The Project
Even as I write these first words, I experience every creator’s worst feeling: the feeling of staring at nothingness. It can be a blank word document, a blank sheet of paper, or even an instrument (or set of instruments in a percussionist’s case) waiting to play the first notes of a new piece. Musicians, writers, painters, model makers, and even YouTubers experience this feeling and every single one of us has had to overcome it. Luckily, some of our best ideas come from this experience, and many people see it as an opportunity. Steven Pressfield is one such example. In his book The War of Art, he calls inspiration the Muse, and proclaims that, to be successful, one must call it forth and welcome it into the home and the mind. While my opinion on his language changes quite often, I do feel that there is absolute merit to sitting down with a blank word document, or Ableton Live session, in my case, and writing. So here we go.
Unfortunately, this series is actually quite hypocritical. I am not writing this post or the ones that will follow out of my sheer boredom or need to document my experiences. I am writing it because I am currently enrolled in a Careers in Music class as a part of my Doctor of Music studies. Hilariously, I have a career in music. It might not be a full-time position, yet. Strike that. It might not be a full-time position ever, and I love that idea. Regardless, I have a career. I teach electronic music and sound design at Paradise Valley Community College. I teach high school marching band at Sahuarita High School. I adjudicate for local marching band circuits. I teach private lessons and gig occasionally in my area. And now I spend my summers with the Mandarins drum corps. So why take a Careers in Music course? More on that in a few weeks.
So what’s this series about? My favorite thing in music is making things with other people. I love being a part of the gears that turn and working with people that make music fun and enjoyable. Some of my musical heroes (and non-musical) are prime examples of this. Drum corps don’t work with one person. In fact, they barely work with 200. Andrew Huang writes a lot of music by himself, but he has made a lot of success in his career writing for advertising companies. Adam Savage made cut his teeth working on indie films and tv commercials then moved on to Star Wars and Indiana Jones. Let’s not guess how many people worked on those films.
Because I love collaboration, I often don’t take the time to write for myself, by myself, or with myself, and this series is about changing that. I also really love having a goal or a project idea to start with. I hate blank Ableton sessions. You can see where this is going. This Careers in Music class require a project. I want to write songs under a new name and use my electronic music skills. Seems like an easy decision to me. Welcome to the first steps of a new music venture by me, for me, and with me.
The “Jams”
To start this project, I spent the week listening to old ideas. I have been keeping a folder labeled “Ableton Jam Sessions” for a few years. Every time I sit down in front of a session with an idea that is not dedicated to a different project, I save it in this folder with a date and a description and move on. Instead of doing the same again, I decided to listen to each of these files for inspiration and to share with you. Some were the earliest saplings of projects that manifested. Some are absolute crap. Some make no sense. Let’s begin.
Here is an idea that eventually turned into an original piece for two vibraphones and is available on my website. The original idea included samples chopped from the famous speech of Mario Savio, but those didn’t make it because a professor of mine at the time didn’t understand the reference and couldn’t be bothered to listen for the connection. The piece is called Two Souls in a Fishbowl. Before that piece was released, there was this.
Not as cool, right? Part of this journey is answering questions that I didn’t know to ask and learning a lot about my past self and this really puts some things in perspective. Great ideas don’t look, or sound, like great ideas at first. I believe it was Earnest Hemmingway that said “Your first draft of everything is shit.” Here is the final version.
Next up is a short section of what would eventually become the intermission music for my chamber recital. This one is almost exactly what was played at the recital, humorously.
Lesson learned: It was way cooler in the hall and with the accompanying music that followed. I have plenty more to share over the coming weeks, but for now it is time to talk about the goals for these tracks and the EP that will eventually follow. What is my style like? What is this project even? Well, time will tell me the true answer, but I am going to start with some of my lo-fi influences. Somewhere in the midst of my exploration with generative music, I discovered that writing lo-fi, and lo-fi inspired, music is a great way for me to calm down and remove myself from the anxiety that is life as an academic musician. Enjoy a little chunk of an idea that was actually not so bad.
Maybe that idea will see the light of day soon. Maybe not. My other major goal for this week was to decide what this whole venture would be called. I failed. I still need to sleep on that one, and for all I know that decision might take quite some time. So cheers to learning about my past self and good luck learning about my future self through writing music.
It’s a Long Way to the Top If You Wanna Rock ‘N’ Roll
-AC/DC
Griffin Law Music 