I've been spending several hours a week on ThumbJam for the past year, and I finally uploaded some of the best sessions I've had.
www.soundcloud.com/arielelkin
All this has been done using only an iPhone and ThumbJam. And love.
Please let me know what you think of it!!
Hugs,
Ariel
Here are some of my best tracks
Hi Ariel, I listened to your
Hi Ariel,
I listened to your 6 pieces on Soundclound, here are my humble comments.
I overal liked them, my favorite is clearly Marce Jam. I really enjoyed the kind of Stewart Copelandish vibe it has. I guess it is related to your "percusive singing" roots. I found it well constructed and performed, a really pleasure to discover and listen to. Congrats!
I liked the Monkey Intro too, makes me want to hear the full monkey...
I'm not too keen on repetitive/transformed vocal samples (the two last pieces: Titittim and the Nanterrien), but that's purely a matter of personal tastes.
The two most 'jamey' pieces: the Self Explanatory Jam and Furry Hoppers are nice with maybe two things I would work on: too many too short parts with instrument change: the cello is there and nice for just a short time and then replaced by another instrument, replaced in turn by another, living me under the impression of a collection of unrelated parts. I would agree this is in line with the jamming intention but would have preffered a 'dialoguing' jam with fewer instruments coming an going several time. Second element I would change is the "obvious Thumbjam shredding" flavor some of the parts in these two pieces have. I mean there's an impression of finger moving up and down a scale in these parts sometimes at the expense of musical quality. Some guitar parts of Furry are a bit too repetitive to me too. By the way, excellent drum parts on your tunes, the one on Furry Hoppers is really groovy, I really liked it!
The piano and pedal steel (if I'm correct) parts are really great and expressive. Inspiring.
This is it, I hope I was clear this only reflects my humble opinion and tastes in a constructive way (as required on your Soundcloud page). Don't go gardening, your music is good and I could imagine a piece like Marce Jam used as an example of what can be done with Thumbjam.
Please keep on sharing.
Cheers
I listened to your 6 pieces on Soundclound, here are my humble comments.
I overal liked them, my favorite is clearly Marce Jam. I really enjoyed the kind of Stewart Copelandish vibe it has. I guess it is related to your "percusive singing" roots. I found it well constructed and performed, a really pleasure to discover and listen to. Congrats!
I liked the Monkey Intro too, makes me want to hear the full monkey...
I'm not too keen on repetitive/transformed vocal samples (the two last pieces: Titittim and the Nanterrien), but that's purely a matter of personal tastes.
The two most 'jamey' pieces: the Self Explanatory Jam and Furry Hoppers are nice with maybe two things I would work on: too many too short parts with instrument change: the cello is there and nice for just a short time and then replaced by another instrument, replaced in turn by another, living me under the impression of a collection of unrelated parts. I would agree this is in line with the jamming intention but would have preffered a 'dialoguing' jam with fewer instruments coming an going several time. Second element I would change is the "obvious Thumbjam shredding" flavor some of the parts in these two pieces have. I mean there's an impression of finger moving up and down a scale in these parts sometimes at the expense of musical quality. Some guitar parts of Furry are a bit too repetitive to me too. By the way, excellent drum parts on your tunes, the one on Furry Hoppers is really groovy, I really liked it!
The piano and pedal steel (if I'm correct) parts are really great and expressive. Inspiring.
This is it, I hope I was clear this only reflects my humble opinion and tastes in a constructive way (as required on your Soundcloud page). Don't go gardening, your music is good and I could imagine a piece like Marce Jam used as an example of what can be done with Thumbjam.
Please keep on sharing.
Cheers
Hi Mat, Thanks very much for
Hi Mat,
Thanks very much for your feedback.
Marce Jam tends to be a favourite among the people who have heard it, and I'm a bit surprised as it's the most structurally simple piece I've recorded… I'm glad you liked it and I'll see to explore that further. (it's the JR Smooth Steel by the way, not a pedal steel guitar - fantastic instrument).
The full monkey is coming soon. That take was cut short at that point as I hadn't recorded additional instruments onto it (they'll be worth it!).
I entirely agree with what you say about the lack of dialogue in the two other tracks, but that's really due to the time it takes to switch instruments in ThumbJam. My cello asks the trombone a question, and by the time I manage to activate the latter I have to tap twice, scroll down, pinpoint it, tap it, then wait for it to load, then ensure it's in the right octave… cuts the dialogue short, Jesse, kinda takes the Jam away from ThumbJam…
There is indeed ThumbJam shredding going on (some were pretty early recordings) - I'm not into shredding, I'm working on smoothing things out.
I'm working on new sessions and will upload them to my soundcloud by the end of this week.
Thanks again,
Ariel
Thanks very much for your feedback.
Marce Jam tends to be a favourite among the people who have heard it, and I'm a bit surprised as it's the most structurally simple piece I've recorded… I'm glad you liked it and I'll see to explore that further. (it's the JR Smooth Steel by the way, not a pedal steel guitar - fantastic instrument).
The full monkey is coming soon. That take was cut short at that point as I hadn't recorded additional instruments onto it (they'll be worth it!).
I entirely agree with what you say about the lack of dialogue in the two other tracks, but that's really due to the time it takes to switch instruments in ThumbJam. My cello asks the trombone a question, and by the time I manage to activate the latter I have to tap twice, scroll down, pinpoint it, tap it, then wait for it to load, then ensure it's in the right octave… cuts the dialogue short, Jesse, kinda takes the Jam away from ThumbJam…
There is indeed ThumbJam shredding going on (some were pretty early recordings) - I'm not into shredding, I'm working on smoothing things out.
I'm working on new sessions and will upload them to my soundcloud by the end of this week.
Thanks again,
Ariel
Hi Ariel, A simple workaround
Hi Ariel,
A simple workaround for your jamming instrument fast switching concern may be to just load first the instruments you intend to use, e.g. piano, trombone and that pedal steel guitar named JR smooth steel ; ), and save a "user preset" (edit menu) for each of them. You can do this whithout changing anything or maybe setting the scale etc... just as you want it for the particular session. Having done this, and naming the presets in a way that would keep them on top of you list of presets will make their selection on the fly much faster, as my guess is loading time wouldn't really be possible to cut down (or maybe Jesse could figure out some of his magic for having a few instruments preloaded on user request if iDevice memory permits...). You can always kill the said user presets afterwards and keep your user preset list clean.
I'll make sure to listen to your new tunes.
Thanks again for sharing
Cheers
A simple workaround for your jamming instrument fast switching concern may be to just load first the instruments you intend to use, e.g. piano, trombone and that pedal steel guitar named JR smooth steel ; ), and save a "user preset" (edit menu) for each of them. You can do this whithout changing anything or maybe setting the scale etc... just as you want it for the particular session. Having done this, and naming the presets in a way that would keep them on top of you list of presets will make their selection on the fly much faster, as my guess is loading time wouldn't really be possible to cut down (or maybe Jesse could figure out some of his magic for having a few instruments preloaded on user request if iDevice memory permits...). You can always kill the said user presets afterwards and keep your user preset list clean.
I'll make sure to listen to your new tunes.
Thanks again for sharing
Cheers
Ah damn, where's the "report"
Ah damn, where's the "report" link when you need it...
Jesseeeeeee!
Jesseeeeeee!