Clay Anderson Johnson

I concentrate on being "in the moment" focusing on my instrument. There is a saying in the world of acting, "Acting is reacting." This could be put another way as your character's response to what is said to them is your basis for how you say your lines. In music a rough comparison would be Call and Response which has multiple forms. At its simplest it is one instrument responding to a musical statement by another instrument. In solo piano it would be the Bass line responding to the Melody line or the inverse. As a Lead Instrumentalist I enhance the Vocalist in a typical band setting. In one where there is no Vocalist then the term Lead becomes more pronounced. The rhythm is set by the Bass and Drums so I don't need to set the tempo. The Bass player syncs with the Drummer. However a really good Drummer after initially setting the tempo will follow either the Lead Instrumentalist or the Vocalist accenting what they do. It is the interplay which makes music sexy. When there is lack of interplay this is what I refer to as flat footed. This is most clearly exemplified by a bad Country act where there is a person fronting the band who stands like a statue and strums while the Drummer plays like he believes is a metronome. Being in the moment to react to what is going on around me musically is what I concentrate on if playing anywhere.

Hi Greg, I label them as sections A, B, & C. This usually, although not always, is statement of theme, transition, and variation. I don’t think of my musical pieces as songs so much as miniature compositions. The ones I record are short and not expansive or thematically developed for the most part. Brevity is my main concession to commerciality. What I play for myself are longer more jazz oriented piano based improvisations. I can easily do dozens of variations on a theme which is what I enjoy doing for my own personal pleasure. However this is overly indulgent for recording. I dislike standardized song form of verse chorus, verse bridge chorus, or verse pre-chorus chorus etc. I find it too commercial and limiting. I am a player with no ambitions of any type of Pop/Rock stardom. I am fortunate to be at a stage in my life where I no longer need a large amount of income from music. I record basically because I can do so inexpensively and distribute them on the market as a personal statement. Professionally if anything I would like a sync or soundtrack deal. I have a publicist friend who compares my work to Ennio Morricone. Primordial was originally written and produced as a theme song for a TV detective series which was never green lighted. The only reason it runs for 5 minutes is it was conceived to be able to be cut into short segments for different scene transitions, This is why although it is somewhat long there is minimal theme development only slight variations. What Primordial did achieve though is the inspiration for myself that I could use a DAW and record/distribute at almost no cost. So after years of backing singer songwriters whom I considered to be pinheads and musical novices I can finally do something fun and personally more exciting.

3 are here https://open.spotify.com/album/5bqhNA8Rnf4LtqjLQCp8xH 1 is here https://open.spotify.com/track/2IZnyeNdU7d9Mj8ffX5KaY

I try to write instrumentals which evoke a mood rather than tell a story. Primordial - The feeling of anxiety in a jungle during a storm Jamón Con Patatas Fritas - A night in the tropics Dos Gringos Blancos - Two bumbling foreigners (working title Too Many White Men) Immortal - Simultaneous victory and tragedy, being immortal is a curse not a blessing as you watch everything you love die

I really enjoyed this Greg. I liked the way it started with a kind of semi-classical, Middle English melody and then evolved into something resembling ragtime. The transition was unexpected. I found it to be very personal and creative. It has held up well 20 years later.

The digital age has me adding and performing many new functions. This is exacerbated by my current low level of income requiring me to perform duties for which I used to pay others, many of which I am not trained in doing. The immediate list is: Writer Producer Recording engineer Instrumentalist Legal registrations (LLC, Trademarking, Copyrighting, BMI) Business & tax records (accounting & filing) Distribution (Distrokid, SoundCloud, BandCamp, Audiomack, ReverbNation, Youtube) Promotion (Public Figure Facebook page with ads, Google ads, Instagram, Spotify, email lists, soliciting bloggers & influencers) Crowdfunding Art creation Webmaster (creating site, updating, SEO, Google Webmaster & Analytics) Research reading This is in addition to my regular life. Wife, friends, and family Household comptroller Maintaining house and yard Daily meditation Working out This increased workload has begun to impact my virtuosity as a musician. So I am now having to go back to committing at least 30 minutes a day to simply playing scales on a guitar. When I was learning my profession I used to devote time every morning before work to playing major, minor, and diminished scales up and down the length of the neck. Then, after I reached the level of proficiency and accomplishment to not require a “day job”, I took up piano and did the same on a keyboard. After that I was playing enough and popular music is so structurally simple this was no longer necessary. Now, due to the time requirements of everything else being added, I simply don’t play enough so I have to return to scale practice. Does anyone else have similar issues of becoming overwhelmed?

