Guest Blog: Australian Instrumental Guitar Rockers MYOORA List Five Must-Do’s for New Bands

Myoora are a two-piece instrumental guitar rock group from the sunny shores of Sydney, Australia. A duo of two Daniels – Pinto (22) and Nesci (16!) – these guys write all the intricate, dazzling guitar parts themselves and source other musicians to flesh out the remaining instruments under the general guidance of the partnering axe-players. Referencing influences like The 1975 and Bring Me The Horizon, Myoora has a dense and spiralling take on modern guitar rock that is filled with echoes of metal, experimental and math rock, and prog/post rock.

The band released their debut EP, Moon Grotto (stream it on BandCamp), in March of this year, and their newest single, “Skyward” (available on Spotify, Apple Music and Google Play), just dropped on July 26th. As this young group continues to hone their already razor-sharp sound, they join us for a guest blog to run down five must-do’s for every new band. Check out their rad tunes, support their burgeoning artistry, and read on for their insider guidelines for your next musical project.

Look “Skyward,” but try not to look directly into the sun.

01. Focus on the Music
– Music is a very interesting career path. Today especially, music is interesting because it is no longer just about having quality music. At one point, having quality music was the sole ingredient in order to have a fruitful career in music, but today, social media, who you know and marketing are also equally important to success within music. What begins to be lost on musicians is that “grind” attitude of having music out quickly and constantly in order to market themselves and push hard on social media, and eventually settling for the “yeah that will do” and “no one will notice” way of writing music. It’s not necessarily bad music, but it’s not as refined and high quality as it could have been.

It’s really important for bands, especially new bands, to focus on the music. At the end of the day, the music is what people are listening to and what people are buying, but it’s also what enables new bands and musicians to go through the process of marketing, having a social media presence and actually having the opportunity to meet new people within the industry. FOCUS ON THE MUSIC; make sure you are putting your mind 100% in the creation and cultivation of the music you intend to release. There is nothing worse than a release that is rushed, not recorded properly and not made with 100% effort. New bands focusing solely on the music are more likely to succeed because their product will be of a higher quality than a band that worries about extraneous things.

The artwork for the debut, Moon Grotto:

02. Hire the Right People! You Don’t Have to Be Good at Everything!
– There is a misconception amongst musicians, especially new musicians, that in order to record and release your own music you have to be talented and gifted at everything. The reality is, you don’t have to be the best at everything! As a matter of fact, we believe it’s better to just focus on what you are passionate about – in our case, the guitar and songwriting – and leave the rest to other musicians who are equally as passionate in their chosen instrument. Saying this, it is still important to have some understanding of how to program drums and other midi instruments, so you can send a reference/demo tracks to other musicians. For us, we have done this for every release so far and will continue to do so for every subsequent release. It’s amazing how much our ideas are improved just by collaborating with other musicians. I can’t say that we have ever been disappointed with what a musician or producer has done with our songs and that is because we spent the money and hired the right people!

Adding to this point, for all guitarists out there, it is extremely important to know how to properly track guitar. This will make a huge difference in the overall quality of your release. If the guitar is poorly tracked, it is not possible to fix everything in the mix and it will stick out like a sore thumb; talking to our producer friends they believe that 90% of issues within guitar mixes could be solved in tracking. We highly recommend hiring someone who is experienced with tracking to oversee the project as well as just having another unbiased set of ears; sometimes musicians don’t want to hear about the issues in their music. For us, this has made us realize what our limitations were as guitarists, and, as a result, we were both able to refine our technique. Technique is key to having a great sounding mix!

Check this impressive playthrough video for the title track, “Moon Grotto” (ft. Stephen Taranto):

03. It’s OK to Not Have a Perfect Release
– When bands form together, especially for the first time, for a first release there is this premise that a release should and has to be perfect, but, in fact, a release should simply be something that the artist is satisfied with. Artists with the best releases are the ones that make music that they themselves like; they don’t make it to please others. Those that get stuck in the ideal of having the perfect release will have more barriers throughout the actual process of creating the release, and eventually the satisfaction is lost and the enjoyment dissipates.

Music is meant to be something cathartic, peaceful and passionate; making something that you as a band can be satisfied with is more important than having tunes that you think the fans and general audience will like. Perfect releases simply don’t exist, so it is pointless to try and achieve that. Bands should be aiming to release music that challenges themselves as musicians and, especially for new bands, it should be about cultivating their sound and going through the learning curve of creating songs, EPs, albums etc. to begin with, not attempting to make perfection.

“Skyward“ is out now on all major streaming services.

04. Save up for Quality Gear
– I think it’s fair to say most people have started their musical journey on a cheap inexpensive instrument that was hard to play and pretty uninspiring. Both of us are guitar teachers and still continue to teach weekly. We see it all too often where students are stuck playing rock songs on the typical classical guitar, with no enthusiasm or excitement. It is true that you don’t need good gear to learn an instrument, however, If you’re planning on taking the step to becoming a professional artist, having good gear will make the process of recording and the fuel for constant inspiration a million times easier.

For guitarists, having a guitar that is poorly made will affect tuning and playability. We are not saying that you shouldn’t start on cheaper instruments, but we believe there is a positive correlation between a good quality instrument and enjoyment and inspiration, which is what music is really about. For us, an example would be the purchasing of our Axe FX II and Aristides/Strandberg guitars – we didn’t need them to make music, but we needed them to keep inspired and, as we will touch on later, that is just so important. Go the extra mile and save just that bit extra so you can do it right from the get-go, and you will find yourself learning and progressing much faster. Although it is up to the player to make the gear sound good, it really does take two to tango!

Here’s a behind-the-scenes look at the guys tracking their upcoming EP2:

05. Stay inspired and Don’t Burn Out
– There are usually two main barriers for artists writing new music and aspiring artists attempting to write music – inspiration and burning out. Both are equally important as each other, but are very different. Inspiration is a very mental thing for musicians and artists alike, and keeping inspired can come from the other things going on within our lives, confidence in one’s ability and being in new environments that open our minds to ideas we never thought we would have. Keeping inspired, especially for a new band, is vital as the early stages of writing and releasing are often the hardest and most strenuous endeavours of becoming an artist.

As you continue to learn and mature, the physical process of writing and recording becomes easier, but the inspiration to fuel your work may not necessarily be there. We encourage musicians to try new things and experience new things to allow their view of the world around them to expand. It will amaze you how much the events around us psychologically affect what we as musicians produce and, whether life is inspiring us positively or negatively, that comes out in the music. It’s better to have some form of inspiration for your art than to not have inspiration at all. Keep things fresh and exciting.

The second of these barriers is being burnt out. This is probably the easiest problem to encounter and the hardest to recover from. Burning out within music is easy, it most often comes from constantly working and never resting. New musicians and bands need to make sure that they spend time doing other things not related to music as well. Spend time with partners, families or any other past-times that can help you refuel. By resting during the music creation process, bands and individuals are often able to produce much better quality music as there is less stagnation caused by overworking. Burning out can sometimes last for days, weeks and months and can result in groups becoming jaded towards something they truly had a passion for at one point. Resting = better results. Burning out = nothing.

Listen to Myoora “Divulge” on this one: