Namelessness

WilliamHazard · 2024-01-02T04:21:28.500Z

my immediate thought is that I would spend less time thinking about what to buy and more time thinking about what to do – very much in keeping with the spirit of this thread. I think, in a similar vein, I would also spend more time talking to people about our lives and less time reading about gear. I would realize, first and foremost, that everything I needed to make really great work was already right in front of me.

But my next thought is that the time I spent reading and thinking about gear is what led me to those conclusions, and I don’t know if I could’ve come to what I now consider a better way of going about things had I not first spent a while going about things in what I now consider to be a worse way (for me) – e.g., some of the connections I’ve made with people, which now are not at all centered around gear, were initially very much about gear. And some of the ideas I came to about what I wanted to do with the work were inspired by workflows I first encountered in pieces of gear or in the context of gear. So maybe everything is actually exactly how it should be, how it always needed to be. I do hope that, in the same way I look back at myself from 3 years ago and feel like that person had no idea what he was doing, I can look back at myself now, 3 years from now, and feel like that person had no idea what he was doing.

informationsource · 2024-01-02T04:33:46.912Z

WilliamHazard:

the time I spent reading and thinking about gear is what led me to those conclusions, and I don’t know if I could’ve come to what I now consider a better way of going about things had I not first spent a while going about things in what I now consider to be a worse way (for me) – e.g., some of the connections I’ve made with people, which now are not at all centered around gear, were initially very much about gear.

I share this sentiment. Gear taught me things that years and years of battering my brain against software interfaces didn’t. And those nerds whom I proposed befriending? There’s no better way to do that than via shared interests and concerns, which are probably going to include gear (this transcends nerd categories). Wouldn’t be here if not for gear, and Lines is likely my favourite corner of the WWW.

Like many before me, I tried my best to learn from reading about the struggles of those who went before me, only to find my own struggles which I could have had no way of anticipating with my limited level of knowledge and understanding of the vocabulary of the domain. Similarly, I feel for those who have entered electronic music production without a music background, for there’s an extra hidden half to what already seemed like an infinite problem space.

The lesson, if there is one, is that the best advice you can give yourself is advice you wouldn’t have listened to or understood correctly when you needed it:

WilliamHazard:

So maybe everything is actually exactly how it should be, how it always needed to be.

anon60283851 · 2024-01-02T10:50:28.625Z

It always feels a bit odd for me (in my own life, no judging others!) to think how I’d done something if I hadn’t done it the way I did… because as that already happened and the experience I’ve accumulated can’t influence my decisions in the past, I think if I’d done things otherwise in the past, I’d most probably just have a different version of the “what would you do differently” theme to tell now so whatever I think I might have wanted to do differently would just cause the hypothetical me to think it’d have been better some other way anyway.

BUT here’s one thing where when I start thinking about I feel things happened mostly “right way” for me by accident / due to circumstances.

I started as a pre-teen with samples downloaded or ripped, and trackers - way back when there were no “just use free soft synths” to fall back to because there really weren’t practically any - nor any money available for gear of any sort. Trying to make things that sounded like all the different electronic and non electronic things I was randomly exposed to. Also got on BBSes, IRC and tracker musician / demoscene channels at that point and met a lot of nerds via those during the years.

The “open source” aspect of tracker music was pretty vital for figuring things out, because you could just download superb songs, open them in the tracker and see all the tricks people more experienced than you were doing. Dealing with limited channel / voice counts, working with single cycle samples and arpeggio chords, layering sounds, writing delays manually, stereo widening by playing two panned copies of the sample with one channel slightly delayed, fluid sample chopping via offsets, et cetera. I think that made me learn a lot about the basics. Practised a “real instrument” aside that which made me at least somewhat aware of different musical worlds, practical skills and amount of practise actually needed to get even half-decent at something, theory / analysis and so on, although I was more keen on electronic music back then and didn’t become more than quarter-decent as an instrumentalist.

Then slowly got so much into it that I could afford some kind of synth to play with with summer job money, so I could learn more about (subtractive) synthesis - and later got a cheap mixer and some “proper” speakers to ease monitoring and routing. But synths and fx were sort of additional sources of inspiration or even superfluous paraphernalia for a long time, they came and went and music was still made with software, controllers, soft synths and samples.

