage antics to show how rebellious you are. If you want to be rebellious, do what every other single rebellious person does; get dressed up like the other nine million people wearing all black and nail polish while trying to convince yourself that you look completely original.

I could ramble on and on and take up space about how stupid I think this is, but I’m hoping – truly hoping – that if you read this blog you are like me and see the guitar as an instrument of true inner expression and beauty, and not something you throw around and intentionally break. And please spare me the rhetoric of the 60′s and rebellion and all that; I honestly don’t care. You want to burn your favorite over-the-shoulder-boulder-holder, go right ahead. If you want to smash a guitar, how about donating it to someone who really wants to learn to play – someone who can’t afford a guitar on their own. I’m sure there are plenty of local music programs in the area that would love some donations.

If you are one of those people that really feels the need to manifest their frustrations and anger about their lives by acting out physically, seek help. Better yet, sign up for the local Muay Thai school and let people kick the shit out of you for a few hours a week. Then go seek help.

There is only one conclusion to this: if you smash your instrument you are a moron. Don’t do it!

Some people are very particular about the cables they use. For example, Paul Gilbert is a huge proponent of the curly cables. Others couldn’t care less so long as the cables work and aren’t breaking up the audio signal.

I have seen cables go for as much as $2,000, which begs the question:

How important are your guitar cables?

First off, for the record, I don’t give a crap how important they are, $2,000 for a 20′ cable is outright obscene; if you buy one then quite frankly you’re an idiot. There, I got that out of the way.

For me, instrument cables come down to basically three things: price, construction, and reliability.

Price

As mentioned above, there is a limit to how much I’ll spend on a cable. If you’re spending more than $30 for a guitar cable then I want your day job. Maybe $40, but any higher than that and I think you’re wasting your money. If you take care of your cables then they will last for a very long time, so in purchasing a $30 cable and taking care of it you’re bound to keep it for a very long time.

Construction

This is where companies try to get away with justifying a huge price tag. They will try to convince you that the materials they are using are so important: silver this, gold that, double-plated whatchamacallits… hype, hype, hype!

Look, certain materials certainly conduct electricity and current better than others. Yes, gold is very nice. But do you need it in a guitar cable? I think not. As long as the soldering is, well, solid, and the wires aren’t defective, just about any cable will do. Don’t fall for the fancy marketing hype.

One thing to be aware of is that some of the shielding material – I’m talking about the outside protective rubber – is hard to wrap properly when being stored. Be careful with this, as it will force you to wrap your cables inefficiently, which causes a shorter cable life.

Reliability

Certainly, construction has something to do with the reliability of a cable, but I think more so than just how it’s made a question of how well it holds up under pressure comes into question. Can the cable still hold up and provide a clean signal path after being stepped on and thrashed around on stage? Most can, so it’s not really an issue, but I have come across a few brands of cables that just can’t survive the daily abuse.

What About Sound Quality?

Yeah, the sound quality. I’m sorry, but I just don’t get this part of the discussion. Never once in my entire life as a guitarist – and I’ve been playing for over 25 years – have I ever been able to hear the difference in sound quality between two working-condition cables. I’m talking about two cables that are functioning properly. Never! There have been some people who have tried to A/B test them in front of me to prove there are differences, but either I need to get a hearing aid or they are just screwing with me.

And I’m not talking about path noise, either, I’m talking about actual tone. Perhaps my ears just aren’t sensitive enough to hear the differences, but I suspect it’s just more marketing hype.

So How Important Are They?

Well, obviously, they are important, but I think they are important for reasons other than what the advertising and name-dropping make them to be. You want a reliable, well-constructed cable that is affordable and will last for a while. Monster Cable makes good stuff, as does George L. Then again, I usually just buy a cable from the nearest Guitar Center or Sam Ash and they work just the same.

For the record, I haven’t bought a new guitar cable in about three years, and the next time I do I’m certainly not spending an arm and a leg for one. Neither should you!

A supernova

It’s always fascinating to me how you can find the most profound lessons (about life, music, whatever) from the most seemingly unlikely places and events. The “light bulb” moments that, unfortunately, don’t come along as often as they probably should, and yet when they do, a fundamental paradigm shift occurs and rockets us forward to the next point of our journey.

