anybody want to start a topic about music production feels or philosophy rather than tech

[Ragnar]

http://picosong.com/wPauC

 

i dunno if anyone wants to hear, the new version of Blok Modular has a 'simple sampler' module and so I threw some breakbeats in there and controlled with the algorithmic stuff. But like I said I don't think it's very suited towards breakbeats in a track. It's got like a 'shock value' to it but it's not the kinda thing to use as a serious track. But like I said it's pretty perfect for certain instruments/elements, breakbeats are too like 'accented' or something though. It's better for the 'washes over you' type sounds, maybe ironically I think it's perfect for psuedo-303 type stuff

[TubularCorporation]

I've been looking for ages for this cassette that an older kid from the next town over gave me in, like, 9th or 10th grade. I found two cassettes of his so-so logo indie rock thing but the one I'm looking for is a fit cassette single of three sort of early 90s sounding techo-ish tracks he and a friend did in 9ne afternoon some time in the mid 90s when some uncle or something let them use his early 90s sampling workstation. It's kind of like a shoddy LA Style sounding thing done by teenagers and there were maybe 20 copies that they made and sold to people at shows. This is in a little exurbs, totally forgotten stuff. There are so many things like that out there.

[Ragnar]

I've been looking for ages for this cassette that an older kid from the next town over gave me in, like, 9th or 10th grade. I found two cassettes of his so-so logo indie rock thing but the one I'm looking for is a fit cassette single of three sort of early 90s sounding techo-ish tracks he and a friend did in 9ne afternoon some time in the mid 90s when some uncle or something let them use his early 90s sampling workstation. It's kind of like a shoddy LA Style sounding thing done by teenagers and there were maybe 20 copies that they made and sold to people at shows. This is in a little exurbs, totally forgotten stuff. There are so many things like that out there.

 

my brother had this track called Chaotic Harmony and it was so corny but haha it was good self-aware kind of techno

 

actually I could PM his stuff but not going to give identifiable level stuff like that in the forum itself. It's cringey in some ways but he totally has a sound especially the older album

[Guest]

http://picosong.com/wPauC

 

i dunno if anyone wants to hear, the new version of Blok Modular has a 'simple sampler' module and so I threw some breakbeats in there and controlled with the algorithmic stuff. But like I said I don't think it's very suited towards breakbeats in a track. It's got like a 'shock value' to it but it's not the kinda thing to use as a serious track. But like I said it's pretty perfect for certain instruments/elements, breakbeats are too like 'accented' or something though. It's better for the 'washes over you' type sounds, maybe ironically I think it's perfect for psuedo-303 type stuff

 

It sounds like someone drowning in breaks and arpeggiations. I'd want to hear more of the drowning.

[Ragnar]

 

http://picosong.com/wPauC

 

i dunno if anyone wants to hear, the new version of Blok Modular has a 'simple sampler' module and so I threw some breakbeats in there and controlled with the algorithmic stuff. But like I said I don't think it's very suited towards breakbeats in a track. It's got like a 'shock value' to it but it's not the kinda thing to use as a serious track. But like I said it's pretty perfect for certain instruments/elements, breakbeats are too like 'accented' or something though. It's better for the 'washes over you' type sounds, maybe ironically I think it's perfect for psuedo-303 type stuff

It sounds like someone drowning in breaks and arpeggiations. I'd want to hear more of the drowning.

 

 

I honestly don't like it, it was just interesting to hear a tech demo of whether it would actually work or not

[Cryptowen]

new version of Blok Modular

whoa whoa whoa

(sick track, the drums make it sound like a garage rock band on a fuckton of research chemicals)

 

making music has been the most consistent running theme of my life so far (started recording when i was like 6, started using buzz when i was 14, currently 27), and it seems somehow fitting that it's largely been this solo pursuit that no one else in my life really gives two shits about. the part of myself that seems most real & vibrant is a part means nothing to others, because it (seemingly) has nothing to do with continuing to be a reliant minimum wage worker, a supportive friend who never rocks the boat, a predictable & compliant member of society.

perhaps this recognization has fuelled a lot of the bitterness & sense of alienation from human society that i've felt in my life up until now.

