Tuesday Morning Update #11
Sep 16, 2003 myMusicShare/Save
Hmm. Interesting week. I put up an ad on Craigslist for people to play jazz with, as my piano skills have been severely waning. So far, I’ve gotten some promising responses, so that’s pretty exciting. Strangely enough, the very same day I posted the ad, I got an e-mail from a guy I played with only once and haven’t seen for months inviting me to do a gig in October. How utterly karmic.
I skipped out on about a million open mics in the past week or so – couldn’t make it on time, didn’t have anything to play, didn’t want to play the same thing I spent last time, had better shit to do. You know, excuses. But I’m OK with that – more on why in a little bit.
I started work on two tracks, both of them with a kind of cheesy drum ‘n’ bass feel. I don’t know if these two gems will ever see the light of day, or even get beyond the couple of measures they consist of right now, but that’s OK too.
Why? Because this amazing thing called vacation has helped me to realize some things about myself.
I told myself a while back that I wanted to have a 5-track demo by the end of this year. Pretty definitely not gonna happen. I told myself I was gonna go to the Village Underground or some other open mic every week. Definitely has not been happening. I told myself I needed to learn more about design so I could make myself an actual nice-looking website to showcase all my music (i.e. the phantom completions of all the unfinished fragments on my hard drive). What I forgot to ask myself was why.
That’s the big question, the question that people ask themselves every day. Why are we here, we all wonder. Why do bad things happen to good people? Why does this cost 500$ to fix when it was working fine yesterday? Why is there music? Why is there love? Why do we care?
Why do we do the things we do?
I try not to expect answers for these questions. But for that last one, I think I should. Why do we do the things we do? Sure there are bills to pay and mouths to feed and time to fill and other people to please and what-have-you. But it’s far too easy to let that sense of imposed responsibilty creep into the things you actually love. Music. People. Joy. Life. Oh, and computers sometimes.
Looking back at these past few weeks of little triumphs and accomplishments, I can pick out the really important moments, the points at which I felt like I was doing what I loved, and doing it for the right reasons.
The thing they all have in common is freedom. They are those moments when I’ve been working so hard to remember the words, and they fall into place, and suddenly I’m just singing. Those moments where a groove is rumbling out of my headphones, and I’m tumbling along the keys at 3 in the morning, unaware of time or space. Those moments where the natural flow of events has led me organically to a place of beauty. Those moments where all else falls away, and the only thing left is pure music.
Those are the moments I’ve been seeking. And I’ve always known that no one’s just going to give them to me. But what I learned this week is just how easy they are to find. You just have to let go a little bit, and there they are. Pouring out of your own mouth, your own fingers, these pure drops of dancing shimmering crystal hang in the air, blinding you to everything else, rendering the little everyday things meaningless.
So I guess that’s the answer. And that’s why it doesn’t matter what goals I work towards, what foolhardy promises I manage to keep. Because it’s not about those things. It’s about those moments, however I achieve them. And when it comes to why?
They are their own reward.
September 16th, 2003 at 1:19 pm
Well, you know waat they saay!
“Getting there is half the fun.” “It’s all in the anticipation.” “It’s the journey that matters.”
and a whole bunch of other wholesome crap.
Nah, but I feel what you are saying NONETHELESS. joys!
cheers, socetew
September 16th, 2003 at 1:53 pm
I’m glad that you found this on your vacation. They’re wonderfully relaxing things.
I do wish to point out, however, that it is easy to enjoy oneself when you don’t have shit to do. And I see this is your point; it is essential to recognize those times when you really don’t have shit to do.
If you can tell me how to be happy when you have mounds and mounds of shit to do, then hey, you can be my guru any day.
September 16th, 2003 at 2:14 pm
Ah, but the trick is to remember that vacation is just a longer version of the weekend, which is in turn just a longer version of the early morning and the evening. When you ain’t got shit to do.
But that’s not really what I was trying to get at. It’s not quite about happiness based on what you don’t have to do – it’s about understanding exactly what it is that makes you happy. And realizing when some of the other things you might have set as personal goals don’t quite fit in that category. And when I say you, I mean me – it just sounded too narcissistic the other way.
Work is an unavoidable obstacle in the middle of the whole thing. And while the work situation can be improved (especially in my case), I’m trying to delve more into the way we use our own personal time, when work is over. I have a good few hours every night in which to do whatever I will – instead of using it to read silly websites and chat incessantly with my friends on IM, I could be listening to Bill Evans, or focusing on my own music – not for the sake of having something to play at the next open mic, but because it is in itself the thing I want to do.
