The album that I keep talking about is done. It is available for preview and sale at cdbaby. I posted digital liner notes that include credits, lyrics and thank-you’s at AhdChild.com. The release party will be on Thursday, September 6, so if you’re in the Philly area, come out. It’s free and I’ll be performing a bunch of songs from the album.

So far, I’ve sold a few copies of the album by hand, and feedback has been very positive. I’ve tried to guess at which songs would be the “favorites.” In some cases I was right, but in other cases it’s been songs that never would have guessed. As far as subject matter goes, the album is pretty heavy, especially the last song, but according to one guy who bought it, the bonus tracks help change the mood once the main tracks are finished.

If you listen and like what you hear, please post a review at cdbaby.

It seems like the majority of artists that I have heard or talked tend to write from their own personal point of view. Many can connect each piece they’ve created to a particular experience or set of experiences in their life. I guess it makes sense that this would be the natural mode of operation for most people, but it never has been for me. Even when I was in ninth grade, just beginning to write poetry and stories, what excited me about writing was the opportunity it gave me to put myself in someone else’s shoes. Back then, my writing obsession was violent criminals. It seemed to me that people constantly wrote them off as simply “crazy” and left it at that. “Crazy” doesn’t explain the thought processes people have, it almost implies that there is none. I figured even if the logic is wrong, there must be some sort of logic, so I set out to try to figure it out in several stories that were written from the points of views of murderers. I remember a classmate of mine who admired my writing and began writing his own violent stories. I never liked his stories because he wrote about violence for the sake of violence, and that was obvious from reading them. Typical teenage male attraction to delinquency was not what was behind my writing.

Fast forward a bunch of years, and I realize I’m doing the same thing. I still generally don’t write from my own point of view. I constantly and naturally create characters and then try to figure out what they think and feel. Even when a song is inspired by my own emotion or experience, I create an extreme caricature out of it. For example, in the song Get my Gun on Reverse Psychology (Click to check out the lyrics), my character is observing the problematic aspects of our modern society and battling with the contradictory desires it arouses – one to help make things better, and another to protect himself from the messed up world. Sometimes trying to help others can affect you negatively, whether it’s by putting you in physical danger, inconveniencing you, or overtaxing your resources. This is definitely something I have battled with, but for the song, I took it to the extreme. My character is so conflicted that he is willing to wield a weapon to help uplift the world, not recognizing that in doing so, he is becoming a threat to that which he wants to save.

My interest in imagining different perspectives has not decreased since ninth grade, and now I also feel like extreme caricatures are so much more effective for exploring emotions and ideas than more realistic characters. I could have talked about my own inability to balance philanthropy with supporting myself, but I think the picture that Get my Gun paints is far more compelling and universal. The thing is that my life is complex and arbitrary in many ways. If I’m trying to make a point or discuss a particular idea, it seems to me that my relatively unfocused life has a lot of extra stuff that does not belong in the conversation. Taking things to the extreme is kind of like stripping away the fat. If I want to write a song about being disappointed, I might start with my own experiences of the feeling, but then remove any opposing feelings. I have been disappointed before, but I have also had my hopes fulfilled before – but in the song, there is just disappointment.

That’s all I have to say about that.

All kinds of things have been happening on my main website that I haven’t talked about here. Here are the updates.

• Back in May, the site got redesigned a bit.
• Album information for Reverse Psychology has been added to the site. Click on the album cover to get detailed information and complete lyrics.
• Since April, I’ve been handing out Rough Drafts, a free EP. I also made the EP available for download. you can get 4 of the songs individually, or download the zip file to get all 6.

In addition to the website updates, there is album news. The order has gone out for the artwork and the very last finishing touches to the CD will be taken care of today. Reverse Psychology will be available for purchase on or before August 24. It won’t be available online for a little while after that – CD Baby takes a few days to set up a new CD – but by September, it should be available online as well.

To celebrate, there will be an album release/listening party during the September edition of ThorTakeover’s monthly Mic Check Thursday.