In many ways they sort of still are, even though I love instruments and effects and am periodically riddled with GAS, I still don’t feel I’m a very good “gear person”. I know I’d be most productive and have most fun with a computer + controller keyboard / grid based setup if I just could do that (focus / distraction issues and some other more or less unfortunate things). As is, my hobby has become kind of “superfluous” itself so I’m now enjoying just using hardware and “jamming” with it.

ermina · 2024-01-02T11:44:10.380Z

i’d probably not even bother.

or

i would get a PhD in one of the social science branch of the moment, since apparently that’s what needed in these decades for artists to appear interesting when applying to any sorts of institutional support.

or

i would get a brain rewiring enhancement™ because the most important thing to exist in the social space that is art, is one’s social abilities, not whatever aspect of their work.

or

(in the context of namelessness above all) i would go hyper-productive 20 years ago when the internet is still small, so that my pile of stuff is visible while who did it doesn’t have to exist more than a handle on a screen. That would require first to learn the ability to be hyper-productive, so basically be someone else lol

or

i will find my way to the thread about going silent for a few years and do some landscaping instead. I guess a finely conducted garden is better for the heart than trying to whisper in a howling world.

anon60283851 · 2024-01-02T13:03:44.279Z

An old friend and a colleague of mine used to work at the local copyright organization and met & helped quite a few local professional composers along the way.

Her observation was basically that to make it professionally in that world, you can’t be a talentless hack, nor someone with little or no interest in social aspects and promotion… but superb composers will often lose opportunities to decent composers who also have a good social & professional network, have found good ways of promoting themselves, and are at the right place, right time. I guess similar goes for anyone looking for “exposure” (or even “money”) on the field.

(Didn’t feel cynical today but despite only ever being a hobbyist / freelance side job musician, I’ve thought quite a few times that perhaps it’d been better if I’d just chosen another hobby way back, although not for that specific reason… But I feel you)

soysos · 2024-01-02T13:22:40.860Z

this thread!
Looking forward to active namelessness in the new year, let’s keep it going! My new practice this year comes from picking a very cheaply priced 40 input, 8 group, 10 aux, 4 matrix live mixing console for the studio. It’ll be simply installed in the current studio space in prep for a move in late spring/early summer. It will be a huge forward step in expanding my practice in dub mixing, live tracking, signal routing and become the centerpiece of my teaching practice.

anon60283851 · 2024-01-02T13:27:59.648Z

“Your favourite hobbies?”
“Active namelessness”

soysos · 2024-01-02T15:23:43.911Z

anon60283851:

“Active namelessness”

“Active namelessness”
Putting the Practices before the Products

anon60283851 · 2024-01-02T15:34:36.333Z

“Hard-edged namelessness” = interrupting people and asking them to apologise when they say eg. the E-word

(Elektron)

informationsource · 2024-01-02T16:24:05.613Z

Echoing @kbra:

kbra:

But I feel you.

i think this late-night rant leans strongly on a misinterpretation of Namelessness so I've spoilered it

If anything, namelessness for me personally has much to do with my own allergy to getting good at self-promotion, networking, and marketing a personal brand (ugh). Facing down a youthful bitterness borne out of a failure to comprehend doors despite my talents and/or privileges (the ones I visibly have and invisibly do not have), anonymity or pseudonymity offered an alternative that felt kinder on my young ego than having one’s art and entire identity either rejected wholesale or ignored completely.

It’s not a recipe for professional success alone, talent is necessary but insufficient - try adding the right mix or being friendly, confident, having a great work ethic, and sprinkle in some generational wealth and “the right school” if you can swing it - but it did wonders for my own mental health and general positive feelings towards my own art. I found it a much nicer alternative than a pursuit which was driving me to frustration, despair, cynicism and depression; none of those are particularly congruent with sustainable success, artistic or professional or otherwise. If I can’t have been born or raised with the good attributes, I can at least try to actively avoid the bad.

Not sure if that ramble makes sense but, if not, I feel you and have some strong and generally sympathetic feelings about your points.

JES · 2024-01-02T17:36:08.921Z

zbs:

If you were to start over right now and learn how to make electronic music from scratch, what would you do differently?

I’ve been playing music for over 43 years so “starting over” means different things at different stages.

Since my experience on bass shaped my later entry to electronic music, I think about that. I am left handed so I always wonder what would it would have been like if I’d started playing bass guitar left handed instead of right handed. But since I started on upright at 10, that wasn’t an option–“left handed upright bass” wasn’t an option in school at the time. I also wonder what my life would be like if I’d actually gone to music school.

If we are talking about synths, there are many points of inflection. 20th century things I’d do differently: I wish I’d taken a class on analog synthesis when I had the option back in the day. Would have sped up my learning later, except that I didn’t know to be interested.
I have no regrets regarding my discovery of granular synthesis around 2002 – that was fantastic.

21st century things I’d do differently: My most commonly given regret is not starting Eurorack with a single-manufacturer system or really even understanding the incompatibilities built into Eurorack. I think something without those incompatibilities would have saved me time and money though it would have required more initial outlay.

No regrets about “music career” stuff as it’s my avocation and not my day job and I’m happy with that.

anon60283851 · 2024-01-02T17:45:46.200Z

JES:

I also wonder what my life would be like if I’d actually gone to music school.

You’d have ended up being a software developer.

Source: did it so you wouldn’t have to!

eblomquist · 2024-01-02T17:53:51.122Z

WilliamHazard:

I think, in a similar vein, I would also spend more time talking to people about our lives and less time reading about gear.

This is the heart of llllllll to me. While there is no shortage of smart people on the web happy to share technical insights, there seem to be far fewer willing to open their hearts to connect with others on a soul level. I’m grateful for all the tech advice I’ve received here, but that pales in comparison to the deep stuff.

Thank you to everyone who is willing to go there, hopefully you know who you are.

JES · 2024-01-02T19:22:04.572Z

anon60283851:

You’d have ended up being a software developer.

Source: did it so you wouldn’t have to!

Phew! Dodged a bullet then. I don’t mind a little kludgy coding here and there but software development is for sure not my calling.

_marimo · 2024-01-02T22:50:33.991Z

I second this! Also, Ed we spoke a couple (few now?) years back when I was designing a community patch book for Mannequins modules and that sort of spirit of this site and the people who gravitate towards it are the reason I keep coming back.

Those patch books are somewhat of a moot point now that the technical maps are all fleshed out, but it was a fun time regardless.

eblomquist · 2024-01-02T23:01:51.964Z

Dave,

That was fun!

There is a lot of the “pay it forward” spirit here…

It feels good to connect with each other. I’ve been trying to do that with some of the Boston area folks, although being still under the shadow of Covid hasn’t helped much. Lunch outdoors in nice weather is a joy

I’ve been trying to do some periodic zoom hangs, both group and one to one, like you and I did. I actually prefer the depth of one to one, but group hangs can be fun too…

I highly recommend folks try to make connections with new (or existing) friends here…

They may be virtual connections or maybe in person, but no matter what, it’s really nice to decrease whatever sense of isolation or loneliness one might be feeling… And to increase the sense of camaraderie is wonderful

_mgb · 2024-01-03T01:02:21.447Z

anon60283851:

You’d have ended up being a software developer.

How true this is. I went to music school and am currently a software developer. Seems like a common pattern.

I do sometimes wonder what my life would have been like if I’d gone to school for computer science. but oh well, we can only move forward.

n9n9n9 · 2024-01-03T15:35:06.024Z

I’d have travelled more. Through my 20s I didn’t have a lot of money and I tended to spend absolutely all of it on gear – but I couldn’t afford good gear so I bought shit gear. I would have been ok with just my sax, guitar and amp – nothing that I bought really made anything about my music better. But travel would have made everything better, including my music.

And now I’m 50 with 2 kids, a job, etc – sure I can travel, but it isn/t really the same.

anon45924993 · 2024-01-03T15:40:04.538Z

If I did it all over again I’d probably spend less time with music and more time with plants. It’s not really a problem though, I’m just making that adjustment now instead of earlier.

Edit:

Was just reflecting some more on this and I think it might just be a seasons of life thing. It made sense to focus on music when I was young and socially gregarious. My connection to community is a more quiet and contemplative relationship now. Mostly I’m just trying to give some gray haired ladies some private joy with the help of a few hundred rose bushes. And that takes a lot of time and effort!

misuba · 2024-01-03T16:34:48.089Z

I would go back and start by learning how to mix. It’d have been miserable, probably, but it would have saved a lot of frustration with the gap between my sounds and the “good, real sounds” that are on “real records.”