new guy

[chazlang]

My name is Charlie Lang. I've been doing music since my father taught me to play piano by example. Hehad big working hands as he was not a professional piano player, he was in everything but music, a hard working man who just so happened to play piano by ear. He would make his left hand play like a stride pianist but without the right notes, he use dit to keep time. but in teh right hand he could play the melody to Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head for instance. He unknowingly got me started. Wrote a song about Herbie The lOve bug at about age 6, and would do the twist as I sang it. "when he gets in trouble he's sad, when he gets in trouble he's mad, when he gets in trouble he's sad, he's Herbie HErb" I kept writing after that one,several songs over the years. at one point I strated entering and winning talent contests and one year sang Maybe I'm Amazed. That was the first year my parents heard me sing. I had 4 or 5 piano teachers, when I was 15 a Gifted and talented instructor for my school nominated me and as part of my project, I recorded at A&R Recording Studios where a friend of hers worked. after recording there I attended Berklee College of Music for two years. after that had studios of my own where 20 people recorded one summer..I was hospitalized for bipolar many times but kept up the music. and here I am at 58, still alive, remarkably to me, and still doing music. By now  have as good a studio as I need and write and record songs, sometimes employing friends to play on my stuff. Oh yeah and by now have 4 released cds. Everything but the fame, and to this day I don't miss it..i never had it. My producer at A&r went into the tv business and ending up producing Wonder years and party of Five, but never helped me again, saying he didn't have his contacts anymore. Actually I think he started not liking what I was doing and that was the reason he bailed out. But that's not his fault, and as I said I think fame could be tricky for me, or could have been as the case really is, its out of my reach now, but I still enjoy recording, taking Berklee online courses (took 4 in the last few years)singing playing, and I'm in a band thats played 20 some times in the last year. I'm doing well.Pleased to meet all of you and hope to enjoy listening to your songs. Hope I can offer something.
 

[Peggy]

Welcome to Songstuff, Charlie! Nice to have you join in with us.

[john]

Hey Charlie

 

Good to have you with us! A great way to learn for sure. A nice memory to have too.

[chazlang]

I'm glad to be here. Thank YOu, both of you.

[john]

10 minutes ago, chazlang said:

I'm glad to be here. Thank YOu, both of you.

My wife has bipolar. Hell of an illness. Wishing you all the best.

[chazlang]

I've gotten use to tragedy. but I've also written over 2,000 songs, so it's an ENERGY, at least that can be used for good. Thank You for the empathy John. It doesn't dominate my life, let's put it that way. Last time I was hospitalized- before that it had been 14 years. That's a long time to remain out of hospital.

[chazlang]

1 hour ago, Peggy said:

Welcome to Songstuff, Charlie! Nice to have you join in with us.

Thank You Peggy, it's been a while since I was in a song forum, it's great to be back.

[TheGarageJump]

Welcome to Songstuff Charlie. I have been on this forum for just over a year - plenty of support and people to reach out to. That is quite a bio. You have some musical pedigree. 2,000 songs...Wow. Searingly honest about your shortcomings as well, sadly don't see that a lot online.....cheers for sharing that. I hope that you enjoy the forum. 

[chazlang]

Thanks so much my friend. I have to be an optimist. I enjoy being an optimist. Too much has happened to me and by me to be thinking about all the time. i love what I call "good intensity" To me the subject of Vincent van Gogh is a good kind of intensity if you can look past the crazy things that happened to him and he happened to. Your left with a beautiful body of work and the things he said in his letters, and the color he used so well and the style he made up. But he was aware of the bad things, somehow he transcended the bad things. That's what I hope to do and enjoy the good intensity. Of songwriting, recording, piano playing, entertaining in the band I'm in, singing and types of harmonizing or vocal arranging, piano arrangements and art that I do too. and I don't actually REMEMBER over 2,000 songs I wrote, I just remember tabulating along the way and it was about that many.I have a lot of work to do on learning recording well. I'm not so good at that but you can't do everything. Be well my friend and thanks for the points you made.

[john]

I’m biased, but I think music forums offer some important things that you don’t find on social media.
 

Number 1 is proper separation of music makers and listeners. Sure I know all music makers are also listeners, but not all listeners are music makers. Sites like Twitter just mix it all together. If you use Twitter to connect with artists, pretty soon all you connect with is other artists making it useless for promotion. If you try to talk constructively about making your music when your audience is mostly listeners it leaves them cold, turning them off in droves. Sure they are interested to a point, but never play them draft or incomplete tracks.

 

Number 2 is threaded discussion. Just try following up on any old discussions. Re-finding old convos is a nightmare on all social media.

 

Number 3, kinda relates to number 1. When artists meet you on social media (and I include music socials like Soundcloud or Reverbnation) as another artist, they are in it for quid pro quo. I will like you so you like me. That screws with “the algorithm” that connects listeners with fans… but beyond that, because they didn’t “like” you because they like your music (they probably never listened to 1 second of it, a big list of such people is just a big list of disinterested people. You post a song, a small handful play it, and…. Dead. The algorithm, misinformed about who likes your music now sees that even they aren’t interested in your music, and they stop showing it to new listeners. Artists when they meet you as a peer like that, make crappy fans.

 

Meanwhile if an artist encounters your music first, they might just like your music and become a fan, just like any other listener.

 

Music forums at least properly separate artists and listeners. This makes it nice and clear for artists, so they talk differently to each audience.

 

Number 4 Forum categories make it much easier to keep to separate based on interest AND skill level, making it easier to find space for co-mingling and for separation.

 

Number 5 They are much, much better repositories for distilled knowledge.

 

Number 6 You get to develop your artistry, your songwriting, performance, recording and production out of the limelight, somewhere you can develop your skills and hit listeners with a real Taddah! Instead of a regular limp pffft.

 

As mentioned above, mixing artist connection and fan connection on one social platform can completely trash it as a platform for reaching listeners or fans, and indeed ruin your music for what fans you have.

 

Meanwhile social media are great platforms for reaching listeners and re-reaching fans.

 

They are also great for reaching family and friends.

 

Just like real life, family and friends are great for getting started, but asap, artists need to stop creating and pitching their music to family and friends and instead focus on reaching true fans. To do this, you have to learn how. It doesn’t just happen.

 

I could go on lol Short message, music forums are vital for artists, they just don’t know it. They keep hoping they can do everything in just one platform. They can, just not successfully. Similarly they keep trying new things like “I hear Twitter is good” they then try it, get terrible results, quit it and go try another “get fame quick scheme”, another platform and that too disappoints. Artists really do suck at this “shiny paper syndrome” crap. They do it with music gear. Plug ins. Both music performance works best by learning individual things well and then learning to combine them, music marketing really does best by setting up individual systems to work in a semi-automated way, best results come from combining systems in a planned, coordinated way. Music on the other hand can be brilliantly powerful thing just as a solo voice, a Capella.

 

Sorry, I drone on lol

[chazlang]

ah ok, thanks john.

[john]

Sorry Chaz. My soapbox doth run over lol

[chazlang]

1 hour ago, john said:

Sorry Chaz. My soapbox doth run over lol

well it was founded, thats ok. Not a bad argument, its nice here.