Mic Check Thursday
Thursday, September 61
0pm – 2am
@ Liquid Charm
1207 Race St.
Philadelphia, PA

Throughout the later years of my schooling, I often found myself in situations where my classmates and I were called upon to analyze literary and artistic works. Sometimes during the discussion that ensued and sometimes after it, the teacher always gave us the perspective of the more experienced, more educated critic. The teacher’s analysis always made a lot of sense to me – up to a point. Too often, I began asking myself how much of what the teacher is saying was actually in the work and how much of it was being read into the work. Sometimes the inferences were so obscure and deeply hidden that it seemed they had to be a result of over-analysis.

Fast forward to last night. I was listening to Reverse Psychology (which is very near completion), noting all the little things that need to be fixed and changed. I started reflecting on the amount of time and effort I spent making sure little details were just right. It’s a concept album, and I’m trying to make sure the whole album pushes the concept. I’m keeping the denouement constantly in view like Poe said I should. It got me to wondering – are people who listen to the album really going to notice and appreciate all those little details? I imagine (hope) that a good amount of the people who hear it will enjoy the music – it’s something to nod your head to – and some people will pay attention to the words and appreciate the meaning of each song. However, I’m guessing that few people will be paying enough attention to notice the significance of the ordering of the tracks – I spent a lot of time trying to figure out the right order to create an appropriate progression. Hardly anyone will note the contrast between the first and last tracks. Maybe not that many people will even get the connection between the title and the ideas on the CD.

Hmmmm . . . or maybe one day some people will be sitting around discussing Reverse Psychology and Person A will point out the little details. Maybe Person B will think Person A is over-analyzing and reading to much into the album. I can only hope . . .

Perspective is the compass of understanding. My change in perspective has me reconsidering all those moments when I thought my teachers were trying too hard; my change in perspective has lead me to a new understanding. At first when I was sitting through those classes, I wasn’t an artist at all. Even later on, after I had started writing poetry, I was only a dabbler. Now things are different. Now I look at my art as more than just a hobby, so I put more time into it. I put effort into making sure everything is the way it needs to be. Now, as I look back on those class discussions through the eyes of an artist, I understand – an artist who means to express anything agonizes over that expression, over making sure the picture is worth every one of the thousand words, over making sure the story is a deliberate trail leading to the perfect denouement. The greats must have agonized at least twice as much as the average artist. No wonder those details and connections my teachers found were so obscure and deeply hidden. The artists wanted to make sure that no matter how deeply one analyzed their works, the path to the denouement would be clear and well-marked.

I will continue to put the finishing touches on Reverse Psychology, and I will hope that my path is clear, intricate, and subtle enough that one day as someone walks along it toward my preplanned destination, he attributes its existence to the imaginations of ambitious academics.

I’ve learned to make music through reading, experimentation, and by asking questions of people more experienced than myself. One of the things I’ve learned along the way is that there is more than one way to go about many parts of the process. I’m not sure if my process is unique, rare, or the norm, but here is my process when it comes to making a song. Keep in mind that this is a general process. Sometimes the order of the steps is different, steps are skipped, or steps are added.

