Musician Diaries

 He who will define the future must investigate the past, so I like/have made a bit of a mission for myself to go through those VH1 Behind the music videos now and then. The overwhelming repetition that I've found has obliged me to reduce the dosage: BUILD YOUR OWN BEHIND THE MUSIC KIT 1: "Nobody had ever listened something like them before" (Declarations of friends and relatives saying how blown away everybody was) 2: Option A: However, fame soon started to pay its toll Option B (minority): Unlike many other famous musicians, fame did not affect their way of living 3: Tragedy will soon strike in the form of:     A: Drug overdose of a member         Survived? Y/N         Repeat (go back to A)?         Rehab         Relapse? Y (go back to A)/ N     B: Tragic accident 4: So they decided to quit    ...

In wait of (and working towards) that glorious day when I will gladly hand the recording chores to someone more akin to them (I've heard there are even nutjobs who like this stuff), I'm obliged to split my personality in different "hats" or personas in search of expressing my musical creativity into the objective world. I've found making such division clearcut and well defined, "playing well" the game of roles, brings great benefits. In the end it is all about allowing the musician to be on his own with his music, without detours or distractions. The first persona that appeared out of my workflow was the producer. But short after, I've found the need of taking part of the producer part out and creating the role of the engineer, too. The engineer is in service of both the producer and musician, and its role is providing them with the shortest, most Sesame Street instructions to speed up the tech stuff and allow them to go back to their cr...

Kanban is chaotic and you sometimes feel like not using it, but a lot of realizations and aha moments come from submitting yourself to its discipline. In my case, here's a funny pattern I found about my musical work: the creation of value coincides with the things I enjoy to do. That doesn't always have to be the case. In any art or industry, a task can be boring for the maker, and yet be the one that is creating the value that we want to provide. For example: spreading the mayonnaise that makes the sandwich extra delicious, is not an amusing task per se, but the result is cool. That's why I found curious that in my case both things coincide. For a musician, the value is created when you produce new sounds. And those are the moments that I enjoy. As I mention here perhaps too often, I don't get any kick out of finding the frequency that causes a hissing in the right snare. I think the people who enjoy that kind of thing are a bit of a nutcase, tbh. A new re...

My previous resolution of keeping stuff coming out quickly through the pipeline has very soon turned from a plan to a vision. Obstacles hinder the ship, life has a way of doing that to your plans. I don't see that as a failure, but as an aha moment, a powerful realization. Now I keep that 'keep it simple, keep moving' mentality in mind all the time, even if the circumstances oblige me to take a detour (gosh, here I would need X, so half an hour trip to the Internet to see if X is possible, and if it is, how to actually do it). For the song I'm working on, for example, I guesstimated a very simple workplan: programming drums and print them in the session, 1 day. Recording bass, 1 day. Recording guitar tracks, 1 day. Recording vocals, 1 day. Audio production, 2 days. That's an ideal blueprint to keep in mind, but reality soon conspired against such a beautiful arrangement of things. I intend to make a full reflection about the song when I'm done with...