Well this blog every day thing is off to a spectacular start, isn't it? Sorry, I got distracted.
It may come as a surprise to some of you, but I'm not just some guy with a guitar, a piano and his own recording studio. I am actually a fully trained classical musician, and jazz musician. I started my musical career in jazz, as a saxophonist with lessons from my Grandfather, who was himself a jazz musician. I also studied with famed jazz studio musician Gary Gray. I promise you've heard him even if you don't know his name. You can hear his clarinet on just about every television show for decades. He was a wonder and I perplexed him no end, because I was more interested in writing than playing.
I studied at UCLA, which is also where I studied classical. If you dig into my discography you will find a Piano Sonata, played on a synth piano. I follow the traditional classical form with this, circa early 19th century.
When I studied classical music and its history I was fascinated by an enormous book called Lieber Usualis. Over 2,000 pages, it contains every single note of every single possible mass in Gregorian Chant. Every. Single. Gregorian. Chant.
All of them. I wanted a copy but back then they were hard to come buy. The UCLA library only had a couple dozen copies and many more students studing the music in it. As a flat-broke college freshman there was no way I was going to ever in my life afford that book.
Well, I finally got a copy. 1958 printing, in Latin. Transcribed from the original works that date back to when years had only 3 digits. Now I can't read Latin but I learned all of the parts of the mass, and I can read Gregorian Chant in its original form:
Yes, I can read the music here. I learned how back in the 1980's.
I've been lost in this book for days now. Not the scripture, which I don't give a shit about, but the music. I've always been interested in the music. Raw, primal, emotional. The building blocks of everything we know now about music is in these texts.
Everything. Every single mass is in this book - for every day of the year, including special events and holidays. Vivaldi had to learn this music. Bach had to learn it. Look what they produced.
I've wanted my own copy for over 40 years and now I have one. Suddenly I'm 19 years old again and figuring out the melodies and learning how to sight read this stuff under the steady gaze of my Music History Professor, himself a world class organist who would constantly challenge me and guide me into new ways of thinking about things. Almost everyone hated Music History, but I absolutely loved it. I spent hours and days finding the roots os music I already knew hidden in these mono-harmonic chants and prayers.
In addition, I've had to deal with some issues on the business end of this business. My distributor is claiming that Spotify has informed them of bots inflating the number of streams while Spotify is telling me they've had no such conversation. Distrokid (my distrubitor) is saying one of my releases has been removed by Spotify, when it hasn't. Lots of finger pointing at each other, but nothing has actually changed.
Dealing with the business end of this business is soul crushing, and I do as little of that as I can. You have to be of a certain mindset to be that person, and I'm not one of them.
For the record, my song "Ordinary Life" has NOT been dropped from Spotify, and in fact is one of my better received songs. Not bad for nearly 11 minutes.
I'll get back to work on the album this week. Promise.
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