Words and Music: Jeffrey Pepper Rodgers

Rick Moody on music and prose, 2009

2010-01-22T17:21:00.004-05:00

“I would say that music making and prose writing are very analogous, allied activities. Prose, after all, has a musical dimension because it’s made out of sound. I think that great prose writers often have some kind of attachment to music--look at James Joyce and Samuel Beckett. Playing music emphatically makes me a better writer. It makes me listen better and think more clearly about how prose sounds.”

From an interview with novelist Rick Moody (The Ice Storm) on his band the Wingdale Community Singers. Read the full story in Brown Alumni Magazine here. Listen to the band here.

Note to John Lennon Songwriting Contest voters

2010-01-19T08:13:00.002-05:00

Many of you were kind enough to vote, early and often, in the online vote that made my song "Fly" the Lennon Award winner for the top country song of last year. You may have noticed lately that Fretwire and other music marketing emails are showing up in your inbox--this is because of submitting your email address during the contest vote. FYI, at the bottom of these emails there is a small "Manage your subscription" link that allows you to unsubscribe with a couple of clicks. I just wanted to make sure you see there is a way to opt out...

Thanks again, everyone, for the support, and happy 2010.
JPR

Alternate Tunings: A Reader's Guide

2009-12-16T10:32:00.004-05:00

The 20th anniversary of Acoustic Guitar is stirring up some fond memories of arcane little stories that we editors put together to amuse ourselves (and, we hoped, readers). Including this one from the December 1997 issue:

Have you ever noticed that some guitarists refer to specific open tunings as if they were words—talking, for instance, about D A D G A D as dadgad and D A D E A D as daddy-ad? Those unfamiliar with the way the guitar is tuned may have heard such lingo-infested conversation and wondered, “What is dadgad music anyway? Is it from one of those new countries in the former Soviet bloc? Maybe the guitarist’s last name is Gadd and it’s a piece dedicated to his father.” Here in the Acoustic Guitar office, a little joke about Mike Marshall’s tuning C F C F C F (see below) inspired this list of tunings for specific people, places, or events. As for the musicality of these tunings . . . well, you’re on your own.

For fathers of small kids: D A D D E E

For an abusive father: B A D D A D

For the world’s greatest father: F A B D A D

For a hip-hop father: D E F D A D

For a tough New Yorker: B A G C A B

For a talkative taxi driver: C A B G A B

For a Grateful Dead fan: D E A D E D

For C.F. Martin III: C F C F C F

For a caffeine addict from Boston: C A F F E E

For a former caffeine addict: A D E C A F

For a police officer: B A D G E D

For a file clerk: A B C D E F

For a dominatrix: B E D G A G

For Old McDonald: B A A B A A

For anti-government types: B A D F E D

For a big guy: B E E F E E

For a guitar named Lucille: B E E B E E

For the Gibb brothers: B E E G E E

For a chatterbox roommate: G A B G A B

For your old mattress: B A D B E D

For a hippie: B E A D E D

For an Irish musician: C A B A G E

For a guitar magazine that doesn’t know when to stop: A G D E A D

Indian rock revisited

2009-12-14T08:33:00.004-05:00

Interesting to see that my story on the Bangalore-based rock band Thermal and a Quarter, which aired on NPR's All Things Considered in 2005, is still reverberating. This article just published in the Times of India talks about how Thermal and a Quarter and other Indian rock bands are using the Net to promote their music...

Derek Sivers on promoting music online, 2009

2009-11-18T08:21:00.002-05:00

A lot of musicians these days think that networking online is going to break their music, yet real-world gigs and interactions with people haven’t become obsolete. In some ways maybe they’ve become more important.

SIVERS I’d say more important. The more valuable thing is always going to be the more scarce thing. So when everybody’s lives are led online, then having a great live performance is going to help you stand out from the pack so much more than being one of the one million musicians with a great Web presence a click away.

