#7

this is like an animating property of my investigations/ propositions, i came to the realization that my next 3 releases make my total for 2020 11 (a rebirth number) and they are a documentation of phenomena: work I didn’t realize I was doing until it was mostly done. transition in every sense of the word. 4 years I sleep walked. 1 year I am awake.

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#8

I am struck by your, apparent, lazer focus on praxis. Part of what you are saying that aligns with my present is how praxis inverts the question of “what do you want to create” into “how are you going to create”. This shift from ends to means has been fundamental in me making art that I experience as beautiful. In my opinion this shift also connects to what @dianus is possibly referring to in the intractable mesh of the spiritual/political components of music making.

My take on ends/means is the comparison of creating something to create something, and the material accumulation of art versus the active co-creation of the lived experience with music as the medium of experience. I think I see a desire to share this co-living-co-musicing-experiment-experience. Gosh I miss humans.

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#9

recently when the pandemic began, i was more prolific in making music and vids(i put out 6 vids and 3 extra tracks beyond the music in those vids, within the span of the past 7 months), and I realized the pandemic made me feel isolated, fragile, vulnerable, in a way that begged me to open my heart.

now, i’m struggling again because i have to keep looking for work(most of that doesn’t resonate well with me, so i end up having to think more and feel less). i’m starting to realize, my music making comes about more these days by unlearning what i used to know/think about music, and listening more to my heart, in order to let feeling bleed out openly into music/art which resonates with me.

“I had to, like, open the bruise up, and let some of the bruise blood come out to show them” -Daniel Hamm(in a recording processed by Steve Reich)

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#10

So speaking of that bruise blood. Wise blood. A thing I’ve been on lately is that last concept I wrote in the title - aesthetic applications of the self to sound. I started here thinking about the different selves I identify with having inside of me. I know a few - I put distinctions on them - and I largely know them aesthetically. They have a flavor. Then there is also the perspective of allowing all of them be me - that I am all of them.

One of these selves is what I hear people call the “chattering mind”. I think this mind is really fun - its kind of neurotic - its more about technical proficiency than anything else (say silence/grace). The chatterer is really good at sound design - can twiddle on those knobs each one a universe and all of them together - perhaps some tending towards what I might perceive as aesthetic perfection in that moment.

Another is the self-voice-energy I use to quiet the chatterer sometimes I equate this with my breath - other times perhaps when stoned - this mind has the same quality as the chatterer - it just reacts to the chatter with silence but a silent chatter. When not stoned this mind feels holy and thus deeper. From this place I find that my fingers understand the relationship of time and feeling much more closely. My actions slow down.

There are others. Perhaps infinite. Maybe I am interested in learning relationships between self-state and music-state. Is this interesting at all? I can also convince myself I am just being obscurantist about feelings.

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#11

this is so beautiful

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#12

tell me more about the blood?

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#13

ha, your word ‘grace’ :+1: describes it best: pouring out the blood helps form an instinctual connection to the grace in cathartic self-expression.

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#14

When making music, I often ask myself about what I want to ultimately express in the work. Lately I’ve been making pieces sonifying data [i.e. COVID-19 infection rates, coastal erosion] and aside from the whole, ‘it would be intriguing to hear how this data set might sound’, I also think about why exactly I’m using this data set in the first place. The reasons are because I want to express that sense of anxiety and uncertainty these data sets represent.

It’s the same when I do soundscape work based on field recordings. When I’m out in the field I often ask myself, ‘What is drawing me to this place? What aspects about the history and/or the topography resonates the most, and why?’ Then I write down a list of keywords.

I find in my practice, without the ‘why’, there isn’t a ‘how’.