1. Initial Creation – A song has to start somewhere. Sometimes it will start with music, sometimes it will start with lyrics, sometimes lyrics and music will be created simultaneously. Creating the music involves choosing instrument sounds to use, and programming the notes into a midi sequencer.
2. Recording – Once the instrumental and vocal parts are written, I record the vocals. Usually, at this point, it’s just a rough version – especially if I’m the one doing the vocals. This rough take helps me hear how the music and the vocals mesh together, it gives me a chance to refine them so that they take even better advantage of each other, and it helps me learn the words for an improved take later on.
3. Rework the music – As I said, once I have the rough vocals, I can make the music and vocals work together even better. This is the point where I cut instruments out to highlight lines, add accents with drums, and rewrite parts of the lyrics and music if necessary. Because of this step, I never consider music I write complete until I have a rough version of the vocals and get a chance to rework the music around them.
4. Record Vocals – Normally when I make a new song I stop after step 3. Once the rough draft is down, I can come back anytime to finish the song. In the meantime I listen to the rough version a bunch of times and maybe even memorize the lyrics. Now, when it comes time to finish the song, my familiarity with the song (even if it’s not memorized) allows me to record a better vocal performance, more suitable for a final version.
5. Record the music – At this point, the instrumental is still midi – a set of instructions that, when combined with a hardware or software synthesizer, will replay the music. In order to add whatever processing is needed (EQ, compression, etc) I need to turn these midi tracks into traditional audio files. When I use software instruments, this is as easy as a few clicks of the mouse, but usually, my songs have a significant amount of instruments that come from my E-Mu Pk-6. When that is case, I have to record each instrument to a separate track. This step tends to be a pain in the ass. If I have a 4 minute song with 7 instruments played through the PK-6 (a typical scenario), it will take 28 minutes (4 minutes x 7 instruments) to record all the instruments. Add to this the time it takes to set up each track before I record it and the time it takes to redo tracks when there is an error (when dealing with midi, my computer frequently hiccups, throwing everything out of time) and the time to record the instruments grows – sometimes to more than twice that 28 minutes. Because I have to catch errors as they occur, I have to be nearby throughout the whole process. What makes this all so annoying is that this is a purely technical task – it involves no creativity and little thought. This is the type of busy work I would give to low level employees if I had the luxury of employing people other than myself.
6. Mix – Now that I have all the elements, I can mix them to make them all sound right together. Mixing involves EQuing and compressing the individual tracks, adding reverb and delay where they are needed, and applying any other effects and audio manipulation that is necessary. Sometimes I will mix with the rough vocal tracks and then carry out step 4 after this step.
7. Extras – This is actually a new step that I plan on incorporating into the process. Sometimes ambient noises or strange little background sounds can make a track come alive, but looking through a ton of sound effects while I’m trying to construct a track would be an interruption to my creative process. Instead, as one of my last steps, I plan to search for an add the subtle sounds that will help make the track more dynamic.
8. Fix – Throughout the process, I listen for parts of the song that need fixing or improvement, but at this point I try to be extra critical and analytical. If there is anything wrong, I go back and fix it.
9. Master – Now that everything is done, the track can be mastered. Ideally, I should be sending tracks off to a mastering house and paying them a heap of money so they can make sure my levels and overall EQ are well-suited for mainstream play, but for money reasons, I do this step myself. This is the final polish before I present a track to the public.

Bringing visitors to a website is not an easy thing. I’ve been running AhdChild.com for several years now, and throughout that time, I’ve been constantly trying to improve the site and increase traffic. This year, I have been more focused than ever on bringing in new visitors. I just took a look at my site statistics, and realized that my efforts are really paying off. So far, 2007 has seen a 19% increase in unique visitors to the site over 2006. It’s only May! As we head towards the halfway mark of the year, last year’s final tally has already been exceeded. This is despite the surge in visitors to the site that occured around the time that I released Meeting of Minds. I can’t wait to see what happens when I release Reverse Psychology and work on promoting it. It’s nice to see signs that hard work is paying off. Now if I could only get people to comment on my blog . . .

I’ve been meaning to blog about this for a while – I just found a note to myself from July ’06 reminding me to blog about this. The note is titled “Emotional Music” and the entire content of it is:

I like emotional music.

By “emotional music”, I mean music that makes me feel things. I like music that can make me scrunch up my face as I marvel at the sheer power of the instrumentation. I like music that can make me feel the depth of the artist’s sadness or the enormity of his loneliness. I like music that will take control of me, of my emotions, music that will guide and shape them, music that will captivate me, music that will let me lose myself in it. I love music for the power it has over me. Whether I listen to sad music that makes me wallow in the artist’s pain as if it was mine, or music that reminds me of everything good in life, the experiences that emotional music gives me always leave feeling refreshed and energized.