I think about that stuff a lot: What is the road less traveled? What is the thing that most people are doing, and therefore what is the thing that few people are doing? Whatever few people are doing is where the greater value lies. If a whole new generation of musicians is spending much more time clicking around MySpace to add new friends than they are practicing their scales and arpeggios, then if you are one of the few who puts in an hour or two a night to practice your scales and arpeggios and chord voicings or whatever, it’s going to make you that much more of a standout.

From "CD or No CD," an interview with CD Baby founder Derek Sivers published in Acoustic Guitar, January 2010. Read the full article here. More about Sivers and his current projects here.

John Fogerty on songwriting, 2009

2009-11-14T09:31:00.003-05:00

In past interviews you’ve described many nights in the ’60s working on your songs until 4 am. Yet the songs themselves don’t sound labored over at all.

FOGERTY It’s an interesting dichotomy. The best songs are effortless—“Midnight Special” or “Cotton Fields” or “Down in the Valley” or “I Want to Hold Your Hand.” “I Want to Hold Your Hand” was quite remarkable in its time. It was completely out of the normal rock ’n’ roll box. The way I think back on that was, the Beatles had been very heavily influenced by Buddy Holly, particularly songs like “Peggy Sue” and “Everyday.” Buddy would go through these circles of fourths or fifths and follow the chord to the next progression. The instrumental chops weren’t necessarily earth shattering, so he’d do it with mental power, you might say.

Well, America kind of forgot all that and went on with its own vision of rock ’n’ roll, whereas the Beatles kept cooking with that in their development. It came out in things like “I Want to Hold Your Hand,” which had strange ways of changing key and going to the bridge, that kind of thing. But it still ends up sounding effortless.

The thing is, when you’re writing a song, let’s say you’ve got a good verse going and your next move is the bridge or the second verse or whatever. That’s when you have to want it to be a good song—not a throwaway song or in-a-hurry song. So that’s when the labor begins. That’s when you don’t settle for the first thing that occurred to you. You stick with it until it really fits. Sometimes that comes to you in an instant, and other times it doesn’t occur to you. And then one day you’re riding along in the car and you step out into the parking lot in the mall, or maybe you’re brushing your teeth . . . and suddenly that thing you’ve been thinking about for a long time just goes through your brain at a different angle, and you go—of course! And then it’s clear as a bell.

From my John Fogerty feature in Acoustic Guitar's January 2010 issue. Read the full story here.

Daniel Lanois interview

2009-11-09T10:01:00.003-05:00

Enjoyed this interview with Daniel Lanois about producing and collaborating with U2, Dylan, Eno...

http://blog.discmakers.com/2009/10/Nothing-Is-Sacred/

I love Lanois' own records, especially Acadie. Such an emotionally rich atmosphere.

Jill Sobule on fan financing, 2009

2009-10-19T16:58:00.002-04:00

“I feel good personally, because I never really made a cent on a record ever before. You know, people can use this model whether they have 100 fans or 100,000 fans. You don’t have to have a gold- or platinum-selling album to be successful, because you don’t have to worry about the record company selling so much. The first record I sell, that first $10 I sell at a show or online, it’s mine.”

From an Acoustic Guitar magazine story on Jill Sobule's record California Years, which she funded entirely with direct contributions from her fans via Jill's Next Record site. Read the full article here.

Tom Waits performs "Frank's Wild Years" on Letterman, 1983

2009-09-23T09:49:00.003-04:00

Wow. Lately I've been revisiting Tom Waits' 1980s albums Swordfishtrombones and Rain Dogs, which forever changed my sense of what songwriting and instrumentation could be. I discovered Waits in an unlikely place: on David Letterman. And thanks to YouTube, today I quickly found the precise episode from 1983 that left me speechless and making a beeline for the record store to pick up Swordfishtrombones. Here it is:

Stephen Fearing on commercial songwriting, 2003

2009-07-31T08:32:00.006-04:00

"The most interesting sorts of commercial music are the ones that find an emotion and put it out there. It might not be that subtly done; it might be kind of crude. But when a commercial writer finds an emotion and is able to articulate it in such a way that it’s really clear, then everybody gets it and everybody wants to hear it. I think in the singer-songwriter genre, sometimes the intellect takes over a little too much and everybody gets a little too clever. I’m trying to find music that is simple but not simplistic. There’s a skill, but it’s in the background—it’s not the first thing you hear. The first thing you hear is the emotion. That’s what really interests me right now."

