• EPK
  • Blog: ideas and updates.
  • Music services.
    • Live.
    • Video.
  • Photography services.
  • EPK Spark
JEFFREY NORDSTROM

Indie standards today.

2/28/2014

0 Comments

 
Recently, my friend Nicola posted an article to her Facebook timeline. I think it was posted at Digital Music News, but I can't find it. So I have to write from scratch.

The article was tiled something like "10 reasons why nobody is listening to your music." One of the reasons was "You produce your own music."

I understand this. Most big-name artists have producers; few of them produce their own music.

However, I don't feel that I really have the choice but to produce my own music. I can't afford to hire somebody and I don't have a lifestyle that would make room for a record deal. I have a family to feed and a moderately paying job that keeps us just above water, financially. There's very little room to pay a producer to do production work. Not to mention time: between my job and family, there's no time to sit in a studio and use up money while I try to work with a producer.

The weird thing about it is, however, that there's no excuse but to sound professional today. Easy access to music production software means even high-school kids can make some pretty impressive recordings. Self-production, with a good ear and some technical knowhow, can produce some impressive-sounding music. There's no longer an excuse to sound sub-par.

This puts a lot of pressure on me, I think. If I hope these demos will function, I can't allow unnatural reverbs or weird compression levels. I don't think it's an option to sound unprofessional. Even self-produced demos can sound pretty awesome these days, considering what's available to everybody.

So it's a lot of pressure.

In the meantime, here's Nicola:
Picture
Nicola Linde
0 Comments

Teapots and arguments and such.

2/28/2014

0 Comments

 
I moved on from faith a while ago. It took a long time, but I finally came to the conclusion that I could make better use of my time, come to better conclusions about the world, and make life a lot less stressful if I left faith behind and disaffiliated myself with religion altogether. I read books and weblogs, performed many different reflections, and concluded that faith didn't work for me. I prefer the naturalistic approach to life and my inner life has improved immensely since I started to allow myself to think for myself.

This post from PZ Myers really reminded me of some of the reasons I moved on from faith. The article highlights a recent article posted in The New York Times by Christian apologist Alvin Plantinga. PZ's annoyed at Plantinga's "rejection of Russel's teapot."
<blink, blink> Seriously? He rejects the Russell’s Teapot idea because he can only imagine a methodologically natural process for launching it into orbit, and because we lack concrete physical evidence of the technological apparatus for putting it in space, we have evidence that it doesn’t exist?

Alvin Plantinga, go look in a mirror.

If that is sufficient cause to dismiss the space teapot theory (which I’d agree with, actually, and I suspect Russell would, too), then the complete absence of evidence for the origin of a god; the conflicting stories about the nature of these gods; the frivolity of the supernatural manifestations of these gods; the lack of a natural framework in which to explain the machinations of these hypothetical gods; all that is evidence against theism, and justifies the rational rejection of god-belief.


[...] 

So Plantinga willingly flips into pure materialist mode to dismiss a claim of an orbiting teapot, and then happily flips back into supernaturalist mode when he wants to believe in a god, and he doesn’t even notice. Some philosopher.
I fully understand the need for epistomological arguments. I fully understand that our way of knowing what exists is fraught with complications and whatnot. But this is just silly. Religious faith traditions cannot stand to naturalist scrutiny because they depend on faith and outmoded epistemology. 

So why argue at all? Doesn't the very existence of apologetics prove that faith traditions don't have a foundation? I mean, if they need a specific group of people to argue for their legitimacy, doesn't that prove that it's too unfounded to bother?

When I took part in Christianity, I heard apologetics-based arguments all the time. In my early teens, I attended a Bible Study where I learned that apologetics is a matter of defending my faith. However, whenever I practiced these apologetics, I couldn't help but admit that the other side won almost every time. It wasn't that I was bad at apologetics; it's that I was too rational to keep on defending something irrational. I was told over and over again by Christian culture that my faith was rational and matched the natural world, but just a little studying proved the opposite every time. The world made less sense with spirituality's involvement; spirituality overcomplicates everything.

I do my best to avoid "flipping" my standards for reality, but I'm sure I have a few ideas with faulty philosophical underpinnings. However, I do my best to shift my perspective when new evidence appears and also do my best not to jump on philosophical bandwagons. Sure, we can't know that the teapot is there or isn't, but the idea's intended to be ridiculous.
0 Comments

Antoine "Baby Harry" Calaway's "Black Girl Velvet Rain."

2/28/2014

1 Comment

 
Today, near the Wayward Pines set, I met Antoine "Baby Harry" Calaway. He  played a Fender Villager on-and-off throughout the day, where I could hear him strumming away from my classroom window. He's got some great grooves posted online. Here's my favorite one: "Black Girl Velvet Rain."