One of these profound lessons – related to music – happened to me this past weekend, and it happened while playing in perhaps one of the most un-guitar situations you could ever possibly think of.

Ambient electronica music.

For those of you unfamiliar with ambient music, the best analogy I can think of would be the kind of “music” you would probably expect to hear if you were hanging out in outer space. Very slow, minimalist, electronica music, centered around synthesizers and slow-changing themes. Basically, trying to get the instruments you use to not sound like the instruments you are using.

I’m over-simplifying, of course, but that’s only because I don’t want to get bogged down in the definition; the lesson is more important.

Anyway, so I was hanging out with my friend John. He is an exceptional electronica musician who specializes in ambient music. I love his music, and this weekend I went to his place just to hang out and talk some shop. Nothing specific, just picking his brain, asking him some questions about gear and synthesis that I have been having trouble wrapping my head around, etc. He always has the answers, and I’m always much smarter when I leave than when I showed up.

This time around, he told me to bring my guitar. Again, not for anything specific. The conversation started turning towards convolution reverb and using the audio fx engines of software synths to affect a guitar’s audio signal. These two very simple methods can be employed to help create “instant ambient music” (just add water). He plugged my guitar into his rig, routed a few fx engines and add some convolution reverb and I was instantly transformed into ambient music territory.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m not insinuating that I instantly became an ambient music expert. Not at all. But, what did happen was that I instantly became a much more critical listener than I ever had before; even when playing jazz!

Before I go further with my observations, have a listen to the song first:

I hope you liked it. It’s certainly an interesting departure for a guitar blog, eh? Were you able to discern the guitar from the other instruments? Hopefully, for the most part you were not. That’s the point!

So let me fill you in on what I learned…

Less is definitely more!

The most interesting thing I learned was how much you should play. In all of the other styles of music I’ve dabbled with, when the energy of the other musicians is high and there is a lot going on, you tend to want to match that energy and build up. With this experience, however, that’s exactly what I did not want to do! As John would start to build up some tension, I had to really concentrate on doing less with my part to let his energy carry the section along. Now, it probably doesn’t sound like a lot of “energy” when you listen to it, but it’s there if you listen closely enough.

In essence, doing less when you really want to do more produced a much better piece of music.

Space is cool...

Patience

If there was ever one personality trait I was never blessed with, it would be patience. I have absolutely no ability to let things unfold naturally, to stand in line behind slow shoppers, or to calmly drive behind the old lady in the left lane of the highway. But it became very apparent to me, very quickly, that playing too much given how my guitar sounded was a very bad thing. Because the convolution reverb caused what I was playing to be heard for 25-30 seconds instead of 10, I started paying much more attention to the decay of the notes and choosing when I played the next note.

Be careful what you play

I also became much more aware of the importance of what notes I played, as any “wrong” note would result in a “mistake” that would last 30 seconds instead of 10. It takes a whole lot of concentration and mental energy, and a whole lot of on-the-fly critical listening to everything else going on around me. This is something we guitar players have a lot of trouble doing, and many a joke has been written at our expense as a result.

Blend, don’t stand out

Another “feature” of being a guitar player is that we’re quite comfortable with standing out and being up front, heard loud and clear for all to appreciate. In my ambient education, however, that would be a big no-no. It’s all about support and blending with everything else going on. Unfortunately, we should probably always think about blending with the rest of the instruments, but you know as well as I do that it rarely happens.

Enjoy the moment

When John and I “wrote” the song, there were absolutely no parameters. No set time, no song parts, no agenda. We lived in and enjoyed the moment, completely spontaneous creativity that was 100% all about our interaction as musicians rather than the end result. We obviously had no idea how it would turn out. As it happens, however, John liked what we did so much that he wants to include it on his next CD. To say that I was humbled and honored would be something of an understatement.

I hope you understand that this post isn’t just about ambient music. It’s about your contribution as a guitar player to whatever style of music you play. It’s about how you interact with the other musicians, and how important it can be to try something so completely off your beaten path that it virtually shocks your system and pushes you to new levels.

