OK, so I’m going to talk a little bit today in generalities.  OK, so there are still great songs being written, still great craftsmen out there who really know what they’re doing, still great records being made.  I’ll allow you all this right from the get go, but I think our industry, besides the death of the record business, is in a serious creative low as well.

Sonically, we’re at an all-time high.  The ability to capture the actual sound of the instruments in perfect, pristine quality has never been better.  Those who still grumble about the “coldness” of digital just haven’t been really listening lately.  The advancement of processing power and ram in computers has finally caught up and now the warmth of analog is back.

But much of the rest of the creative part of our industry is mired in mediocrity.  I blame this on humanity and our penchant to always try to attain perfection the easy way.   Nothing wrong with that except when it doesn’t work.

I just wrote a 7-part blog post (The IRA Awards) on great lyrics just to remind us of what could be, of the greatness of craft, of the delight of a well-lyricised song.  I write “remind us” because I think we’re losing track of a great tradition – the well written lyric.

Popular songs today are slaughtering the time-honored tradition of rhyme – “Blanch” does not rhyme with “France”, “father” does not rhyme with “mother” and “pets” does not rhyme with “let”.  In the good old days of craftsmanship the rhymes were perfect rhymes.  “Joy” with “boy”, “sorrow with “tomorrow” and “friend” with “end”, not “friend” with “again”.  But today, and the worst offender is rap, although the decimation of rhyme did not start there, today the state of rhyme in lyrics is at an all time low.

Also what’s with songs today that are so obtuse that we have no earthly idea what the songwriter is talking about?  I’ve heard young songwriters actually say that they don’t want their fans to really understand them – they want to maintain their mystery.  Ha!  This is really just an admission that as a lyricist, they haven’t a clue.  They have no idea how to tell a story, they know not the difference between a lyric and a poem, they have no craft.  Harsh words, perhaps, but unfortunately the state of the art.

OK, it’s a lot less expensive to make music these days – a lot less expensive to make cheesy music.  You can now actually buy music construction kits where some musician has made some tracks and then broken them down so that you can put them back together again.  Some people call this creativity.  It has perhaps a touch of creativity in it and it is perhaps educational, but really, isn’t it akin to painting by numbers?  Fill in the blanks created by someone else.  Complete the puzzle and call it creation.  Ha!  (he scoffs) Some of this reconstruction music actually makes it to the top of the charts!

I blame this on the youth that want the easy way to make music.  Play an instrument without having to waste time practicing.  Write music without ever really studying music.  Record music without ever really studying the art of audio engineering.  There is even now an accepted style of music called Garage – ie, sounds like you made it out in your dad’s garage… and boy does it ever!

Kids love it!  (Some kids love it.)  Oh look what Billy and Bobby down the street created last night!  Why they sound just like the Rolling Stones!  Somehow I doubt it…

I also blame the adults and my contemporaries who, in the name of money, have created product to facilitate the ease of making music, have gone overboard to sell this product to an undiscerning youth bent for stardom, and have, in fact, created music that the inexperienced can simply reconstruct and call their own, reveling in their brilliant creativity.  Egads!  What ego!  All in the name of their 15 minutes of fame!

OK, this is turning into a rant, but I’m passionate about this because I see it ruining the art of music making – an art that I’ve spent my life studying.  Today, popular music, to a large extent has fallen to its knees, overwhelmed by its lack of creativity.  Great songs are seldom written any more.  There are still great records out there, but how many great songs did you actually hear at the top of the charts in 2009?  For the life of me, I can’t remember one.  Can you?  If you can, please send it to me.  I’m interested.

The better the musician, the better the music.  The better the education, the better the composer.  I’m not talking about college education here; I’m talking about years of experience learning your craft.  I’m talking about studying the music that went on before you.  There are many young musicians out there today that don’t even know the history of Rock n’ Roll much less the history of Jazz or Swing or Classical, for that matter.  What physicist would not study the works of Planck, Bohrs and Einstein?  How could you call yourself a physicist and not know of these giants’ works?  How can you call yourself a composer and not know the work of Duke Ellington or Igor Stravinsky or Pete Townsend, for that matter?

It was Stravinsky who said that he could not have changed the face of music the way he did without first knowing all of classical music that went on before him.  In order to break the traditions, you have to know the traditions.  Otherwise, you’re just throwing feathers to the wind.

Lyricists, learn your craft.  Study the masters.  Musicians, learn your instruments.  Study the masters.  Study music, for God’s sake!  Composers, learn music.  Just because you can play 3 chords on a guitar doesn’t make you a composer.  That takes years of study and deep consideration of the power and depth of music.  Again, study the masters.  Singers, study!  Go to a voice teacher and learn your instrument.  Learn how to control your vibrato so that you can sing a straight tone or a wide vibrato or a narrow one or even a straight tone emerging into a vibrato.  Learn pitch, again, for God’s sake.  Sing on pitch.

We’ve now given you a machine that corrects your pitch as you sing.  A sad state of affairs, but make no bones about it, while it’s working hard to digitally manipulate the sonic zeros and ones, it is, in fact, leaving your soul behind in the dust.  The “Cher effect” is laughed at today because though it does put the singer on pitch, it steals ones humanity and robotizes the performance.  Wouldn’t it simply be better to first learn to sing?

OK, enough.  This is supposed to be an inspirational blog…

But, I guess, sometimes in order to inspire, one must first identify the problem.  At this time in history, the state of the art in the music business is in a state.