 

often times i've felt that my music is a more accurate representation of the inner consciousness that i am, rather than the hairless flesh & bones monkey thing that walks around carrying the brain which generates this consciousness. there's generally more focus in the songs, the tranmission gets through more clearly than it has in my day to day physical transgressions. the physical being has often times felt the way a fart feels, or pulling away from a hot stove feels. the music, that's Me. that's where what I actually am comes through more clearly.

 

when i start thinking along these sorts of lines the urge to becomes very strong to just entirely stop giving my energy to anything that doesn't feel the way making music feels (there are a few things in my life that feel that way, it's not just making music but that's the big one), give all my energy to the things that do (no matter how illogical & unsustainable that may seem to the old ego identity), and let those things fill up my life until my entire life becomes one big multi-dimensional track that i'm making, and everything leading up to this moment was just juvenilia

[Guest]

 

 

http://picosong.com/wPauC

 

i dunno if anyone wants to hear, the new version of Blok Modular has a 'simple sampler' module and so I threw some breakbeats in there and controlled with the algorithmic stuff. But like I said I don't think it's very suited towards breakbeats in a track. It's got like a 'shock value' to it but it's not the kinda thing to use as a serious track. But like I said it's pretty perfect for certain instruments/elements, breakbeats are too like 'accented' or something though. It's better for the 'washes over you' type sounds, maybe ironically I think it's perfect for psuedo-303 type stuff

It sounds like someone drowning in breaks and arpeggiations. I'd want to hear more of the drowning.

 

 

I honestly don't like it, it was just interesting to hear a tech demo of whether it would actually work or not

 

 

 

There's a kernel in there that I like, that vocal like 'yelp' that peeks through. Not sure what that is, but I'd dig in there.

[Ragnar]

 

 

 

http://picosong.com/wPauC

 

i dunno if anyone wants to hear, the new version of Blok Modular has a 'simple sampler' module and so I threw some breakbeats in there and controlled with the algorithmic stuff. But like I said I don't think it's very suited towards breakbeats in a track. It's got like a 'shock value' to it but it's not the kinda thing to use as a serious track. But like I said it's pretty perfect for certain instruments/elements, breakbeats are too like 'accented' or something though. It's better for the 'washes over you' type sounds, maybe ironically I think it's perfect for psuedo-303 type stuff

It sounds like someone drowning in breaks and arpeggiations. I'd want to hear more of the drowning.

 

 

I honestly don't like it, it was just interesting to hear a tech demo of whether it would actually work or not

 

 

 

There's a kernel in there that I like, that vocal like 'yelp' that peeks through. Not sure what that is, but I'd dig in there.

 

 

 

if I released it it would be downplayed like a orban eq trx type thing, and just a short snippet to be a teasing fucker, no indicator of what the internal process is, lol

 

also Cryptowen that's a cool post, like it acknowledges the creative process can be rich and exciting without bragging or elitism, and like, I think more musicians and stuff should admit this, especially if they get political, like 'music is probably the only thing that would've ever motivated me enough to do stuff in the first place, I wouldn't ever actually /go/ into politics', etc. while still being skeptical music is like this ridiculous motivating force for people to actually get off their ass and do something even if it's just a fucking mp3, like as powerful as money or sex as a motivator, take that how you like (it could all be shallow and music is just a fetish)

