If you'd still like to...

...you can download the files listed in my last post. The stupid file hosting service I was using had a download limit, and shut off once enough of you downloaded it. So, as I like to be forward-thinking with my use of teh intarwebz, I introduce you to a cool new music-sharing service: Soundcloud.

Below is a player. Each song has a little download button next to it if you'd like to have a copy of the mp3 to put on your ipod or other such device. And remember, the lyrics are in the previous post:

because i love you so much - the Nimbus project

I discovered with my last post that giving you free things to download makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. Since I have a certain fondness for warm, fuzzy feelings, I have decided to do a little more.

Back in 2004, a guy I'd met at a church social function befriended me and took me under his wing. We were both kind of loners at the time, and had similar interests, namely music. At the time, I wasn't really into any electronic music at all. (I know, right? Can you believe that?) He had been huge into it for over a decade, and bit by bit he got me hooked. Aaron Jasinski (often referred to on this blog as just "Aaron" or "Jasinski") taught me pretty much everything I know about electronic music, synthesis, sound design and most of my favorite mixing tricks.

We became fast friends, and started doing little projects together. At one point, he told me that he'd always thought it would be fun to produce some hip-hop tracks. It just so happens, I told him, that I rap. We immediately set to work, he with samplers, synths and effects, me with a pen and a pad. The resulting 3 tracks that we came up with were some of my favorite stuff I've ever done.

The first one was a kind of super-produced, nonsensical hip-hop anthem, called "Fastball." The second was a litany of ladies-man braggadocio based on absolutely nothing true, called "Sharpdressed," (as we used a sample from ZZ-Top's "Sharp Dressed Man"). The final one was written in frustration over religious persecution I'd encountered at the community college I was attending at the time. It was called "The Acceptable Intolerance." All three tracks displayed impeccable production skill on Aaron's part. I played a couple synth lines on it, but 99% of the magic you hear is him.

[Note: Aaron's main gig is as a painter and designer, but he moonlights heavily as a musician and remix artist. I mean, he's this good and he's just moonlighting? That's nutty! His art can be seen here and here, his prolific remixes can be heard here, and you can follow him on Twitter here.]

I had been brainstorming a new hip-hop pseudonym for some time, as my old one was a bit outdated, and decided (albeit momentarily) on "Nimbus." I wanted to make a nod to being from Washington, and thought I'd shorten up the scientific name of our state's biggest resource: rain clouds. I've since changed it again. Keep your eyes open for future updates!

Now what you've all been waiting for: You can download a zip file with all three mp3's in it HERE, and below are the lyrics. Keep in mind that the first two are extremely silly. ENJOY!

Track 1 - "Fastball"

VERSE 1:

B-b-b-b-b-b-b-

BLAM! when I light up the microphone and explode

With the beats behind me tappin and beepin like morse code

My brain’s a portal to another dimension so pay close attention

When you’re rollin with the lowered suspension

I’m all up in your area like your zip code

98058’s the life and 425’s the mode

Makin’ wrong what once was right, enemies quick to take flight

When day becomes night, suddenly I’m out of sight

BLAM! BOOM! BLING-BLANG-BLOW!

My rhymes are all up in your face so what you gonna do now?

You’re retreating like a coward from my lyrical attack

My beats are all up on you like the shirt upon your back

I need a drink of water, fire’s getting hotter,

The TV’s showing re-runs of M*A*S*H* with Colonel Potter,

But I’m stuck in one place, yo, rooted like a rose

Pigs flyin’ overhead, ground cold cuz hell FROZE!

HOOK:

Fastball, change-up, throwin’ you a curve

Watch your back cuz in the end you’re gonna get what you deserve

Fastball, change-up, throwin’ you a curve

In the end, y- y- y- you get what you deserve!

VERSE 2:

As my Antarctic flows snowed down, the roads froze

And numbed the nose of every person in the first 5 rows

Ill circulation to the extremities

Scarves and hats and ski jackets hide your identity

You gots to know your enemies;

see the wolves dressed up as sheep

The Adversary has connections that run deep

Get off of my back, my liberty I keep

Awaken from your slumber cuz mentally you’re asleep

BEEP! BEEP! Who you beepin’ at, freak?

Run your ideas through your brain before you speak!

