Inspiration

Super Fabo Solo Cellist Zoe Keating sums it all up hilariously in less than 5 minutes at "Ignite".

In case you've wondered why I continue to show up at a day job rather than hit the road in the highly lucrative solo bass genre - see above. :)

Posted by Jeff Schmidt at 11:33 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Short version - I remixed an Imogen Heap track and you can hear it here.

If the player doesn't work for you try this link

Longer version.

Twitter. It's all about Twitter.

I follow a few artists I admire on Twitter. Among them is Imogen Heap.

As part of a promotion called "Twestival" to raise money to improve the quality drinking water in impoverished regions, Imogen Heap released the vocal tracks to a song that was never produced. She only had the vocal parts.

FULL DETAILS HERE

So I downloaded the tracks and built the song you hear above. You can do one also - till mid March 2009 I think.

I played / programmed / produced everything - there's bass, drums, guitars, synth, sound design. All the stuff I most enjoy doing. Playing, writing and knob-tweaking.

Owing to nothing more (i'm sure) than the high quality vocal tracks from Imogen - this is the most commercial sounding thing I've ever produced.

Of course, I also just ADORE Imogen Heap. She writes great songs, has a gorgeous voice and is a killer producer/sound designer in her own right.

She's the real deal, and time totally vanished for me while working on this track. That's a sign I think. :)

Secret evil plan part ii has me considering doing another take on the track all together.

But then again - maybe not.

Hope you enjoy. Donate - and try your own version!

Posted by Jeff Schmidt at 03:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I could spend days on end listening to TED Talks. I've never watched one and felt the time was wasted.

But every so often, there's a TED Talk that just really hits me where I am at that moment.

This is one of those.

Author Elizabeth Gilbert's TED Talk.

If you create, watch.

Posted by Jeff Schmidt at 11:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I like this. It resonates with me. I never have an original idea. All my ideas are inspired by other ideas. I'm a steal & modify artist.

I stole this bit from ISO50

Who stole it from Today & Tomorrow

Who stole it from Movie Maker

Who knows who & where Jim Jarmusch stole it from.

Posted by Jeff Schmidt at 12:07 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Goin old school bitches!

Like I mentioned in my Sporadic Gig Syndrome post - I opted to flesh out some new ideas for my house concert on friday night (with Steve Lawson, Lobelia & Gustaf Fjelstrom) rather than boning up on my Outre material.

As I don't have any gigs lined up right now - I don't feel any incentive to keep working on these tunes. Just how I roll.

So I figured I'd record them as they stand now for posterity. And also to remember what the hell I played 5 months from now when I want to finish these things.

Then - it hit me. I should record them to the Fostex G16 tape machine I picked up over the summer. I had yet to use it. It would be a great test.

This vid blog documents the effort. Well - about 9 minutes of it. It actually took several hours.

The video only includes samples of tracking 2 tunes - but I got video on all of the complete tunes. I'll put those up in another post when I get some time to knock it out.

Video takes FOOOOOOOOOOOOREEEEEEEEEEVAAAAAAAAAAHHHH!

Posted by Jeff Schmidt at 11:37 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Handwritten notes documenting advice from Pianist Thelonius Monk - captured by Saxophonist Steve Lacy circa 1960.

KFOG Program Director Dave Benson, the biggest jazz fan I know, came in contact with this jem and passed it along to me. It's great stuff. As Benson said - "you just want to have it framed"!

I'll have to settle for having it "blogged".

Click on the image to see the bigger version.

The most ironic bit to me - Monk saying "Don't play all those weird notes - play the melody!" Classic.

My favorite - 'Whatever you think can't be done - someone will come along and do it".

Amen to that!

The hating whitey bit at the end is a close second. ;)

Posted by Jeff Schmidt at 08:06 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

As we've discussed on this blog before and ELSEWHERE practice is a HUGE part of achievement.

The idea of being "gifted" or possessing "innate" ability/talent is massively over stated in the explanation of why some people do amazing things. It's easy to see an elite musician perform and think "they're god" but that totally ignores the DECADES of dedicated practice and motivation that came before the performance.

And here, as Malcolm Gladwell covers in this great interview - we learn luck & circumstance ALSO has a LOT more to do with it than we'd often like to admit.

But you know that - we've discussed that here also.

My vote is for Gladwell and JMJ to trade places for 2009! I totally wanna hear Gladwell throw down the bassline to March of the Pigs.

Posted by Jeff Schmidt at 12:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Ahhh the holidays.

