Admin Rudolf Wagner
AdminForum Replies Created
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Hi David,
Maybe you’ve already seen it but we answered your question in our latest Q&A video (minute 10:30)
https://test2.monalisa-twins.com/music-industry-part-2-q-a/
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Hi Mike,
To keep the rules consistent and the same for all, please do not post your own songs if they aren’t somehow MLT related.
Others have refrained from doing so to comply with the forum rules so it wouldn’t be fair to make exceptions now. If you have formed friendships here with which you’d love to share your music with and possibly collaborate, please do so through other means than the forum.We think it’s amazing that so many people here are musicians themselves so we’re glad to have this “problem” but we still hope you understand that we gotta have some forum rules to keep things peaceful and topic related 🙂
Thanks!
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If I am wearing jeans, I always have some spare picks in my back pocket because chances are, I will drop quite a few of them during a live show!
And if I reach back and find that they are empty, the panic stricken look on my face normally results in Mona or our bass player quickly handing me one of their spares. 😉
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Hi Roger,
That photo must have happened after the recording and filming for our “Wish You Were Here” cover: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JSUV9HqoKvo
It’s quite the emotional song so neither of us were in an overly jolly mood during the shoot (usually there’s a lot of laughing, stupid jokes and being silly) so perhaps that got captured in that photo … or perhaps I was staring into space trying to remember the next verse which is equally possible. 🙂
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Hi Diana!
Surprisingly we still earn the most through CD and Download sales (especially the CD part is surprising to us) along with the regular contributions of everyone here at the MLT Club. But in the end it’s a mix of everything that keeps us afloat, really.
We’ve created enough streams to be able to focus on bigger projects which is a liberating feeling and one that has been years in the making. The Club is playing a major part in this and all of you (I am pointing the finger at you, Diana, and everyone reading this ;-)) are quite directly responsible for us being able to do this full time.
YouTube, streaming revenue, ticket sales, merchandise, licensing deals … is all nice when it happens but the MLT Club and music sales make the lion’s share.
It paid off to think outside the box here, and while it’s a lot of work it’s also so incredibly fun and satisfying to make our own journey happen in that way, also financially speaking 🙂
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Hi Lynn,
You deserve a round of applause for sticking with it for 4 months alone, that’s great! Keep at it just a little longer and we’re sure you’ll soon fly through those chord changes like a pro. We’re looking forward to the day when we get to hear your cover of “I Don’t Know Birds That Well” but take your time 🙂
The longer you keep playing the more you’ll find those little tricks of changing chord positions and some you won’t even have to think about anymore.
Starting off, we struggled with barre chords as much as the next person. F was the devil!
These days we know enough to be able to modify any chord to a position that works with our hands and type of playing. Very rarely do you have to play a chord in a position that’s really hard. There are always many ways to play the same chord. 🙂
Hard chord progressions? The first thing that came to mind was our original “I Wanna Kiss You”. It recorded in a way where I jump all over the fretboard so whenever we played that live I had to spend a full day trying to relearn that pattern. It was more of a mental challenge than in my hand but I think that counts, too!
Good luck for the rest of your journey!
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Hi Bill!
You are right, the bridge is quite often the tricky bit of a song, especially if we start working on it once the rest of the song is already completely finished. It’s a bit like “Alright, what we have so far is quite good, now we need to add another part without ruining it all”! 🙂So yes, your guess is quite accurate there, and it sometimes takes us a few tries to get a bridge right.
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Hi Bill!
You are right, the bridge is quite often the tricky bit of a song, especially if we start working on it once the rest of the song is already completely finished. It’s a bit like “Alright, what we have so far is quite good, now we need to add another part without ruining it all”! 🙂So yes, your guess is quite accurate there, and it sometimes takes us a few tries to get a bridge right.
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Haha, the horse story! Yes, we once were staying on a campsite in Croatia where they offered horse riding excursions through the countryside. We must have been 6 or 7 at the time and dad let us sign up for a trip which we were really excited about.