Pull back your mask and expose your scaly skin

Cuz we’re exposin' your nature and we’re in it to win, yo

Life burns with intense ferocity

Fate is not without a sense of reciprocity

But destiny can suddenly throw you a curve

In the end y- y- y- you get what you deserve!

[HOOK]

Track 2 - "Sharpdressed"

Verse 1:

[phone rings]

(Actual phone call): "What up? Oh, just kicking it here in the studio... so, did you wanna come here then?"

Slick with the wardrobe,

talented with the comb,

ladies flocking just as if I was

a walking pheromone.

Never alone for too long

before there's someone on the phone

like a homing beacon

something always makes my presence known

Every word, every gesture

every gaze is efficacious

please excuse me if I am

overly ostentatious

in my All-Stars and my

three-piece suit, you're caught

on the double-windsor

perfect triangle in the knot

IN MY TIE

looking like i'm a groom's best man

LOOKIN' FLY

i don't know why, i'm just a blessed man

I don't have to try hard

or be an obsessed man

it's just that every girl's crazy 'bout a sharp-dressed man

HOOK:

I'M SMOOTH

like polished marble

I'M SHARP

like an exacto

I CRUISE

from the commencement to the

EX POST FACTO

Playin' for the love of the game

not the glory

girl, why don't you come over here

and tell me your story.

VERSE 2:

I'm just being

honest when I say the way I

play is to have a different

lady every day OF THE

WEEK, hanging on my

arm and on every WORD

I SPEAK, loving all the

charm, IT'S THE CLASS THAT THEY SEEK.

As if the game had cruise control

i hit "resume"

and quickly introduce myself

to every lady in the room

If attention's like sunlight,

I'm kicked back and baskin'

Gentleman or gigolo?

DEPENDS ON WHO YOU'RE ASKIN'!

Some people think I'm insane

most people sayin' I'm vain

Struttin' round with my

momentary main jane

Every time we spin a hook

I get another look

another name in my

little black book

I'm gonna shake your life, girl

you're bound to get SHOOK

I'm prone to stealin' hearts, girl

IT'S BOUND TO GET TOOK

I must confess

I want you to acquiesce, let down your guard

it ain't how much you win, girl

it's how you play your cards!

[HOOK]

"(laughs) ... 98058 ... ok, cool, so I'll see you in a little while, then. ok, i'll talk to you then."

TRACK 3 - The Acceptable Intolerance

Verse One:

Hate, nobody claims to

have, but they partici-

pate, in bigotry with

help, and sanction from the

state, which dictates

what we congratulate

controlling public enmity

determining my fate

The wizard's just a cover

for the man behind the curtain

his voice booms "EQUALITY!"

but what I know for certain

is that it doesn't exist,

The nickel's just been flipped over

vilification again,

history's pattern tripped over

A well-meaning public

has now become the subject

of plans to get them upset

'bout those that rise above it

Everything that's holy's burning!

Gather round the fire!

They conspire against all belief

in something higher

than human desire, then in

every public school require

that all students must admire

their filthy league of liars

the acceptable intolerance

has traveled through the wire

and become the status quo

let's all wallow in mire!

VERSE 2:

"Peace" improperly defined

as "absence of debate"

will only numb the mind

so that it can't equate,

they never tolerate

somebody's sense of self

unless you put your faith

and soul upon the shelf.

They want their thoughts applied

to everyone but them

"everyone's equal"

but dissenter's they condemn

The media is rife

with patronizing views

they want respect

but do their best to clear the pews.

Just look at the news

search for the clues

society's bruise

surrounding abuse

dividing the hues

I lose faith in intentions

'cuz moral dissension

denies intervention

it goes without mention there's unbroken tension

And then they choose what we fight

they cause you to hate

they know what we fear

they know how to bait

With the security of brothers

to the hateful lust for foes

the acceptable intolerance exists

'cuz no one knows.

allow me to explain myself: how i became an audio nerd

I'm an enormous nerd. In lots of different ways, too.  I'm a computer nerd, a book nerd, and a philosophy nerd, among many other sub-species.  One of my biggest areas of nerdity is music and audio.  The technical term for it is to say that I'm an "audiophile."  I love all things that involve enhancing the experience of listening to music.

