When I was a kid we used to have our family reunions in Las Vegas. Looking back it makes me realize my family was pretty cool. We were in Texas and a lot of the rest of the relatives were in California so it was kind of a good middle spot to meet up. By the time I was actually able to gamble I had probably been to Vegas 5 or 6 times. I loved it and was always trying to find a way to covertly play the slot machines. Invariably, I would get busted and politely asked to step away from the casino area. Talk about dangling a carrot in front of a mule’s face. This was before Vegas had become the family friendly place it is these days. Fortunately, there was still stuff to do for a kid like hit the arcade.

I would have a recurring dream that I was visiting Vegas and was about to go back home, but I had forgotten to hit the casino. Once I was of age I felt it was my duty to go to Vegas enough to stop this nightmare from haunting me. Initially Blackjack was my game of choice but I moved past that pretty quickly and arrived at my game of choice: Craps. If you’ve never played, there is a bit of a learning curve, but it’s worth it. I like it for a lot of reasons including the crowd pulling together and the way the betting is structured. As an aside, this game kind of runs in my family. My grandfather bought his first house in San Bernadino, CA with winnings from a Craps game. So, needless to say, I had some good advice on how to play.

Over the years I became better at Craps, having some sizable wins. No new house purchase but still very worthy. A couple of years ago, though it started stressing me out a lot. I would go to Vegas once or twice a year and the casino part of the trip didn’t seem very vacation like to me. It felt like a job, a tough mental job. You see the way I started making more money playing was that I had learned about a betting system where I could hedge my bets. I was always fiercely protecting my initial stake and only going for the big wins when I was betting with the house’s money. This required me doing constant math in my mind which can get exhausting. There’s nothing about this that breaks any rules or laws by the way. And thankfully, I don’t have any kind of gambling issue.

I read years ago that you can do something for years for the enjoyment of it for free, but once you start getting paid for it you will start thinking of it as a “job”. More recently I’ve realized that this can require some reframing of how you look at an activity. I had to reframe the way I look at playing Craps. I still play to win but I only play when I really feel like it. When it sounds like it will be fun. Ruining something I love doing would be pretty lame.

This same line of thinking goes for playing music and I see it with some musicians. The fun has gone and only the job part remains. This is where taking a break and then rethinking why you initially wanted to make music comes into play. Exploring what made you love music in the first place and what you wanted is a good place to start. The younger, kid version of you, probably had a pretty pure vision, so take a listen to what he has to say.

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Here’s a cool trick I use to spice up guitar parts and create stuff I wouldn’t have thought of. I put my DAW (Pro Tools for me) into grid mode. I usually start with an 8’th note grid. Then I will selectively mute sections of a riff or part. You can really come up with some cool stuff rhythmically this way. One of the other things I like about this is that often I will come up with guitar parts before the vocal melody and lyrics are written. This allows me to play around with how the guitar interacts with the vocals. Muting elements in general is a great mixing trick. If your songs have every instrument playing all the time, try muting individual parts for sections of songs. For example, try muting the guitar or bass during a verse. It can add contrast to the arrangement and keep the listener engaged.

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Also, in case you didn’t know, I mix singles, EPs, and Albums for Rock and Metal bands.

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