[Cryptowen]

just a short snippet to be a teasing fucker, no indicator of what the internal process is, lol

i love doing that - making a long, drawn-out track that logically progresses to a cool vibe, and then on the public release just having that cool vibe section completely out of context (usually with some additional post-processing) so it seems like a completely alien world that just popped into existence. imo it's an effective technique but it does require one to be a harsh editor, because usually all of the build-up stuff you're chopping away sounds pretty dece as well

as powerful as money or sex as a motivator, take that how you like (it could all be shallow and music is just a fetish)

i've quit jobs & ended relationships just because they were getting in the way of music (like, multiple times, to the point where my brother got me to watch the movie whiplash & just kept smiling knowingly at me the whole time). the "is this just a fetish?" question has come up for me a few times...there's been occassions in clubs on lots of drugs where i'd have a clear opportunity to go home with someone cute, but would totally ignore it because i was just so into dancing (imo dancing feels just as vibrant as making music, just on a more physical level rather than intellectual. both can be emotional). and on those ocassions i would start getting all sorts of very earnest MUSIC IS A GODDESS, I AM HER SERVANT IN THIS REALM thoughts coming into my mind. what is that? is music some kind of extradimensional conscious force that compels certain individuals to create more of it, in the same way life compels most people to create more people? am i merely diverting my sexual energy into alternative pursuits after years of teenaged frustration, and now i'm so deep in the role i've forgotten how to break character? little of both? something else?

[Ragnar]

 

i've quit jobs & ended relationships just because they were getting in the way of music (like, multiple times, to the point where my brother got me to watch the movie whiplash & just kept smiling knowingly at me the whole time). the "is this just a fetish?" question has come up for me a few times...there's been occassions in clubs on lots of drugs where i'd have a clear opportunity to go home with someone cute, but would totally ignore it because i was just so into dancing (imo dancing feels just as vibrant as making music, just on a more physical level rather than intellectual. both can be emotional). and on those ocassions i would start getting all sorts of very earnest MUSIC IS A GODDESS, I AM HER SERVANT IN THIS REALM thoughts coming into my mind. what is that? is music some kind of extradimensional conscious force that compels certain individuals to create more of it, in the same way life compels most people to create more people? am i merely diverting my sexual energy into alternative pursuits after years of teenaged frustration, and now i'm so deep in the role i've forgotten how to break character? little of both? something else?

 

I've joked like, I really need to collab some time but is collabing with another male musician gay on some level? Is it making a 'sound baby' together, or just subverting the 'creative force'. There's also jokes that Pollock was just ejaculating on the canvas metaphorically

 

I think every artist should at least be jokey as fuck about it. Like there's the flip side where a fascist regime labels all different art 'degenerate' but still.....

 

and then Hitler could've been collecting the artwork anyway and wanted it for himself as a private fap collection

[hello spiral]

 

 

i've quit jobs & ended relationships just because they were getting in the way of music (like, multiple times, to the point where my brother got me to watch the movie whiplash & just kept smiling knowingly at me the whole time). the "is this just a fetish?" question has come up for me a few times...there's been occassions in clubs on lots of drugs where i'd have a clear opportunity to go home with someone cute, but would totally ignore it because i was just so into dancing (imo dancing feels just as vibrant as making music, just on a more physical level rather than intellectual. both can be emotional). and on those ocassions i would start getting all sorts of very earnest MUSIC IS A GODDESS, I AM HER SERVANT IN THIS REALM thoughts coming into my mind. what is that? is music some kind of extradimensional conscious force that compels certain individuals to create more of it, in the same way life compels most people to create more people? am i merely diverting my sexual energy into alternative pursuits after years of teenaged frustration, and now i'm so deep in the role i've forgotten how to break character? little of both? something else?

 

I've joked like, I really need to collab some time but is collabing with another male musician gay on some level? Is it making a 'sound baby' together

 

Yes and yes. It's lush.

