The fine line between ambitious & maniacal

[peace 7]

it's called bipolar disorder/psychosis; otherwise known as creativity. most great artists have it. It is your most important tool, yet it can seriously ruin you. It can lead you to suicidal thoughts. it isn't rational. You need to learn to channel it, for you will never truly control it. Sometimes I wish I was just another average joe not plagued by pointless artistic visions, yet alas, I am not, and never will be. You have to give up everything, choose the path of the suffering artist, and stick with it. Much pain and failure awaits. Honestly it isn't clear that any cathartic point of completion and peace lies on the horizon. ja, so ist das leben.

This is a pretty good opening voice-over for a film.

[MisterE]

Funny that you used (three times in a row) a flawed taunt that comes from an 80s video game, where Guile the winner instructs Chun Li the loser (clearly a girl) to be a family _man_, while at the same time you have mistaken 'piece' and 'peace' in your profile description.

it's a quote. someone else said it (about me). so "[sic]"

[Guest skibby]

"strawberry fields, nothing is real, and nothing to get on about, strawberry fields forever." -john lennon

[Lane Visitor]

ZoeB, on 16 Aug 2013 - 09:15 AM, said:

 

Leon Sumbitches, on 16 Aug 2013 - 08:36 AM, said:

@ZoeB, what sort of thing are you writing?

 

It's a story about a lesbian hacker in Hong Kong and how she brings down a monopolistic telecoms corporation to avenge her friend's death, basically. I had a very vague idea for the setting many, many years ago, but it was only in December last year that I finally started actually writing it. The prose short story version has been rejected by a few sci-fi magazines so far, but I'm not too concerned about that as I've been furiously writing and rewriting the screenplay adaptation of it (presumably also to be rejected), which is much better, albeit missing all the semi-poetic descriptions. If nothing else comes of it, at the bare minimum I'll adapt it again, into a comic book script, and send that to my artist to draw. I realise it's a pretty niche story and am quite happy if it's not that popular, I just want to finish it and make it the best it can be, then move on to the next project.

 

Anyway, the combination of the push factor of realising I'd incorrectly produced a bunch of tracks in a soundtrack towards the end of last year, and the pull factor of really enjoying writing this story, conspired to make me stop making music for a while, to write instead. Now I'm working on another soundtrack, so I need to switch back again, but I'm getting far too excited about this script to stop now. I need to finish it while I'm still enthusing about it and constantly thinking about it. That's when you know you're onto something good.

Anyway, sorry for the self indulgent, off topic infodump. :) Yes, it's hard to find the time to balance all these different outlets of creativity, especially while holding down a day job.

 

 

 

Zoe, regarding this and your first post,

 

First, I would love to read/watch something like that. The Cyberpunk/neo-noir/sci-fi thriller/puzzle/action/horror niche is something I can never get enough of. Tokyo, hacking, evil corporation, righteous badass lesbian protagonist. damn, im sold! What's funny is that lately, I've been delving into that whole cyberpunk/future city realm for musical inspiration, and I've started conceptualizing a solo album around some of those themes mixed with some of my previous visions/dreams that I've had that I've always wanted to do something with, and I'm really stoked on it. Started writing lyrics, and a few melodies here and there, but I'm not rushing it, gonna let is simmer. Well, actually, I can't rush it, since I have other major projects in front of me at the moment, including ...

 

the gargantuan 6-year-in-the-works album that seems to never get finished...

 

We're in final mixing phase now, but we seemed to have stumbled into one of those curves where the closer to the end we get, the harder it is/longer it takes to complete... there's a name for that in math/statistics, i think, can't quite remember right now. I fear that I've stumbled into a mindset where the "mixes will never be complete". If I can't get them pro-sounding, there not good enough. And then i realize, well, that's a dog chasing it's own tail, cuz I'm not a pro-engineer, and I don't even have a treated room. So, I end up realizing that and back up and say to my self, "okay, this is as good as it's gonna get mixing it on my own", and I listen back and I say "damn, this is actually fucking GOOD". But then, there's the well.. it's good.. .but if I just tweak this one more thing.. I can.. get it to sound xyz... I can smooth off the transients more, I can make it have more energy in the xyz frequency region, etc etc etc etc. It's fucking maddening. I've been listening to these songs for 6 years now and when my partner and I get in the studio (my bedroom lol), it's like we've gotten these songs so imprinted in our brains, that we have absolutely no trace of even pseudo-objectivity at this point. We have have had any, but now, we absolutely KNOW we can't judge these tracks/songs/mixes ourselves. I think that's a big reason in itself, why getting this thing done and outside of my computer, where ever it ends up, is healthy from not only a creative/productivity standpoint, but also a spiritual perspective. The idea of completion.