[Warning: This blog post is very long. Just skip it if you're in a hurry.   -Jake]

You might think that this affection comes directly from my personal work as a recording technician and sound designer, but it has deeper roots.  I was conditioned at a young age to become the way I am.  My dad was a casual audiophile himself, and I grew up in a home where the central element of the living room was a modular, analog stereo system, complete with speaker cabinets my dad had built himself (with four-way crossovers!!).  In the age before the $99, 5.1 surround-sound home theater system - or any surround-sound home theater for that matter - I watched Star Wars on a s0-s0 television, but with front-and-back, dual-stereo speaker cabinets, each of which being about 5 feet tall.  That's 16 individual drivers (speakers) throwing sound at me with every swipe of a lightsaber and every footfall of an imperial walker (yes, I'm that kind of nerd too).  So you see, my ears were kind of spoiled.

Thus began a long, complicated, and often frustrating love affair with recorded sound.  Over the years, my tastes and preferences matured.  My preference for lots of bass (due, I'm sure, in large part to the fact that teenagers' ears are less sensitive to low frequencies), was gradually replaced with a preference for clear bass.  My preference for loud stereos and speakers was replaced with a preference for accurate ones.  I became pickier, yes, but at the same time, I appreciated the good stuff so much more.

A History of Formats

The first recordings I ever listened to were on cassette tape, and on vinyl.  Tape was obviously easier and more convenient, so expediency conquered and I was a tape man for years.  CD was a definite step-up, as it reduced many of the limitations of tape and, let's be honest, it sounded better.  I had never listened to an mp3 until I was about 16 or so, and by then, I'd kind of lowered my audio standards, or rather I'd forgotten my roots, and I accepted mp3 quality at face-value.  It was a moot point really, because any listening I did to mp3's at that point usually was done through cheap little computer speakers, thus filtering out any fidelity that might be there to begin with.

Before I go on, let me explain a couple things, and hopefully dispel a couple myths.  Tape in general, is not a bad format.  To this day, tons of professional studios use reel-to-reel tape machines in conjunction with digital media, because of it's fidelity and because of certain sonic properties that tape naturally has.  Tape cassettes, however, no matter what the pimply kid in the skinny jeans tells you, are a terrible medium.  Cassette, because of it's physical limits, necessitated frequency manipulation when mass-producing, producing that well-known high-frequency hiss.   Also, due to the magnetic nature of audio tape, over time it is subject to a process called "print through," in magnetic information on one part of the tape bleeds over onto whatever part of the tape it is pressed up against, and vice versa.  Ever listen to a tape you've had for a long time, and hear stuff going on in the background at a silent part?  Or hear what the guy is about to say get said really quietly right before he says it? That's print through. Yes, this happens with all tape, but in studios, they minimize print-though by storing the tape with the reels wound tail-end out, so that any echo happens during the sound and not before it.  Also, unlike studio tape, cassettes get information recorded to both sides of the tape, making it possible to wind it in such a way as to avoid print-through issues.  In general, cassettes suck for anything besides digitial information, but that's a completely different can of worms to be discussed in a later post (keep your eye out for a post on digital audio).

Getting Serious

I became obsessed with recording when I first got a tape recorder when I was about 6, but I started getting serious about it when I was 16.  I did a bunch of research, reading books and magazines and picking this guy's brain.  I took out a loan from my parents and bought my first recording setup.  I got way into it, even though I had no idea what I was doing and sounded like boiled poop half of the time.  But it had become a quest for me.

After returning from a 2-year mission for my church, I started working at Guitar Center and assembling my rig in a piecemeal fashion.  As I started listening to digital formats like mp3, wmv and wav through nice (well, at least nicer equipment) I discovered that yes, in fact there was a difference between them, and yes indeed they were almost always lower quality than CD's.  It wasn't until a couple years later, while studying music in college that I discovered that vinyl, that format I'd never really become attached to, and which I had just assumed was inferior, was actually higher in fidelity than all of the rest of them...  And it blew my mind.

Digital? No.... Well, Ok

Did I go out and buy a turntable with an expensive needle cartridge and a super-sweet analog stereo system?  No.  Unfortunately, expediency (coupled with an empty pocketbook) once again took me away from vinyl.  I do plan, in my future home to have a study / listening room in which I will have vinyl records and a super-sweet hi-fi setup, but in the meantime I'm a digital man.

