Prattler

SEEKING

Vocalist, Rhythm Guitar, Lead Guitar, Acoustic Guitar, Bass Guitar, Drums, Other.

ABOUT

January 2024, I am still holding down Exciter by Judas Priest and I must catch up on Indian music compositions which are in my practice rotation, then, I must start on Steeleye Span, then I will finally clean up this profile, and delete most of this text, and get more serious about this, but its still just barely not quite there. If I dont hold onto Exciter and catch up on my other compositions I could easily lose something and have to make a recovery, but its getting like really really close and I been saying this for a while but not it really is really really close.

- So hey everyone - my scheme is to do heavy metal versions
of Steeleye Span and Fairport Convention songs -
which is British folk music.
To do 4 to 8 such songs,
get a recording of it on video,
and that will be my outreach to the world to find musicians.
- After that - I do not intend to continue doing Steeleye Span and Fairport Convention songs, but, it seems, more likely I am going to do Bollywood style heavy metal songs after that.
- For anyone interested in being a part of at least one heavy metal British folk music song, I can actually make time to work with you on that, it can even be All Around My Hat if you want.
- Presently I am doing Exciter and one traditional Indian song and catching up and having to set Ragas aside, I have to get caught up and get Exciter into the background and catch up on Ragas then focus on my project, so I am only starting lazily and distracted on my project, but with some work on it

December 2023, Exciter by Judas Priest is in my practice rotation now, I have to catch up on ragas since I let that go to learn Exciter. I might learn one more song, Death Trap by Destruction, maybe - and catch up in general - and not take anything else on but then - one more pause here - but really then - but I have to get started on the real thing soon that is
some heavy metal tribute ripoff songs to Steeleye Span.
It will be original material, stealing one or two melodies, building
a new song around that. When I can put up demos of that stuff then the musical quest is on for real, so for a moment longer it still isnt.

September 2023 update. I can roughly play a raga now from beginning to end, although not without hesitation, not without confusion.
I am going to begin now with some assistance from a western music teacher, to learn topics that I have neglected.
I am at the very beginning with nothing to show right now, but I hope to put together some heavy metal versions of cover songs by Steeleye Span and Fairport Convention. I am taking an indirect route, first I must have a Judas Priest cover song then proceed to the other. I must sing all the lyrics also.
I am hesitating to put another video up for the moment because I am training on the same raga now for over a year and I dont want to put up a video of the same raga too many times in a row. So, the next time my teacher and I change the raga I will put up a video again. It may be some time before I put up the first of the cover songs in a video, an audition it will be.

I really recommend you dont read further this is just stuff I put up here for myself. There is a good list of bands I like at the end though.

July 2022 update: I am available for classical, Indian classical, Indian light classical, folk music, heavy metal, and eccentric projects.

Thats it, dont read the rest.

I am up on Ninjam for purposes of jamming out, that is said to be good for improvisers so anyone who wants to jam out up on there whether its Indian Classical music or even Jazz, or whatever music, I will jam out, and for collaborating on tracks remotely I have Audacity.

Hi, my role as a musician is to support the singer, I must only ask that the poetry is strong and the delivery is confident.
I have trained in Hindustani Indian Classical Music and my main interest is in heavy metal. With clear singing, or else with only the utmost of creative growling, [I tried to describe the music I want to play sort of with poetry but it only became more confusing to the reader]

I am up on skype, I haven't purchased any gear for remote jamming, but I stand ready to make such purchases.

My focus continues to be on my classical training, at present I can somewhat play Ragas very well, but I am struggling with some final hurdles. I do not expect to form a band before I can reliably perform ragas in concert, however, I may need to start meeting people. You can see in my videos, I have overcome alot of hurdles on ragas, and in order to play ragas in concert minimally I must put together the total structure of the raga from beginning to end. You can see I am demonstrating some advanced guitar techniques reliably enough for practical use, and here, I am showing them under the structure of ragas. I hope though that you can hear the metal potential in there, and in the performances of other Indian classical musicians. As the Mongolian metal bands have uncovered from Mongolian folk songs. I could compromise on all of this to get fame and fortune.

