Hello again!
This is a going to be quite a departure from the usual technical post that I commonly sift through online trying to find the right syntax or how to properly use a Ruby method. I'm going to more or less be talking about, well, about a little band called Radiohead.
Full Disclaimer This post is a doozy, and I begrudgingly talk about myself so strap in...
This band has gotten me through many of my formative years and my relationship with their music has only aged like a fine wine. I was immediately hooked when my best friend in high school showed me "In Rainbows" back in 2008. He put on Weird Fishes/Arpeggios, and it was like Phil Segway himself gave 4 counts to kick off my entire obsession with this band.
From Thom Yorke's wispy, yet powerful soaring falsetto melodies, to Jonny Greenwood's arpeggiated strumming, Ed's backup vocals, Phil's drive on drums, or even how almost oxymoronic the spelling of the title was, I was invested.
I always found inspiration from Radiohead, no matter what avenue in my life I've been lead to. Music has been such a strong part of my life, essentially as far as I can remember (strong enough to make a career out of it). I played violin in elementary school, but only realized my true passion was playing drums at the end of the 5th grade. Once I "discovered" Radiohead (perhaps about 20 years into their career), they ignited an even more intense musical flame. I loved their used of rhythm, how they can use rhythm as their song structure, adding melodies that soared on top, how they used texture to drown you. They always produced music that no one else could conceive.
Throughout high school and even college, I used Radiohead as motivation and inspiration to perfect my craft as a percussionist. It never left me that no matter how technical you try to be, it's the emotion in music that makes it impactful.
Being a previous band director and life-long musician, I've played percussion ensemble literature inspired by Radiohead, I've play arrangements of their pieces, I even WROTE arrangements of Radiohead tunes for groups I've taught (most recently at the last concert I directed before moving to Colorado). I would watch movies that members of the band had written the scores for. Jonny Greenwood, with his immense knowledge of music theory and compositional techniques, has written soundtracks for Paul Thomas Anderson's films, must notably, There Will Be Blood and Phantom Thread. Drawing inspiration from 20th century Polish micro-tonal composer, Krzysztof Penderecki, the work that Greenwood has produced is, in my opinion, worthy of a Nobel Price.
Thom Yorke composed the score to the 2018 remake of Suspiria, using an entire orchestra at times, without having no knowledge of how to read or write music. All this to simply drive home the fact that I look up to Radiohead, but not only as musicians, but as creative types...
Leaving the music education field was definitively the hardest decision of my life. As you might have gathered, music has been a part of my life for as far as I can remember. Both of my parents are musicians and this is all I've know until very recently. It took a lot for me to accept that I can still keep my identity as a musician and not make it my day job.
Turn to now, I am finishing up my 3rd project at Flatiron School, studying to become a Full Stack Developer. I am LOVING all the new skills I am learning as a software developer. Not only technical, but how creative you can be with developing apps is fascinating.
On my drives to school
I will often listen to podcasts to pass the time (and to keep my mind off traffic on i25). I recently started listening to a podcast called "What is Music? A Music Podcast about Music" hosted by Adam Scott Glasspool, Steve Murphy, and Lucas Way. Hm, a music podcast talking about music, sounds like something I could get behind.
The latest season is discussing all things Radiohead. They go through their ENTIRE discography, song by song, and pick it apart. I have struck the gold mine. I've skipped ahead to their breakdown of the 2000 record Kid A, it's one of my favorite records of all time. This podcast is practically an academic research report, enriched with Radiohead lore and analysis.
They talk about things I never even heard of before; Radiohead was Internet pioneers back at the turn of the century. They were the first to stream their music on their website. Members of the band would blog during the recording of Kid A (back in 1998?!?), they would leak songs of this new record online, before their LP release, to give fans a taste to what to expect when they toured with the new album. They concocted an "anti-marketing" strategy, not promoting their new album through interviews and photo shoots, but through digital art manipulations with the help of Stanley Donwood, distorting paints and pictures of the band. They curated their own marketing campaign, to counter the global commodification of music.
They knew the Internet was going to blow up back, even as early as the 90's when they started releasing their music to the public online. I mean, they were Napster before Napter was NAPSTER. This wasn't the only time they used the internet for promotion. For the release of their In Rainbows, they set up a "set you price" store on their website for the record. Fans would purchase a digital copy at whatever cost they deemed fit.
Radiohead reinvented themselves through Kid A. Once known as a 90's grunge band, they all came to terms of Thom Yorke's visionary idea of relying heavily on electronics for this new record. Ed, the lead guitarist, is playing synths, Thom Yorke is using Protools to distort his voice in at least four songs, Phil is playing drum machines, Jonny using the Ondes Martenot on tracks, EVEN to manipulate Thom's voice! You'd think this was a John Cage inspired avant-garde group you'd see in a basement of a pizza shop in a college town (shoutout to J&J's Pizza in Denton, Texas, rest in peace).
Listening to this podcast, Radiohead gave me inspiration, but in a different way. Radiohead gave me the OK (Computer) to reinvent myself. It's a part of life, to change and grow and evolve. As I continue my education as a computer programmer, I'll use my background as a musician to help propel myself forward in the tech field, and to redefine who I am. Change is inevitable, and it's about what you do with that change that defines you. Everything is indeed, in its right place.
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