Let's face it.  Analog will always be nicer, but digital will always be more accessible, transferable, and generally more convenient.  So, is there a place for us audiophiles in the digital realm? You betcha.

I first really started listening to mp3's in earnest with the purchase of my first iPod back in the summer of 2005.  It was a 20GB iPod Photo.  I loved it with all of my heart.  I began ripping CD's to mp3 left and right.  My ears were still relatively immature at this point, and I still hadn't really discovered the limitations of the mp3 format for myself.  And I didn't for another year or so. As I accumulated more and more high-end equipment via my employee discount, I was surprised to find that I was hearing more problems with sound quality.  It was ironic, but more importantly it was skin-itchingly frustrating.  What it actually took me about 2 or 3 years to discover is that the sound quality problems had always been there, they were just more obvious because of the quality of the equipment they were being played on and through.  Turns out that 128kbps mp3's weren't quite as acceptable as I'd thought they were.

By winter 2006/2007, I would only create mp3's at 192kbps, and it was acceptable most of the time, but still, certain songs, usually loud ones, would drive my ears crazy.  It got worse.  And worse.  Soon, I was thinking that all my equipment was going bad.  Nice equipment, paired with ears that were being given a college education, combined to create a constantly uncomfortable and unsatisfied Jake.  Then, just a couple months ago, it occurred to me.  Could it be that iTunes sounds bad?  No way, I mean, it's APPLE for goodness sake!  It should be great.  So, to test out my theory, I opened up the same mp3's in iTunes and in that ugly, clunky old program, Windows Media Player, and I did an A/B comparison.  Result: Holy crap,  iTunes is distorting my music!

The Sweet Melody of the Songbird

Just weeks before discovering this malady, I was introduced to a fantastic-sounding, free mp3 encoding format called LAME, and to variable bit-rate mp3's.  They sounded a ton better than normal mp3's, but iTunes was still distorting my stuff, so one day, while visiting one of the audio/music snobbery websites that I browse, I came across a forum thread where a bunch of snobs were discussing what media players they used.  I did a google search for every one of the players they mentioned.  Eventually, I came across a wondrous little gem of potential awesomeness by the name of Songbird.  I went through the mp3's that had distorted the most when listening in iTunes, and not once was there an ounce of distortion.  Not one crackle!

Some of the other players were more critically acclaimed, and a couple of them - Foobar, for example - are renowned for being the highest fidelity media players, but I chose Songbird for a couple reasons.  Firstly, it serves my needs as pertains to audio fidelity.  Secondly, it is completely modifiable.  It's made by Mozilla, and it's doing for media players what Firefox did for web browsers.  Like Firefox, there are tons of add-ons you can install into it, like a window that displays the lyrics of your songs, or a pane that displays recommendations based on your current selection, or even the ability to tweet about the song you're listening to.  In this day of the iPhone, desktop widgets and the Google Android mobile OS, any software that doesn't let you customize is quickly going obsolete.  Customization is the future, so I'm a big fan of Songbird.

So, there you have it.  My nerd-history (nerdstory?)  in a digital nutshell; How I got to where I am and how I justify it.  There you go.  I want to reward you for getting all the way through this post if you did, so since there is no way to dispense candy via the internet, here are the download links for two LAME-encoded variable-bitrate mp3's (at maximum quality: V0), of two recent songs of mine:

• When I Dream (with a new guitar solo, by the talented Tyler Nickl)
• Making the Grade (A Robot's Lament)

Enjoy! (Just don't listen to them in iTunes if you want to get the most out of them!)

'The Sandwich'

Recently, I did some music for a video made by Projectline, Inc., a creative services / marketing firm (I'm probably describing them incorrectly)  based in my beloved Seattle.  It's a funny video promoting their company, and was written and directed by my lovable big brother Ben.

I made sort of a big beat kind of track, and tipped my hat to Dr. Dre with some low brass.  I tripled-up the bassline with brass, synth (GForce impOscar) and piano, and added a screaming synth lead (Native Instruments Pro-53) near the end.  I had a lot of fun doing it, and I think it turned out well. Check it out for yourself.

