(Phaysis)

So I’ve finally started pushing the Record button.

The hardest part of making music is learning your instruments and your tools. After picking up all this equipment, it’s taken me some time to get familiar with the basics of my synth, sampler, sound module, drum machine, and DAW software. Five months ago, when I knew a lot less than I do now, every time I pressed Record on the DAW software, it was screwup after screwup after screwup. Frustration rose and overpowered joy, and so I let the music project lie fallow for months.

Until March, when I got the synth. It became a joy again. I got to peck and poke, pushing parameters around, finding sounds, figuring out what that damn thing can do. It became fun and novel again. I had to know more. So I picked up the manual and read it, and started reading the manuals to the rest of my gear. Now I’m getting familiar with it, and that, my friends, is a good, good thing.

I sat at my workstation last night and hammered out a nasty bassline. I recorded the midi of it, learned how to clean it up, loop it, record an audio loop of it. Laid down a track with a GM patch called “Nylon Guitar” (mildly reminiscent of the real thing). Worked up a drum track. (Yeah, I know…Creativity, WOW!) It’s mostly a throw-away track; the vibe is totally not Glass Door material, but I’ll keep punching at it. Each hour spent with it is a new learning experience.

There’s plenty more work to do.

It appears I’m developing a gear fetish. Been feeling the itch to make music again, and my recent acquisition of music equipment is apparently spurring that. It started years ago with a MIDI controller and a softsynth. Then, two years ago, a microphone, an audio interface and a drum machine. Then, in the past year, a mixer, a sound module, and a PC I built for audio work. That got me going for a while.

And then my latest conquests: a 1984-vintage analog synth and a 1992-vintage sampler. When I count those with my 1987-vintage non-MIDI keyboard (from high school) and my 1991 sound module, it becomes clear to me that most of my equipment was not made in this century. Meaning I can truly, without studio fakery, create the Vintage sound.

For the first time in a while, I have sonic and artistic freedom. I have outboard gear that I can tweak and explore. I’m not spending hours getting frustrated with software synths. You turn it on, turn it up, and play; it’s really exciting. I’ve barely scratched the surface of what is possible, and that freaks me out. Every time I punch buttons, I should be pressing “Record”. I started doing that, calling the recordings “Noodle Sessions”, since they essentially are that. But I need to do more. Real songs, complete songs.

And that’s the problem. It’s a Thing now. I need to record. I need to make new music. Glass Door has been rather dormant this past decade, and that’s a travesty. My friend Jared demands new music, and I’d rather like to oblige him. I’d love to get the project flowing again. But I’m having difficulty.

I think one of my problems with creativity is getting it going. It’s that standing friction. Getting it rolling reduces the problem down to rolling friction, which offers much, much less resistance. Having a friend, a cohort, a fellow musician working alongside would really help. It makes sense that some of the best electronic bands are composed of two guys; one bounces ideas off of the other, and the productivity flows.

But the nexus of my creativity problem, though, stems from the source of creativity itself. From which well does creativity flow, and how does it flow? Should it flow out freely of its own accord, like an artesian well, or do you have to draw it out yourself? How do you dip your bucket to draw it out? Once it’s out, should the water pool like a lake, or flow against its constraints like a stream?

Do you punch buttons and play melodies and overlay them until you feel like you’re done, and hope for the best? That seems rather random and subject to the environment surrounding the moment of creation. Do you wait until a good idea forms, and then try muddling your way through it until you get a shadowy facsimile of what you intended? I’m between these extremes, and like the hungry mule equally between two identical stacks of hay, my creativity is dying of starvation due to the indecision.

I can only hope that I make some motion soon before the current urge to create eats itself and dies.

Forgive me, reader, for I have sinned. It’s been a while since my last update.

See, since I opened my Facebook account, I’ve been paying a large amount of attention to that account as I make snarky commentary and wait for the snarky replies (this is strangely similar to my former IRC habit). So, at the end of the day, my desire to make long-form commentary in this journal is diminished, and I’d rather put on some music, play Mahjongg, then go to bed.

A shame, a shame.

I will confess, however, that I have been writing a short story during the past five weeks. It’s science-fiction in general, futurepunk in specific (I’m trying to avoid calling it “cyberpunk”, given the soured reputation of the genre, even though it technically is cyberpunk). Early in February, I got an itch to lay down a few paragraphs to set a scene. More style than substance, but I knew there was a story there somewhere. The next night, I wrote the next chapter and felt it; I had to write this story to see where it goes. After the third chapter, I had to stop myself and go, “Hey, so…what’s the ending?” And I thought about it, considered some of the options made visible by my writing so far, and I couldn’t come up with anything.

And then I laid down for bed when it smacked me like a ton of lead. “Oh, fuck! That’s the ending!”

The next few weeks was spent carving the path to actually reach that conclusion. The distractions mounted — facebook, work, Olympics, drooling on my desk — but I managed to lay down the final chapter a few days ago. The first draft is finished. I’m now in the final readthroughs to smooth the rough hairs before I send it to a few friends for critique. When they return their notes and I integrate them into the text, I’ll most likely be ready to share with you, my reader.

So, keep close.

OK, so I lied. I’m a lying liar. I’ll be submitting a track to Anal0g.org’s Wires 7. The track is old shit, like 2002 old. Haven’t decided on which old track I’ll submit; I’m leaving that decision to Jared, who will choose 1 of 3 tracks. I tried to write something new, I really did. Fired up all the music gear, had some great ideas, but the frustration level exceeded my ability to deliver by deadline. So there it is. Glass Door will be representing again on Wires.

Worst foot forward.

So, why the frustration? Isn’t music supposed to be fun? Yes, it’s fun. I can sit at the keyboard and noodle all day. But a quirk of my personality raised its ugly head this weekend. So I can ad-lib as long as I want, but the moment I press “Record”, it all turns to shit. My playing, even though it was smooth and flowing, becomes stuttered, off-centered, mashed keys, skipped notes, the works. Fuckup after fuckup after fuckup.

The recording is in the digital domain, so it’s possible to fix it and clean it up, but doing so is tedious; it is the punishment for screwing up while recording. And there’s the frustration. It’s the same frustration I experience when I’m playing for, singing for, dancing for, performing for anyone else. If I screw up, I screw up big and my mental state changes, like a shock of panic jolts me from having the wherewithall to follow through gracefully as if the screwup was intentional.

I would be the gymnast who would walk off the mat when I inevitably smash my face during a flip. Instead of picking back up with the rhythm and playing through to the end, I’d rather stop then and settle with the low scores.

According to my friend Jared, who runs the Anal0g.org Wires music series, the submission deadline for the next Wires release, #7, is Thanksgiving day. That’s two weeks from now. Given that it took me 3 weeks last time to write “Stars In the Window” and a few more days of anguish over the sonic mix before I was finally happy with it (only to have it get messed up during the audio sweetening on the final compilation), I’m not sure I can commit to doing a track. So I’m having doubts about submitting something on this round. Just not feeling it.

I know I’ve recently put together my music rig, and I’ve had some great fun noodling with clean sounds, novel melodies, and the first interesting chord progressions in my life, but I just don’t know if I want to throw myself into the project and stress about deadlines when I have to do the same thing every day at work. Yeah yeah, I know, I know, I’m pulling the “I Have a Life” card. I have to. If Elleinad can do it, so can I.

Jared says Glass Door is a staple in the Wires series, and I’m glad he feels that way. But I’m not convinced enough this round to commit to a new track. Sorry, old friend. A little less radio silence on the chat front could’ve helped.