Steve Mills - Life, the Universe and the Digital World

What is your narrative?

I made this comment over on Tim Boucher’s site where he has been talking about history, both cultural and personal. This sums up one strand of theory that I am currently working on called Narrative Theory.

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Everything is narrative from a certain point of view.

I think i have said it before on this site, but I have a theory that you are constantly telling yourself a story about your past, about what is happening in the present and what you expect your future to be.

And people revise this story all of the time. It’s like a meta program that we all run, keeps us motivated, gives us direction, shit like that.

History is just the collective version of this, the culture is always telling itself a narrative about its past, its present direction and it’s future.

Oh yeah, and that other bit of wisdom “History is always told by the winning side”

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I have found that being aware of the story that you are telling yourself is a very empowering thing. The story that you tell yourself defines who you are and what you think you can do. Change the story and you essentially change who you are, and the meaning of events in your past. Once you know that you are a creator of the story that you listen to you can look at your self imposed limits, the part where the story says that you couldn’t possibly do, and see that you have the power to transcend this limit.

It is also good to keep in mind that everyone around you is doing this as well. Peoples behavior and thoughts are dictated by the story that they have internalized and are now telling to themselves. People tell themselves that they are rich when they are just getting by, then go and spend up big on credit because they have internalised the story and really do think that they are rich. Sometimes this works for people, they “fake it till they make it” and the projection of being rich and confident with money actually opens up business opportunities for them and contacts, so they actually do become rich. For others reality turns around and bites them hard.

More on this later

Great way to sell your music on your blog and retailers sites.

Just saw an interesting service on the web at snopcap.com

It’s an easy to set up store widget with an integrated player. It is a widget that can sit anywhere on your blog or website, all you need to do is sign up for an account and put a few lines of code up.
To see one in action go over the blog Onesongperweek.com and have a look. There is one featured on the main page of the site, and at the end of every single entry on the blog. It keeps the storefront in the site visitors face at all time, but also provides a service in that site visitors can listen to the whole back catalogue of the artist quickly and easily if you “hook” them and they like what they hear.

The service also integrates into myspace and other social networking platforms. But what do they get for providing the service. 39 cents per track for single tracks, 20 cents per track if people buy a whole album for you. BUT, the service is free for the first 1000 tracks, and then after that if you are running a small label the cost is $100 per year, but you can contact them to work out a deal on the per track fees etc. The other thing is that it is a shared platform for retail as well, people running blogs and sites that promote the sort of music you make can add your tracks to their store, giving you virtual distribution for little effort.

The only other problem for myself and those that I personally know is that the service is only available to artists and labels in the US. I could see myself using this for my own work, and that of the label that I am in the process of setting up. The way that the widget is set up is that you can even host songs from bands that you know, and cross promote each others work on your site.

The address is www.snocap.com , well worth checking out. In fact, I am going to write to them today and see how long till Australian residents can set up an account.

Make a Number one Hit - The KLF way

I downloaded an interesting document last week which I have been reading slowly over the past few days. It’s a book from 1988, written by the guys from the 80’s house/hip-hop group the KLF. It’s called then manual, and what it sets out to be is a manual for how to get a number one single.

They wrote it from experience, as it came out just after their big hit “Doctorin’ the Tardis” went to number one. It is a fascinating, tongue in cheek humorous look at the music business, but with a serious cynical insightful side that offers up some great truths and strategies for having a number one.

All through reading it I kept being reminded of how different things were in the late eighties, early nineties to today in the way of music production, and in general what you can do at home. There is a whole section of the book that deals with booking a studio etc that could be avoided with the right computer equipment these days, and the internet has revolutionised the last third of the book that discusses distribution and promotion.

Here are a few passages that I found memorable.

The basic Golden Rules as far as they apply to writing a debut single that can go to Number One in the U.K. Charts are as follows:

Do not attempt the impossible by trying to work the whole thing out before you go into the studio. Working in a studio has to be a fluid and
creative venture but at all times remember at the end of it you are going to have to have a 7? version that fulfils all the criteria
perfectly. Do not try and sit down and write a complete song.

Songs that have been written in such a way and reached Number One can only be done by the true song writing genius and be delivered by artists with such forceful convincing passion that the world HAS TO listen. You know the sort of thing, “Sailing” by Rod Stewart, “Without You” by Nilsson What the Golden Rules can provide you with is a framework that you can slot the component parts into.

The basic process that they outline in the book is as follows :

1. Listen to as much top 40 music as you can, and as much up coming dance music as you can

2. Hire a studio, an engineer and a programmer

3. Loan $20,000 from the bank, tell them that you are a small business owner starting a label

4. Pick some grooves (drum and bass riffs) from the albums, give them to the engineer and programmer, say you want to have something just like that

5. Manage the engineer and programmer through the creation of the track, if they are any good they will take the component parts and mash them together.

6. No matter how cheesy , gimmicky or hook laden the Frankenstein beast you create, just go with it. Push through it and go there.

7. Professionally master the finished product

That’s all I am up to at the moment. Interesting how with the advent of better digital audio workstations and software, the engineer and programmer parts are now the musician. We really do live in a golden age of music if you are into the process that goes into making it. The next stage deals with getting promotional and distribution support for your work.

I will keep you posted on what they have to say…

By the way if you have the time read the wikipedia entry on the KLF. Interesting characters, did some crazy blatant sampling which made them have to burn the whole pressing of one of their early singles. And they also dumped a dead sheep at an awards ceremony once… classy.

Summer Fun

Hi All,

Sorry for the lack of writey action on the blog, but I have spent the last few weeks with my new Behringer Midi Controller and copy of Ableton 6 and Reason 3 cranking out ideas for new pieces of music. It has me so inspired that I think I am going to dedicate this blog to digital music production for the next few months at least, just to see what happens.

I have always hacked around with the stuff, but now that I fully grasp how east and versatile the tools are now to use, a feel as if a whole creative universe has opened up in front of me to explore.

Please check back, I will be posting often

Steve

A new year, a new domain

Hi All,

Hope everyone had a safe and happy christmas and new years. I start the new year fresh of ideas, creativity and drive. A good combination to have.

The time off has given me a bit of perspective, and a fresh way of looking at things. I have resistered the name steven-mills.com, and in the next few hours that will be the new address for this site. Greengem.net will work still, but only as a pointer to the main index page of the blog. This year is going to be all about branding, for myself and my creative pursuits, as well as for my business http://www.bluewavetechnology.com.au

Over here I will be presenting creative writing peices, short film / animation and music. Over at bluewave the blog will be more technical, how to and articles.

Cheers

Steve