Musician Diaries

Here is another graph that I've found useful in this month's recording process.   I often remember that quote that says you can only explain something in simple worlds when you know it very well (example: Einstein won the the Nobel prize with a 5 pages essay). I'm getting better at that and my processes shows. (The graph is in the unrefined Spanglish I've come to use in my computer and my notes; each of the languages has their virtues and shortcomings and I just pick the right tool for eah task each time). Green shows the accomplished parts, red the still pending. The black rectangle on the bottom is a "traffic light" that shows how well I'm doing. This month I'm having some unexpected complications with the guitar distortion, so I'm delayed from my plans and the light is red. That is also to say, I won't be able to deliver this month's song. I'll write about that when I'm finished with this iteration.

Here is a diagram I've been using the whole week as the index page of my processes to record bass takes. It's like a 20,000 feet view of the whole input-output thing, and helps me a lot in getting into the work in process quick. I offer it without further commentary, just as possible inspiration for other musicians to create their own visual guides that help them deal with the 9 headed hydra. Like the saying goes, if you're not visual you're not lean. Also, by the time you read these lines my process will probably be different already so why bother... take the inspiration and apply what is worth to your own particular problems.  

Another thing any musically skilled human being is trying to figure out in the new millenium is how to go about branding. The branding of yore was in part created by the industrial production needs; a CD is a stable item, a product you want to go through certain standards before putting it out through the door. The name of the band doubled then as the product brand; "the name you know". The simple word, the logo, evoked a series of emotions, the consumer knew very quickly what to expect to find in the package. The examples are many. But the coin in music always has too sides, so the product is also a piece of art. This brand thing often turns out to be, even now, a nasty restraint for artists, human beings who advance in their life journey, make mistakes, mature, learn, and sometimes want or need to give musical expression to those experiences; or simple try something new for the heck of it. Neil Young comes to mind, with his electronic experiments, or his concer

Here's the new song I've been working on this month. I made the deadline (barely), but I couldn't write this post before. I'm sure there are fluctuations in the Dow Jones due to this delay, so apologies. I am delayed in the process of starting the next song, because I'm doing a thorough, very enjoyable, post-mortem of this one. Going slow to go fast. I'm tranquil about the March deadline because I have a lot of songs that are "halfway there" in my wip folder, so, in Lean terms, I'm using the composing, preproduction and recording stages as a protective buffer. However, there is nothing sacred about my "one song a month" pace, so I don't intend to keep it stubbornly at the expenses of quality if that turns to be an issue. Let's see how I do this month, and then I might change to the "a song WITHIN each month" formula, or any other solution. A hansei stage has been added to my process, and I think for good.