[thawkins]

 

just a short snippet to be a teasing fucker, no indicator of what the internal process is, lol

i love doing that - making a long, drawn-out track that logically progresses to a cool vibe, and then on the public release just having that cool vibe section completely out of context (usually with some additional post-processing) so it seems like a completely alien world that just popped into existence. imo it's an effective technique but it does require one to be a harsh editor, because usually all of the build-up stuff you're chopping away sounds pretty dece as well

as powerful as money or sex as a motivator, take that how you like (it could all be shallow and music is just a fetish)

i've quit jobs & ended relationships just because they were getting in the way of music (like, multiple times, to the point where my brother got me to watch the movie whiplash & just kept smiling knowingly at me the whole time). the "is this just a fetish?" question has come up for me a few times...there's been occassions in clubs on lots of drugs where i'd have a clear opportunity to go home with someone cute, but would totally ignore it because i was just so into dancing (imo dancing feels just as vibrant as making music, just on a more physical level rather than intellectual. both can be emotional). and on those ocassions i would start getting all sorts of very earnest MUSIC IS A GODDESS, I AM HER SERVANT IN THIS REALM thoughts coming into my mind. what is that? is music some kind of extradimensional conscious force that compels certain individuals to create more of it, in the same way life compels most people to create more people? am i merely diverting my sexual energy into alternative pursuits after years of teenaged frustration, and now i'm so deep in the role i've forgotten how to break character? little of both? something else?

 

 

Yeah I can relate to that. I haven't quit any jobs or relationships but I definitely have thought about how these things affect my music making (and I definitely see myself quitting things if the music ain't there). I know that I will feel and have felt absolutely miserable when I am not involved in music. I think I can go maybe 1-2 weeks tops without playing an instrument before I get withdrawals and I become moody and stuff like that.

 

I don't know if I feel like I am diverting my sexual energy into making music, personally I think this is a different thing even if it does eventually come down to dopamine in your brain or whatever. After all I am pretty sure I was having fun at the piano even before I knew what girls are. For me I think music was a form of escapism, so I could just unhook my brain from the real world and it's worries and let it drift in whatever space. It's sort of the same thing when dancing at the party - for me the point of that is just to flow along with the music and let it take your thoughts to wherever. The physical motions of dancing (and the drugs) are just to help you do that. The best parties to me are those where I could just zone out on the dance floor with my water bottle (because I sweat like hell always) for several hours and take a trip with the music.

[Ragnar]

lol I was mostly joking, it's just if u hang around the internet too long you start to think a good amount of people were sexually motivated or subverting teh energy into their work (a legit dragon dating sim was being reviewed on Kotaku or something). But I dunno, a few people thought I was completely asexual based on the music I do. I don't think there's anything saying one way or another you have to 'subvert energ' into the music in that way

 

lol I think I've started a paranoia about it now, like whatever member said, you can mess around writing music as a kid, I think music is its own motivation/kind of 'energy' without getting new agey. When you have that SYNTHESIA stuff like, I taste sounds, so like is eating sexual to most people? Not really, dear god I hope not. You can understand it's sort of sensory experience when it's food at least. Like I'm a curry dude and the sort of blend of flavorz maybe is semi-musical, different flavors surface when eating it but it just washes over in a music-like way, you're not like MORE CARDAMOM DAMNIT or um, cumin, whatever that spice is

[TubularCorporation]

 

just a short snippet to be a teasing fucker, no indicator of what the internal process is, lol

i love doing that - making a long, drawn-out track that logically progresses to a cool vibe, and then on the public release just having that cool vibe section completely out of context (usually with some additional post-processing) so it seems like a completely alien world that just popped into existence. imo it's an effective technique but it does require one to be a harsh editor, because usually all of the build-up stuff you're chopping away sounds pretty dece as well

as powerful as money or sex as a motivator, take that how you like (it could all be shallow and music is just a fetish)

i've quit jobs & ended relationships just because they were getting in the way of music (like, multiple times, to the point where my brother got me to watch the movie whiplash & just kept smiling knowingly at me the whole time). the "is this just a fetish?" question has come up for me a few times...there's been occassions in clubs on lots of drugs where i'd have a clear opportunity to go home with someone cute, but would totally ignore it because i was just so into dancing (imo dancing feels just as vibrant as making music, just on a more physical level rather than intellectual. both can be emotional). and on those ocassions i would start getting all sorts of very earnest MUSIC IS A GODDESS, I AM HER SERVANT IN THIS REALM thoughts coming into my mind. what is that? is music some kind of extradimensional conscious force that compels certain individuals to create more of it, in the same way life compels most people to create more people? am i merely diverting my sexual energy into alternative pursuits after years of teenaged frustration, and now i'm so deep in the role i've forgotten how to break character? little of both? something else?

