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free-music

Keeping it going…

June 22, 2015 by Aaron
Music Thoughts, Rants, Randomness
aaron trumm, development, free music, nquit music, programming, toptal, toptal test


I’ve very rarely held down a 9-5 job. When I was a touring performer, it was simply impossible. But sometimes being on the road or at home in the studio doesn’t lead to enough money to sustain or grow. Sometimes it does, but it can be stressful to have to monetize every creative impulse.

So, for most of the 20 years I’ve been running NQuit Music, I’ve also been a freelancer. It makes perfect sense to sell the skillset I’ve been building working to build the dream of NQuit. It also makes sense that the most lucrative of those skills is software and web development. NQuit was one of the first labels to have an internet presence, starting when it was hosted at UNM as unm.edu/~murphurd. Over the years I’ve used NQuit as a platform for building a formidable development skillset, not only by doing projects for NQuit, but also by using that same business structure to hire myself out. Of course I’ve done plenty of audio and such, but the great thing about web dev is as long as I’ve got my laptop (now I actually use a PC-Powerful tablet), I can be on the road (or at a park or the zoo) and still work. It’s good to have this flexibility!

I used to rely on word of mouth and Craigslist searches, but those methods tend to dry up at times, and Craigslist has become overrun with scams and bad clients (clients who won’t pay, who don’t understand the value of the work, or who make helping them impossible). I started to grow very tired of small time, disorganized clientele a few years ago, so recently I thought I’d check out some freelancing sites like upwork.com, elance.com and freelance.com (among others). There’s still some small clients, but so far it seems promising.

Now I discovered an exclusive platform called Toptal, which has a thing called the Toptal PHP Freelancers Group and this seems extra promising. I’ve already noticed through upwork that this new environment causes me to try to deepen my knowledge and organize my pitch and portfolio better, so that’s a good thing, and it’s exciting to think I could find a platform that will really lead me to solid clients, and maybe even to some cool projects.

So, I’ll be getting all competitive about getting in with Toptal, and hopefully income can stabilize. Wish me luck!

**EDIT** Holy crap that was lame and hard but – since then I’ve learned some things. And I just want to say, grab some free music from me, ’cause that’s what I’m really doing dude: HERE aarontrumm.com

Change?

October 15, 2013 by Aaron
Music Thoughts, Rants, Randomness
aaron j. trumm, albuquerque, bring it back, change, free music, m.c. murph, manny rettinger, music, nquit music, rap, slam poetry, ubik sound


I have an old old song called “bring it back“. What it’s about is how I would sometimes go back into my older material, listen to it, and find out that it was better than I thought, and get all inspired. As if I was listening to someone else’s music.

I’ve found over the years that this process is kind of crucial for me. every so often (a year? two? fifteen?) I end up going and listening through a bunch of stuff that I’d practically thrown away I thought it was so bad. But I always find ideas and notions – as if I were my own muse.

I do this with other people’s stuff too, of course. That’s most of what I do with listening is just pour over people’s stuff and wish I could make something like that and file these ideas away in my head.

What i was noticing tonight, listening to some of my older more angry stuff, is how wrong I’ve been in thinking that I just want to throw away my whole self – I don’t want to be as angry and upset as I was 10, 15, 20 – 2? 🙂 – years ago, but there’s a fierceness and a fearlessness in some of what I was doing that I don’t want to lose…

I have to figure out how to balance these notions. To be fierce, strong, wild, tough…these are useful tools – even anger is a gift, as ‘ol Zach Del Rocha once said (over and over 😉 ). But a violent fearful attitude, even when spoken fearlessly? I don’t know that I want that – no – I know that I don’t.

Maybe that song “bring it back” was a little more deep than I thought. It’s not just about looking back at your art – it’s about looking back at yourself – at life – at history maybe? And bringing forth the good from it into the future – and, hopefully…leaving the rest behind.

Ok – well – now that I’ve said that – why don’t you get some FREE MUSIC over at aarontrumm.com? 🙂

The Underground

September 3, 2013 by Aaron
Music Thoughts, Rants, Randomness
aaron trumm, artistic development, battle, blue dragon, free music, helios, nquit music, nuyroican, performer, poetry, slam poetry, spoken word, underground


I wanted to think about something. The roots of everything pretty are underground. I said this 8 or so years ago on my 2nd CD:

…deep underneath that crust of the earth
are animals that really have some girth to their worth
you’re growin up the flowers of commercialization
forever will the roots remain UNDER the nation…

This speaks the legitimacy of the underground.

But what of the underground? How long can a seed stay under the soil? Is it not the seed’s destiny to grow into a mighty oak or a beautimous bloom?

I could easily quote Howl now and make my point – I’ve seen the best minds of my generation – blah blah blah. Which is to say, we, the counter culture, we, the underground, are destroying ourselves. Sure, I imagine there are some that shall and should always be under, down, deep deep deep, feeding the rest, and some that never know the power of the earth, and that never realize that who THEY are, what THEY see, what THEY know to be “normal”, is always and necessarily the child of the underground.

The seed becomes the seed first, then it becomes the oak. Not the other way around. These places here, the Helios bar in Houston, the Nuyorican Cafe in New York, the Blue Dragon in Albuquerque, these are the places where we come from, where we cut our teeth, and where we owe our undying allegiance.

But a man child doesn’t stay at home with mommy when there’s a battle to be fought. Disregarding for a moment my notion that battle may not be the answer, I would say to those of us with fire in our bones, why are we still here, cowering in the underground, smoking weed and methamphetemines, drinking ourselves into obvlivion, when so many of us have grown into might oaken warriors and have always known it is our task to take these amazing new things that were born in the underground out into the overground and into the sky?