Click HERE, or watch below:

UPDATE (4-27-09):

I also did the "theme song" for their Ask Larry segment (Larry being their IT guy), which can be seen HERE.  It which  also uses track 4, "Want and Should," from my album Fragments in Abstract, which you can listen to on the sidebar of the blog:  --------->

new track: 'Making the Grade (A Robot's Lament)'

Once again, my songwriting class prompted me - out of necessity - to take an old song idea (this one from last summer) and finish it up.  Well, finish it enough to turn it in.

For this project, we had to collaborate.  Our professor - who always stresses the fact that in the music business, writing music by one's self is the exception rather than the rule - assigned us into groups of 2-3 people.  Now, up front, this filled me with terror.  Let's just say that I would rather stuff angry hornets under my eyelids than collaborate with some of the people from this class.  Most of them are decent songwriters and cool people, but there are a handful that I just can not stand.  That said, there were several times while he was naming off groups, that my bowels froze in fear of a painfully forced collaboration of contradictory styles and artistic philosophies.

I was pretty much exhausted by the end, because my group was named last.  I lucked out and got put with my good buddy Sage Min.  He's a fantastic musician, has a great ear for chords, plays the keys like a maniac and we have similar tastes in music.  When we got together to collaborate, we had lots of ideas but weren't sure which direction to go.  In a moment of goofing off, I showed him a track I had started last summer which I'd decided needed to go back into the oven for a while.  Like I said in my last post, this is par for the course for me.  My typical progression happened here as well.

Sage liked it and decided to help me finish it off.  The chords were kind of chunky and disconnected, and Sage helped me to smooth them out and transition more nicely.  Also, the song didn't have a bridge.  I came up with the first chord, and Sage basically finished it off.  Since I haven't reinstalled all my old synthesizer plugins yet, we actually took slices of the audio from the bass line from the verses and re-sequenced and re-pitched them to create a bassline for the bridge that matched the rest of the song.  Sage also laid down a perfect keyboard solo with which to end the song.

I wrote the lyrics for the verses last summer, and couldn't come up with lyrics for the bridge until I this project.  The impetus for the song was that I was newly married and I felt like I wasn't very good at it.  I loved my wife so much and I wanted to do everything perfectly for her, but I was learning about shortcomings and inadequacies that I never even knew I had.  Not because she was pointing them out - certainly do not take it that way - but because I was devoted to her and wanted desperately to be everything she'd ever need.

I often think in metaphors, because I'm usually thinking of ways to phrase my thoughts in such a way that they'd be convincing if pressed to defend them.  I guess that's what I get from growing up with a brilliant older brother who is a master of rhetoric and argumentation.  Or maybe it's because about 5 or 6 years ago, I realized that lyrics were far more important than I had previously given them credit for, and that since I was terrible at writing them, I should start working on the art of lyricism.  I think it's about six of one and a half-dozen of the other.  But anyway, the metaphor that came into my mind as a result of the newest addition to the pantheon of my shortcomings, was that of a machine that wasn't very good at doing the the main thing it was built to do.  I thought it a simultaneously amusing and sad thought and began considering how that machine would feel if it could feel.

The result of my musings on that silly idea are the lyrics to this song.  I realized that the verses made it appear that my marriage generally saddens me, which couldn't be further from the truth.  I've never been happier in my life.  So, since the bridge of a song usually represents a shift in thinking or some sort of catharsis, I used it as a vehicle to demonstrate the happy meliorism that my original chain of thought eventually led me to.

Now, after being a blowhard for several paragraphs, I'll let you listen to it. The lyrics are below.

Verse 1:

I'd like to hold her hand

but sadly, I don't have one

I've come so wrongfully equipped.

All my components were

just makeshift substitutions

and when she ordered, I was shipped.

Verse 2:

I know the purpose in my blueprint

was to love her

and all specifics that entailed.

I came with all the right intentions

but was missing

the knowledge needed not to fail.

Bridge:

Not everything that serves our purposes

and needs is tailor made

and even less-than-perfect tools

can even prove to make the grade.

Oftentimes we find that we prefer

a move we wouldn't normally play

even with things we think that we are certain

that we want another way.

new track: 'When I Dream'

Recently, I had a project for my songwriting class in which we had to do a "produced song."  That is to say a song that is of presentable, produced quality - whether recorded or performed live - such that you would feel comfortable presenting it in that way to a panel of publishers.  I was at a loss as to what to do for the project, so I took my go-to method and decided to dig through my old stuff.

