Musician Diaries

My systems tend to become complicated with time. Computer folders don't have a limit to what you can put inside, so they can grow without control. Especially when you are trying all kind of different stuff in all kind of areas all the time. A simple solution I've found is creating a folder named /000_previous_system in each of my areas (the initial 000 is to make sure the folder stays on top in the list). What I do is: when I have an idea on how to simplify one of my systems, I put everything I don't remember what was for inside that folder. My systems become that way very simple, no more than 3-8 items per folder, one of them this 000 folder. That way, I can always "fish" later something I remember I worked upon, when the moment comes. It feels like shopping, it gives you a great feeling of wealth entering that folder where so much good work has already been done and you just have to dust it off and put it to work again. I guess this system is simila...

There are "push" and "pull" tasks. Most of the people are starters but not finishers because often pulls turn into push, so they give up the effort when it stops being easy, and move on to some other fresh thing. I want to finish stuff, so dealing with this push-pull thing (and noticing when the change happens) is an important matter to me. Something I've been using lately has been setting a countdown timer for nasty tasks. But recently I had a realization about the way I used it that to me felt like turning a sock the other way round. At first, I obliged myself to do 30 or 60 mins of the thing that I hate. The reasoning behind is that, that way, I guarantee at least that amount of advance every day, in a field that is not gratifying but that I feel necessary to pursue. The first questioning of that method came because of the natural division of certain tasks; if a boring "frog" I have to swallow takes me 21 or 25 minutes, it doesn't m...

Very sad news. I thought we still had a few years together, and maybe a couple of albums. But, as it happens with the dear people you actually meet, when you've had a long acquaintance and the moments have been good, the pain at some point gives in to a certain state of serenity, of comformity; it was good being alive while you were alive, Mr. Cohen. Last Saturday, in a sort of ceremony of remembrance, I went through YouTube doing a sort of "journey to the seed" thing. Listening to Cohen's works, as memory suggested them, starting in the final album "You want it darker", published only 3 weeks ago, and working my way backwards. Some of those songs never fail to make me cry, and naturally, this time was no exception. Here is the list (the chronology from 1989 backwards is a garbled mess): Steer your way You want it darker Nevermind Come healing Different sides The letters Boogie Street Alexandra Leaving Tacoma Trailer Democracy Ain't no cure fo...

Brain plasticity, the great human perk, does not come without a price; there is a toll to be paid in effort (attention is energy), whenever we switch from one "mode" to another. Optimus Prime does not become a truck or viceversa unless he has to, because there is some effort involved in every metamorphosis. That's what make so useful and necessary to find some kind of mental tool that allows you to "zoom out" from one matter and then "zoom in" quickly on the next: "what was that I was trying to do here? Oh yes, I remember now" I've been documenting here my latest efforts to divide rationally my activities into specialized "departments" or "personalities", in wait for the moment when I can hand over gladly the things I don't enjoy doing to some other assistant (In doing that I've found that, the more a task or area of my life bores/frightens me, the more it gets benefitted by some structured thinkin...

 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...