My music tends to be all instrumentals. It tends to be about form, a certain kind of abstract formalism.. about compositional ideas. I’ve long wanted to bring lyrics to my work, though I can’t actually sing. I’d like to create something that is somehow about something.. something you can understand from the words.. or from something along these lines.
I’ve been developing some ideas. Strangely enough, most of them are of a deviant sort of rate x nature. Something that explores sex in a very uncivilized sort of way.. something a little extreme. But this, of course, would just be the surface of it. Beneath this surface we would find that it was really an exploration of something very very deep. It would be something beautiful.
Here’s a little trailer to the movie Kinsey that sorta points to some of what I’m getting at:
As he says, there’s a discrepancy between what we say we do and what we actually do. Not just in the arena of sex, in many arenas… and you could say we are all deviants in one way or another. Another words, to not be a deviant is to be a deviant.
In many many ways we all exercise imagine management in how we present our selves to the world, as well as how we present our selves to our self. How do we understand our behavior and selves? There are various forces in the world that seek to civilize us, that go so far as to help us frame our selves in a certain way, to create a certain kind of picture of things. What I want to do is over throw that.
Imagine, if you will… instead of understanding your self, or anyone… from a polite perspective.. I mean.. with friends, as a for instance, there are incentives that we look past each others flaws.. and then there’s the question of what exactly constitutes a flaw.. So what I’m thinking of doing is creating an image that shows these things from a point of view that is more or less the opposite of what we are generally used to.
It will be a kind of exploration of our shadow sides. But bare in mind my central thesis.. which is that wholeness is the most important thing, and that the forces of civilization try to dictate how we grow, and what we grow into. What I’m really after is who we are outside of this force.. as a Zen master might say “show me the face you had before you were born.” So what I want to try and do is show the beauty of the human soul that exists beyond our current understanding.
I’m, on principle, against the use of fowl language in blog posts but.. I’m in a wild and wacky mood today.. so I thought I’d throw a little at ya.. Ok, maybe I’m not really against it…..
Today I’m blogging without spell check. Even when I blog with spell check, people tell me I should use spell check… so this is going to get ugly fast, allow me to apologize now… Cause I can’t spell for…. yup, shit.
Its creeping up on 9:30 AM, which means it’s a little past my bed time.. so maybe this accounts for my wild wackiness..
I just started in on a pretty good blog post, just moments ago, when IE crashed on me.. made me so angry.. yet another reason for today’s blog post’s subject line.
I’ve been thinking a bit about my blog strategy, and thinking I should make.. at least from time to time, posts that might have broader appeal.. you know.. stuff that doesn’t make graduate students run for cover.. with my analytical madness that is this blog…
My God… I have some Jedi analytical faculties.. not to get to high on my self.. that I actually think I could provide for you a scientific proof for the existence of God.. some folks out there might question which God I was proving.. but that’s besides the point..
I don’t know.. I just figure I should write in ways that are more wild and free, from time to time.. maybe use a little humor.. I’m told I have a good sense of humor.. but you wouldn’t know it from this blog.. or maybe you would, come to think of it..
I have a dark sense of humor in my intellectual life.. its sorta.. I don’t want to say arrogant.. but I do feel like.. people who call them smart are often not. The life of the mind is really no different then any other life.. it simply has a different cast… and when folks try to make it into something more.. not only do they make it stupid.. but they castrate it from that which is worth anything at all.
The life of the mind is a life at play. Play with ideas.. Ideas are fun. Indeed, ideas are you’re friends. Don’t think I’m a neo con for saying that… Oh, there’s something worth saying something about.
Are you familiar with these Neo-Con folks? You know, the folks who brought you the war in Iraq? Neo-Con’s are an interesting lot.. they are into ideas, and think ideas are important.. which is to say they are different from the “realists” in the world of foreign policy and diplomacy.. Well, for the record, I think ideas are important to.. but I don’t think they are everything. Ideas are matters for waking life, but its our dreams that really make things happen..
I’ve been watching a lot of C-Span lately.. which also means I’ve been listening to lots of intellectual folks talking about foreign policy… So I guess these thoughts are with me.The presidential debates are stupid when it comes to the subject of Foreign policy. We are told that this or that candidate is good on the subject.. but what the hell does that mean? Diplomacy is a complex subject.. I mean answer me this big guy “just what the hell is America’s interest in the world”
Oh I could tell you what I think.. I could go off for a long time on what I believe… you’d probably be impressed, you’d say “that guy is good on foreign policy,” but… that really makes me no better then the folks running for president, ha?
Well I’ll tell you what bothers me about these candidates we got these days.. American Foreign policy is one of the most important issues we have today.. do you believe me? If you don’t I’ll address this in the next paragraph.. What bothers me is that no candidate for president has really articulated what our interests are.. what there vision on this subject is… in grand terms. Nobody has given us a big picture view of the matter.
