art – Aaron J. Trumm

Getting Back

August 9, 2016 by Aaron

aaron j. trumm, art, being moved, connection, house concerts, inspiration, intimacy, music, nquit music, shannon curtis, songwriting

So I’ve been trying to “get back” to something quite a few years now – and I’ve been trying to “Get back” to this thing in a different way, so that I’m not poor all the time, not neglecting my health, and not running around in lonely worlds trying to connect. Really it’s not going back – it’s going forward toward something I’d touched before, but is also out there in front of me.

The “thing” I’ve been trying to get back to is really connection, and it’s a thing that I did experience a whole bunch when I was a serious slam poet. It’s why we DO this thing, where we perform or make music or art – we’re really trying to dock our hearts into other hearts and become one again and there’s really zero other things more compelling on Earth.

Check this TedX talk by Shannon Curtis, who really spoke to this:

She mostly tours around doing house concerts – shows in people’s houses, in intimate settings. I did a few of those back in the day, and I had plenty of moments in those and other intimate venues like she describes. Her talking about it, and the music video she describes, where she had fans write their struggles on a paper and film them, made me cry like crazy. I started to really remember again why I was doing what I was doing when I was touring a lot as a poet.

I’ve been very focused for 3 years – ever since my epic lung transplant saga – on business, learning, growing, and making a viable and sustainable business. I’ve been so focused that I damn near forgot WHY I wanted to build that business in the first place. It’s because I couldn’t sustain that job of moving, inspiring and connecting with people if I didn’t have a proper business in place. I just kept having to stop and get some day job I didn’t want and which never really made a dent financially, and eventually it kind of fell apart, and culminated in the destruction of my health.

I LEFT the life she describes on purpose, but I always intended to rebuild that job of connecting, and go back to work. It’s a whole new world now, and I’m new, and the job is new. I don’t wish I was on the road all the time. But doing work that makes that thing happen, where people are moved, and you connect, that’s my role in life, and I think maybe it’s everyone’s role.

It really doesn’t even have to be “art” (whatever that means). If you’re a social worker or a teacher, or a lawyer working to advocate for kids, even if you make something like video games or popcorn or whatever it is, you’re doing that for other people, and your main work is connecting.

So – if you ever wondered about me, or any of my colleagues, why we do what we do, Shannon hits the nail on the head pretty good.

Thanks Shannon!

— A

ps:
oh jeeze almost forgot my requisite link to free music – here! 🙂 www.aarontrumm.com/free-download

Your Music Isn’t Special

July 28, 2016 by Aaron

aaron trumm, art, art business, business, music, music business, music money, nquit music, rock, rock music, special, success, unique

Your music isn’t special!

Oh no! I always hated that saying. People will say it all the time, either when they’re trying to get you to have less ego, or they’re trying to convince you to give up the pipe dream, or whatever. But MOST of the time when you hear that is when you’re learning the real ins and outs of music marketing and business. Straight forward business minded people in music will tell you that right away.

It’s mostly to let you know that you can’t just sit around thinking your some kind of genius and expect anybody to respond to that. It’s weird, egoistic, and most of all, doesn’t work. It was always a bit depressing to me but recently I got a very new take on it in my head.

Now I think that’s very GOOD news. At least the concept of it…see I feel like it’s a relief not to have to make every song some epic world changing thing that will certainly go viral. Going viral is like winning the lottery – quite unlikely. And it’s actually MORE depressing to me to think of pinning my hopes and dreams on something that unlikely.

So, it’s really a good thing to realize, it’s not really the music that makes the success. Don’t get me wrong, you don’t want to suck, and the music is really moving and makes a difference, but success in any business is about relationships. Yes you start with a great product, but you don’t have to worry so much about your product being somehow better than everyone else’s, or when you go on stage being super competitive about standing out or making sure every time you sing a song, it’s this insane transcendent experience for everyone in the room and people are like “holy fuck what did I just SEE??”

That’s crap. That’s the surface facing internet culture and our American tendency to go for the icing and not the cake that tells us that every little thing has to be “special” and everything worth consuming has to be world shattering and like nothing ever seen before. That’s an overwhelming thought because it’s impossible. A song is 3 minutes. There are rules you follow, no matter how avant-garde you are, and there’s really only so much one tune can do. Sure, it moves people, sure there may be transcendence. Sure, you can do a concert that just takes people away, or a video that’s just wildly powerful or moving – but that will never be that special in the grand scheme of things. There’s always that stuff. There’s 7 billion creative people on the planet and there’s no end to the powerful, moving, transcendent material out there.

Part of the clickbait strategy is to sell every damn page or video as some kind of crazy amazing hugely weird thing – headline formulas include “you won’t believe what this guy did..” and whatnot..and you do see a lot of “wow!” – 7 year olds playing drums, dude jumping off buildings, whatever. But who cares? No matter how amazing you are, you’re not the only one.

