Rob and Kal – The Human Beings

May 28th, 2010 | By Kal

Hey,

It’s been a while, and I’m sorry about that, but things are about to change!

I’ve written in the past about inspiration. From the “what ifs” of household names not meeting their muse, to what and who inspired me. Well last night, Rob and I attended a seminar. Oh, did I just say that? Yeah, I think I did. Rob and I went into London and spent three hours (it flew by!) in the company of all forms of the music industry, and one Ariel Hyatt (@cyberpr).

But why would uber-cool musicians like ourselves (of course), and the musicians, songwriters, managers, marketers and publicists who were also present at PRS HQ last night, attend a seminar? Well prior to yesterday, we might have been embarassed to tell you, but we were there to learn and discuss how to get better at what we do.

And it makes sense. In all walks of life, if you want to succeed at something, you strive to become better at it, and last night, we heard from truly one of the best. Ariel Hyatt runs a PR company called Ariel Publicity, has done so for 15 years and for the last 6 of those has worked with artists exclusively through the internet. Last night she took us on a journey through social media and the internet and how it can be used to market yourself and communicate with your fans; and that one sentence cannot do justice to how much we learnt.

Why would I have been embarassed to tell you all this before last night? That doesn’t fit in with the tell-all style of Mubla 2.0, does it? Well, before last night, Rob and I had always tried to be Rob and Kal the musicians. Did you know we both have full time jobs? That I was in hospital recently because I seriously injured my knee? Glamorous stuff, huh?

I love doing what we do, making music and getting to know new people so why not add us on twitter (@robandkal) or on facebook (www.facebook.com/robandkal), and if you’re there with us already, drop me a line, say whatever you want, because from now on, it won’t just be Rob and Kal the musicians – meet Rob and Kal the human beings!

Stay tuned for the fruits of our inspiration! x

All I Ever Wanted – The Story So Far

December 26th, 2009 | By Kal

All I Ever Wanted is the epitome of a Rob and Kal song.  It may not be totally there yet as a sound – hey, it’s not my favourite of the 6 in the songs section – but the way it has developed is a great example of how Rob and I write music.

1) Chord Progression

The first step is for one of us to come up with a chord progression.  For All I Ever Wanted, it was me.  I remember randomly playing around with the guitar in my room at university and hearing the chords.  Rob and I were in different cities at the time, so I recorded the chords using a cheap computer microphone and sent the audio over to him.

2) “Making a song of it”

The next step is making a song of it.  When we collaborate, this is Rob’s domain.  He’ll take the chord progression and play around with it, adding the structure to it that makes it feel like a song rather than a group of chords.  With All I Ever Wanted, I thought nothing would come of the chord progression, having just sent the chords over because that was something we did, but when we got back home after uni, Rob had created a song.

Each step of the process moves the song on, so when I heard the song, I was able to hear additions I hadn’t heard before when I was just playing a cycle of three chords. Rob had used the chord progression to make a verse and chorus, and had made up a bridge from scratch – when I heard the arrangement, I added a pre-chorus and without using any more technical language(!) that pretty much got the basics of the song to where it is today.

3) Lyrics

In the process of creating a song structure, Rob will usually add lyrics.  I assume that at first it helps him feel where the song should go and what new parts would work, and then it forms part of the song, but that would be something you’d have to ask him – he won’t tell me his secrets!

4) Switching Instruments

During a creative process, it’s hard to come up with a scientific way of working.  This whole blog is just an example of an approach that has worked a few times, but many developments occur “by accident”.  This next step is an example of these accidents that we have now started to use.

Rob and I play both guitar and piano, and as is only natural, we each have different strengths on each instrument.  We use this to our advantage by learning potential song ideas on both instruments.  Then as we get used to playing it on both instruments we naturally come up with some additions that occur to us on the guitar and some that are easier on the piano.  This step keeps on cycling around until we know all of the additions and extras on both instruments and so it continues.

This was a significant step for All I Ever Wanted.  As you can tell, this song idea stayed a song idea for a long time because we were unable to get it to sound right.  It involved a lot of to-ing and fro-ing between guitar and piano – you can even see that happening really recently as version 1 was piano based and version 2 is guitar based, which we think sounds better.

5)  Record

Next step, you guessed it, we record the song idea in the studio.  It’s hard to accept, but at this stage, what we record may not please us, but it will allow us to draw on our most powerful resource…

6) YOU!

As soon as we’ve recorded the tracks, we put them up in our Songs Section where you give your thoughts.  This really is the bit that helps us, be it to suggest radical changes, or just to polish off a song at the end of the creative process – it’s great to get other perspectives on the music.

With All I Ever Wanted, we definitely responded to comments that the songs sounded too samey, by basing it around the acoustic guitar, and we’re glad you like the harmonies in the song, but we want more of your views.  Tell us what you think and rate everything about the song with out new 5 star rating system – that way, we can get a feel for what works and what doesn’t and maybe you’ll come up with that idea that we didn’t think of that fits the song perfectly.

Well Done David Haye

November 8th, 2009 | By Kal

I’d like to congratulate David Haye who last night slew the giant to become the Heavyweight champion of the world.

This may not be strictly music related, but we watched the fight last night and it was nice to see a Bermondsey boy achieve great success, particularly as Rob and I were both born a stone’s throw (2 miles) away from him in Greenwich, South East London.

As it says in our about us section, “Rob and Kal” only met when we went to the same secondary school at age 11, but we were born two months and three days apart in the same hospital in Greenwich.  It seems strange to say it, but Haye’s age, charisma, his status leading up to the fight as the “David” in the David and Goliath scenario and his hometown really allowed me to really identify him – and he proves that the dream is possible.

It’s always nice to see that if you work hard enough and are constantly looking to improve, you can get there.  Quite literally the Hayemaker has demonstrated that if life knocks you down, you get back up stronger.

Anyway, enough of the clichés, I’m definitely going to try and get to his home coming fight in the new year.  It looks like that South East London boy will be selling out the O2 before this one!

Inspiration

September 25th, 2009 | By Kal

Behind every good man there’s a good woman. You’ve heard the mantra before.  Is it true?  Well, you tell me, but maybe it’s true in terms of inspiration.

Yesterday, I started thinking about what inspires me to write music.  There were lots of things – a really bad day, a really good day, interesting people, lyrics inspiring me to write a tune and vice versa.  And yes, sometimes members of the opposite sex. This got me on to thinking, “what if?”.

Some say it’s a very difficult question, others a very pointless one, but what if the inspiration had never appeared in certain people’s lives? Things like, it might be pretty important and while we wouldn’t all be floating around, what if that apple hadn’t fallen on Newton’s head.

Music-wise though. What if those women had never accused MJ of being the father of their children? or if John had never met Yoko – but then some would argue that, rightly or wrongly, that wouldn’t be such a bad thing anyway.

So maybe it’s a case of being the right person, in the right place at the right time?  Or would the great artists have just written about something else?

I hope that wasn’t too abstract!