From The Complete Singer-Songwriter. The quote comes from an interview with Fearing originally published in Acoustic Guitar July 2003. More on Fearing here.

Here's a really nice video of Fearing with Colin Linden on slide...

Levon Helm rocks "Tennessee Jed"

2009-07-21T10:05:00.002-04:00

I'm loving Levon Helm's new version of "Tennessee Jed"... Here's a recent performance on Letterman--a weaker vocal than on the Electric Dirt record (it's a miracle Helm can sing at all post throat cancer), but it still rocks.

Elvis Costello on writing songs for posterity, 2009

2009-06-25T08:57:00.002-04:00

JPR Do you aspire for your songs to have a life beyond your performance of them?

COSTELLO Not in every case, because sometimes songs are very particular to your own experience, and it’s hard to imagine even somebody else understanding them. That doesn’t make it wrong to write them, because you hope to place within them something that people recognize. But somebody who has the ambition to make songs universal uses language which is universal, and I don’t. There’s a very, very thin line between universal and cliché, as well, so you try to avoid that.

I write for other people sometimes. But my first thought is not, “Will this song go down into history?” anymore than I care a damn what posterity says about me. I have no concern for my reputation when I’m gone from this place. I mean if they’ll sing my songs and think fondly of me that I did anything good in this world, that’s fine, but I’m not writing to be remembered. I’m writing because I want to write, and I play because that’s what I do. If people get pleasure from it or anything from it at all, then I suppose I must have done something correctly in following my instincts or curiosity or even, as much to say, talents. But I’m not thinking about people kind of gabbing around and giving a brass plaque. That would be a wrong thing to do when you are writing.

From a cover story for Acoustic Guitar, August 2009. Read the full article, plus bonus interview material that didn't appear in the print edition, here.

Bruce Cockburn on his solo guitar style, 2009

2009-05-21T13:31:00.003-04:00

"You can make the guitar work really well if all you do is strum chords. It's a good effect, but what I do instead is try to find things for the guitar that complement what's being sung or that help support it. Sometimes it's playing the melody along with myself; at other times it's more of a moving background part. It gives the song a color that it wouldn't otherwise have. If you're playing with a band, the tendency is to let the keyboard or the horns or the lead guitar do stuff like that. But because I write these songs to play them in any context, solo or with any combination of instruments, I tend to hog all the space, play all the parts, and then anybody who plays with me has to fit around that or join me in playing those parts."

From my feature lesson with Bruce Cockburn in the July 2009 issue of Acoustic Guitar. The entire article, including guitar tab examples and several video clips from the interview, is available here. I met up with Cockburn at the offices of Universal Music in NYC in February.

JPR's "Fly" wins the Lennon Award in the John Lennon Songwriting Contest

2009-05-01T12:13:00.001-04:00

Amazing news today: My song "Fly" won the annual Lennon Award in the John Lennon Songwriting Contest! This follows the grand prize that I won back in the fall, and it puts "Fly" in the running for Song of the Year... Check it out:

http://jlsc.com/winners/2008b/lennon_awards.php

Thank you, thank you, thank you to everyone who patiently voted day after day and made this happen.

Yeeha!
JPR

Tommy Emmanuel advice on performing, 2008

2009-04-05T12:02:00.003-04:00

"You have to find the courage to walk up onstage and laugh at yourself, to be able to say, 'Guess what, I'm shaking in my boots, but I really want to play for you, and I'm going to do my best.' Keep it that honest. Keep it that casual, that personal, and it'll really help. You've got to believe in your heart that the audience is not the judge and jury. The audience wants you to do well; they're waiting for you to do well. They're not waiting to cut you up."