 

Why have we taken so long? Everyone asks me that, and I scratch my head sometimes, because it's hard for me to count and list off all the reasons- excuses really, that we've sat on this. Everything from moments of having no vehicles at a certain time to having no jobs at a given time to computers, audio interfaces, hard drives, microphones, software, files break, crash, get lost, stolen-- no exageration. Sometimes, it feels like this project has been possessed by a poltergeist. We've had the person who recorded our vocals, and someone who was acting as our manager (both close dear friends) pass away in the midst of it's creation. We've gone through multiple girlfriends/break-ups, nearly left the album behind to collab with/join national artists, and the whole lot of life's circumstances that "get in the way". By now, we thought we'd have these songs out into the world and having a career in music, not still "tweaking the mixes". We've updated these songs countless times, production/sound design and mix-wise in order to update electronic production techniques, as we all know that stuff changes on the regular. Over the course of the album, we've changed mindsets, matured, moved in and out of different philosophies and outlooks on life. The album's been an experiment in the making- capturing different mindsets, time eras, styles, thoughts and visions. It's been highly creative and cathartic, but it's also been painful. As hard as it is to admit, the hardest part is letting it go, promoting it, playing it live and letting the world be the ears to judge it rather than us sitting in my room behind my monitors or testing the mixes in the car. Whether 3 people get to hear it or a whole lot, that's not necessarily the biggest reward for me. The biggest reward is simply releasing it and being able to move on to new projects- the tons and tons of other ideas I've stored up and continue to accrue on a regular basis. Without realizing these constant ideas that come to me, my soul is not doing it's purpose.

 

Phew.. well, there's that.. Do I qualify for the most pretentious post on WATMM? :D

[ZoeB]

You know, making something perfect often isn't as good as making lots of things that are very good and actually releasing them. Real artists ship. One of the things I like about AFX's music is that it isn't perfect, it's rough around the edges, with nasty digital clipping and analogue tape chewing, but that's not important, because the music itself is both good and original, and at the end of the day, people care about music a lot more than they care about production. I'll think "I like this rhythm" or "these strings really move me" much more often than I'll think "I like how this mix is clear, and not at all muddy". These days, people will probably listen to music mostly on bad earphones while riding on the subway anyway.

This kind of thing reminds me of the parable of the people learning to make pots, and those who spent a few weeks making one really well didn't learn anywhere near as much as those who made a new one each day for those same few weeks. I guess I should get back into the habit of alternating evenings between writing a silly, catchy tune and playing it on my synth, like I did for Blast Off!

Although if you really want to make something that will stand the test of time alongside, say, Dark Side of the Moon, I certainly don't want to get in the way of that.

Oh, it sounds like you might be thinking of the law of diminishing returns? It's a different context but the same kind of decay when you plot it on a graph. Then again, I have an envelope generator that produces that kind of decay too, so context probably kinda matters... :) I make a point of not collecting equalisers or compressors as most people barely notice that the mix does sound fuller or punchier, and absolutely no-one besides engineers will care which compressor you used on any given instrument or the master buss. There's a big difference between, say, spring reverb, plate reverb, basic digital reverb and convolution reverb, so by all means get all of those, but if you have more than one of each, hardly anyone will notice, let alone care about the difference. That's how I've noticed the law of diminishing returns apply to music, which is one reason I like Reason with its built-in, you're-stuck-with-them devices, and why in Reaper I only bought one set of engineering plug-ins.

 

Anyway, if you want a career in music (or anything else), I'd recommend practicing giving yourself deadlines to work to. They can be really useful to help you stop mucking around and focus on what you genuinely need to do next.

 

Oh, and regarding keeping up with trends: don't. They'll always be ahead of you. It's easier, more fun and more profitable to ignore trends altogether and do your own thing. I'm starting to develop my own musical "voice", my own style, so I can comfortably sit on albums for years before I release them, safe in the knowledge that no one else will release something similar in the meantime.

Changing your life philosophy can be great, and every time to do this, you should release more material that reflects your state at the time, so you can look back on a body of work with a healthy amount of variety in it. So you can take your first albums and reflect how naïve yet full of energy you were at the time; then put on some later ones and reflect on how you'd matured, at the cost of maybe getting a bit set in your ways. Trying to apply all these different outlooks onto the same material just makes it end up a mess that won't ever get released.