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#15

there’s a meditational quality, almost a kind’ve humbuzz that occurs, I find, when focusing on music making. the interaction between the sound, and the intuitive process forward, very much an interactive process. perhaps vibrational is a better word, because the frequency is so microscopic. It’s oscillation between the excitement created by falling and finding, very quickly. blood moves, the heart races, communicates with the brains, focus and theta waves endure, fingers, hands, feet or breath, the throat in conversation in concert, with the air, with inner intentions. perhaps a bliss that maybe is attained via meditation, appreciating that interlocked oscillation between all the players, but definitely an insight on the path forward. positive affirmation. music is, as far as I know it, not a negative process. unfolding as it may a beacon toward a more deliberate and evolving self, the process of music, at least in its involvement with the body, certainly a method and practice of self development with every communion. that might sound vaguely religious in response, but somewhat trying to verbalise intimated experiences of that reciprocal process.

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#16

yeah. art fuels life. it is play. humans (and animals) play because it is fun, not for an outcome.

sidenote: we’re getting into sapir-whorf territory but i’ve challenged myself lately to change my inner dialog from “i’m going to work on music” to “i’m going to x on music.”

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#17

For me, music performance is a way to let something express itself. I have no idea what it is but I’m compelled to keep doing it. I’m always performing even when “composing”.

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#18

Do people here find that sometimes making music can come from the subconcious ? Then later after an ‘aha’ moment the reason for the music becomes known to the concious mind. A bit like writing down a problem and then throwing the paper away or burning it but reverse engineered…

Once the reason is known it seems listening to the piece helps one let go of or interpret the past event in a more wholesome way ?

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#19

I definitely made music for 10 years that was about being trans before I realized I was trans. Super into the tricks we play on ourselves; doing things because we must, but not realizing the full implications. I’ve been steadily releasing music all year and with these next three releases, I realized wow I started the practice of releasing regularly with a tryptich. I released 5 more things. Now here I am with a tryptich again. And all 11 incorporate one another and look outward.

Product of many many many many subconscious movements.

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#20

do you find that these kinds of practices draw you into the moment even when you are not in those moments? It sounds like a way of establishing a sense of self in place irrespective of time. I struggle with that when it comes to sampling - I find that once I sample - and especially once I apply effects or any kind of transformation the sound is immediately “objectified” and loses the sense of place. I am curious if you think there is some way to channel that place to sound energy in a more effective and transparent (?) way.

#21

This is so cool to read - thanks for sharing - could you say any more about what you are doing in all of this? I feel like you spoke in an abstract way. And I agree with your abstractions but what about you - are you doing these things you write about?

#22

I think I try my best to make my musical experience be about removing myself from the picture (but also still being completely there - I know I could program something and hit go - but I want the opposite - self absence (maybe) but also complete physical interaction leading to sound manifestation) - I think I read somewhere once that Joyce was trying something similar - to remove himself from the writing process - does that idea make sense at all to you? Is getting you out of the way drawing your subconscious closer to becoming the actor or the music maker? Or is that something else entirely? I dont think I have any idea what the/my subconscious is (or where it is). On the other hand - yes - everything I do is an accident - I think. A boulder tumbling through a large cavern with me on top me as the boulder me falling down - this was a recurring childhood nightmare of mind that I have accepted as just the lived experience.

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#23

I think I was just trying best to respond to your initial post, that in some ways I agree with the sentiment, that when right in the locus of music making, the whole collaborative process itself is about forward development. That’s not to say music making can’t be somewhat idle, for instance, noodling on an instrument while watching TV. Or even a session that doesn’t bear much fruit. I guess I was referring more to those ‘flow’ moments, where the self and the music are something of a feedback loop, not only revealing musical direction as u go, but also pointing toward your best aspirations for your life or self. I’m sure you are aware of Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi‘s famous text on the matter, which is something of an upward spiral. Life direction can propel forward or plateau, depending how the perceived challenges are engaged. Still, I’d think a kind of deep listening is going on when engaged in the mode I was referring to above. I guess it’s about all the senses coming together and ‘being in the zone’, to put it more candidly.