From "Play Out Now!" my feature in the May 2009 issue of Acoustic Guitar. Available online here.

New video of "Fly," performed solo

2009-03-31T20:25:00.002-04:00

This is a blast to play...

Don't forget to vote for "Fly" for the Lennon Award--you can vote once a day until April 27 at:

http://www.jlsc.com/vote

Free download of the John Lennon Songwriting Contest winner "Fly"

2009-03-24T11:59:00.003-04:00

Here's a humble musical stimulus package: right now you can download my song "Fly," grand prize winner in the John Lennon Songwriting Contest, for free:

http://www.jeffreypepperrodgers.com/humming-cd.htm

Spin it! Share it! And help "Fly" win the annual Lennon Award by voting online. Vote now--once a day through April 27:

http://www.jlsc.com/vote

Cheers,
JPR

Help me win the next round in the John Lennon Songwriting Contest

2009-03-19T07:58:00.004-04:00

My song "Fly" won a grand prize last fall in the John Lennon Songwriting Contest. Now "Fly" competes in an online vote against the next session's winner for the annual Lennon Award...and then a shot at a $20,000 prize.

Vote now! You can vote daily until April 27.

Listen to the song here.

JPR on Pandora

2009-03-13T08:16:00.003-04:00

All the tracks on my CD Humming My Way Back Home can now be heard on Pandora, the music site that allows you to create personalized radio stations based on your favorite artists and songs.

I've been getting hooked on the site lately--it's fascinating to see which artists and songs pop up because they are tagged with similar qualities as others I like. An amazing tool for discovering new music...

For starters, here's a station I created with my own music plus a few favorite artists. Happy exploring.

Songwriting article, dropped-D lesson

2009-01-07T11:21:00.004-05:00

A couple of new articles were just published that might be of interest to songwriters and guitarists. The new issue of Making Music (Jan/Feb) includes my article on getting started with songwriting (adapted from my book The Complete Singer-Songwriter). Here's the link:

http://www.makingmusicmag.com/columns_dev/show-column.php?pageid=82

Also, the Feb. issue of Acoustic Guitar includes a couple articles I wrote, including this guitar lesson in the basics of dropped-D tuning. You can read it and hear the music at the AG site:

http://acousticguitar.com/article/default.aspx?articleid=23045

Happy new year...
JPR

JPR song "Fly" a grand prize winner in the John Lennon Songwriting Contest

2008-09-10T12:23:00.003-04:00

My song "Fly" just won the grand prize in the country category of the John Lennon Songwriting Contest! Check it out and listen to the song here.

"Fly" appears on my CD Humming My Way Back Home as a duet with country-pop singer Lisa Gentile.

Yee ha!

Words and Music series in the Post-Standard

2008-09-05T09:08:00.003-04:00

I wanted to let you know that the Words and Music Songwriter Showcase is featured today (Friday, 9/5) in the Post-Standard, in an annual arts and culture section called The Mix. The author also put together a slideshow about the September 26 headliner, Donna Colton and the Troublemakers, that you can see here:

Donna Colton and the Troublemakers by Laura Massey

On September 20 I'm also taking the series for the first time to the Auburn Public Theater. That show features the dynamic duo of Dusty Pas'cal with Loren Barrigar. Check out the full schedule for the rest of 2008 below. I'm thrilled to be sharing the stage with so many great songwriters and musicians in this series.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Words and Music Songwriter Showcase
with Jeffrey Pepper Rodgers

Upcoming...
Saturday, September 20 at the Auburn Public Theater: Dusty Pas'cal with Loren Barrigar, plus Dick Ward, Rory O'Bannion, and Jeff Connor

Friday, September 26 at Jazz Central in Syracuse: Donna Colton and the Troublemakers, with Len Widdenkind, Laura Courtwright, and Mike Gibson

Thursday, October 23 at Jazz Central: Bob Halligan Jr. of Ceili Rain with Christopher Ames and Peterson and Dennihy

Friday, November 14: Jamie Notarthomas with Tom Stahl and Juliet Lloyd

Thursday, December 11: Joe Crookston and more

For reservations, email showcase@wordsandmusic.info

Stay tuned about upcoming shows! Click here to join the email list:

http://www.reverbnation.com/jeffreypepperrodgers?add_email=true

Words and Music Songwriter Showcase upcoming shows, Woodshed

2008-08-26T09:41:00.003-04:00

Lots of Words and Music news to share...