Even if It's "just a fetish" I think we seriously downplay how big a motivation fetishism (sexual or otherwise) is on what people and societies do. Freud was wrong about a lot of stuff but he hit that one out of the park. Power, ritual and fetishism are really intertwined and music taps right in to all of them.

[cwmbrancity]

would go further than simply fetishistic interpretations/practices, namely Heidegger or Husserl's phenomenology, of being in the world & music playing a key role in your actual "being", plus its fun

 

a fetishistic angle might cheapen things a tad imho, agree no doubt there are personal rituals that surround musical expression, both experiencing & creating it, surely it taps into something deeper.....whether thats someone associating it with a sacred aspect of themselves or the world

 

ritual & music have long & intimate associations, even in secular societies, they nearly always converge

 

despite the "s" word, this is a cracking read with a huge scope of analysis & case studies although i never quite got the whole Grateful Dead "Spinner" ting

 

https://www.google.co.uk/search?ei=GDsQW7LmAcmagAbq8p2oBQ&q=traces+of+the+spirit+the+religious+dimensions+of+popular+music&oq=traces+of+the+spirit+t&gs_l=psy-ab.1.0.0.9033.11931.0.14015.8.7.1.0.0.0.165.678.5j2.7.0....0...1c.1.64.psy-ab..0.8.684...0i22i30k1j33i22i29i30k1j33i160k1.0.YtjMR56uWoc

[Ragnar]

lol I was mostly trolling, I think music is mostly "I am alive" or "I am present" feelings as the only necessity. Just like more modern artsy movies try to capture stream of consciousness/how people perceive things in real life. I think even the most abstract music shit ever is like 'slice of life' even if it's life on Planet XJ-110728590172

[thawkins]

would go further than simply fetishistic interpretations/practices, namely Heidegger or Husserl's phenomenology, of being in the world & music playing a key role in your actual "being", plus its fun

 

a fetishistic angle might cheapen things a tad imho, agree no doubt there are personal rituals that surround musical expression, both experiencing & creating it, surely it taps into something deeper.....whether thats someone associating it with a sacred aspect of themselves or the world

 

ritual & music have long & intimate associations, even in secular societies, they nearly always converge

 

despite the "s" word, this is a cracking read with a huge scope of analysis & case studies although i never quite got the whole Grateful Dead "Spinner" ting

 

https://www.google.co.uk/search?ei=GDsQW7LmAcmagAbq8p2oBQ&q=traces+of+the+spirit+the+religious+dimensions+of+popular+music&oq=traces+of+the+spirit+t&gs_l=psy-ab.1.0.0.9033.11931.0.14015.8.7.1.0.0.0.165.678.5j2.7.0....0...1c.1.64.psy-ab..0.8.684...0i22i30k1j33i22i29i30k1j33i160k1.0.YtjMR56uWoc

 

I am just thinking that in the olden days music (especially song) was one of the few entertainments that people had. Thus it's logical that music has a ritual meaning. After all you could only hear "proper" music when you had whoever was a real musician - the closest thing to an mp3 player was a folk musician who had memorized some songs and even the art of writing notation still requires a lot of meta-knowledge about the instruments and how it is to be played. I think this means that music used to be more precious (and good music especially), so in order to not ruin the experience, there has to be some ritual or repeated sequence of motions that's there to ensure that the music can be made... sort of like before every DJ set or a live band there is always the ritual of Connecting The Cables And Making Sure Stuff Works...

