The factory reopens
I think I've solved enough problems already to commit myself to some
kind of consistent delivery. I find it's important, as part of my
musicianship, to commit to some kind of consistent finishing things,
putting stuff at the door... even if more often than not there's nobody
at the other side of that door (but Internet distribution makes things
fuzzy on that regard; one element that without doubt helped me conform
my decission was a couple of comments I read the other day in praise of a
song that I had recorded a year ago and completely forgotten.)
My initial premise is: "putting one sonic product out there every week. Out of those sonic products, before February, at least one of them will have to be a full song".
(I considering the "week" unit as a container, like I do with this blog's posts, so maybe a better formulation would be "putting out one sonic product IN every week", like boxes to be filled. :) )
Like any goal worth pursuing, this one for me hits the sweet spot between "yeah, I can do that" and making me slightly nervous. Will see how it goes, and PDSA things along the way. For example, the definition of "full song" is something open to broad debate. I guess I mean song-carefully-planned-with-structure-and-production-treatment-as-good-as-I-can-make-it-right-now. But that is conditioned from the get go by the fact, previously discussed here, that my equipment is precarious, audio production is something that bores me to tears, and in the end everything I do is demo-like.
What it comes down to, in the end, is this thing I've discovered about myself: any creative task energizes me, makes me feel happy. On the contrary, any grid-like, predefined, gray task, depletes my stamina and deppresses me. Setting a compressor, I don't get a kick of that. Computers give you a lot of possibilities, but also oblige you to fill A LOT of forms every day. Zzzzz. I'd rather be singing my guts out any day.
"Putting out there" is also something that can and will be tweaked. I start with what I got: Bandcamp for the full-fledged projects when the time comes, and Alonetone for the little "bubbles" I will be launching in the meantime. Jamendo, which started as such a good idea, has been becoming a more and more disgusting site along the years, and now is braindead. I also checked Soundcloud, but now that they killed the community features I don't see any advantage to it for uploading isolated tracks, and Reverb Nation, sorrily too techy for my Second World computer resources.
So here is the first sonic delivery:
At first, trying to keep things simple, I thought of my sonic products as some kind of random improvisation with the guitar, maybe toying around with some effect, and giving it some fancy name. I don't discard doing that when the honeymoon effect wears off and some deadly deadline attacks, but I also thought it would be a nice exercise trying to record something that makes sense: defining a few guidelines, giving myself 2-3 minutes, pressing record, and applying all the technique I've learned, all the records I've loved, all the gigs I've played, to play something that makes some kind of sense. Not hoping to write a genius song every time, rather something simple, but always keeping some kind of "bird's view", aiming to some kind of closure. This one "Sure you know what you're doing" came out of that.
Another question that opens, regarding the premise, is what to do about the ballance new stuff/frozen. I'd love to ease a bit the burden of my huge inventory of semifinished songs. But on this regard, the rule of thumb, good enough to start, is to just see it from the pov of the "customer"; they don't care how old the music is, they don't care if it took a year or a minute to complete. I'll take it from there and see where it takes me.
My initial premise is: "putting one sonic product out there every week. Out of those sonic products, before February, at least one of them will have to be a full song".
(I considering the "week" unit as a container, like I do with this blog's posts, so maybe a better formulation would be "putting out one sonic product IN every week", like boxes to be filled. :) )
Like any goal worth pursuing, this one for me hits the sweet spot between "yeah, I can do that" and making me slightly nervous. Will see how it goes, and PDSA things along the way. For example, the definition of "full song" is something open to broad debate. I guess I mean song-carefully-planned-with-structure-and-production-treatment-as-good-as-I-can-make-it-right-now. But that is conditioned from the get go by the fact, previously discussed here, that my equipment is precarious, audio production is something that bores me to tears, and in the end everything I do is demo-like.
What it comes down to, in the end, is this thing I've discovered about myself: any creative task energizes me, makes me feel happy. On the contrary, any grid-like, predefined, gray task, depletes my stamina and deppresses me. Setting a compressor, I don't get a kick of that. Computers give you a lot of possibilities, but also oblige you to fill A LOT of forms every day. Zzzzz. I'd rather be singing my guts out any day.
"Putting out there" is also something that can and will be tweaked. I start with what I got: Bandcamp for the full-fledged projects when the time comes, and Alonetone for the little "bubbles" I will be launching in the meantime. Jamendo, which started as such a good idea, has been becoming a more and more disgusting site along the years, and now is braindead. I also checked Soundcloud, but now that they killed the community features I don't see any advantage to it for uploading isolated tracks, and Reverb Nation, sorrily too techy for my Second World computer resources.
So here is the first sonic delivery:
At first, trying to keep things simple, I thought of my sonic products as some kind of random improvisation with the guitar, maybe toying around with some effect, and giving it some fancy name. I don't discard doing that when the honeymoon effect wears off and some deadly deadline attacks, but I also thought it would be a nice exercise trying to record something that makes sense: defining a few guidelines, giving myself 2-3 minutes, pressing record, and applying all the technique I've learned, all the records I've loved, all the gigs I've played, to play something that makes some kind of sense. Not hoping to write a genius song every time, rather something simple, but always keeping some kind of "bird's view", aiming to some kind of closure. This one "Sure you know what you're doing" came out of that.
Another question that opens, regarding the premise, is what to do about the ballance new stuff/frozen. I'd love to ease a bit the burden of my huge inventory of semifinished songs. But on this regard, the rule of thumb, good enough to start, is to just see it from the pov of the "customer"; they don't care how old the music is, they don't care if it took a year or a minute to complete. I'll take it from there and see where it takes me.