When I make music, I constantly strive to make it emotional music. I can’t help it – I try to make the best music possible, and in my opinion, the best possible music is emotional music. This leads to one of my major issues with hip-hop music. Most of it is not emotional music. I love the form – that should be obvious from the fact that I make hip-hop – but I hate the fact that I don’t see nearly enough people taking it as far as it can go.

Commercial hip-hop is definitely not emotional music. I can’t relate on an emotional or intellectual level to some guy bragging to me about how he’s the best MC out or about how much money he has. When I hear songs about dealing drugs, being a gangster or mistreating women, my anger is a blockade between me and any chance of emotional attachment to the song. These guys degrade black people, the hip-hop culture and Black American culture with the things they say. They serve only themselves and money hungry record execs who care nothing for the art or for the people listening to the music. Commercial hip-hop pisses me off for the most part. I can’t and don’t want to get past that anger to “feel” the music. Even if I disregard the vocals, way too often I find the music to be uninspired and uninspiring. It seems to be getting even worse lately as super-simple beats that sound like they were made for toddlers seem to be becoming the norm.

That leaves the “underground” and the “conscious” artists. I look to them and what I find is not that different from commercial hip hop. There is a stigma throughout hip-hop that it has to be boastful, full of machismo and that an MC can admit no weakness. The conscious and underground artists put out many songs that contain the same pointless bragging as the commercial guys. I am so tired of that. It’s been done. The lyricism and wordplay was interesting at first, but why not put some content into the music? The subject matter often differs from that found in commercial hip-hop, but it is just as limited. It seems as if the one unifying theme of hip-hop artists is that they can be pigeon-holed. If your music doesn’t fit a stereotype, many people won’t find it worth listening to. An MC must fit one of a few categories – thug, baller, player, backpacker, revolutionary, or hippy.

My problem is that rather than engage me, these cliche topics bore me and I know that hip-hop can be so much more. I have no problem with the subject matter of the militant, revolutionary MCs who use their music to explore questions of race and class. I have no problem with the subject matter of the hippy MCs who use their music to explore ideas of religion and spirituality. Sometimes I don’t even mind the backpacker’s focus on lyricism instead of content. What I can’t stand is the fact that so many MCs have so little variety in their material that it is possible to easily categorize them. Even many of the MCs who fit in multiple categories cannot break out of those six archetypes. We all live life. We all have a ton of experiences, ideas and feelings that can be translated to music and words. Why do we limit ourselves? We end up painting limited pictures of ourselves and our experiences, and the repetition and lack of variety render our messages emotionally sterile. It seems that with just about any other musical genre, I can find examples that cover a wide range of subjects, stories and emotions, but when it comes to hip-hop, I am much harder pressed to find that variety.

I’ve heard a lot of songs about what is wrong with hip-hop – I even have one of my own. I’m going to try to limit my complaining to that one song (and maybe a few more). I don’t want all my music to end up being about how I think music should be better. I’m doing my best to teach by example. (I think I’ve said this elsewhere, but) Reverse Psychology will be my first major step in this direction. My aim with it is to communicate emotions, to reveal weakness, and to tell stories that any human can relate to. My goal is to make emotional music. I want listeners to go through an emotional journey as they listen to my album, feeling the feelings behind every song, and when it is over, I want them to feel refreshed and energized when it’s over.

Of course it will be up to every individual that hears my album to judge whether I succeeded at what I was attempting, but I hope that at the least, the recognition of the attempt will give people the idea that hip-hop can encompass much more than it currently tends to.

So I’ve been steadily working on the new album, Reverse Psychology, when I can, but it seems that there is always a bunch of work left to do. I finished the creative process – the music and lyric writing is pretty much done – but I still have to record a bunch of vocals and mix everything. On top of that, today I listened to the whole thing and came up with a bunch of fixes and tweaks that need to be done. Below is an image of my notes, just to give folks a look at my creative process. Click the picture for a larger view.