 

Please, finish this work, and move on to the next project. Then finish that too, and repeat the process until you're out of ideas. Of course, you won't be out of ideas, because you'll have practiced coming up with, and seeing to conclusion, so many new ones.

[MadameChaos]

There is a fine line between genius and madness

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/science-news/6243747/Fine-line-between-genius-and-madness-scientists-find.html

[ZoeB]

Nice find! It looks like it's referencing Genes for Psychosis and Creativity. Apparently it's good to have friends too. Oh well. :)

[Amen Lare]

It's called egomania, cured by going to a TV show.

[peace 7]

Yah, basically anyone can be an awesome genius with ridiculously groundbreaking concepts and All That Jazz, especially with enough weed and doing gymnastics on acid, but it seriously takes something special to fucking finish anything. --And to finish something great, weeell there are only a handful of people in the world who can really do that, and they all look like Danny DeVito. I can definitely live with being proudly mediocre if I don't have to look like Danny DeVito, so there's something to be said about that as well.

[awepittance]

Advice isn't that useful. It's cloud. Be vague.

 

That's advice. Sadly

 

Herzog had an interview he said over and over, just finish it. Get through it and move on. He said he could do like five films while these younger guys would get caught up on details and over thinking everything with too much footage. That's somewhat true.

 

But on the other hand look at how loveless turned out, and how it was made. Long, obsessive, total.

 

 

There is no formula, thus all advice is just the personal view of the creator. There is zero guarantee that it will suit you, really. Just because it suits them. Be true to self but grow, you have to have it on your mind. Most of my growth has happened while I was thinking over days and weeks without touching the musical equipment. Technical ability guarantees absolutely nothing. Practice and work and thought do allow you to make bigger more complex things, but in the end the moonlight sonata isn't really less great than the ninth, you know. One was a lot easier and less technical to write.

watching documentaries about filmmakers like Herzog I've found very inspiring for my own creativity. There are several really good documentaries that are good 'artist lessons'. 'Lost in La Mancha' about the failed Terry Gilliam movie is very good. The making of The Abyss about the lengths James Cameron went to (Even putting the crew in danger multiple times) i worth watching and so is at least the first part of the making of Fellowship of the Ring, where you see how Peter Jackson was almost insane in his dedication to it. He even filmed an hour of the script with himself playing all the parts using a fake Gandalf head on a stick.

[Guest skibby]

i dont see a difference between sleight ambition and sleight mania, nor do i see a difference between extreme ambition and extreme mania, but i do see a difference between sleight ambition&mania and extreme ambition&mania

 

if that makes any sense

[hoggy]

Yes Lane, but have learned to categorise and eliminate unnecessary stuff, and I try to incorporate what's good about one idea into another if possible, and reduce things down to what's most important. Just work on what you're most passionate about, the idea is only the first part of the process, developing and finishing things is just as important a skill - and the way you develop and finish something is crucial in what you express - too many people have an 'awesome idea' and then rush the development of it - the development is where composition comes in, and I believe finishing things is a skill you can learn.

 

Then again, I always want to retract any 'advice' I give immediately, because it's really down to you to find your own way - I sort of think that if you take too much advice, what you make wont end up being any good - but again I might be wrong there too. ARGH

[Guest murphythecat8]

they key is all in the intention on to why you are creating.

If you create with the intention to make something amazing because you are such a original and amazing musician, so you think, it wont be good. If you create with the simple intention to appreciate what you do, get better, evolve at your own rythm, then you may become good.

 

Good music is not about amazing ideas. Its abour real emotions, real ideas that come, not from a part of you who wants to be good, but the part of you who just do it for the love it brings for the people who will hear your music.

[ZoeB]

That sounds fucking awesome, I would totally read that. Be sure to link it/ let us know if it gets published!

 

If you're still interested, here you go!

[Lane Visitor]

 

That sounds fucking awesome, I would totally read that. Be sure to link it/ let us know if it gets published!

 

If you're still interested, here you go!

 

 

Nice! Good to hear from ya, Zoe.. haven't seen you in a while (:

[ZoeB]

Nice! Good to hear from ya, Zoe.. haven't seen you in a while (:

 

Sorry about that. I just find it more fulfilling to make music and to write fiction than to argue with bigots online about whether women are even capable of doing such things. (Spoiler: yes we are.) So I tend to avoid sites where such arguments happen. Not that I'm very good at such avoidances, as it's not like I have lots of other people to talk to about, say, filtering a TR-606 through an MS-20. Still, I'm getting better at working out what to do with my time now, I think. If you ever want to e-mail me or anything, feel free to drop me a line. I still talk to a few WATMMers that way.