• I got the current version of the Geniuses together right at the end of 2009, and we spent this year building something funky and magical together. Like so:

• I made a bunch of cover videos; my favorites were One Mo’gin, Empire State of Mind w/Shockwave and Jon Braman, and Billionaire w/Shockwave and UTK.

• I re-released my If We Were EP on Bandcamp, and got a bunch of fun new press.

• I played a bunch of shows around the country with my boys in Freestyle Love Supreme, including a sold-out show at New York’s own Gramercy Theater.

• I started a weekly series called The Musicians’ List that became a great scene in Queens for singer-songwriters to try out new material and play with each other. Unfortunately, it ended when the venue shut down a few months ago.

• I co-arranged, sang, played, and recorded for ukelele rapper Jon Braman’s new album, You And Me, due out in 2011, and watched as our regular gig at Pianos grew into The Melting Pot, a genre-smashing melange of hip-hop, folk, soul, and jazz folks getting together once a month to make great music.

• I orchestrated a reunion of my old high school chorus, and got to try my hand at choral conducting. Might have to do some more of that.

• I did my first California tour, and fell in love with LA. More on that later.

All in all, a great year. But my focus was definitely skewed towards being “out there” – gigging, collaborating, playing in public. In 2011, I’m looking forward to focusing inward again. Sitting at the piano and writing. Making stuff happen in the studio. Exploring ideas I’ve never worked with before. I’m excited about some of the projects I’ve got planned for this year. Stay tuned for more!

Until then, I have something to tide you over and help you celebrate the season. Until April 15th, I’m offering my EP, If We Were, for free on Bandcamp, my new favorite site for musicians. You can visit my page at arthurlewis.bandcamp.com, or just download it here.

Enjoy!

What I hadn’t considered was that it wasn’t the ideas that were wrong, it was just what they’re about. The Cult of Done is terrible for actually making anything valuable. But it’s great for practice.

As you may know, I have trouble finishing songs. In my long and illustrious career, I’ve finished no more than a dozen. There’s just too much to fit together, too much to get right. I always get hung up on details, and the song I’m working on gets pushed to the back burner.

I thought a Song-a-Week project (a la Jonathan Coulton) was the perfect solution. If I had to write a song every week, I figured, I would eventually just start pumping them out, without worrying as much about how things fit together, and how well each line works.

So I tried it. I spent the first two and a half weeks letting one song grow too big for its britches, and the next few days wallowing in defeat.

Then I remembered how practice works. Too often, we think that practice just means doing something over and over again until you get it right. But that misses the point.

Practice is how you load consciously directed behaviors into your unconscious, so you don’t have to think about them anymore.

This is how we learn everything, from walking to talking to playing instruments to rules to social interaction. By far, the easiest way to do it is one thing at a time. You start out consciously doing something simple – left foot, right foot, ok left foot again – and when you’ve done it often enough, it starts doing itself. Only then can you level up. You can take that action itself for granted, and put something else on top of it. Climb stairs. Run. Dance. After enough time, these things become second nature as well, and you can build more new structures.

The Cult of Done is a great way to do it. It preaches continued unmitigated action. Never edit; just do, and learn from your mistakes. I think that’s the perfect way to practice. Do something without judgment. Look at it and think about how to do the next thing better. Repeat.

Back to me. It turn out the problem with trying to write a song a week was that I don’t know how to write songs! Each song I’ve written has been like starting all over again, a process of discovery that eventually leads to this unique and beautiful, slow-boiled creation. There’s no way to practice all that at once; there’s just too much going on.

So here’s the new plan. I’m stepping back to the nuts and bolts of the thing, and upping the ante. Starting two days ago, I’m writing a verse and a chorus every day. Once that starts getting easy, I’ll add a second verse. Etc, etc. Every day, I’ll be loading these rules – how the lines fit together, how the little bits and pieces and chords interact – into my unconscious and letting it get comfortable with them. Teaching my brain how songwriting works, word by word, line by line, so I can run without having to worry about which foot goes first.

So far, subjects have come pretty easily. But I’m only on Day 3. Tell me; what do you think I should write about?

Weclome, new visitors! Here’s the lowdown. I’m an indie singer/songwriter of the soul persuasion. I write, record, and mix all my own stuff. There’s a vaguely Prince-like vibe to some of my harmonies, but I also claim D’Angelo, Rufus Wainwright, Steely Dan, The Beatles, Jeff Buckley, and dozens of others as influences.

I put out an EP called If We Were on September 30, 2008. It’s available on iTunes and on CD. Sweet Reprise, the song from the video, is on it. You can hear other bits of it below.

The first song you’ll hear, Far Side of Town, is under a Creative Commons nc-by 3.0 license (with the rest of the album soon to follow). This means I’m giving it away! You can take it, share it, remix it, and share what you’ve made, as long it’s noncommercial use, and you link back to my site. To download it, and get the full details, go to http://arthurthefourth.com/far-side-of-town/.

I’ve had this blog since June 2003. It’s taken a lot of shapes since then, but it’s starting to settle into one that I like. An exploration of the creative process and the struggle to become something more than I am. I’m sure many of you can relate.

Have a look around! If you like what you see (and hear), leave a comment. If you want to keep seeing it, subscribe to my RSS feed. If you want to hear more, join my mailing list. I’ll keep you posted about live shows, and send out occasional goodies that don’t appear on the site!

歓迎!

[Update: If there's no iTunes Music Store where you are, you can also get If We Were on Lala, Napster, or eMusic.]

I’m listening to Joni Mitchell’s Little Green, and reading the lyrics online, and for the first time, I’m seeing the song for what it is. A story about three lives, intertwined briefly, and where they go from there. About having to choose what seems like the lesser of two evils, and what that feels like from the inside.

It’s about something real. Capturing a certain moment in her life, and opening it up. The art of what to say, and what not to – when to hone in, and when to abstract. The sweet and shifting balance of airing her self out, and letting us in.

—

I woke up this morning with Stephen King’s On Writing neatly placed on the pillow next to me. I’ve been re-reading it for the past few days; I’d remembered it was great, but I couldn’t tell you why.

A few chapters in, and I remember why. There’s nothing particularly clever about his writing, nothing particularly florid in his language, nothing so ground-breaking in his style. But when Steve King writes, you want to keep reading.

—

I woke up, this morning, a little antsy. With an urge to drive, and nowhere to go. I’ve got some projects on my mind, things that I’m really excited about, but I keep getting hung up on the details. Those snotty little details that always get in the way of the big ideas. The ones who sit just at the edge of your vision, waiting to ask you how, when, and why. Those goddamn know-it-alls that you always wanted to punch in the nose, but hey, you wouldn’t hit a kid with glasses, would you? You don’t want to get in trouble, do you? Oh, I know just what your mom will say…

The details always seem to know just what could go wrong. They’ve got 52 volumes at home of Why This Is A Bad Idea. But do they ever have any fun?

—

I’m at a crossroads in my career right now. I had one goal in mind for a long time. To create my calling card, the credentials that would define me as a musician, and pass from hand to hand, accelerating, pushing me forward.

I made my card. And the few months since then have focused on those hands. How to get them to cup my name and deliver it faithfully to another set just as willing. How to fine-tune and maneuver the process into a state of perfect mathematical induction, where each pair implies the next, and I’m sitting back and relaxing, pencil in hand.

But honestly? I just want to write. I just want to keep doing and making and writing and being. But I’ve never quite known how. When I listen to Joni, it feels so clear. That I need to start with something powerful and personal. That there need to be cafes and deep sadnesses, longing, and hope, and the glimmer of redemption. But when I read King, it’s about constructing the narrative. About looking up at the sky, and choosing. That one, that one, and this one. These are my Big Dipper. These are my Belt of Orion. These are The Story.

What do I want to do? What are my tools? How do I write?

I wish I knew. When you need to tear something down, the little details can always be counted on. But when it’s time to build, I’m not sure where they go.

It’s time for me to start learning how this works. Do something. Test. Try again. Do something. Test. Try again.

Do something. Test.

The secret to making it as a musician: Do something. If it works, do more of it. If it doesn’t, do something else.

An oversimplification, of course. I have been doing a number of things (many of them involving watching episodes of The West Wing in rapid succession), and I certainly wouldn’t call myself a successful musician. But the point is a good one. The only thing standing between me and a more lucrative musical career is doing the right stuff. And you can’t recognize the right stuff until you’re doing it.

I’m working on it. I spent a lot of yesterday putting together new charts for the new band; we’ve got our first rehearsal today, and I’m very excited! I’m producing an EP by Rabble Rouser, which is broadening my horizons and honing my recording skills. I’ve got a solo gig on February 24th at Rockwood Music Hall, and a Freestyle Love Supreme gig tonight. Some more FLS gigs are coming up, and I’m working on scheduling something solo in San Francisco in late May. (If anyone has any connections….)

I’m working on new material for a new project – not a new album, but new music nonetheless. I’m almost there, but I’ve still got some blocks to work out before I’m ready to really get started with it. Once I’ve got that one going, I’ve got another project or two waiting in the wings.

While all of this is happening, I’d like to revisit the basics. I want to spend time studying orchestration, but my piano and sight-reading skills are not up to snuff. I plan to spend some time over the next year building up my traditional piano skills (i.e. practicing the kinds of pieces most pianists played when they were 10 years old). I’m considering a secondary blog about the process.

I like process. I like doing things. I’m on the way.

To begin 2009, I’ve done a quick and dirty redesign of the website. The theme is a slightly altered version of Dailypress, and the photo above is courtesy of the lovely and talented Ms. Anya Garrett. I’m finally starting to learn a thing or two about Photoshop and CSS, which I cannot recommend enough. To other aurally oriented folks like myself, the more you understand about design, the better off you’ll be.

