Marco Rodi

Ok. my decision is made. I’m dropping out of music university. This year has been a really important period of my life because I spent like 8 months trying to find myself, find who I really am, what I really want. And that made me realise many many interesting things.

I’m a self thought bassist. not a musician student.
I play with soul and feel. not with scales and notes.
Bass is my hobby, my passion and my happiness. not my job.
I only play when I feel like, and that is around 2 hours per day. not 10 hours.
I do my art for myself. not for other people.

I completely hate musical education. It kills my creativity, it makes me think to much, teachers are trying to transform myself into a musician I don’t like.

Every single stuff I did with music was by myself. I don’t give credits to anyone. I learned it by experimenting bass alone in my room and listening to 102910920 or records and watching 129012901 of videos.

I dont want to be a musical composer because I can and want only play bass. I don’t care about writing cello violin parts to an orchestra, that’s not my thing.

Bass is my hobby and Computers is my work job and my income. hehe

So I’m going to get a diploma in computer Engineering and still bass play when I get home, like I always did.

At least I tried, I’ll have no regrets. I forced myself to learn music, to learn what teachers say, to try to learn how to read, how to write, try to understand scales and modes… it’s just not my type of stuff.

My bass playing comes from my head and own little world inside of me. And no one will tell me how to play.

Peace.

Marco

Wow it’s been 1 month I didin’t write any blog. Sorry everybody! I’ve been really busy this past month with school and other stuff.

So you all know I am studying Electroacoustic Music in University of Montreal. And I have this course of Musical Programmation. That is keeping me busy hehehe. Just to give you an exemple of what I have to do, I have to Program the word ALELUIA. So there is no voice clip, no recording, I have to program it by myself with the correct Amplitude, Frequency, Length with a software called Csound.

Ok now let’s talk about Bass. I posted a while ago one of my newest compositions: Undiscovered Color. I’m really happy with it. I didin’t finish it, there are 1 part of improv but it is coming to the end hehe.

Many ideas are coming out of my 4 string instrument for my next solo bass album. With my busy schedule, I still find time to find cool bass lines hehe.

I don’t know if you saw it but I did a video 2 years ago for a school project and at that time, we didin’t have music for it… so 2 years later, I picked up the video and played bass over it. Here it is: Le Duel. I have to build a sound design portfolio to apply at places after university. Like video games or movies places. Offcourse, this is my backup. My main goal is to become one of the sickest bass player on earth heheheheheheh.

My band The White Elephanto is doing great. We are doing alot of shows and it is SOOOOOOOOOO fun playing with them. We have no songs, all we do is improvisation. and we always invite some cool musicians to jam with us: Sax, Rappers, Percussionist, Pianist etc.

I know I’m late but I’m really stuck on Jimi Hendrix recently. That guy was a pure genius. I can’t believe it how brilliant he was. At his time, most people didin’t understand him… he was at least 10 years over everybody musically talking. He wasen’t able to write or read music… al he did was seeing colors and shapes into his head and he tried to reproduce them on his guitar. I suggest you all to watch his cool movie. it came out last year.

Anyways, gtg to sleep byebye!

Hey all!

Ok so 3 days ago I did an awesome show at my school, Université de Montreal. It was with my Improvisation class. The band was:

2 basses
1 violin
1 violoncello
1 pianist
1 opera singer

And we had 8 minutes to improvise… that class is amazing. I think it’s my best class. I am learning so much. The teacher is showing us how to express ourselves as musicians without using notes, or melody, or rhythm… we only have to use our emotions and feel. And its making me improving like crazy on the bass. I really feel I’m starting to communicate with my bass, to tell more specific messages, to express more my emotions… i don’t know.. Before, when I was going to do a show, I was sooo stressing out.. I was like: Oh no, if I mess up? what will I do? But now, I’m not really stressed anymore… Sure, I have butterflies in my stomach before, I get a bit of nervosity.. but I’m more like: I’m going onstage to speak with my instrument… THAT’S ALL. I’m really starting to understand the purpose of music. It’s not about playing a cool melody or a sick groove or a fast flashy thing.. It’s only about being true to ourselves and express our art and having a good time.

This was the room I played into, it was huuuge. The room acoustic was incredible.

Its such a great feeling.

Right now I’m doing a BAC at the Univeristy. For all of you European and Usa people, a Bac is the first grade in University. There is a BAC – MASTER and PHD.

I really want to make a Master and MAYBE a PHD. I want to make a Master in experimenting more bass capacities… I’m really fascinated in that.. My only big big big stress is.. WHAT THE HELL AM I GOING TO DO AFTER I GOT THESE DIPLOMAS. I have many ideas… My perfect choice would be: In the day I work as a Sound Designer for a video game company and at night I’m working on some records and doing some live performances… but it’s hard to enter in the Sound Designer Domain.. You really have to have a sick ass PortFolio of many movies showing the sound you integrated in it.. And I have 0 movies haha. I only have Bass stuff hehe… well, I still have 3 years to work my ass off in building a sick sound portfolio hehehehehe

Ok I’m out. I have to study a bit and practice bass for my solo bass show tonight. Ciao everyone!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Hey all!

I’m getting more and more in the improvisation world when I play with other musicians. I realized that I only like writing songs for my solo bass stuff… I don’t really like writing a BAND song. I’m improvising with alot of people these days. Me and my new band The White Elephanto are going to play our first show this Wednesday. I can’t wait. It will be really fun. Off course it will be funky experimental latino improvisation. I’m going to post some footage and pics and music of that show. It will be recorded.

I quited my old band Syrcusand Maze. I decided to quit the rock alternative scene and concentrate on funk experimental. I got tired of the heavy distortion going on. I love to listen to some rock alternative bands but I’m not playing that style anymore. I feel that when I’m playing funk or stuff like that, I feel alot more comfortable. It comes out really natural and I have so much fun. hehe.

I did a show this week with 3 wonderful musicians.
Saxophone: Yanick Coderre
Guitar: Olivier René de Cotret
Drums: Lohann Laliberté

You can listen to our crazy improvised show HERE.

I have a class in university that I have to do an electro acoustic composition. The teacher gave us that homework the first day of class and in 4 months It has to be done. For those who have no clue what electro acoustic music is, according to Wikipedia, here is the definition:

Electroacoustic compositions also often explore spatial characteristics of sound, as sounds can be given trajectories, and can be placed in distant or near fields of listening. Electroacoustic music is typically less preoccupied with the ‘traditional’ concerns of score-based music- (metric) rhythm and melody- and more concerned with the interplay of gesture and texture

So anyways, I decided to do a piece with the theme FOREST AND BASS. I will record many trees, nature, rocks sounds and will mix it some solo bass experimentation. hehehhe

ok bye Im eating some Pizza Bagel Bites.