Welcome! Weird instruments? Part of the production of Bridge Over Troubled Waters consisted of drummer Hal Blaine dragging chains across a concrete floor.

Desert Rose - Eric Johnson, Austin's premier guitarist Eric is the same age as Stevie Ray Vaughan. He played in his his professional recording band at 15 and was touring Europe when SRV was still playing Shakey's Pizza at Guadalupe and 19th in Austin.

Country Boy - Albert Lee & Steve Morse

To be perfectly honest I’m not that worried about it. I have become quite happy being at home with my wife and dog. I’m quite content continuing in eclectic artistic obscurity. I don’t want to go back on the road, stay in Marriotts in places like Boise or Oklahoma City, and eat shitty food at Denny’s or Applebee's. The definition of glamour is the illusion of beauty where there is none. I’m leaning more toward Art than Commerce. If I sell a few tracks and create a small group of fans with minimal effort as I’m doing now my work will only improve with each release. Stranger things have happened than that eventually producing some benefit.

Brevity is not only the soul of wit but also that of hook writing. A well established practice for many successful writers is to make their song title the same as the hook in the song. The hook is generally either the first line of the verse, the first line of the chorus, or the musical intro. An example in your case might be Looking At The Sky for a title. For one of the best example of hook writing listen to Van Morrison's song Jackie Wilson Said. There is a musical vocal a cappella intro hook, the title as the first line of the first verse hook, a refrain hook "Let it all hang out" and a chorus hook "I'm in heaven when you smile". There is additionally a scat sung break hook "Branga a lang a lang". The Rolling Stones use a purely musical hook to begin Brown Sugar then repeat the title in the first line of the chorus.

The Coronavirus era is the best thing to ever happen to me for being creative. Prior to the pandemic my more recent musical work consisted of being a backup player for other artists performing their material. While that may be financially rewarding it is hardly inspirational. After the virus halted live music and studio production I spent most of 2020 at home playing piano by myself. In 2021 I bought my first DAW, Logic Pro X. Then I began the creation and recording of 4 tracks by myself over a 3 month period. The last of these, Immortal, released for sale on December 9th. Now I am making no money but am excited about what I am doing and have 4 singles for sale in major retailers under my own name. Rather than playing on commercial Pop, Rock, or Country products which suck artistically I can be more creative and progressive. I now play and arrange in a manner with instrumentation which cannot be pigeon holed into one genre. The best news is I am beginning to receive recognition as a composer and arranger.

Thank you. I followed everyone else back also.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I have more music tracks on SoundCloud, but I do have two videos on Instagram. https://www.instagram.com/clayandersonjohnson/ They are also on my Youtube channel. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCoBZa5n8O4bwXp6CkBsaRjw/videos Thank you.

One of the things I learned from the book I previously mentioned, Get More Fans, is a submission service for publicity, Submithub.com. They do submissions for $1 each for each curator in your campaign. You get a choice of submitting to Blogs or Internet Influencers for campaigns. This is much less expensive than my PR rep who charges thousands of dollars for a promotion campaign and is simply out of my league at this moment. You define your top 3 genre/audience matches for a submission and then receive a ranked selection of curators. First: column genre match, Second: quality of reviews as rated by previous submitters, and Third: amount of social media influence. So far I have submitted only to Blogs although I will be doing Influencers also. A Monday to Friday schedule is recommended by third party reviews on Google of the site. For a total of $66 these are my results for 2 tracks: At least 2 postings to Spotify playlists 1 posting to a radio playlist At least 2 submissions also being forwarded to another source 2 separate posts by a blogger as well as a relationship becoming established by email My success percentage is also somewhat skewed as Jamón Con Patatas Fritas was much more popular than Primordial. This was to be expected as Primordial contains no guitar, my primary instrument, and was my first experience using a DAW. Jamón Con Patatas Fritas was heavily guitar oriented and had the benefit of being my second DAW recording as well as using iive drums. Fortunately in the Summer of 2022 I will be returning to a real studio in Los Angeles and playing with people who are much better musicians than I am. *** We have moved our website to https://firebirdsofparadise.com *** UPDATE: November 27, 2021 we hit #10 on ReverbNation! The Firebirds of Paradise® registered trademark 2021 Clay Anderson Johnson, LLC