To make a large understatement, my average song has always had a fairly long gestation period. My standard protocol was to come up with an idea, record it, develop it a little bit, then forget about it and move on to some other new idea. As a result, my hard drive is full of tons of old ideas, which is kinda bad, but also pretty good.  My album I released last year is almost entirely composed of songs that were 2-3 years old by the time I finished them up and got them album-ready.

So anyway, I took a song I had started during the summer of 2005 and worked it up to demo quality.  It was originally a Sting-ish pop track, but now has almost a Postal Service kind of electronic vibe to it.

Just two more things.  First, now that I have a vocal mic that fits my specific voice really well, and now that I have my mixer back and can use its preamps instead of the cheesy digital ones built into my audio card, it is a million times easier to capture a nice sounding vocal track.  You'll see what I mean when you listen to the track.  Secondly, I play a "bass solo" on this and be forwarned: I AM NOT A BASSIST.

Lyrics:

Verse 1:

When I dream I dream of you,

When I sleep, you're in my dreams,

I just wish you felt it too,

You've gone away or so it seems.

As I go throughout my day,

your voice echoes in my thoughts,

Nothing keeps my mind at bay,

I can't let go my heart is caught.

Chorus:

Yesterday and yesteryear

fade aimlessly away

and the words that tell our history

lay graying on the page.

My weary heart grows still,

and I bide my time until

I find there's something I can do

but in the meantime,

when I dream I dream of you.

Verse Two:

When I look, you're all I see,

Who you are is what I need,

You mean everything to me,

but if you leave I won't impede.

[Chorus]

When I dream I dream of you,

When I sleep, you're in my dreams,

I just wish you felt it too,

You've gone away or so it seems.

jazz brings out the worst in my face

I've been playing with the MFJQ for a while now, and I've realized something that's gotten worse with age: my drumming grimace.  I mean, I'm straight-up butt-ugly when I play drums in general, but especially when I play jazz.  There's something about improvizing and paying attention to what other players are doing that gives me the ol' bitter beer face.  I mean look at this one from last night's gig:

Yikes. I look like some sort of grumpy polemarch or something. It's sad to say that in the last year, this is the most flattering picture taken of me while playing the drums:

Hey, at least the drums look cool, right?

lyrics: 'Those Things You Said'

I recently turned this in for a project in my songwriting class, in which I was supposed to write an pop tune in AABA form.  I ended up getting marked down because since my "bridge" was in the same key as the rest of the piece, ended on the tonic and ended with the title, it was really a "chorus." I didn't feel like refuting my teacher, so I just looked him in the eye and said, "Ok."  I've labeled it "properly" below.  Enjoy.

Those Things You Said

By Jake Hawken

Verse One:

Call me a charlatan,

a player, or a libertine,

or call me a boring prude,

or any slander in-between,

Your epithets so stive

to validate your disposition

though I'm your voodoo doll du jour

it won't change your condition.

Verse Two:

I've become your whipping boy,

the scapegoat for your attitudes

for me to say you brought them on yourself

would be a platitude.

To justify your words

you seek to vilify my name,

it must be so much easier

to always shift the blame.

Chorus:

But those things that you said,

keep ringing in my ears,

and I can't shake the feeling

that it's because they're what I needed to hear

...those things you said....

Verse Three:

I really hope that you

get therapeutic benefit

from your antipathy

but can this please be the end of it?

Discouraged by your lack

of what I happen to possess,

well, if it helps you sleep at night

then blame me for your stress.

[CHORUS]

Bridge:

Those things you said to me,

I'm sure were said in enmity

and nothing else that I can see,

but I can't seem to let it be.

Forces tend toward entropy,

but this is an eternity,

Won't someone come and set me free

from all these things you said to me.

lyrics: 'Does It Matter?'

Back during my firts year at BYU, when I wasn't even a music major yet, and hadn't yet realized that I wanted to minor in philosophy, I took Philosophy215. It was "Introduction to Philosophy of Religion." I had studied Descartes when I took Phil101 in community college, and had found his ideas captivating, though disappointingly inconclusive. Descartes' Evil Genius concept, basically stated that for all we know, we could be decieved about all of our external perceptions, so how do we know that some evil genius isn't deceiving us about everythign we experience? How do we know anyting about anything? His answer to this is discouragingly circular, and the question stuck with me. (As a side note, this also made me think of the "Real President of the Galaxy" in the Hitchhiker's Guide series of books, if you've ever read them.)