There is a tendency I think we all have to ignore the voice within us that says it’s OK to live life as we want to live it. We come back from work, our souls in shackles, we sit down to dinner, park in front of the television or computer screen or whatever, and we forget to take them off. We forget that we have come home to our own personal constructed spaces where we can sing and dance and play and laugh and love and do all the things that a human being ought to be doing.
Something like a vacation frees us up for long enough that we remember how to live. I am going back to work on Thursday, and I will be trying my hardest not to forget.
September 16th, 2003 at 3:07 pm
Everything you’re saying is true (and quite eloquent), but I’m still scared that at the end of day I won’t have accomplished anything. Sure, it depends on how you define ‘accomplishment,’ but I firmly believe that anything worth doing is worth at least trying to do it well, and that takes enough dedication to do the parts of it that aren’t fun.
I suppose I’m a materialist in that I want to produce things, for myself and to share with the world, rather than just have experiences, so I place a high premium on finishing a thing. That’s definitely something that colors my value judgements about singing, dancing, playing, etc.
I guess pride has something to do with it, too. Aren’t you more proud of having written your KungTunes extension than listening to Bill Evans last night?
However, I need to shut up, lest I contradict my comments from this post.
September 16th, 2003 at 3:30 pm
Yeah, you’ve pretty much hit the nail on the head here. The drive to produce, to show everyone else what you’ve done and what you’re capable of is a very strong one. And of course there’s the fact that sometimes you have to do things you don’t want to do to achieve the things you do want. But it’s far too easy to fall into the trap of just doing those things.
An example: as I have mentioned before, I think Hard Normal Daddy is an amazing album, and whenever I venture into any electronic music territory, I’m consciously and unconciously trying to emulate Squarepusher in some way. Because of how well all his tracks are crafted, I become similarly demanding about my own. I’ll listen to a set of drum samples, decide they’re not exactly what I want, despair that I have no idea how to make them the way I want them, think about how long it will take me to figure it out, and then eventually give up.
I did this very thing the other night. But then I went back to the sounds I had, and I wondered to myself, what is creativity if not the ability to make something great out of what you’ve been given? I started doing my thing, and lo and behold, I started liking what I was doing. There was work involved there, but it was directed work – I could sense that what I was doing was necessary to produce what I wanted to produce, and it lent it that same positivity.
I don’t quite know if that really reveals anything. On the subject of pride, yes, I am more proud of having written those scripts than of my passive listening last night. But I enjoyed the actual experience of writing them far more than I do my pride at having completed them, which is fading each day.
Anyone else care to weigh in on the subject?
September 16th, 2003 at 3:57 pm
Ah, we must use what we are given.. EXACTLY!! I used to spend forever listening to different synthesizer samples to figure out which was PERFECT for my track, but then I realized that I might as well choose one that is only SORT OF good, because nobody else will care about the difference! I used to struggle against my enemy “barely audible”.. ie., hours spent with results that don’t sound ANY DIFFERENT to the normal human ear.. blah.
So yeah, just have fun with it. Speed can be a good thing. You can always come back later with a fresh mind and change crappy lyrics, arrangement, drum hits &c. But it’s nice to just sit down, and then when you get up, you’ve gotten something, instead of spending hours on end and barely having gotten anything.
I am of the speed mind because it keeps things more fun, PLUS I simply don’t have the time to diddle away until “barely audible” becomes my BEST FRIEND. rrggh
I realize that was somewhat skewed from the topic at hand, but hey.
socetew
September 16th, 2003 at 11:57 pm
Sweet…what are you up to tomorrow aol?
September 19th, 2003 at 11:31 am
Good heavens you impress me Arthur! which sounds like a mormon mother even as I write it, instead of the hip artist type that I am, but it’s exactly what I’m thinkin.
and I know what you talkin bout. About living for oneself instead of societies definitions of adulthood and makin it and…
You can do it in every area of life, I’m really sure about that. I’ve been practicing for about 6 years now. takes a lot of practice.
possibly some therapy. 
September 27th, 2003 at 12:56 am
cheers arthur. you speak my mind. i am in montana for the week, trees and mountain top views, reminding me of myself. it’s liberating to realize what you want, and let all the other crap evaporate. empowering. a tough thing to keep sight of, but the struggle is endlessly entertaining. we’ll see if i can keep the image balanced when i start weaving through subways and headlines again.