This weekend I received a major musical education. I encourage you all to do something – anything – to break out of whatever box you are in, and see what happens.

There’s certainly nothing wrong with that approach, but as I get older and now have several music projects being worked on, I’ve come to the conclusion that ignorance isn’t necessarily bliss.

So during a recent trip to my favorite Barnes & Noble, I picked up this little gem of a book called Big Studio Secrets for Home Recording and Production by Joe Dochtermann.

My goal? To start my recording, engineering, and production education way too late in life. Here are my thoughts on the book and whether or not it is a good place to start.

The first thing that struck me was that I really like Dochtermann’s writing style. Very direct yet funny, and not overly-technical. You can actually learn about recording and production without being mired in hundreds of confusing terms and concepts.

The book is very well thought out, starting with a chapter on honoring those who came before us. Dochtermann gives us a quick history of a few engineering pioneers, including Les Paul, Phil Spector, and the Mowtown sound. The book then works its way through audio basics, the microphone and mic’ing techniques. Everything from studio setup to EQ, effects, and arranging information is also included.

My favorite part of the book – and I certainly haven’t absorbed (pun intended) everything the book has to offer – is the section on how to build different sound absorption traps in the “Setting Up Your Studio” chapter. Have you ever thought to use a metal trash can as a bass trap? I bet you haven’t; but Dochtermann shows you how!

Also of note, which I don’t see a lot of in the few recording books I’ve checked out, are chapters on music production and arrangement. Dochtermann covers them both, and they are welcome additions. The book also comes with a CD-Rom containing audio examples. I admit that I haven’t dug into this yet, so I can’t comment on what you get. But, the book in and of itself is well worth the price. There is a ton of well-written information that beginning audio production students can learn from.

If you want to get started down the road of recording and production and don’t know where to begin, I highly recommend this book.

Probably.

But, be that as it may there’s nothing worse than listening to an out-of-tune guitar being played. I’m talking worse than getting this stuck in your head all day.

In my many moons of guitar playing I have come across a bunch of different ways to tune the guitar. Some are better than others, and this isn’t an absolute list.

5th Fret/Open String

The first way I learned to tune was to use the 5th fret of each string (or the 4th for the G string). For example, you play the 5th fret on the low E string (the note ‘A’) and then play the open A string.

This method works, but quite often when alternating between clean and distorted sounds you’ll find your barre chords don’t quite tune up perfectly.

Harmonics

Play the harmonic on the 5th fret of the low E string and the harmonic on the 7th fret of the A string. Let them both ring and then tune up. For the B string, you need to play the harmonic on the 7th fret of the low E string and then play the open B string.

CAGED Chords

Many guitarists play most of their music using the 5 basic chord shapes in the first few frets of their guitar. Because they don’t venture very far up the fingerboard they are more concerned with getting the chords in tune. So, these guys will generally play these chords and tune everything up that way.

The tricky part for this – and for all tuning, really – is getting the G and B strings to cooperate with each other. Tempered tuning makes it very tricky for these two strings to play nice together.

Power Chords/Distortion

For those of us who primarily only play power chords with distortion on, power chords are the way to go. Start with an E chord and work your way up to get them sounding djenty.

Octaves

Play a C chord. You know, the generic first-position C chord. Now just play the two C notes and tune the guitar. Then do the same with E, G, D, and A. That should cover all of the strings.

I haven’t had much success with this method, but I know a lot of people do it.

Buy a Tuner!

Now that you’ve finished with all of those, do all of us a favor and just buy a tuner! Seriously, use the tuner first to get everything tuned on a macro level, and then refine it depending on how you play (distortion, CAGED, etc).

Anyway, I’m sure it’s safe to assume that virtually every musician has an opinion one way or another on the RIAA, filesharing, the record industry’s pricing model, iTunes, etc. A recent blog post suggests that within a three-year period, the RIAA collected a little over $1,000,000 from people who illegally participated in music filesharing. That sounds pretty good, until you read the part that says they spent $64,000,000 to do it.

