ActoInterview With Bud Buckley
I'm on a mission to explore the world of songwriting, interviewing various songwriters and guitar teachers to get their thoughts on the topic. The first person I decided to interview was Bud Buckley, a songwriter and guitar teacher in Florida. Bud's got a good sense of melody -- something that I feel is the hardest to teach, but comes with time.
Check out a sample of Bud's new song, "Jacob's Hurricane."
You can download the full version of "Jacob's Hurricane" at Bud's site, BudBuckley.com.
Below is the ActoInterview with Bud. Enjoy.
1. On your site you list a wide variety of influences, ranging from 60 and 70s artists like the Beatles and Joni Mitchell to contemporary artists like Foo Fighters and Barenaked Ladies. Are you influenced at all by artists outside of mainstream rock/pop music? Or do you focus entirely on such melodic music?
I do a lot of the tunes you mentioned because it's what is expected in the places I play. I can't really identify any influences in the music on my CD. It just came from my heart and my experiences. I love to explore people who catch my ear and see what it is about the structure of the music that entices me. Lately I've taken an interest in Damien Rice for his melodies. Nickel Creek is another that I find interesting. My lyrics come completely from what I run into. I've co-written some lyrics with friends whose writing I admire. The music always comes after the lyrics for me and it takes a quite a bit of time. I know the influence question is a favorite but that's the best I can do. I hope I just sound like me.
2. You joke on your web site that you almost wet yourself when you first performed in front of people. Do you still get nervous?
I never get that nervous anymore. It doesn't scare me to perform. I'm more comfortable in some situations than others, of course. If it's an audition situation, there is a lot more tension. Yoga has helped me stay focused most of the time and I get over those rough moments where I might be thinking instead of feeling. Being nervous is just a head trip that can be replaced with a more useful head trip.
3. How long did it take you before you had the confidence to share your original songs with other people?
It came pretty quickly because I was rushed into it on a kind of a dare from Helen Avakian, my guitar teacher. She promised to perform at my school if I would write a song and perform with her. I had six weeks to put that together. But then it took me a year to write another one in the same situation at school with Helen when I did a good-bye concert as I was retiring. After, that, though, I dove into song writing and started performing them every chance I got. These days I sprinkle covers in between my own to get the audience feeling like they're on familiar ground. Once somebody requests one of your own, you're pretty confident. It takes time to get original work familiar enough to a regular audience before they'll ask, though. For people starting out, I highly recommend becoming a regular at every open mic you can find. Play your songs over and over to gain confidence and to let your song and your performance evolve. People will start asking you for their favs and you'll take a quantum leap in your confidence levels.
4. You comment on your site that you've come around to embracing music theory. How dependent are you on music theory when writing songs?
I'm very dependent on music theory in the music writing process. And the more I play with the theory, the more I learn about how you can "break the rules" and still come up with something interesting. I love to play with alternate chords. If I can find a way to start on a second or third instead of the one chord, I get pretty pumped. I like to experiment with minors where you would expect the major, flat sevens, out of the box chords, inversions. I like to hunt for melodies that don't begin on the triad notes of the chord. I love to hunt for riffs in harmonic intervals of sixths and tenths. It astounds me that there are people who have been highly successful at doing all of that stuff without knowing any theory at all. But for me, knowing it, takes me down other allies I never would have risked. Sight reading music notation is something that I've consciously put off because I waited too long. I think it's a very important skill to gain if it is a reasonable goal for you. I started too late in life. I can read enough to learn a tune but I don't sight read. The other extreme is that many very well trained student musicians that I know are so sheet music dependent, they couldn't improvise a note if you threatened to kill their dogs and cats. That's a pity. I hope they learn to break that fear. Some of them are going to prestigious music colleges this year. I hope that helps.
5. In addition to being a performer, you're a guitar teacher. What's the most important thing guitarists just starting out should remember to help ensure that they progress well as a student?
The most important thing for a student or anybody that hopes to succeed in life, is to have a set of clearly articulated goals. Goals that are high but reasonable. You have to write them down in the long term, medium term and short term. And you have to consult them every day to stay on the path toward your goals. If you do that and you revise them when necessary, you will always be successful. If you operate like that it isn't even necessary for me to tell you that you have to practice every day. That will just be a given. When practice seems like drudgery you need to have some fun stuff to play. Eventually you start trying bits of the stuff you're practicing in the fun stuff. I insist that my students pick a song they really want to learn that is within their reach. And we start there. Then I try to find songs with the same chords or techniques that they like. Build on the fun stuff. That's my method. But you still have to practice technique so you can play it. ++
Check out a sample of Bud's new song, "Jacob's Hurricane."
