Confirmations of Doing the Right Thing or The End of SAD?
Tuesday was easily one of my most productive, and happiest, days in months. I composed a new instrumental, a new choral piece, then restarted the Zetaman webisode demo track I was working on. Yesterday I composed yet another instrumental and completed the demo track.
At the same time, summer has decided to show up here now. The sun’s been out since at least Tuesday.
My mood since that time has definitely improved. Quoting Radiohead, I am definitely fitter, happier, more productive. Now I’m wondering if the improved mood is because I’m doing what I need to be doing, or is because the sun has returned and my mild Seasonal Affective Disorder has disappeared.
Perhaps a bit of both.
Key Slam Therapy
I just finished doing something I haven’t done in a very long time:
I sat at my keyboard and just played.
I wasn’t trying to write anything in particular. Actually, no, that’s not quite true: I am trying to write something, but I’ve got Mr. Insecure in the way. So I stopped trying to come up with something and just let my hands do their thing. Was it particularly memorable? No, not really. Oh, there were some nice bits I came up with, but that really wasn’t the point. I just haven’t been creative much at all lately, and it felt really nice to shake out those cobwebs a bit.
I’ve got to do that kind of thing more often. And by more often, I probably mean daily. It’s my doctor visit. Actually, no…more like prayer. ‘Tis my worship.
Kaboom
In my infinite wisdom (ha!), I thought I could upgrade to WordPress 3 without any problems.
Right.
The theme I was using went away. So, too, went the images I had. Later today I’ll plow through my backups and see if I can resurrect it; until then, I’ll use this placeholder theme. ‘Tis a bit too dark for my tastes, but it works for now.
Crossing Uncanny Valley
Yesterday morning I succumbed to gear lust and picked up a PS3. I could rationalize it because my roommates also were looking at getting one, too, and I just beat them to the punch. They wanted to play the most recent version of Ratchet & Clank, a series they’d enjoyed on the original PlayStation as well as the PS2. Me, I’d read various reviews of Red Dead Redemption and wanted to check it out. And Wil Wheaton had expounded on his adventure(s) in Dragon Age: Origins, so I also wanted to try that.
Not an inexpensive proposition. But worth it, I thought.
I started with Dragon Age. At this point there’s a lot of elements taken from Twilight Princess, specifically the real-time aspects of combat. Enemies aren’t _too_ difficult yet, so brute-force works. I’m sure as the game progresses, tactics, both preset and on-the-fly, will become more of a necessity.
I watched Dana, one of my roommates, start up Ratchet & Clank last night. She’s played a bunch of them, so her control learning curve was practically non-existent. I RTFM (Read The F*@%ing Manual) all the time now–except with my audio tools. Odd, that. Regardless, seeing the PS3 pump out beautiful, though cartoon-like, images was certainly impressive. It drove home for me how far technology has come since the PS2, and the PS1 before that, going all the way back to my first console: the Atari 2600.
This morning I popped in Red Dead Redemption for the first time. Upon starting the game, I was presented with a cinematic opening credit sequence. It was done exactly how it would be done in a film, which impressed me a lot. After that sequence, I was given control over the character for the first time.
And then I crossed the uncanny valley.
Picture a frontier town in the west, just before sunset. Imagine the color of the sky. Imagine what the buildings would look like, what the ground would look like, what colors would dominate the landscape.
That is what I saw. I stared for a moment in awe. A moment later, that feeling disappeared as I remembered I was in a game.
Technology has reached a point where our simulations of the world are getting more and more realistic. This is the challenge for me and my sonic art: creating something which sounds real, which sounds “live”, using non-live, sterile tools. It’s really daunting–almost to the point where it’s easier to toss up my hands and give up. But it is also enticing: look what I can do, what I can create!
One-Hour Challenge
I’ve recently started writing something each day. One thing with the film music business is the necessity of not “owning” a track after completing it. You can make the best track ever, but if it doesn’t fit the needs of the film it becomes utterly useless. In fact, it’s less than useless because the hours/days you spent on that track are gone. Granted, you’re also closer to knowing what is needed because you then know what’s not, but it still is an interesting feeling.
I was thinking of what to make today when I remembered something I saw last night. On his Facebook page, Bob Stark, a highly-regarded (and darn good, if I do say so myself) Portland-based audio engineer made an oblique comment about seven flats being a relatively common key for what he’s seen lately. (For those who don’t know music, seven flats is actually not very common.) So I made something with seven flats. But then I thought it would be even more interesting if I made something quickly, say in just an hour.
So, presto! A new idea is born: the One-Hour Challenge. What can be made from nothing in an hour? By made, I mean from the start of writing to rendering the final product in 60 minutes. To start, we have this:
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‘Tis a simple little bit, but all great ideas and things are, at heart, a simple thing.
Changes happen in life
Just when you’ve settled into a life pattern, something comes along which knocks you out of your rhythm. This has been a constant in my life the last few years. Or, to put another way, the old saw about the only constant being change has certainly held true.
Things have been tracking poorly over the last few months, and years in some respects. But a couple things have changed lately that provide me with solace and perhaps even a bit of hope.
The stresses of the day-to-day have wrecked my creative output. Yes, I still would make something when the mood struck, a rare time indeed, or when an obligation forced my hand. Perhaps it’s a testament to my gifts that I always succeeded.
Now, however, I’ve been dealt a good hand–a wonderful hand, even.
The scariest question of all right now is what to do. While I don’t need to find employment financially for the next little while, the drive to do so–and to make it reliable–is overwhelming. The drive to create as vocation is there, and I feel that success in that realm is, if not assured, than at least highly likely. Yet taking the plunge and devoting all of my energy into making something out of what has clearly been a hobby to this point is disablingly terrifying.
Yet at the same time, also terribly exciting.
Fear has ruled my world for far too long in innumerable realms. It’s time for me to ride this bull, yet do it smartly.
Calm Seas, Clear Skies
Calm Seas, Clear Skies
Calm Seas, Clear Skies is now released!
50 minutes of soothing, calming music designed for meditations & massages.
Price is $10 per disc, plus $5 for shipping via USPS Priority Mail. Go to the Store link above to buy now!
Changes
So the day-job folks have essentially said goodbye. Unless they decide to suddenly ramp up their web development, I’m basically out of work. I know this is a very common thing currently. Doesn’t make it any less of a change.
This provides me with not only a problem, but also an opportunity. I can focus more energies into creating music and developing my composition/production business. So I think I’m going to add a quote request section here. Now to go search for WordPress plugins that enable that kind of thing, which should be pretty simple as it’s just going to be a form that emails me.
Changes indeed.