I will give some insight into the raga process. This applies to any style of music, and I believe if you can do this, then you can play nearly anything. For each of these points, there is a short lecture associated, my teacher gives me the full lecture as though I never heard it before, every single time, and one does not speak out of turn. My teacher only gives feedback on these technical points, there is never any instruction to try and sound a certain way, other than based on these objective things - if you comply with this then you can be as weird as you want and it will still count as traditional. Many of these things are gigantic hurdles which take years to overcome, which might sound easy, but then it isnt, but a good teacher never tells you its hard. "You played very nicely, but what must you do in order to play even more nicely".

- conclude each improvised section nicely on time before and join the refrain
- mostly conclude each improvised section with a pause at the end but sometimes abruptly
- begin and end each improvised section on a different note than you began and ended during the previous improvised
section, mostly the root note, then mostly the 5th, then mostly the principal note and then mostly the semi-principal note, and then sometimes the other notes - in this order of frequency - and in different octaves to create more variety, and without this you get boredom pretty quickly however beautifully you play
- make the improvised sections grow gradually longer, but sometimes throw in a shorter section or several
- join the refrain on a different beat sometimes
- in general play the full refrain less frequently and more often truncated as you progress
- sometimes do 6 or more cycles with a half cycle refrain and a half cycle improvised, or 1 fourth and 3 fourths of a cycle
- my teacher will say, play for 2 minutes, start with non-rhythmic, then do 1 on 1, then do 1.5 on 1, then non-rhythmic again, and gradually decrease the speed towards the end and end on the 2nd note then join the refrain, or, other permutations of that
- sometimes pretend like you are going to join the refrain but only play the first note of it on the first beat of the cycle, maybe do that several times, then join the full refrain
- progress through rhythm speeds starting from slowest and gradually increasing, with non-rhythmic first, then 1 on 2, 1 on 1.5, 1 on 1, 1.5 on 1, 2 on 1, do most of it on 2 on 1, and some on 3 on 1 and a little on 4 on 1, also try to stay on a particular speed for a while, also after having introduced that sometimes start it over or jump around through it
- include off beat rhythms sometimes
- slice and dice the numbers with rhythmic permutations, for example 123,123,123,1234,123456 - 12-12-1234 - 12-12-1-12 -
12345678,1234,1234 - 123,123,12,123,123,12 12,123,123,123,123,12 - this item deserves a long discussion
- section endings are what make you strong, use tehais to get real strong on endings, tehais are different tricky endings some of which sound easy but arent, alot of Indian classical music is bad because the musicians over-do this element, however, one consciously might not find it beautiful but subconsciously those tehai endings are forcing you brain to track along with the rhythm which forces your brain to understand the music
- play while counting sometimes, and other times lose track and play but then find your place again at the end and rejoin the refrain
- stay within a range of notes for awhile, then change the range, use different ranges, sometimes 3 notes, 4 notes, 5 notes, 6 notes, sometimes within 1 octave, sometimes within 2 octaves, 3 octaves, etc. sometimes use all of the notes, sometimes skip some of them, sometimes skip other of them. be sure that at times you play some sections where you do not skip any note but move only to each adjacent note from where you were.
- put together the full raga, beginning with un-metered improvising, beginning with the root note, then touching 2 notes, then touching 3 notes, etc, with pauses, short phrases, then finally play in the high octave, then begin playing un-metered but without the drum, first 2 on 1 then 3 on 1 then 4 on 1, during this section the speed may vary while the rhythm remains unchanged, finally end the no-drum section using the traditional ending structure, then begin with the drum, first non-rhythmic, then 1 on 2 or slower, then hit each rhythmic speed gradually increasing. Increase the drum speed gradually, start over at 1 on 1 with each increase, when the drum reaches about 280 speed then introduce the truncated version of the refrain, do 1 on 1 or 1.5 on 1 mostly, keep increasing the drum speed until you reach your limitations and all you can keep up with is to strike each note 16 times, then end the raga using the traditional ending structure
- include some sections where you strike each note many times
before moving to another note
- (my thing) - to include chords and chord arpeggios within the rhythmic structures, to place chords at the pauses
- most ragas have 2 or 3 composed refrains, and one of the refrains is used to introduce the higher octave, one must improvise with the high octave refrain using only high notes, if one plays a high note before having introduced the high octave refrain then one must immediately introduce the high octave refrain, but after playing the full high octave refrain then one is un-restricted and may play within any octave at any time after that

