- Jan 5, 2024
2023 was a truly remarkable year for me. I feel like my life has finally fully out from the shadow of the pandemic and I've really been living my 20s to the fullest!
It was a year of exciting beginnings for me- I feel like I've really started to turn the page on a new chapter. So many of the personal and professional developments that happened for me between 2019 and 2022 have finally started to reach some sense of resolution, and I'm able to look fondly on that time, what it meant for me, and how it's shaped the trajectory of my life.
I can't wait to see what 2024 brings! Things in my life are looking very good right now, and I can't wait to see how everything develops!
I know that outside my little bubble things are looking rather scary, and I'd be lying if I said some of the anxiety floating around the world right now has not been creeping into my music. I have a lot to write about, and I don't see myself stopping work on new songs anytime soon ❤️
- Dec 21, 2023
Sometimes I need to remind myself that I don't know everything. I think it's healthy and important to live a lifestyle that challenges you and asks you to grow. The most significant period of artistic growth I had as a musician happened when I decided to swallow whatever pride I thought I had, and start seeking more information and watching a TON of dopey tutorials and how to actually use all the plugins and tools I'd been messing around with for so long.
Matisse talks about how, as an artist, you should be open to studying and learning, but to always remember and guard your original naive ideas (because theres usually some magic in them). Sometimes it can feel like diving into a lot of serious heady lessons about your craft will somehow dilute your genius and make you more like everyone else... but this simply isn't true. You want to make what you want to make, and you always will. It's important to remember that when you truely learn to use a tool, you are NOT learning to craft a specific thing. Your creation will always be yours, and all the interesting problem solving you've always done (that thing that "makes you sound like you") will still be there. You won't forget how to do it. You will simply understand better what "it" is that you are doing. It's never to late to learn something new, or let yourself be taught something you think you already know. You'll only continue to grow, and you'll only get better at making your thing as time goes on.
A few months ago I came across a 10 hour masterclass on compression, made available totally for free on youtube... I've been meaning to watch it, and this week I've finally started diving in. As tempting as it is to skip around (because the basic concepts certainly aren't new to me), I've decided to commit myself to watching the course from front to back, and take notes- treating it like I would any other academic course. So far, I haven't learned anything particularly new or enlightening, but it's been nice to have a bit of refresher, and see how another person organizes and presents basic information about how a compressor works. I feel like I really should watch it all the way through, because (frankly) I don't know what I don't know. There honestly could be something super foundational that I've just always overlooked, or never been shown. Honestly, some of the basic principals, like "how/when/why we apply makeup gain," and "how many milliseconds constitutes a 'fast' attack" have been nice to see explained so clearly. I find myself saying "yes- that's correct, that's exactly what I would do" but realizing I've never thought about it in these exact terms or with this much clarity of intention. Watching tutorials always makes me excited to jump back into mixing, but at the same time frustrated that all my old mixes could have sounded so much better if only I knew then what I know now...
This is the course I'm currently working through, I encourage anyone interested in a lot more about compression to watch it! I'm really enjoying it so far!
- Dec 14, 2023
I'll be honest. I should be working on the remaining mixes for Invertebrate Waltz... but instead, my head's been in a very different place over the last few weeks.
A few months ago, I had it in my head that I wanted to write a song for someone by Christmas... But writing a song for someone (with that person as an intentional and singular audience) is a very strange and ugly task, and it's not something that I feel super comfortable doing as a songwriter. I think it's kind of a psycho move, to be honest- to just say "Hi, I wrote you a song. Here it is! appreciate it. 🤗 " Frankly, I don't think it ever ends well. People are fickle and complicated things, and there's just way too much to consider. My feelings (the kind that I muck around with when I'm writing) are seldom something I feel clearly about. The recipient of that song also then evaluates and inevitably uses it to inform what they think you think about them... and that's a lot of pressure to put on a song! I don't know about you, but I seldom think my songs precisely and perfectly say what I want originally thought I wanted them to say.
A friend suggested to me that I record a cover of a holiday song instead, so I started practicing and recording that... and it quickly snowballed into a full mix/ arrangement. Ultimately I don't think it came together quite like I'd hoped. But, as I was working on that mix, I started to get back into the swing of mixing and recording demos. I knew I had a lot of songs piling up from all the attempts at writing a song for someone as a gift, so I started recording and tinkering with a few of those...
This week I wrote one more, and suddenly I start to see another album taking shape. I don't think any of the individual songs is quite the singular song I originally wanted to write, but I can tell there's something good here, and something does start to emerge from the conglomerate that is sort of right.
Last night, after I recorded a demo for what I expect to be the final track on that collection, I took a minute to think about what exactly this new project is trying to say. I don't think I have all the answers yet (often the broader themes of the work emerge over time/ as you step away and view everything as a whole) but I realized that I am definitely NOT writing this FOR someone. That's never been how I work. Many of my projects start with a particular person or relationship in mind, but I think the project is like firing a gun next to them, rather than at them. Thinking back to some of my earliest complete songs, this has been a theme of how and when I feel creatively inspired to make music.
My songs aren't always nice - they are often quite critical. Sometimes critical of me, and my relationship with my feelings surrounding a situation, and other times critical of someone else, and their relationship with their emotions or actions. I think this creates conflict in my songs and helps give them a reason to exist. It gives me a reason to want the song to exist in the first place. It helps me discover/identify and give a voice to things in my life that create difficult or strange emotions.
If I had to try (flailing, like a newborn baby trying to turn experiences into words for the first time) to articulate the theme/ concept of this collection of music right now... I would say it's about looking forward to a certain vision of the future. It's about having hope, and being excited for things to come, while also feeling fearful and anxious about the unknown. It's about how strange it is to believe in a particular future- comitting (in the present) to something that has not happened yet but intends to change your whole life. It's about the exciting potential in something new and unproven. It's about what it feels like to want to cash in favors in the pursuit of something new- to cross things off, spend some savings, and pack up your old life for something exciting and new! It's about understanding the soupy mix of fear, excitement, and dread of putting yourself in a situation where things will be very different for you. It's about the glorious, difficult, and anxious anticipation of actually doing something that might change your life.
I'm excited to see where this project goes. At the moment, it's hard not to let it eclipse Invertebrate Waltz a bit...