About Me
Hi. I'm Roy.
I'm an undergrad Architecture major at the University of Minnesota, but music is my real passion. I've played guitar for four years, sung for three, played percussion for two, and recorded, mixed and produced music for one. I play guitar in a band, Silence the Echoes, which is a project with three of my closest, most awesome (and talented) high school friends. I also do guitar and vocals for another band, Between Days, which is really just a bunch of guys goofing around. I record and produce some of my solo acoustic stuff too, but that's more just for myself so that I can hone my skills a bit.
I am constantly intrigued and amazed by songwriting and song construction, throughout all genres. I love a VERY diverse spectrum of music, from Bob Dylan to Between The Buried And Me, from Incubus to In Flames, from Death Cab for Cutie to Dream Theater, from Misery Signals to Mozart. Basically, I recognize and admire great playing and great songwriting across all genres, and love to dissect how different artists and songwriters approach the art of constructing a song. The one thing upon which I especially focus is how great songwriters use melody, progressions and instrumentation to create and manipulate certain moods in the listener. I feel like once I can unlock this concept and more fully grasp it, I will better be able to create songs that fit the tone and mood of the lyrics, and perhaps truly tell a story with both the lyrics AND the instrumentation.
I am currently in the process of writing a CD of my own music, utilizing what i've learned thus far. It will be a twelve track, four-movement disc, telling a tale of a great journey, that is metaphorically very personal to me. I'll post more someday, when I actually get a bit of free time. On a COMPLETELY unrelated note, don't major in architecture unless you really want to kiss your social life goodbye. Or love it like I do, I suppose.
This blog was started as a project for my Music Freshman Seminar; the Jack Johnson project is the culmination of a semester of research, analysis, and synthesis. Given the fact that I am a tad bit opinionated when it comes to music (ask me about Pop. I DARE you), I'll likely be posting further reviews in the future. If anyone has any suggestions, I'm open to anything, email them to clout039@umn.edu and I'll get on that as soon as I can.
Thanks for reading, and enjoy!
-Roy