mikeshinoda.com

MUSIC TRAINING?
Posted by HarryHeadbanger – Did you ever took any kind of training in music before LP ? Or you have learned everything by your own ?
M: I took about 10 years of piano, then learned keyboards, guitar, and bass on my own. I started rapping when I was about 12, imitating my favorite songs (Run DMC, Beastie Boys, Public Enemy). I was also in a choir group for a number of years. I’m still trying to learn drums. They take a lot of practice.

ART TECHNIQUES
Posted by kimCHEE, Zuzaca – hey mike, could you like, teach us more art techniques? im totally dyin to learn from you.
M: That’s a good idea. I’ve been doing a TON of painting recently. In fact, I have a big art announcement coming in a couple of days…

NEW DIVIDE
Posted by PinkyLouloulp – I wanted to know if New Divide is a continuation of What Iv’e Done. I’m asking this because a lot of people seem to think that the sound is very similar and since you guys wrote it for the second Transformers movie it seems like a sequel.
M: We didn’t intend for it to be a “sequel,” but I can see why some people might think it is. I’ve seen some people on message boards making a big deal of trying to draw a line between the two songs; it seems a little over-dramatized. The two songs have a few things in common: Transformers, similar key, and tempo. There are also a few things that set them apart: the most obvious is the bridge and intro of “New Divide”…but also the song structure (the new one has a structure that we have never used in any song before, which uses a half-second chorus. The verses and chorus are also a longer format than most of our songs…which makes the song length about 4:30), and instrumentation (there are tons of differences in the instruments and sounds we used). I think they sound like two different songs with a few things in common.

mike

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