I have another solo gig coming up on February 24th at Rockwood Music Hall, a great little venue on the Lower East Side. The sound there is great, and they have a real nice piano. I’ve also got gigs with Freestyle Love Supreme the first Monday of every month, and a very special maybe gig possibly coming up in February as well (fingers crossed!).

I’m cooking up some plans on how to make more music more often, but I’ve still got some “perfectionism” and “procrastination” issues to deal with. (Note: these words are red herrings – they’re too vague, and they mean essentially nothing. Keep an eye out for this guy’s new book if you’re interested in having your mind blown and your life changed.) Soon, my friends. Soon.

One last thing before I go: if you don’t have it yet, you should buy my EP, If We Were, on iTunes. I think it’s pretty great, and, if reviews are to be believed, a grand total of 4 other people do, too. Or if you do have it (bless your heart), but you want to make sure to get more well-nourished and unhurried music from me, there’s a little Paypal box in the corner over there. In the sidebar. Yeah, that’s it. Right over there. Just a little closer. That’s right. OK, click the button….

I’ve got a show coming up on Monday the 29th. My first solo show in two years.

The last time around, I had some trouble. I couldn’t figure out how to give the songs the groove they needed by myself, so I assumed the answer was more stuff. I brought in Ableton Live. I had a set of MIDI footpedals, programmed to do different things for each song. I layered keyboard tracks live, I looped harmony vocals, I wrote a nonsense song onstage… I even beatboxed. I had a binder on stage to help me keep track of all the details. It was a disaster. I spent far too much of the show hunched over the laptop, trying not to panic.

Here are some parts that worked.

But I still felt that I needed more oomph to the groove, so I started again, this time with a band. Arthur and the Geniuses. The first gig was just vocals, bass, keys, and a drum machine. We were the house band for a comedy variety show. No stage really. No monitors. It was quiet and beautiful. Soulful and spacious.

Low-fi recording, but it helps me tell the story.

But the dynamics never felt quite right. I wanted drama, and we couldn’t get past gentle. So I added more stuff.

Drums and guitar.

Horns.

It started getting big. Powerful. Thick. The album release show, with our 8-piece band, knocked people’s socks off, and rightly so. The band was funky and strong. We zigged when it was time to zig, and zagged when it was time to zag. But I can hear my little voice struggling against all those elements. I’m losing that gentle sense of space.

How did this happen? Well, I’ve been lazy. I always tell myself to keep it simple. To do the best I can, with as little as I can. But in this case, every time I couldn’t make something work, I’d say, “Well, if I only had…” What a copout. The right way would have been to put in the time. To make it work with one piece, so I had a solid foundation for three. To make that work, so I’d know what I was doing when I hit four. Five. Seven. Eight!

So this Monday at LIC Bar at 8 PM, I’m going back to one. Just me singing and playing the piano. And I’m excited, because I’ve been putting in the time. I’m making it work. I hope to see you there.

But I have to agree with the folks over at New Rockstar Philosophy on this one. The most important thing about that video is that he looks afraid. Kanye West, who houses one of the biggest egos in pop culture, got up on national television, and did something that, from what I can tell, scared the fuck out of him.

He is really growing on me, this Kanye. At times, he seems fundamentally misguided. But this new album? It’s great! Quite possibly the only real creative use of Autotune I’ve ever heard. The combination of his voice and that plugin, so often used for evil, is a surprisingly expressive instrument.

I’m visualizing the final scene in a movie. A beautiful woman is driving away with her new husband, tin cans clanking and people cheering. The camera pulls back, and we see her sad little robot, standing in the road, holding on to something she gave him. The robot begins to sing Kanye’s Heartless. We see a montage now of all the things he’s done for her over the course of the movie, and we realize: the robot loved her all along! Robots can love! Autotune has feelings!

So what’s the point of all this? I don’t write reviews; what does the latest news on Kanye and his sci-fi love triangles have to do with anything? (OK, I guess it’s my sci-fi love triangle, but he inspired it!) Well, he’s pushing the envelope. And he’s getting shit for it. Not for something he said, not for something personal; he’s actually getting shit for the creative musical decisions he’s made! For being bold. For following his muse.

And I really respect that. I lost my day job a few weeks ago, and I’ve spent the time since then trying to figure out what to do next. How do you reach the audience you want? How do you make those connections?

And I think the answer is to be unrelentingly yourself. To follow your muse. Because in an age where everyone is a singer/songwriter and everyone has a copy of Reason on their laptop, your muse is what matters. Your individuality is what matters. The real you is what matters.

So thanks to the real Kanye for driving that point home. I’m looking forward to more for him. And hopefully soon you’ll be seeing some more from me.

About robots.

Jacques Morel, a blogger I met on Twitter, really liked Far Side of Town.

And Ro from SoulBounce picked La Da Da Dee as her #1 song of 2008!! Thanks, Ro!