Why, if we are unsatisfied with our leaders in government, are we not running for offices? Why, if we are unsatisfied with our pop icons and movie stars, are we not replacing them?

We spend far too much time speaking harsh words against our brothers in the sky, when in truth, they are merely humans like us, only they have chosen to sprout. Sure, too many of them have sprouted, forgotten where they come from, and begun to choke the very nutrients out from under themselves. No, I do not think it is alright for George W. Bush to run around smiling and laughing taking golf vacations when some of us have three jobs and 11 grand of debt, and still others are begging for change under bridges. No, I am not surprised. This has always been the way it is. It’s not even necessarily wrong. But TOO MANY people are disatisfied and DOING NOTHING.

I’m not a politician. I’m an artist. I’m a performer. So what should I do? I was reminded last night of the concept of my circle of influence. Yes. I shall operate within my circle of influence. I shall perform. I shall create. And when someone who has been languishing underground for 2 or 5 or 15 years, a choking struggling oak tree pretending to be a seed, I will hand that mother fucker a shrink wrapped package with his name on it.

This is what I can do. Next, I will do more.

I’m not going to Baghdad to do nothing for no one. I’m not going to Taos to hide in the fucking mountains like a coward. I’m not going to hole up in Thailand making records, as if making random recordings for no one to hear had anything to do with anything. I’ll see you in L.A., the fray, New York, Washington, Houston, London. I’ll see you on the streets of Bangkok or on the front page of the Times. I’ll see you on Jay Leno and Windows Media Player. I’ll see you in the Helios throwing bags of cocaine into the street. I’ll see you SOMEWHERE, is the point.

Now I say, here’s the test, here’s where most people fail, where G.W. is failing, where Capital Records is failing, where all of us at the Helios are failing: Is this about me? Is this is a contest? Will I be preaching to the democrats and left wing whiskey drinking poets to stand up, fight for yourself, and win the battle? Fuck ’em all? You’re nothin if you don’t take care of number one? Wouldn’t I just be a conservative then? When will I flip over and become what I hate? Do I have to? Or can I dig myself out from under the earth, fly into the big pretty clouds and BACK again, and never become bitter, mean, cold and heartless? I’ve proven to all that I can win a damn contest. You don’t believe me, come throw a punch at me, see what happens. But what is the POINT of that? What is the point of being ALONE on Mount Olympus? I’m not here to take everyone out, for God’s sake. That would just be BORING.

This week I will be handing one of those packages out to somebody that said three times last night, “I will battle compassionate conservatism with compassion.”

Understand what that package is, my man. That’s the dirt coming off. That’s the seed pushing through the thawing ground, that’s the oak, that’s the bloom. Could be a new nation or a simple CD. Still an oak, still a bloom, still worth showing someone sometime.

See you in the fray.

Speaking of the fray – go get some free music from me before I change my mind! CLICK HERE FOR THAT.

Halloween In Denver

July 4, 2008 by Aaron
Frosted Mini Wheats
aaron trumm, free music, free music download, frosted mini wheats, halloween in denver, third option


I kept thinking about this song this weekend:

[sc_embed_player fileurl=”http://www.nquit.com/sounds/ThirdOption/FrostedMiniWheats/14ThirdOptionHalloweenInDenver.mp3″] Halloween In Denver by Third Option

It’s from the first Third Option album, Frosted Mini Wheats. I thought of doing that album, and thus created that act, when I had been beatboxing for an hour straight on the drive home from hockey practice when I was playing for UNM. I noticed the beatbox tunes would change slowly over time. I thought I’d invented something and I told my buddy Dustin how I was gonna make an album where each song just morphed into the next, and he said “oh you mean a trance record?” Dammit. I had invented nothing!

But this Halloween In Denver song, it’s funny that such a marginal thing that I never really shared with anyone is the one that’s called Halloween In Denver. That title is a reference to me being diagnosed with CF when I was 8. It was at a hospital in Denver and it was Halloween. They gave me one of those plastic jack-o-lantern buckets and I was going from room to room getting little Snickers from people with it. That stupid night and that stupid diagnosis has defined my life ever since, really a lot more than any “disease” or “condition”. But I didn’t write a slam poem that I did in front of thousands of people, or even a rap song or anything. It’s just this short tune jammed in the middle of 60 minutes of album, and what’s more it’s not a highly charged big epic thing either, it’s just a pretty melody that I like. But what makes me think about it sometimes is that that melody doesn’t seem like me to me. It seems like something that comes from outside of me, or maybe it comes from my essence, whereas a lot of stuff comes from the ego and personality that I built on top of that essence, shrouding the essence. Ironically, I probably built a lot of that up in response to the diagnosis, so there’s this irony around having a song that comes from the essence, who’s title refers to the diagnosis.

It’s like a subtle, sleek victory. Poision in the night that the enemy general never even notices, let alone resists.

I win!! 🙂

And now you win too, because Third Option (us) is giving away free stuff! GO GET FREE STUFF! 🙂

Halloween In Denver

May 23, 2008 by Aaron
Frosted Mini Wheats
free music, frosted mini wheats, halloween in denver, third option


Halloween In Denver by Third Option

I’m not sure the music has anything to do with title on this one. The title is interesting though. It’s a reference to being diagnosed with CF in Denver when I was 8 years old. It was Halloween and I lived in Taos, which is 3 hours or so away. It was nighttime, I remember – well I remember we were there a long time doing sweat tests and blood tests and bullshit. Then somebody gave me a plastic jackolantern bucket and I was going around trick or treating in the various rooms. I don’t remember where we stayed.

They were creating a monster. *laugh*

For some reason I wrote about this track twice. Here’s the other post.

Ok – as I say in the other post – want some free music? OK THEN GO HERE! 🙂

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