I'm without my bass in the arctic wonderland known as Upstate NY. Which pretty much looks like this in every direction.

I do however have my fancy computing device which affords me the ability to mangle and mix sound. That's where YOU come in my fearless bass pioneers!

YOUR MISSION:

I want you to send me a bar or 2 of your bass playing OR other any other instrument you play.

I'll collect all the riffs I get and produce them with my laptop toys over the next week.

I'll post the results (for better or worse) on this blog and throughout the interwebs with full credits to everyone who participates.

Or - if you prefer - I'll leave your good reputable name off this auditory abortion leaving your participation totally anonymous. Your call.

For the sake of simplicity / interoperability there's only 2 rules.

Play to a click/metronome with a tempo of 110. (don't record the click track if you can help it)

Play in the key of E maj.

You can play in ANY mode of E Maj - but please confine your riffs to the key of E Maj.

Play in any time sig you want - just label what it is

Play with any effect(s) you want.

As simple or complex as you want. Doesn't matter. Don't overthink. Just hit record, play, save the file - and

SEND YOUR RIFFAGE TO ME

beautifulbass@gmail.com

mp3 is fine.

Let'r loose kids!

Posted by Jeff Schmidt at 09:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (5)

In my last post I talked about starting a work in progress blog or entry category here at beautiful-bass.com

This seemed like a really great idea to me and would hopefully serve me in getting at least a few of my many idea fragments finished. I was going to post some stuff this weekend.

Then I realized that this is my main website.

If someone searches for me, most of the time they're going to end up here.

Having this site loaded with entry after entry of half-baked demo audio might be fun for me and a few of you. But, it's not helpful at all to the person who came here to find out if I'm worth hiring or booking on a gig.

So I'll need to find another solution to create a work in progress, unfinished audio type blog. Any ideas?

One thought I had was to have a password protected area of the site to post idiot audio to. The password would be delivered by e-mail for free.

It's only purpose would be to keep those page(s) from being indexed and linked by search engines. That would at least make sure my latest :30 episode of improv scrotum smasher screech solo stayed off the top of search engine page when someone searches for Jeff Schmidt.

I'll play around with some potential solutions - feel free to drop me any idea of your own.

Posted by Jeff Schmidt at 04:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (8)

This is . . . . uh . . . . . amazing.

Stick with it. About halfway, after the woman sings they shred over some wacky time signatures and tempo changes. It's pretty awesome. In that non-western music kinda way.

Ivo Papazov and his Wedding Band

Posted by Jeff Schmidt at 11:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (6)

Posted by Jeff Schmidt at 11:36 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

A few weeks ago I had dinner with my wife Valerie, and an entrepreneur who has become part of her vastly expanding network of inspiring people.

At one point, he asked me a few questions about my music.

These were not the kind of questions I am used to getting - what tunings do you use? why do you play upside down? who is your biggest influence? etc...

Instead, he wanted to know how many CD sales I get from having videos on YouTube.

I answered that there's no real way to know for sure. People arrive at my CD Baby page from all over the place. CD Baby only tells me the link they came from directly. So while the number of people that come directly from YouTube is low, it doesn't mean that Youtube wasn't in the chain that ultimately led a person to my CD Baby page.

Then he asked me who my "target audience" was. Target audience? Uhhhh I don't know.

I know it's mostly bass players who have bought my music and come out to see me play live. But I don't think I've targeted them intentionally.

I made my CD, Outre for me. Since it's solo bass I guess it's natural to think bass players would be most interested in it. But I've never really marketed it or sent it out to magazines for review etc.... Nor have I tried to expose it to wider audience.

Anyway - there were more questions like this. The kind of questions which only a business perspective would inspire. It caused me to think in a way I had not yet really considered.

The ultimate question his inquiry was really trying to answer was - "Is Solo Bass a business?" Or more specifically, is "Jeff Schmidt - Solo Bass" a business?

It's not something I'd ever asked myself seriously. I have only considered the art of it - never the commerce.

I didn't get back into music to find a way to make a living - but as a way to feed my soul. I need to create. I need to experiment, push boundaries & buttons and try new things and put it out into the world. If I can't do that, I get cranky.

This is an entirely different mindset from one that says - I need to create a product that appeals to lots of people.

Or is it?

Perhaps that's a false dichotomy.

Anyway - this kind of questioning has made me think differently about what I'm doing. Why I'm doing it. And WHO I'm doing it for.

It's pretty easy to see that most art would never happen if it were forced to meet the "Is this a business" test.