You can download the full version of "Jacob's Hurricane" at Bud's site, BudBuckley.com.
Below is the ActoInterview with Bud. Enjoy.
1. On your site you list a wide variety of influences, ranging from 60 and 70s artists like the Beatles and Joni Mitchell to contemporary artists like Foo Fighters and Barenaked Ladies. Are you influenced at all by artists outside of mainstream rock/pop music? Or do you focus entirely on such melodic music?
I do a lot of the tunes you mentioned because it's what is expected in the places I play. I can't really identify any influences in the music on my CD. It just came from my heart and my experiences. I love to explore people who catch my ear and see what it is about the structure of the music that entices me. Lately I've taken an interest in Damien Rice for his melodies. Nickel Creek is another that I find interesting. My lyrics come completely from what I run into. I've co-written some lyrics with friends whose writing I admire. The music always comes after the lyrics for me and it takes a quite a bit of time. I know the influence question is a favorite but that's the best I can do. I hope I just sound like me.
2. You joke on your web site that you almost wet yourself when you first performed in front of people. Do you still get nervous?
I never get that nervous anymore. It doesn't scare me to perform. I'm more comfortable in some situations than others, of course. If it's an audition situation, there is a lot more tension. Yoga has helped me stay focused most of the time and I get over those rough moments where I might be thinking instead of feeling. Being nervous is just a head trip that can be replaced with a more useful head trip.
3. How long did it take you before you had the confidence to share your original songs with other people?
It came pretty quickly because I was rushed into it on a kind of a dare from Helen Avakian, my guitar teacher. She promised to perform at my school if I would write a song and perform with her. I had six weeks to put that together. But then it took me a year to write another one in the same situation at school with Helen when I did a good-bye concert as I was retiring. After, that, though, I dove into song writing and started performing them every chance I got. These days I sprinkle covers in between my own to get the audience feeling like they're on familiar ground. Once somebody requests one of your own, you're pretty confident. It takes time to get original work familiar enough to a regular audience before they'll ask, though. For people starting out, I highly recommend becoming a regular at every open mic you can find. Play your songs over and over to gain confidence and to let your song and your performance evolve. People will start asking you for their favs and you'll take a quantum leap in your confidence levels.
4. You comment on your site that you've come around to embracing music theory. How dependent are you on music theory when writing songs?
I'm very dependent on music theory in the music writing process. And the more I play with the theory, the more I learn about how you can "break the rules" and still come up with something interesting. I love to play with alternate chords. If I can find a way to start on a second or third instead of the one chord, I get pretty pumped. I like to experiment with minors where you would expect the major, flat sevens, out of the box chords, inversions. I like to hunt for melodies that don't begin on the triad notes of the chord. I love to hunt for riffs in harmonic intervals of sixths and tenths. It astounds me that there are people who have been highly successful at doing all of that stuff without knowing any theory at all. But for me, knowing it, takes me down other allies I never would have risked. Sight reading music notation is something that I've consciously put off because I waited too long. I think it's a very important skill to gain if it is a reasonable goal for you. I started too late in life. I can read enough to learn a tune but I don't sight read. The other extreme is that many very well trained student musicians that I know are so sheet music dependent, they couldn't improvise a note if you threatened to kill their dogs and cats. That's a pity. I hope they learn to break that fear. Some of them are going to prestigious music colleges this year. I hope that helps.
5. In addition to being a performer, you're a guitar teacher. What's the most important thing guitarists just starting out should remember to help ensure that they progress well as a student?
The most important thing for a student or anybody that hopes to succeed in life, is to have a set of clearly articulated goals. Goals that are high but reasonable. You have to write them down in the long term, medium term and short term. And you have to consult them every day to stay on the path toward your goals. If you do that and you revise them when necessary, you will always be successful. If you operate like that it isn't even necessary for me to tell you that you have to practice every day. That will just be a given. When practice seems like drudgery you need to have some fun stuff to play. Eventually you start trying bits of the stuff you're practicing in the fun stuff. I insist that my students pick a song they really want to learn that is within their reach. And we start there. Then I try to find songs with the same chords or techniques that they like. Build on the fun stuff. That's my method. But you still have to practice technique so you can play it. ++
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