 

I mean, I would also call house and techno parties ritualistic in the sense that the music almost always contains the element of 4 bass drum beats per measure, the purpose of which is to "keep the same beat going" even though the songs and DJs may change throughout the night. And while religious people go to church on Sundays, techno people go to clubs on Fridays - I think these things are not entirely unlike each other.

[cwmbrancity]

thats where the "Traces of the Spirit" text is at its strongest, outlining & going pretty deep on the sacred aspects of music, ie communal supplication as a tried & tested outlet for a fundamental human need & associated rituals, plus it also manages to explore 4/4 beats/repetition in particularly strong segments w/out recourse to waffle

 

lots of allusions between the Grateful Dead & personal/collective transcendence that marry up again later on with Disco, House & Techno

 

parallels well with a book called The Lyre of Orpheus: Popular Music, the Sacred & the Profane by Christopher Partridge (or propane if yer Little Carmine), which goes more into the themes you've mentioned about the deeper chronologies/timelines people have had with music & the musicians who've enabled its expression & practice, cracking good read too

 

https://www.google.co.uk/search?ei=nqkRW7DNJ8abgQaMi6joAg&q=the+lyre+of+orpheus+christopher+partridge&oq=lyre+of+orpheus+chr&gs_l=psy-ab.1.0.0i22i30k1.4038.4722.0.6325.3.3.0.0.0.0.102.234.2j1.3.0....0...1c.1.64.psy-ab..0.3.232....0.qQX3F89XQqc

[Ragnar]

maybe we were right after all, masturbation can be a ritual, music as ritual, it all makes sense now

[thawkins]

thats where the "Traces of the Spirit" text is at its strongest, outlining & going pretty deep on the sacred aspects of music, ie communal supplication as a tried & tested outlet for a fundamental human need & associated rituals, plus it also manages to explore 4/4 beats/repetition in particularly strong segments w/out recourse to waffle

 

lots of allusions between the Grateful Dead & personal/collective transcendence that marry up again later on with Disco, House & Techno

 

parallels well with a book called The Lyre of Orpheus: Popular Music, the Sacred & the Profane by Christopher Partridge (or propane if yer Little Carmine), which goes more into the themes you've mentioned about the deeper chronologies/timelines people have had with music & the musicians who've enabled its expression & practice, cracking good read too

 

https://www.google.co.uk/search?ei=nqkRW7DNJ8abgQaMi6joAg&q=the+lyre+of+orpheus+christopher+partridge&oq=lyre+of+orpheus+chr&gs_l=psy-ab.1.0.0i22i30k1.4038.4722.0.6325.3.3.0.0.0.0.102.234.2j1.3.0....0...1c.1.64.psy-ab..0.3.232....0.qQX3F89XQqc

 

Thanks, both of those books seem interesting (although not sure if I ever will go as far as getting them and actually reading). I think on the surface I was first put off by the titles of those books, because they seem a lot like bargain bin new age philosophic mumbo jumbo which uses words and terms it does not really understand, i.e. not really something that the authors are qualified to speak about (not to mention of doing research on those subjects).

maybe we were right after all, masturbation can be a ritual, music as ritual, it all makes sense now

 

Why do you think I've set my control surface up so I can tweak everything with my right hand? Duh.

[cwmbrancity]

 

thats where the "Traces of the Spirit" text is at its strongest, outlining & going pretty deep on the sacred aspects of music, ie communal supplication as a tried & tested outlet for a fundamental human need & associated rituals, plus it also manages to explore 4/4 beats/repetition in particularly strong segments w/out recourse to waffle

 

lots of allusions between the Grateful Dead & personal/collective transcendence that marry up again later on with Disco, House & Techno

 

parallels well with a book called The Lyre of Orpheus: Popular Music, the Sacred & the Profane by Christopher Partridge (or propane if yer Little Carmine), which goes more into the themes you've mentioned about the deeper chronologies/timelines people have had with music & the musicians who've enabled its expression & practice, cracking good read too