But I have a hard time believing that kind of thinking should be removed from the artistic process entirely.

What do you think?

Posted by Jeff Schmidt at 03:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (12)

Can't believe I haven't done this before.

Here's a couple e-mail/myspace messages with questions and my answers.

No sense in keeping this stuff secret!

----------------- Original Message -----------------

From: Bill D.
Date: Mar 5, 2008 7:33 PM

Hi Jeff,

Awsome playing man! I am one of Michael wilcox's students.

I was just checking out your track "like father like son" and the fuzz sound is killer! Would you share what pedal did you use to get the sound. It's ballsy but clear at the same time..... I am intrigued!

Cheers,

Bill

JEFF SCHMIDT: hey man - thanks! please tell michael I said hello. he always makes me feel like quitting bass cuz he's so good :-)

for fuzz well well well - it's a long story - mostly cuz I used multiple fuzz & distortion fx to create all the sounds.

Here's the gear I was working with for the Ruiner Severhead project.

Boss GT-6B. There's actually some pretty nasty sounds in there. Even the distortion & fuzz is pretty good but it needs some help.

I also used an Electro-Harmonic Tube-Zipper. I have a weird little boutique fuzz pedal called the frog - or something like that. (forget th name right now - it's green tho)

Secret weapons on the Ruiner stuff is metasonix scrotum smasher and waveshaper. PLUS - in the ProTools system I used SansAmp plugin A LOT.

often times I'd record a track an then run the recorded track BACK out into various effects and re-record that - thats why I can't remember exactly how it was done.

does that help? prolly not heh?

--jeff

----------------- Original Message -----------------

From: The Happy Chimichanga
Date: Feb 29, 2008 9:56 PM

I was also wondering how does one go about becoming a solo bass artist.

JEFF SCHMIDT: Ha! Great question!

I think it's simply a matter of picking up the bass and deciding to play a complete song with it - rather than playing only 1 part of a song.

Now the "artist" part comes when you can make reasonably good songs.

But - that's relative. Please yourself first. Write stuff YOU want to hear.
Don't worry about making BASS the point of what you do - make MUSIC the point.

I'd like to hear your thoughts!

--jeff

----------------- Original Message -----------------

From: ♫ ♪ Justin ♪ ♫
Date: Feb 29, 2008 6:56 AM

Do you know of any good method books or DVD's for advanced players? I picked up almost everything I know from Wooten DVD's, but I want to branch out.

JEFF SCHMIDT: Hey man. I don't know of any DVDs off hand.

It depends on what youre looking for.

My suggestion - if I could be bold for a moment - take everything you already know and put it to creative use.

If you are an advanced player, you probably really don't need any more "instruction". But you may need to start "creating".

just my .02

I'd love to hear your thoughts!

--jeff

Got a question?

drop me a note at myspace.com/jeffschmidtbassist

or email me jeff at beautiful-bass.com

or in the comments here.

word

Posted by Jeff Schmidt at 11:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Remember back here when I said you only need 10,000 fans to make your artistry work financially?

A really smart guy named Kevin Kelly doesn't agree.

In fact - he thinks we only need 1,000 fans.

But they have to be TRUE fans.

excerpt:

A True Fan is defined as someone who will purchase anything and everything you produce. They will drive 200 miles to see you sing. They will buy the super deluxe re-issued hi-res box set of your stuff even though they have the low-res version. They have a Google Alert set for your name. They bookmark the eBay page where your out-of-print editions show up. They come to your openings. They have you sign their copies. They buy the t-shirt, and the mug, and the hat. They can't wait till you issue your next work. They are true fans.

Read Kevin's excellent post here.

I've recently changed my mind about fans.

Fans - as defined when I was growing up - were distant admirers. We only dealt directly with the artist's WORK - but rarely if ever the artist themselves. We were not worthy of their time & attention.

Things are different now in my view.

While the Rolling Stones and other "celebrity" artists can stay hidden from their "fans" - the majority of artists can't and shouldn't. There is a limit to how accessible you can be - for sure.

But until you reach that point - why pretend you're the Rolling Stones and hide from "fans"?

I don't really want "fans". At least not in that old school artist/fan relationship that looks like "GOD / Sycophant". That's lame.

I'd rather have friends. The art should be there to brings us together. Not act as a barrier between artist and "fan".

Another way of looking at it: the TRUE fan Kevin Kelly is talking about really looks a whole lot more like a FRIEND.

What do you think?

Posted by Jeff Schmidt at 03:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (11)

Posted by Jeff Schmidt at 11:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)