Quicky

A friend of mine introduced me to this site. It's pretty hilarious! Here's what I made with it. Clicky

Quick thought.

Is it possible that I missed an opportunity and you were the one the whole time?

Update: Yes I did miss that one.

Rethinking

My, has it been a busy year so far. Two auditions coming up, one which will determine whether I'll be going to University this year. It's been a stressful experience so far; waiting for a yes or a no. In the meantime all I can do is continue to practice and prepare, both mentally and emotionally oh, and pray. I've also found that I'm not as sure about a few things as I was before. Time to rethink a little bit. The only downside to preparing for University is that I have not had time to put energy and focus into other projects that I'm passionate about. It's been nearly impossible to find time to devote to producing new tracks. I hope the summer will change a few things.

So begins, officially, one of the most busiest years so far! Lets see if I can pull this one off.

Favorite track this posting is by "DNS Project." The track was released last year and it's called "Mindful." Interestingly enough it's one of the few tracks I've listened to where I've actually preferred the Radio mix of it.
Link is here!

Frustration.

It's been one of those kinds of weeks.. Exams did not go nearly as well as I would have hoped and I've caught a dreadful flu type cold in the process. With all these negative things happening it's been very easy to get frustrated, but something interesting happened today. As usual when I saw my final mark for my guitar exam I was pretty much ready to just say "I quit!". However, the days that followed I had a few good conversations with my father about why such a thing happened and it really opened my eyes. Although I do enjoy playing in the classical style of guitar I've always been on the fence between a modern method and the classical method. I love playing rock, metal, classic rock, blues and all those kinds of styles as they very much appeal to me and I love the sounds I can get out of my electric guitars, but I've neglected the very style that I plan on studying in university.
Although I've been told I put good work into my studies, I have very much left out myself, my emotion from my playing in that style. As always there are still issues of technique that I must work on, but after much thought I picked up my guitar again and played the same pieces. This time however, I concentrated on putting myself into the piece and although I still made mistakes, the whole performance sounded better! I think although I have a passion for the guitar I've slowly become a bit of a robot over the past five years of study. I now know what I must focus on as well as the obvious things.
With that in mind I will end this post with this. There are still many other frustrations that extend beyond music, but I hope and I pray all will come together with time. I wish anyone who reads this a good week and also to encourage you to think about what you are currently doing in your life and think about how much of you, you're putting into whatever it is you're doing. If you find that you have become a bit of a robot in your ways, take a step back and gauge whether it's just the routine that has caused this or maybe you need to be doing something else with your life.
My favorite track for this post is going to be something completely different from the usual electronic stuff I post.
The piece is by the guitarist Fernando Sor it is titled "Allegretto Op. 47 No. 2" I'm currently learning this piece and I am liking it a lot! The guitarist playing it is Cesar Amaro link is here!

Eureka!

This is going to be short and sweet. I've found what was lacking in my performance. Despite still having some difficulties with technique, the one thing that I've discovered lacking is my emotion and passion for this instrument! Sheesh... Get it right, man.

I will however, add a favorite track to this post, link is HERE! The song is called Suru and it's by a producer duo known as Super8 & Tab. This is a nice quite emotional trance song done in a more or less traditional style. Enjoy.

Crunch time!

Ah, I just love exam time. You just get this real relaxed feeling about you. Okay, that was blatant sarcasm of course, however I've been told and this is probably obvious to most of the human race; it is better for your health and for your performance to relax! I've kind of learned this the hard way over many years. Mind you I still get very stressed before an exam, especially if it's concerning music (which this exam is).
With that being said I haven't had the time, or the energy to really practice any songs that aren't for the exam so this means it's going to be a fair bit longer before I can get any covers recorded as well as my own stuff. Which actually brings me to a reason why I don't like music exams, because as I get higher in grade my practice sessions get longer and so do the pieces and all the technical practice. This results in me having less time (and less energy!) to work on music I'm truly passionate about. Don't get me wrong the music I do have to play for exam purposes, I like, I even like it a lot, just obviously not as much as the styles I play outside of the exam field. I also haven't had the time to work on my latest electronic work either which saddens me greatly, but I'm hoping to have it finished in the near future, though I can't be specific on when it will be done.
I leave you with a couple things. Firstly check this guy out! He's a good friend of mine who plays the drums very well and I'm privileged to be able to jam with him and perform with him. Link is here! this cover is of Kanye West's "All of the Lights. Secondly my favorite track for this post will be a track by Vast Vision, released near the end of 2010, it's called "Friendly Faces". It's got a nice somewhat heavy bassline and some good melodies that move me! Link is Here!

Catch you next time!

So many exclamation marks!! 

Happy New Year!

Just about four hours left of 2010 and I'm not getting ready to go to any spectacular party or anything I have to open for my work tomorrow so no parties for me... I wish all of you who read this blog a very blessed, happy, and successful new year and hopefully I'll have some good stuff coming soon.

With that said I'd like to ring in the new year with a yet to be released track from Michael Cassette it's called "Memories" Click Me! Enjoy and see you all soon!

One more thing!