Antoine "Baby Harry" Calaway - "Black Girl Velvet Rain" from Jeremy Klassen on Vimeo.

I forgot to get a picture of him. Shucks.
1 Comment

Recording vocals in my daughters' bedroom.

2/21/2014

0 Comments

 
Picture
Tonight I'm recording some vocals in my daughters' bedroom. I've attached the microphone to the upper bunk, which just happens to be the right height.

I should probably be working on my Rural Education course at UVic, but the ladies are out and I have to jump on the apportunity to record in a quiet house. Usually the PS3 is on and the girls are running around and the dishwasher's going and whatnot; tonight the room is really quiet, even quieter than the room at the school.

So far I've made five gentle takes of "Last Love" and seven new takes to work with on "Shiver With Pride." I hope to pound out a few takes of "Business or Pleasure" and "Soothe Me" before I pack up all the stuff.

Recording vocals is inherently annoying. My voice is out of shape so I have to pick and choose from good takes all the time. However, I have to work with what I have. Right now, i have a limited amount of time and no access to professional rooms or equipment. So I do what I have to do.

In this case, it's a bunch of takes for me to mess with over the coming month.
0 Comments

Genius!

2/19/2014

0 Comments

 
I'd better get this music done quick. Give me time for three more albums by my late 30s! The moment of genius might slip away from me if I'm not careful.
A new study out of the National Bureau of Economics Research examined the careers of eminent inventors and Nobel Prize winning scientists and found that – at least for history's greatest minds – the genius and innovation required for "great scientific output" seem to peak in the late thirties.
Only a few more years left before my gradual decline!
0 Comments
<<Previous
    Musician.
    Teacher.
    ​Photographer.

     jeffnords ONLINE:
    Bandcamp
    Facebook
    Instagram
    ​SoundCloud
    YouTube: Music+

    jeffnords PLACEHOLDERS:
    (infrequent haunts)
    Amazon | DailyMotion
    DeviantArt | Duolingo | Flickr | FVRL | Kik
    LinkedIn | MeetUp | MySpace | Pinterest |
    ​
    Playstation | Reddit | ​Snapchat
    Spotify | The Internet Archive
    ​Tinder | Tumblr | Twitter | Vimeo | VK | WattPad
    WeChat 

    Archives

    March 2023
    January 2023
    October 2022
    September 2022
    July 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    June 2021
    April 2021
    June 2020
    April 2020
    January 2020
    November 2019
    October 2019
    August 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    April 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    November 2013
    October 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    May 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013

    Categories

    All
    Academics
    Acting
    Activism
    Adulthood
    Agency
    Albums
    Animals
    Animated Films
    Atheism
    Books
    Camping
    Canadiana
    Christian Culture
    Comics
    Community
    Community Theatre
    Concerts
    Covers
    Creativity
    Critical Thinking
    Current Events
    Daily Grind
    Demos
    Depression
    Digital Life
    Dogs
    Driving
    Education
    Effect Pedals
    Effects
    Empathy
    Energy
    Environment
    Events
    Exploring
    Family
    Feminism
    Film Photography
    Fitness
    Food
    Friendship
    Frivolous
    Gadgets
    Games
    Gigs
    Guitar
    Guitar Effects
    Hexanon
    Hockey
    Home
    Ideas
    Ideology
    Influence
    Jam Session
    Langauge
    Leadership
    Lectures
    Lenses
    Links
    Literature
    Live Action Films
    Live Music
    Long Term Planning
    Magnetic Poetry
    Mental Health
    Mobile Phone
    Money
    Music
    Musicians
    Music Videos
    Networking
    Nostalgia
    Objectification
    Once And Over Again
    Parenting
    Performance
    Photography
    Photos
    Podcasts
    Poetry
    Policy
    Politics
    Pop Culture
    Puppets
    Quirks
    Rants
    Recording
    Reflections
    Relationships
    Religion
    Reviews
    Rhodes
    Ruins
    Running
    Science
    Self Help
    Selfies
    Serendipity
    Sexuality
    Shakespeare
    Short Films
    Skeptihumanism
    Social Media
    Songwriting
    Spirituality
    Stage
    Stories
    Studio Recordings
    Subcultures
    Teaching
    Technology
    Theatre
    Travel
    University
    Updates
    Urban Life
    Video
    Visual
    Wildlife
    Workshops
    Writing

    RSS Feed

Contact Jeffrey

Photos used under Creative Commons from Brett Jordan, b r e n t
  • EPK
  • Blog: ideas and updates.
  • Music services.
    • Live.
    • Video.
  • Photography services.
  • EPK Spark