I wanted to share some information about a book which I have been reading, Get More Fans by Jesse Cannon and Todd Thomas. It is available on Amazon. It has some interesting ideas which work really well. I submitted to an obscure blog in Turkey which in turn forwarded to it Klassik Müzik who added Jamón Con Patatas Fritas to its Spotify playlist. Declines from different sources often contain extremely complimentary phrases along with the NO. Since they said it in writing these statements, edited out from the decline, can become genuine endorsements, I have a fistful of declines which contain phrases which make me sound like Pink Floyd. 😁

Egalitarianism and lack of taste and judgement are two entirely different matters although no one has ever accused me of either of them.

As an afterthought this afternoon I was in church for the first time in years for a remembrance observance for a friend's mother. This was held at the Chevy Chase Presbyterian Church in DC which has a magnificent pipe organ and outstanding acoustics. The wonderful organ performance accompanied world class mezzo-soprano Amanda Fink. The simplicity of the performance in that hall was overwhelming. The sound quality and vibrance far exceeded any popular music concert I have ever witnessed. Two people alone with minimal sound embellishment from the house system was earthshaking in its brilliance in the accomplishment of what great music is.

I have been watching Tom Morello’s course on Masterclass.com. One of his central themes is “Enhance your creativity by embracing your limitations.” This is a concept I have always tried to practice without verbalizing it. This year is the first time I have ever tried to record myself performing as a band playing all the instruments. Of course I’ve made many home recordings on cassettes or 4 tracks of song demos which were me and a guitar. However any band recording I have ever done has been in a studio with an engineer and other musicians. People PM suggesting I should try this or that plugin or piece of equipment. I certainly appreciate their support as I am not an audio engineer although this input is beyond both my knowledge and energy levels as well as my goals. I am very proud of myself for actually learning to play the drums although I doubt Sheila E will lose any sleep from the competition. My experience as a producer revolves around telling an engineer or other musician what to do as it is their specialty not mine. Saying increase the echo but lower the overtones in the high end is a far cry from being at the board and actually knowing how to do it. Skill sets differ. The point I am making is we are still very much on the frontier of a movement from corporate dominated music to individuals creating an international marketplace for themselves. This is an intimidating undertaking to say the least. We should all be very proud of what we are doing. At the same time it would be constructive to keep everything in perspective and realize what is an unrealistic approach or goal for other people no matter how essential it may be for yourself I have found SongStuff to be an exceptional forum for several reasons. The largest one is most of the people who are here, regardless of their expertise level, are serious about what they are trying to do. This is not filled with videos shot on phones of people attempting to promote something which will never, ever happen. Celebrate yourself for who you are!

My biggest issue is when the music becomes engineer driven rather than music driven. There are thousands of startup bands which need direction in the studio. There are also thousands of songs where the drummer sounds like a metronome rather than a person because of click tracks. Both have their place. There should be more judgement calls rather than fixed rules. Some of the best drummers keep time while following the song. Keith Moon followed Peter Townsend. Charlie Watts followed Keith Richards. Sheila E is never seen without an earpiece for a click track. There is no one size fits all approach although many attempt it.

Most lean toward civility so you are very welcome to join. 😁 Post your work and your thoughts on Music! There is certainly room available.

You should take it as a win! It is obvious a lot of hard work and dedication has taken place here to survive 21 years through changing times. The world is a much different place than when you began. I notice there is staring to be an increase in new memberships. Do an email blast to your entire database to encourage people who have dropped off to return.