Jody Whitesides

Tag: independent artist growth journey

  • Rock May Be Dead—Here’s How Pop Music Gave My Sound New Life

    Rock May Be Dead—Here’s How Pop Music Gave My Sound New Life

    Trendy music is always a topic on year-end lists.

    Goodbye To A Lousy 2016

    Looking back on a year that for a lot of us was probably not our greatest glory is a hard thing to do. I think the one thing that got a lot of people down had to be the deaths of a lot of entertainment icons. Musicians, actors, and creative types that many, if not all, of us are familiar with. Its sad to see icons pass away.

    Sizzling Trendy Music

    While I didn’t really grow up thinking about pop music, I have come to embrace it pretty hard in the last year. But it doesn’t mean I wasn’t aware of many of the popular musicians who passed away this past year. The main reason for the embrace isn’t to be chasing trendy music, but rather to spread out and create more interesting music. Rock feels like a dead subject – especially when most rock isn’t being overly adventurous in sonic terms. Pop music on the other hand is ingesting so many different vibes that it becomes really hard to ignore.

    Fantastic Spotify

    Spotify encapsulates the beauty of finding out what is trendy music. Streaming music and especially Spotify makes it incredibly easy to listen to more music than you can shake a stick at. For me it means taking time to listen to what is topping the charts. This in turn gives me the ability to tear apart the instrumentation and the concepts that led to the creation of the song. That in turns improves my writing, my arrangements, and my production skills.

    trendy music

    An Inspired Past

    While I don’t spend a ton of time dwelling on the past, I did spend time appreciating the music of many who passed away this year. Part of what has stood out is the timelessness of the music created by artists like Prince, George Michael, David Bowie, Glenn Frey, Leonard Cohen, and producer Sir George Martin. That’s an incredible list of people who redefined the music industry in decades long before I started playing an instrument.

    Impact With The Now

    Newer music like Daya, Shawn Mendes, The Weeknd, Alessia Cara, Bieber (yes, I’m putting him in this list), and DNCE shows how I can incorporate a variety of styles and make them something new. Looking forward into 2017 I’ve got a line of singles I’m excited to get released. Every song is different from each other. There’s even some that are a serious departure from my normal concept of releasing music. Think someone like DJ Snake or Calvin Harris, more trendy music and I’m looking to keep people on their toes.

    Demolish Your New Year’s Eve

    So on this final day of 2016 I want to wish you a fond farewell to a poor year of entertainment deaths and welcome you to an exciting year of new music. Wherever you end up partying tonight, I hope you’ll have a seriously mind-blowing time. I also want to see you survive any experience you use to ring in the new year.

    See you on the flip side with new music to play for you!

    Happy New Year!

  • Inside the Life of an Indie Artist: New Song Releases, NAMM Discoveries, and Live Grit

    It’s been a crazy ass week. I feel like I’ve worked what little ass I have off. Well it’s not entirely gone; I did check a mirror and twisted around to make sure it wasn’t gone, there’s still a little left. I finished a new song for a music library. That song is called “Hate to Say Goodbye”. It was a curious lesson in providing music for sound libraries – at least as far as the mixes and the different lengths they require. Sorta makes me want to pile more work upon myself to go back and create additional mixes for all my old catalog, so that if anyone else comes knocking I have it already done. Its one of those things that make me go HMMM…

    Oh yeah, the band and I played the KeyClub in Hollywood last week. As I stated in the last post – we had a blast. It’s a damn good thing I video taped it. Over in the left hand menu you might notice a change to the Motion Pictures section. Why? Well, I thought those old videos had been around long enough. So I moved them all over to the Clubhouse and put up a single live 2 minute clip of “All The Things” from the upcoming “Practical Insanity”. I can’t wait until the album drops! You are free to watch this video clip over and over. It’s 2 minutes long and yes that’s what we sound like live without overdubs. (You might need to get Quicktime 6 to view it – but it’s free, follow the quicktime link if the video doesn’t play. It’s worth it).

    Doh, I almost forgot… It’s NAMM week this past week. Chris and I spent all day Friday cruising around checking out the new gear and catching up with some friends we don’t see very often. Like Deirdre Weaver – the inventor of the Sumadek, or Rob Hill – the mix-master of Queen in Surround and Korn, Dave Smith & Phil Jackson of Apple, my friends at Dean Markley, Bela @ Native Instruments, Kellie @ Seymour Duncan, Bob Borbonus @ Taylor… Oh the fun never ends at NAMM, Dale Titus, Jimmy & Rick from Groove Tubes, K-Jo – Kristy from Sennheiser. Heck I even ran into my old roommate from MI, Andrew Cassidy who now owns a fantastic guitar store up in Canada – The Guitar Connection. I even met Mile Kennedy from Rockstar – the movie, he was a pretty cool dude. I’m excited to be heading back to NAMM on the final day of Sunday for a special invite presentation by Apple. I am an Ubërgeek and being the tech nut that I am, I’m honored that I’d get the chance to see this presentation.

    Movie Pick of the Week: Blue Crush. I had never seen it, but I figured what the hell. Lots of skin, surfing and pretty people to look at. Actually the movie isn’t half bad. The surfing scenes actuallly feel quite realistic, but then I’ve never done more than body surf so what do I know. Kate Bosworth was fun to watch. The movie did drag in a few parts, but overall I enjoyed myself. It’s a good rental.

    Jody

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