The series hits the road for a special show on Saturday, September 20, at the Auburn Public Theater featuring rising star Dusty Pas'cal with guitarist extraordinaire Loren Barrigar.

On Friday, September 26, the series will be back at its home base, Syracuse's Jazz Central, for a show featuring folk-rock powerhouse Donna Colton and the Troublemakers. (Details below.)

Also new in September is the Words and Music Songwriter Woodshed, a monthly musicians-only gathering where songwriters can share a work in progress and get feedback from their peers. The first Woodshed is scheduled for September 9 at Sparky Town, a new bistro in Syracuse. The moderator is the singer-songwriter Dana "Short Order" Cooke, whose showcase set in June was one of the highlights of the season. Details here.

The Words and Music concert series continues through 2008, with performances by Bob Halligan Jr. of Ceili Rain, Jamie Notarthomas, Joe Crookston, and more.

SEPTEMBER SHOW DETAILS

Dusty Pas'cal with Loren Barrigar, plus Dick Ward, Jeff Connor, Rory O'Bannion, and series host Jeffrey Pepper Rodgers
When: Saturday, September 20. Doors at 7, music at 7:30
Where: Auburn Public Theater, 108 Genesee Street, Auburn, (315) 253-6669
Tickets: $10 at the APT box office or www.auburnpublictheater.com. For reservations, email showcase@wordsandmusic.info
For more info: www.myspace.com/wordsandmusicshowcase

Donna Colton and the Troublemakers, with Len Widdekind, Mike Gibson, Laura Courtwright, and series host Jeffrey Pepper Rodgers
When: Friday, September 26. Doors at 7, music at 7:30
Where: Jazz Central, 441 E. Washington Street, Syracuse, (315) 479-5299
Tickets: $10. For reservations, email showcase@wordsandmusic.info
For more info: www.myspace.com/wordsandmusicshowcase

Bob Weir on singing Jerry Garcia's songs, 2008

2008-06-14T10:50:00.004-04:00

From my interview with Weir in the August issue of Acoustic Guitar, available here. (Photo by Anne Hamersky) He was so extraordinarily generous with his time and his insights into the guitar and songwriting. I was lucky enough to meet Jerry for a long interview with David Grisman in 1993, and it was so gratifying for me to have a chance to learn more about Weir's point of view. Here is his closing thought on singing Jerry's songs with RatDog these days...

"I love singing and playing them mostly because they're great songs. I also feel something of a duty to keep them alive and growing. I was there when they were born, watched them grow, and had a hand in their development. I think I know where they live. Every time we play one, it grows, evolves a bit—shows us a new facet. Needless to say, that can be pretty rewarding.

"The music we played was of an intimacy that perhaps can only occur in a long, heavily improvisational relationship. We learned to intuit where each was headed, and then tried to be there with some kind of meaningful counterpoint. That required a lot of careful listening and feeling. After Jerry checked out, he didn't exactly leave: when I'm playing, I can still feel him—" Nah, nah, don't go there… yeah, there, go there." I can still hear the harmonics of what he's up to and react as I always would. I can still feel his sense of character development as the song tells its story. Maybe I should be telling someone this in a quiet room while lying on a couch, but it's real for me."

Lineup for Taste of Syracuse festival

2008-05-28T13:00:00.003-04:00

The Post-Standard's website has a rundown of the artists (including yours truly) performing at the Emerging Artists stage on June 6--check it out here.

I'm looking forward to playing this great downtown festival and checking out many area bands...