 

https://www.google.co.uk/search?ei=nqkRW7DNJ8abgQaMi6joAg&q=the+lyre+of+orpheus+christopher+partridge&oq=lyre+of+orpheus+chr&gs_l=psy-ab.1.0.0i22i30k1.4038.4722.0.6325.3.3.0.0.0.0.102.234.2j1.3.0....0...1c.1.64.psy-ab..0.3.232....0.qQX3F89XQqc

 

Thanks, both of those books seem interesting (although not sure if I ever will go as far as getting them and actually reading). I think on the surface I was first put off by the titles of those books, because they seem a lot like bargain bin new age philosophic mumbo jumbo which uses words and terms it does not really understand, i.e. not really something that the authors are qualified to speak about (not to mention of doing research on those subjects).

 

 

 

 

they're both academically rigorous & manage to mix up the case studies & interpretative frameworks really well

 

dont let the titles put you off, zero Ram Dass or new-age wankery....that'd make me wanna puke like Frank Booth being given warm beer

 

The Lyre of Orpheus is the better written of the two, includes all sorts from the full spectrum of Metal to TG/Psychic TV's esoterrorism without taking everything GPO ever said as gospel/Coil, House dancefloors across various global locations, although Traces of the Spirit is better @ phenomenology & "feels"

[Cryptowen]

Does anyone else go through regular phases of being, like, vaguely intimidated by the prospect of listening to other people's music that might be really good? Like sometimes I feel like I'm cultivating my own musical sourdough starter, fully inspired by the unique experiences of my life etc., and the idea of listening to a popular release feels like if dumping a bunch of commercial yeast packets into the starter. There's this fear that I'll hear something super compelling & suddenly find myself subconsciously aligned to whatever cardinal point that other artist is moving towards (no doubt like 100s of other indie producers), rather than undergoing the at times more difficult process of forging my own path.

 

Gnome sayin? In my own experience with making art there does seem to be this large comfort zone where you can just mimic pre-established aesthetic trends that have widely been agreed upon as being "good", and it's relatively effortless & the results are pleasant to the ear but you feel like some inner fire is lacking. And then as you move away from that you approach this desert area where it feels like you've just gone weeks or months or years where it feels like you're just doing random experiments that feel insubstantial or incoherent. But what you're really doing through all of this is training your brain to stop seeing the creation process through this cultural ego lens of "i must achieve a particular feeling that pre-existing work insired in me once, somehow without feeling derivative of that work", and towards a more primordial state of actually hearing the sounds as they come to you in the present moment, with no pre-conceptions, and allowing the feelings they inspire to guide you. You do this by fucking around with your random-ass experiments until by chance you produce a sound that makes you go "hey, this is interesting! i've never heard anything quite like this before!", and then very rapidly a whole system of compositional parameters has opened up before you, it feels as though you have an entire undiscovered continent to explore rather than just following a map drawn by some other explorer decaades prior

 

of course there's other times where my view is the complete opposite, ie it feels like it's too easy for a person to get up their own ass trying to be different, and listening to someone else's work that really inspires you can be a real reminder to get back to just making whatever you want to make, regardless or whether you'll be considered a genius innovator or just another mufa on soundcloud makin braindance. I guess in both cases it comes down to finding the most effecient path away from viewing the creation process through any egoic lens, and towards just being fully caught up in the act of expressing whatever energy is present in you

[Ragnar]

 