I studied a little David Hume as well. Hume stated that there is no truly objective way to prove causation. That is to say, that there's nothing except the raw experience of things seeming to happen consistently, upon which to base any belief in things being "caused." This was also a concept that stuck with me.

When I took Phil215, I was exposed to my now favorite philosopher, William James. James was the father of the Pragmatism movement, which states that practical consequences or real effects are vital components of both meaning and truth. In simpler terms, James basically says that a belief or idea has its "cash-value" measured by it's relevance to your actual, practical life. This brought me back to the Evil Genius... and enabled me to never worry about the evil genius again, because, even if there was one, does it really matter? If he never shows himself in his work, does it matter? That was the idea that spawned this song.

I thought the idea of a philosophical love song was kind of fun, so instead of the evil genius, I had the song postulate about the existence of a lover, and the ramifications of trusting not just your perceptions, but also your heart. I recently took the idea, cleaned it up and presented it in my songwriting class. Also, if you pay attention to the rhythm of the lyrics (and the music, once I get that posted up on here), you can probably tell that I was listening to "I Don't Trust Myself With Loving You" by John Mayer... a lot.

Now, hopefully it wil be fun to see if you can point out how all of that ties into these lyrics:

Does It Matter?

by Jake Hawken

VERSE ONE:

How do I know what the truth is?

How can I find out what’s real?

Is it the things I can reason,

or is it the things I can feel?

Should I believe my perceptions?

How do I know love exists?

This all could be a deception,

Yet still this feeling persists.

CHORUS:

But does it matter if this is an illusion,

As long as you’re part of my confusion?

It don’t matter a bit if this is true,

If I can go on believing in you.

VERSE TWO:

You could be just an enigma,

And I could just be deceived,

Am I a creature of habit,

caught in this web that’s been weaved?

Let’s just assume for a minute,

that this has all been a dream,

I wouldn’t take back a moment

Even if this wasn’t quite what it seems.

[CHORUS]

BRIDGE:

In the end, I have nothing but faith

to inform me and to warn me,

Even if you don’t exist

You have transformed me,

So I have to ask…

[CHORUS]

more from the MFJQ

Since my last post on the subject, I've played 3 more shows at Muse Music and one more at FroYo with the Mathieu Foley Jazz Quintet.  The Muse shows went alright, but the FroYo gigs have an energy that's unlike any other venue at which I've ever played jazz.  Maybe this is how all the heavy-hitter jazz musicians feel when they go and play for people who actually enjoy jazz, hahaha.

But seriously, even though we usually make less money there than at Muse (due to the fact that at FroYo we only play for tips), playing at FroYo is usually more fun for both us and the audience members.  Everybody is always hootin' and hollerin' and last time we played there, people were even dancing!  People seem to pay attention and to cheer at the parts they like (as one is supposed to at a jazz show), and at the same time, they're talking, laughing and getting to know one another.  It's great.  I'd say that it's about 50% of it to our playing, and 50% the venue. 

We have another show at FroYo this Friday.  I'm so freaking excited.  In addition to a ton of other tunes, we're going to be playing an arrangement I did of "Someday My Prince Will Come" in 5/4. I was surprised at how nicely the phrasing turned out in the odd time signature.

I hope those of you who live nearby can make it out.  It's at FroYo (in the Albertsons parking lot, across University Parkway from Movies 8, right next door to Las Tarascas) and we'll be playing from 8-11pm.  Come and go as your schedule permits!

[We now also have a Facebook group for the MFJQ and a Facebook event for this show.]

It is also my sad duty to inform you that A Band Called Riley no longer exists, thus making the MFJQ my main gig.  The lead singer, Travis, is moving to England at the end of the summer and the bassists is taking 17 credits of English.  To be fair, I'm taking 17.5 credits of Music (11 classes), but the decision was made before I was consulted, and - funnily enough - I heard about it second-hand from the rhythm guitarist's roommate. Oh well, it was fun while it lasted!