Frankie's Marketing Blog

I talk about the Riff Raters iPhone app because I want to help build this awesomely profound community of talented musicians. I love music, in all its many wondrous shapes and forms. Yet, tragically, I do not play an instrument. Call it a lack of patience, maybe a lack of discipline. Maybe the resonating sounds from string, wood, brass, tin cans, shells and even a didgeridoo are better appreciated by some people like me, who take pleasure in the talent it takes to turn inanimate objects into gratifying vibrations for the soul, even though I should have no talent myself.

 I do not care whether it’s Reggae, Punk Rock, real Jazz, R&B, Classical, or old fashioned Rock and Roll. However, these are just names. All these crazy classifications…Post Hardcore, Post Modern, Emo. We put all this music into these categories, which nobody can really remember or classify anyway. Can you?

 Thus, being subject to merely rating and commenting on fantastic musicians uploading their musical tweets to Riff Raters, I have stumbled upon a solution for a different sound for myself to upload to the app.

I must, however, preface this first. See, I haven’t seen more than five minute doses of the sun for over a month. It’s not that I don’t go outside. I’m a surfer by nature for chrissake. This incessant rain, clouds and fog have been permeating the landscape for possibly the last two months. Every single day.

So, now I understand the musical and maybe even hallucinatory raw sounds that come from the Seattle music scene. Thus, after watching a documentary about the nations’ National Parks, and being mesmerized by a deep seated need to break away from computers, advertising, cell phones, I found my solution in nature.

My riff, will be recording the hum of the natural world of waterfalls, wind blowing through trees, birds and the overall beauty of being in solitude. It’s a marriage of technology and nature. I’ll record my scenic riff, upload and then soak in the refreshing air and sounds that lack all the technology in the wild. Invigorated, and inspired by a solution to lack of musical talent, if only for a 20 second tweet. I’ll return to work.

Because, when the sun finally comes out and dries up all this rain, I’ll be left with the stimulating words of John Muir, “Keep close to Nature’s heart… and break clear away, once in awhile, and climb a mountain or spend a week in the woods. Wash your spirit clean.”