While we were getting the horses ready, for whatever reason, I got it in my head that the horse they assigned to me was evil. It had a certain angry look about it and it scared me to death.
So I talked myself into a panic attack of some sort, freaked out for about an hour for no real reason and refused to join the trip. Dad found it funny which only made me more angry. 😉 When I finally calmed down I joined a different riding group than Lisa (because they had already taken off) but still with the same horse – and as it turned out my horse was the sweetest, most well behaved horse out of the whole group!
So it turns out, I was wrong. Not my proudest moment. Maybe there is a “don’t judge a book by its cover” lesson in there or perhaps I just don’t know horses that well.
The “Hey Bulldog” story is funny. Thank god you didn’t dance to Helter Skelter or god knows what might have happened!
Always keep dancing! 😉
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Only today we’ve been talking about how much we’re looking forward to iced coffee and tea again!
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I love that this song was a collaboration between George Harrison and Ringo!
It’s not a song we would have chosen, or rather … there are a lot of songs out there that we’d rather do 🙂 -
Hi Jacki!
Funnily enough the answer to who we would love to write songs with wouldn’t be much different to who we’d love to share a stage with.
Most of our favourite musicians/singers were also amazing songwriters 🙂Of course my number one answer would be Lennon & McCartney. The most incredible songwriting duo there ever was. Only yesterday did we tune in to a livestream by Paul McCartney in which he talked a lot about the songwriting dynamic between him and John. How they would balance and regulate each other’s weaknesses and the healthy competitive and collaborative spirit they had going on.
Especially now that we’re neck-deep into writing our own music again, getting a sneak peek into the creation of some of the world’s greatest masterpieces would be amazing. How did it start, what was the original spark and how did these songs develop into what they turned out to be.
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Hi Brian,
What a flattering question, thanks a lot!
I’ll try to answer it as best as I can but I also feel like I need to emphasise that we are probably much less perfect than your post suggests. 😉 Especially on the internet, it’s easy to present yourself in the best way possible – you just don’t post the things that emphasise your flaws … of which we have as many as the next person.I also think that some of what you mention has to do with our upbringing. For example, we grew up in a family where looks, physical things and money were much less important than dreams, honesty and integrity, and we grew up on curiosity and an open mind which I think is the driving force for learning and becoming a better person.
We’ve tried to live by those values to various degrees of success over the years, but I think fundamentally a lot of the virtues you list stem from our upbringing as well as through learning by falling on our faces quite a few times. 😉
Anyway, thanks for the compliments, we’ll try to continue to make as many people’s days as best as possible and for as long as we can! 🙂
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At the time we shot this video we worked quite closely with a promoter and the dog was his. His name is Adrian Monk and he was being a really good boy helping us out in the music video 🙂
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Hi Ed!
The drums were the first instrument I picked up, quite a few years before I ever touched a guitar. It started off with a family friend giving me some lessons when I was around 10 years old and I absolutely loved it – it was definitely my first passion when it comes to making music. I just soon found out that it wasn’t ideal for singing (I’d drown myself out without a microphone) so I started taking guitar lessons too. 😉
I play a great Ludwig kit these days with mainly Zildjian cymbals but I started off learning on a super cheap £200 set which we bought from a supermarket chain back in Austria. I loved it just the same even though the cymbals were complete rubbish, objectively speaking. I couldn’t have cared less!
To answer your second question … Both of us have occasionally helped out on percussion in some brass orchestras and marching bands that were local to where we grew up. We’ve also sang with them a few times and were part of a choir that would do everything from contemporary to more traditional songs. Oh, and we’ve definitely learned and performed a handful of classical guitar pieces over our student years!
Jazz is something we’ve watched others play live many times but to do it on a high level, it would require a set of skills which we have never invested much time into learning. So we’d never dare jumping in with a jazz band but we like to incorporate elements from pretty much all genres into our original music.
Thanks for the question!
Mona