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#24

I’m interested in these questions, but I don’t know whether I’m actually developing an aesthetic in the narrow sense), or rationalizing after-the-fact the stuff that already interests me. The modular occultism thread did give me a lot of food for thought (despite not doing the modular thing nor the occult thing)… I’ve become interested in apophasis, which introduced me to emanationism, and I was struck by the notion of creative potential as a microcosm of divinity. I don’t know what I think about the ontological status of any of it, but it certainly changes my perspective on what I do when I do the musicking thing, and what my responsibilities might be, so to speak. And what I need to do outside of musicking in order to have anything to express when I do. I want my music to live within tensions like the “axis” you mentioned, void/silence/self-annihilation vs presence/awareness/will… how to sustain both…

I don’t think I’m succeeding; I’m aware in negative terms, attitudes I want to avoid, but I don’t really have a sense of ever getting it right. (Although maybe this is appropriate to the issue?) And it’s hard to believe I’m “making meaning” when I don’t think the meaning of music exists outside of the act of listening, and nobody likes my music. Buuuut anyway, I’m drawn to feedback networks as only-partially-controllable processes that aren’t simply random, and using the timing of sound-events within field recordings to determine large-scale structure, for some concrete examples.

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#25

For me, unless I an trapped in a theory-brain and concept-brain hangover from too deep a focus on my academic day job, it is at the very least driven by the subconscious. I think the most worthwhile (both in the sense of worth experiencing the birth of it AND in the sense of worthwhile for the listener) work is not a matter of my MAKING music, but more of me and sound MAKING each other. It knows - whether from my subconscious or somewhere else - something I don’t. If I battle this, if my ego gets in the way, the process as well as the results are painful.
I rarely know what my work is REALLY about until after I’ve made it, even if it is something conceptual in origin. EG I set out to make an experimental film about flags after 9/11 happened - only a month after finishing it did I realize it was a film about the experience of paranoia from a static place as metaphorical waves crash and recede repeatedly over our lives. There were still flags in it, but halfway through filming it I realized the film knew more about why I was making it than I did. Same goes for the best musical generation experiences I’ve had.
In the end its a relationship just like a human-to-human one: artist and instrument/tools/equipment, and then in a collaborative setting, artists bringing that relationship into a more complex relationship with other artists and their tools / processes.

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#26

I listen to and enjoy many styles of music of basically all types. I spent many many years working on music where I would try to specifically emulate something about a particular style or genre. It was more of an exploration of music as craft than anything else. Could I convincingly make something in the vein of a genre I like? The answer was yes for the most part, but it never really felt satisfying.

After my old group broke up, I took some time over a few years to think a little more in depth on what it is that I really care about and what I thought I needed to do to explore a more personal side of music making. I began to feel the slipping away of disdain at how difficult it was for me to make something the way say Dego from 4 Hero would. I started to think about what kind of general aspects of music really mattered to me.

I’ve been a DJ and vinyl collector for over two and a half decades, since I was a teen. The physical aspect of handling the music and all of the surface noise and this kind of thing very much were a major appeal to me. Despite using samples in my music before, it was not really the center piece of the ideas for the most part. I decided to change that up.

The lack of feeling of realness in a lot of modern music making was a turn off, so I decided to use only physical instruments and recording devices, especially ones that impart their own sound into the recording. And to do single long takes with no editing with as much “live” and unquantized performances in the parts and mixdowns etc as I could.

The other thing is that despite being a fan of a lot of dancefloor related music, I realized that much of what I like most is artists who have a defined process and method, usually putting an abstracted or experimental edge on things.

Once I let these ideas bounce around in my head for a while, I went back to making music but in essentially a totally different way than I had before. The results were immediately more satisfying and interesting.

Am I all the way there? Not yet. But I see the path and understand better what I need to get from myself to make music that sound and feels like me.

It’s much more interesting to me to use essentially a very limited set of possibilities and try to filter the many things I like through myself and those possibilities than it is to have a wide open constantly changing approach. For me this alters the results to have more energy and immediacy, essentially the things I feel are missing from a lot of modern music.

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