I completely forgot to mention this. My band, Klimbatize finally put out our first single it's on Myspace and our Facebook page right now, but I'm going to see about getting it on iTunes in the near future. Link is Here! give it a listen!

This is the way it's going to be.

It's really hard to believe that the year is already almost over. Looking back it's amazing how much has happened to me and how much more I've changed. I've seen my priorities change, my grades drop, unfortunately (I'm working on that) and I've watched the day loom ever closer of when I leave my current home and head to University. I've fallen in love, broken up, and started to learn how to deal with loss. When I look at all of it I think "Wow, this all really happened in the span of a year?" Music is taking a new direction, I seem to have a solid idea of where I want to go, although plans change constantly as I've not so recently discovered.

I've had my first bout of rejection from a record label with them not so much as giving any sort of reply. This has become a source of discouragement, even if it's only the first time I've tried sending demos out. I still dream of having an EP on a dance label, hopefully some day soon. I've also found that classical guitar is actually quite enjoyable and I've since started to invest in a quality instrument for playing in that style and I'm quite excited to get the guitar. The last practical exam for guitar will be on the 22nd of January which is quite a relief since I was hoping for extra time to practice and perfect and it seemed as though exams would be early in the month. Thank God they aren't!

With this all said I want to wish everyone who reads this blog a merry Christmas and happy New Year.
My pick for a favorite track is actually from a couple years ago and it was my anthem for the last few months of 2009 into 2010 (for a very good reason) it's called "Lovin' Feeling" by Daniel Kandi and Neumann Link Click Here.

See you next year!

New song! (Well sort of)

Hey everyone, I'm going to make this posting short. Sorry for not posting in a hell of a long time, but life is busy as usual. I finally finished mastering my latest Electronic work called "Dundarave" a rough copy had been posted on my "MySpace", but this is the final product. It's situated in the genre of Progressive Trance. Check it out at my "PureVolume" page! Linkage! Click Me

Hopefully have a real blog post up sometime in the near future. I do however, have a favorite track to post it's by Umek & Beltek it's called "Back in the Race". This one has a nice dirty base line and some interesting hits. It's quite repetitive so those with short attention spans BE WARNED. Linkage! Click Me

OMG a whole month?!?

Yes, it has come to my attention that I haven't posted in practically a month. Life's busy, well most of the time anyway. I hope to have some new songs posted in the future and a final version of "Dundarave" posted soon on youtube (a version has been streaming on my "Myspace" for a while), but it sounds like crap. Writer's block is also setting in as school progresses, but hopefully that will change soon enough.
I'm also trying to gather enough money to upgrade my music production software so I can make things sound even better.
I think what I will also do is have a "favorite track" posted in every blog post I write from this day forward, so today a favorite track I'd like to share is by Orjan Nilsen, the track is called "Be As One (La Guitarra)". I prefer the extended mix, but depending on the attention span you have you may want to look for a "Radio Mix" instead. Click here for a preview of the favorite track.
On a final note I actually downloaded a dance tune that has a mistake in the midi programming. One of the chords sounds completely out of place in the track. The track is called "Aircraft" by Dinka. The mistake only shows up a few times later on in the song, but it's really annoying especially considering the rest of the track is solid. I want my money back...

Nothing to say

I can't think of anything to post today. It's also hard to type when you're using an iPod touch. For those of you who like dance music though, check out a track called "Helpless" by Myon & Shane 54. It's anything, but helpless. Go buy it on iTunes or look it up on YouTube. Do it now!

Getting discouraged?

Something that happens a fair amount to myself as an artist and musician is discouragement. I think pretty much every person in the human race has had to deal with it at one point or another. The main source of discouragement for me would be looking back at how far I've come with music and having that small question pop into my head which is asking, "have I improved enough?" It's the most annoying thing to look back on how you played your instrument, lets say three years ago compared to the present followed by the ever questioning of whether or not your skill has improved.
This is my struggle and what can keep inspiration from coming to me.
I've found that in order to beat this discouragement you just have to keep on working, keep messing around, and you never know what will come out of just jamming with yourself or fellow musicians.
With that being said, inspiration has struck me and thanks to a bit of jamming around on my keyboard I've started work on a brand new track. How do you deal with being discouraged in the field of work you are in?

Thanks for the comments on my last post as well. I've checked out all your blogs and started following all of you that posted, I must say I'm impressed with the content. I'll leave you all with a video I did with a good friend of mine over a year ago.

A look back

Oh my goodness, he's posted another entry less than 12 hours after the previous one! I would like to share a video I posted on my youtube page over a year back. It includes one of my very first tracks. I feel the track was inspired a great deal from listening to Robert Miles (if you don't know who he is look him up!). The song encompasses at least I think it does, the title I gave it "Peaceful".
I hope you enjoy! I should also explain that "TonyB" is the alias I go by for my electronic music productions.



Also feel free to post a comment on youtube or even "like" or "dislike" the video.

Welcome!

Hey all,
This is my new blog! Here I'll be posting about my life in music as well as my music and possibly tutorials on using reason. This post is just to say and I'll have a full post up in the next day or so!


Cheers!