Ouch! That’s a boatload of cash, and on the surface – from a business perspective – it seems like whomever signed off on that decision should be fired immediately. But digging deeper into the subject you realize that the purpose of the RIAA isn’t necessarily to be a for-profit corporation so much as a legal entity used by the major record companies to help stem the tide of illegal music filesharing. At least that’s one of their functions…

Profit and loss statements notwithstanding, we can all certainly agree that the music industry is in shambles. The industry is great from the consumer’s perspective (thank you MP3s and iTunes), and I don’t feel too bad for the record companies. However, the musicians are the ones that are being hit the hardest.

There are some musicians who love filesharing and just want to have their music heard. I believe these are, for the most part, up-and-coming folks who are more interested in getting their name out than making a profit right now. Players like Misha Mansoor have encouraged listeners to download their songs/demos in an effort to be heard. But now that his band, for example, has a record deal and their debut CD has been out for a few months, have his feelings changed? Would yours? How many bands out there today encourage their audience to record their shows and trade/swap them a la The Grateful Dead?

iTunes alone has done much to decimate the industry. Not only are people now able to spend significantly less money to buy a band’s CD, but consumers don’t even have to buy the complete product anymore if they only want one or two songs. From a music fan’s perspective this is the end of the rainbow, but for artists and the record labels this is a nightmare. Not only is revenue down, but now the labels and artists need to negotiate terms on a micro (song) level. Also from the artist’s perspective, the songwriting has become much more about songs individually rather than a complete set of songs as one unit. Back in the days of cassettes and LPs it seemed as if each record was seemingly more consistent; almost as if there was an unconscious mindset from musicians to write music that worked well together rather than just writing a hit song.

Now don’t get me wrong; I have no particular love for the record companies. I think for the most part they are greedy, they treat their artists like garbage, and they poison our airwaves with a lot of crap that’s based more on image than musical talent. But the ones who get hurt the most are the artists themselves. Certainly, the record companies are not going to take a smaller cut of the profits in order to do a solid for the artist. They are going to recover their costs first and maximize their profits as much as possible. So where does that leave the musician? I’ll give you a hint: they don’t have a paddle.

Music lovers have embraced the “try before you buy” model. Friends are sharing MP3 disks of their favorite tunes, filesharing and P2P networks are transferring millions of bytes of music illegally every day, and no matter how hard legitimate companies like YouTube try, they simply cannot stem the tide of music being pushed out to the public for free. It’s almost seems to be an inevitable consequence that the music industry as we know it is going to die a horrible death and no one can do anything to stop it.

If I hear something I really like, I buy the MP3s. You should, too.

Do I think the RIAA is stupid? Not at all. Their job is to recover revenue and stop the illegal distribution of music. Granted, the margin is way huge (assuming those numbers are accurate) but the principle is sound. Our “what’s the big deal?” mentality about stealing a musician’s music – and it is stealing no matter how you slice it – is very unhealthy. The irony of the situation is that most of the people doing the stealing are obviously doing it because they like the song. They don’t realize (or don’t care) that they are literally making it harder for the people they like as artists to be able to write more music!

Do I think filesharing is stupid? Well, not stupid, but definitely not healthy for people who are trying to make a living as musicians. I think musicians are entitled to make every cent they possibly can for the work they create. That is why most musicians have to tour a lot, as they make most of their income on the revenue from ticket sales and merchandising. It’s a double-edged sword, however, as the number of live venues has also been steadily shrinking over the past 20+ years. Not necessarily as a direct result of filesharing, per se, but the immediacy of being able to get music nowadays makes it easier for people to not want (or have) to go to live shows.

Is there a solution? Heck if I know. I hate to paint such an extreme and negative picture, but it just seems to me like our gluttony is going to get the best of us soon and very, very few musicians will be able to survive as full-time players. I’ll say it again: if you hear something that you like, pay for it. That’s really the bottom line, whether you hate the record companies or not, and whether you think it’s “no big deal” or not. It’s a big deal, truly, and musicians deserve to be compensated for their work. It’s no different than those of us producing work in our day jobs; we wouldn’t want our bosses to pick and choose what they pay us for and what they just take. We all need that paycheck!