Screen name:: Prattler
Member since:: Dec 20 2012; Active over 1 month ago
Level of commitment:: Very Committed
Years playing music:: 15
Tend to practice:: More than 3 times per week

Influences

For what it's worth, because the bands I like aren't playing the Indian classical influenced style that I want to do. But these are bands of fanatical cult following and underground true grass roots so this is not some willy nilly list of bands, at all.

The Indian heavy metal band Moksha I believe is phenomenal, they are showing a true crossover area between heavy metal and Indian style vocal light classical music. I often search for such metal bands, but amazingly, such bands are still rare. I do not want to do exactly that, I want more chaos added in there.

If you don't know Indian classical music then I recommend go on be and check Alauddin Khan on Sarod and Violin. If you don't know heavy metal, then truly here is a list of bands for which regardless of what their name is every one of them are worthy of musical respect.

(Metal:) Cirith Ungol, Pagan Altar, Manilla Road, Blood Ceremony, Trouble (early), Reverend Bizarre, Orchid, Candlemass (early), Fates Warning (early), Witchcraft, Legend from the Fjords, Uncle Acid, Necromandus, Mercyful Fate, Warlord, Dark Wizard, Jex Thoth, Black Hole, Lamp of Thoth, Pentagram

Mongolian metal: Nine Treasures, The Hu, Tengger Cavalry
Mongolian folk music: Huun Huur Tu

(Rock:) Uriah Heep (early), Sir Lord Baltimore, Lucifers Friend (early), Trapeze, Captain Beyond, Damnation of Adam Blessing

Bands people have heard of: (metal:) Judas Priest, Iron Maiden, Black Sabbath - (rock:) Jimi Hendrix, Jethro Tull, Deep Purple

Bands other than rock and metal: Butthole Surfers, Frank Zappa, Fairport Convention

I love punk rock also. But, as it is in the world of heavy metal, we do not have the mastery to hold onto it for long. I wish I had that, but I have not been chosen by punk rock, and I am after all a child of heavy metal.

My favorite heavy metal albums in the more extreme style:
Root - Zjeveni
Hirax - Raging Violence
Morbid Angel - Altars of Madness
Kreator - Pleasure to Kill
Blessed Death - Kill or be Killed
Danava - 1st
Bathory - 1st
Deicide - 1st
Celtic Frost - To Mega Therion
Possessed - 7 Churches
Venom - Welcome to Hell
Voivod - Roar
Destruction - Invincible Force
Iron Angel - Hellish Crossfire
Metallica - Ride the Lightning

Most of my favorite heavy metal is in the DOOM subgenre, that subgenre includes many things simply because they do not fit into other subgenres. DOOM is also known for it's deep lyrics, often involving themes of dungeons and dragons, for being slower or closer to classical music, for clean beautiful singing, for themes of Christianity but also Satanism and typically gothic themes of religion, but also for any heavy metal with a sort of 1970s style sound. What I propose is heavy metal which would largely fit into DOOM because of inclusion of elements which do not fit anywhere else and for closeness to classical and for great poetry which I do not efficiently produce and therefore I need someone to write the poetry for me. There is great music in DOOM and if you know Indian classical music then you should hear it, and if you are know great heavy metal then you should know about Indian classical music and I recommend going on be and hearing ragas played on a Sarod, an instrument for high speed rhythmic picking, to get an idea how there's elements of heavy metal in there and how we can produce music which hasn't been done yet, and should have been done, and yet keeps not getting done, leaving the opportunity there.

I am not pre-judging what I am going to do. I have told of my vision, but it doesnt mean that will be the result. I will only say that the result I will produce will be at least loosely identifiable as heavy metal, punk, hard rock, progressive rock, or psychedelic, and if it is not heavy metal, it will surely upon testing be found to contain a residue of heavy metal. Thats why, if you have a strong idea, dont assume I wont run with it just because I have a narrow focus.