Gnome sayin? In my own experience with making art there does seem to be this large comfort zone where you can just mimic pre-established aesthetic trends that have widely been agreed upon as being "good", and it's relatively effortless & the results are pleasant to the ear but you feel like some inner fire is lacking. And then as you move away from that you approach this desert area where it feels like you've just gone weeks or months or years where it feels like you're just doing random experiments that feel insubstantial or incoherent. But what you're really doing through all of this is training your brain to stop seeing the creation process through this cultural ego lens of "i must achieve a particular feeling that pre-existing work insired in me once, somehow without feeling derivative of that work", and towards a more primordial state of actually hearing the sounds as they come to you in the present moment, with no pre-conceptions, and allowing the feelings they inspire to guide you. You do this by fucking around with your random-ass experiments until by chance you produce a sound that makes you go "hey, this is interesting! i've never heard anything quite like this before!", and then very rapidly a whole system of compositional parameters has opened up before you, it feels as though you have an entire undiscovered continent to explore rather than just following a map drawn by some other explorer decaades prior

 

with the right modular chains you can like generate all these arrpeggios and random sounds outside of the actual 'notes' and that can feel like some crazy Rube Goldberg machine type effect

[Ragnar]

maybe the last album made me a little proud and confident in wearing a green shirt, lol

[thawkins]

Does anyone else go through regular phases of being, like, vaguely intimidated by the prospect of listening to other people's music that might be really good? Like sometimes I feel like I'm cultivating my own musical sourdough starter, fully inspired by the unique experiences of my life etc., and the idea of listening to a popular release feels like if dumping a bunch of commercial yeast packets into the starter. There's this fear that I'll hear something super compelling & suddenly find myself subconsciously aligned to whatever cardinal point that other artist is moving towards (no doubt like 100s of other indie producers), rather than undergoing the at times more difficult process of forging my own path.

 

Gnome sayin? In my own experience with making art there does seem to be this large comfort zone where you can just mimic pre-established aesthetic trends that have widely been agreed upon as being "good", and it's relatively effortless & the results are pleasant to the ear but you feel like some inner fire is lacking. And then as you move away from that you approach this desert area where it feels like you've just gone weeks or months or years where it feels like you're just doing random experiments that feel insubstantial or incoherent. But what you're really doing through all of this is training your brain to stop seeing the creation process through this cultural ego lens of "i must achieve a particular feeling that pre-existing work insired in me once, somehow without feeling derivative of that work", and towards a more primordial state of actually hearing the sounds as they come to you in the present moment, with no pre-conceptions, and allowing the feelings they inspire to guide you. You do this by fucking around with your random-ass experiments until by chance you produce a sound that makes you go "hey, this is interesting! i've never heard anything quite like this before!", and then very rapidly a whole system of compositional parameters has opened up before you, it feels as though you have an entire undiscovered continent to explore rather than just following a map drawn by some other explorer decaades prior

 

of course there's other times where my view is the complete opposite, ie it feels like it's too easy for a person to get up their own ass trying to be different, and listening to someone else's work that really inspires you can be a real reminder to get back to just making whatever you want to make, regardless or whether you'll be considered a genius innovator or just another mufa on soundcloud makin braindance. I guess in both cases it comes down to finding the most effecient path away from viewing the creation process through any egoic lens, and towards just being fully caught up in the act of expressing whatever energy is present in you

 

Sometimes I listen to others' stuff and go "fuck damn they already did 10 years ago what I am trying to achieve now, why even bother", but most of the times feeling passes really quickly when you discover the rest of their stuff and realize that even though they got to that particular continent first, there is still another world which you can explore.

 

I think it's kind of important to sometimes listen to commercial stuff and other artists, even though sometimes it seems the only thing making it popular with people is the mad stacks of cash generating publicity. Even though you may think that it's polluting your creative source, it may be that your creative sixth sense just makes notes of "hey this part works, maybe I can use that" and "hey mental note NEVER do that". Generally in music that resonates with people, there are always some elements that I feel I can & want to re-create in my stuff, and there are also things which I don't. Personally I don't feel the need to meta-manage what I listen to (aside from trying to keep my eyes open for new music from different sources), because I feel that even if I sat down to copy some tune, in the end I would do it through my creative filter and the result will sound like me more or less.