Before reading this, you may ask, what makes Baby Dinosaur qualified to give advice about being a successful musician? Well I have two qualifications: ears. As an avid fan of music for about as long as I can remember....all the way back to my music box mobile that played "Knick Knack Paddy Whack Give the Dog a Bone" I've known what type of music I like. Granted, not everyone likes the same music and that's fine with me. If I find music I don't like, I know how to hit NEXT, but some music is so unforgiveably bad, I wonder who in the world would allow some recordings to ever get made.
So, today I started thinking about the recipe for disaster for creating terrible music. Not all ingredients are necessary, but here are some good things to get you started:
1. Long intros. I will not sit and listen through a 3 minute intro for a 5 minute song. If the intro is actually entertaining and musical (preferably comprised of the music of more than one instrument, not necessarily counting a drum beat) you might be okay. If your intro contains roughly 25% of the entire length of the song and is mostly random clicking sounds, drumbeats, or repeating chords, I'm not going to stick around.
2. Too much cymbal. If you want to sound amateurish, start smacking around on your cymbals. Hi-hat is one thing, but just beating on your crash over and over is uncalled for. Your crash is meant for occasional accents, dummy. Do you need to look up occasional in the dictionary? Stop right now and count your cymbals. How many do you have? If you have only your hi-hat and one other cymbal, is it a crash or a ride? If it is a crash, ask your mommy to buy you a ride for Christmas or at least get a crash/ride. Stop crashing so much, dork.
3. Can you sing? Really, this is a serious question. If you can't sing, stop. Stop it right now. Learn an instrument or a trade, but don't sing. There are a lot of people in the world that are talented singers, I'd prefer to listen to them and not have to listen to you. Really, really, I want you to stop immediately. If you really want to sing, I give you permission to sing background vocals in a limited capacity. Mothers and grandmothers of the world, I charge you with informing your children if they are not good singers. Do not encourage them to sing if they cannot. I mean it, I really do. I can't emphasize this enough, people.
4. Do you think you're pretty, especially when you flip your hair around? Boys and girls, if this describes you, perhaps being a musician is not your calling. Hair is not an instrument. If your best feature is your hair, try to be a model and pose for Harlequin romance novel covers or something, Fabio.
5. It is our duty as the general public to stop people from creating more bad music. If music is bad don't listen to it, don't buy it. Don't sit at a bar and listen to that live band in the corner who bought their instruments at garage sales just because beer is $4 a bucket. If you really must stay for the cheap beer, I encourage you to shout out "YOU SUCK" as much as possible, with the goal being to make the offender(s) cry... a lot. It is important that you poll the crowd and make sure that at least 5 or 6 other people there also think the offender sucks in an effort from keeping you from getting your ass beat.
6. Instrumental music is for movies or Miami Vice, Jan Hammer. Even Moby has someone do some vocals now and then. You know why people make fun of elevator music? Because it is bad. Instrumentals are just really long intros and if you were paying attention, you already know how I feel about really long intros.
7. Weird sounds are weird. Hey, I've discovered I know how to make some weird sounds too and they're not always made with my butt. That doesn't mean I record the weird sounds and incorporate them with music and lyrics. If you do find a way to make a weird sound with something you have sitting around and you really must use it, don't over do it, ding dong. Once or twice is enough.
8. Shut up and sing. Have you established that you actually can "carry a tune in a bucket"? Good for you; let's hear it. I don't want to hear you yakking, especially in a recording. If I'm seeing you live, it's a little different situation, but after 9 or 10 times of listening to you cleverly rambling on about what a great crowd it is and how your mailman's aunt inspired you to write the little ditty you are about to perform on my iPod, I'm going to delete your song and I'm never going to listen to it again. This rule is not limited to amateurs; there are plenty of well-established musicians out there that break this rule and I hate you for it.
To sum it up, we all know that you want your 15 minutes of fame, but there are other ways of doing it; The Gong Show ain't one of them.
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