So trying to be special is weird and overwhelming and it’s really not effective because the more you act like you’re special, the more you alienate people. Really, to succeed as an artist is about building a network of like-minded folk, collaborating, and putting your mark out there. No one can do what you do and in that sense YOU are special. But you don’t really need your music to be special, and you certainly need to understand that it won’t be perceived as all that special for the most part. But you can still build a business, and a fanbase, and take your place among the other badass artists that you have something in common with. And that actually will be enough, in fact, it’s even enough to build to rock star status and become famous.

So yeah – your music isn’t special – that’s not because you suck – it’s because music is small – powerful, but small, and everybody does it – so your music isn’t special. And it doesn’t need to be, because YOU are. So you can relax 🙂

— A

Hey – it may not be special, but I think some of my stuff rocks and maybe you will too – easy to find out by getting some for FREE at aarontrumm.com – LOVE!

The Art Of Equalization

November 4, 2006 by Aaron

aaron trumm, art, eq, equalization, music, nquit music

From a 1994 article for University of New Mexico, and published in Cubase Newsletter:

EQ can be used in a variety of situations, from live sound to recording to tape to mixing down. Mainly, it should be used to enhance signals that have some problem. The golden rule of EQ is less is more. If something seems fine without it, I avoid EQing it at all. Then, if I do use it, I try to remain subtle. My personal golden rule is nearly never EQ signals going to tape (as in a multitracking situation). I always try to get the original sound on tape, then I can mess with it later. Putting EQ (or any other effect) on tape usually just leads to trouble. The other rule (the silver rule 🙂 ) is cutting is almost always better than boosting, especially when fixing problems. For example if a guitar sounds too thin, first try cutting high frequencies and boosting the gain a bit, instead of boosting the lows. The more clutter you can remove from a mix, the better. A better example is I very often cut a bit of high away from hats. Another example is, many times you may not hear something well in a mix…You might try cutting some frequencies in a different track that seems to be interfering, rather than boosting in the track you want to bring out. With these basic rules in mind, I’ll tell you my rules when I enter a mixdown session:

Rule Of Opposites: Usually, tracks with high sounds, (a high guitar, hats) need cutting in high frequencies and boosting in lower, and vice-versa. This is really only a starting guide, not a rule. Also, sounds that interfere with eachother can be separated in a mix by EQing them in opposite directions.
Bass usually needs a boost in the mid range somewhere and sometimes the high. This way it can cut through and be heard on smaller speakers.
Kick drums usually need that same mid and/or high boost on a subtle level so they too can cut through on smaller speakers. For hip-hop, kick needs a low end boost, but NOT TOO MUCH.
Snare drums always sound warmer with a boost in the low-mid range and some cut of the highs. An annoying CRACK can be softened with this high cut. Sometimes I boost the lows in snares to make them even fatter. But it really depends on the snare sound. The rule of opposites usually applies here. Snare sounds that were thin to begin with I usually warm up a bit, and heafty snare sounds I might thin out a bit.
Hats almost never need any EQ if they’re recorded clean. Usually an EQing for my hat tracks is to cut highs to get rid of an annoying hiss.
Guitars are simaler to snares for me. A thin original guitar might need boosting in mids and lows (depending on what the desired sound is, and what else is present in the mix) or a heafty guitar might need to be thinned out a little by cutting lows and low-mids.
Vocals usually like to have a boost in the mids or high-mids, but it depends on the voice. Vocals nearly always get lost amongst guitars…a good way to deal with this is the rule of opposites. Boost mids in the vocals and cut them in the guitar, or something similar. Vocals can also have annoying hiss or sibilance, and sometimes cutting high frequencies can help that.
Strings, and more specifically good string patches from a synth, usually need little EQ. If they are merely a support player, I may thin them out a tiny bit, or if they are meant to be present, I may thicken them in the mids a little (or sometimes the opposite…this stuff is highly subjective). But they usually work well left alone. Really clean piano or keyboard synth patches are the same way.
I like to leave reverb returns alone, but if the reverb becomes annoying and noisy, cutting some high can soften it up a bit…same with strings.
Extreme EQ setting create sounds of their own. Experiment. But for a non-novel track, be subtle.
AC hum from a track can almost always be fixed by cutting 60 Hz all the way off. (Sometimes this can take away from bass or kick sounds, but I believe that most frequencies audible in a song are above 60 Hz).
Play with EQ settings thoroughly to find appropriate settings.
I don’t mix horns too often, but when I do, I like to leave them alone. Clean horn tracks usually seem fine to me.
NEVER EVER EVER force yourself to EQ a track that sounds fine, just because you think you should use the full capabilities of the studio. NEVER NEVER NEVER!