Ok.. so why its important: Once upon a time we had this groovy thing called “the cold war.” The cold war is a complex subject.. but basically it meant.. well as George Bush would say.. you’re ether for us or your against us… lol, or you’re with Cuba.. but that’s another story. Basically everybody chooses a side between us and Russia.. and it’s all nice and simple..Then one day some evil bastard tears down a certain wall, and before you know it the Cold War is history.. now what do we do? This is the period where Bill Clinton is president.. and this becomes is biggest issue.. as far as foreign policy is concerned.
Then we get our man Bush and.. he’s kinda nostalgic for the good old days of the cold war.. his team is all into big state war.. big state power.. and so they don’t think the war on terror is all that serious.. until 9/11 comes, and then it becomes time to over compensate..
9/11 doesn’t really change a thing.. well accept for everything.. but it’s really only a mind set change.. maybe a few rule sets to… but what I mean is it’s still the post Cold War scene.. it didn’t really change the reality of what the real threats were.. just changes our awareness of them.
Old School Realism, it became clear, was a mistake… in some senses anyway.. or at least in need of some revisions. Basically there was this belief in “the status quo.” Which is to say.. it was all about maintaining it.
As insane as this might sound.. status quo maintenance does address a pretty important concept.. you see we, the US, we have limited means…. even if we’re the biggest kid on the block. We have only so much treasure, can only spread our military so far, and only get so adventurous abroad.. so, you gotta pick and choose your wars.. literally… and maintaing the status quo is a strategy that helps minimize how many adventures we might get called to..
The problem with the maintaining the status quo, above all else, is that the status quo does in fact lead to political environments that help to incubate terror… and its that status quo, like inertia, that kept us from taking the adventures that might have prevented 9/11.
Anyway… the real deal is we need to get smart… that’s the long and the short of it. The war in Iraq is stupid.. if Bush was really a CEO president, he would have cut his losses on his failed program a long time ago.. As much as I don’t like Bush, I can appreciate why he might be so committed to the Iraq conflict.. and I’m not really as bothered by our continued involvement there then most folks I know.. what bothers me is the stupidity of the involvement.
That said, I’m still leaning to “we should get the hell out of there.” It’s just that I think if Bush talked straight to the American folks.. and it didn’t all feel like a giant mass deception.. You know what? Maybe I’d go a long with it, I don’t know.
Domestic Issues as they Relate to National Security.
Of course lets get real here.. the War in Iraq = less money for other things. This, my bothers, is a real problem. You have to ask, it seems to me, what is in our interests when it comes to education, the economy, etc.. and how does this effect our geo political situation?
The future is uncertain. The rise of globalization… inside of which we see the rise of India and China in particular, to say nothing of who knows what might happen over in Russia.. or for that matter the EU.. There is the question of what you need to be competitive in that global economic situation.
In the US we have a drop in manufacturing that has a lot of people freaking out.. freaking out over out sourcing… as they say on South Park “They took our jobs!” The nature of Globalization is.. they will take our jobs, but that doesn’t have to be a big problem. What we need, in my view, is a system of safety nets:
If you loose your job.. and you loose it because the industry / area you’re in is doing poorly.. this ought to be an opportunity to get into something that’s doing well. I believe there ought to be opportunities for retraining, and reeducation.. and believe it or not, this might not have to be ubber expensive!
You may not have noticed, but one of the latest sensations to have swept our nation is a little old thing we call in the biz “the podcast.” Strangely enough, it turns out that podcasting is a rather inexpensive thing to do.. and so it is.. that you see any number of podcasts of lectures coming out of universities like UC Berkeley, Harvard, MIT, Texas A&M, Stanford….. and the list goes on. Did I mention you can subscribe to all of these for free? If you have iTunes, go check out iTunes U for some examples.
The subject of how all this might work is a little complex to try and fit into this blog entry, but it’s clear that education is key to our economic future. It’s also clear that our economic well being is key to our national security… The only time this isn’t clear as when we compartmentalize these subjects.. and say “this is national security, and these are our domestic issues.”
So there is a real question as to if the war in Iraq, because of how expensive it is, takes resources away from domestic issues that also relate to the issue of American interests.. our world standing, etc.. so when we look at Iraq we really do need to balance these things.
I’m always thinking of Martin Luther King… coming out against LBJ on the Vietnam war for this very same reason.. or more particular the problems with poverty in America and how Vietnam lessoned our ability to deal with these problems.
[editors note: This was written, or at least started, a long while back, so it doesn’t fit in the chronology quite right]
Guitar Rig is a part of the Komplete package.. And it’s occurred to me that I should give it a test drive.. as I haven’t since I installed Komplete.
I haven’t actually picked up my guitar in an awful long time.. which normally results in “I can’t quite play this damn thing.” But today I’m feeling pretty good.
Guitar Rig 3 doesn’t seem to me much more exciting then Guitar Rig 2.. there’s a few additions, and things tweaked.. but I wouldn’t be inclined to upgrade if I wasn’t upgrading as a part of the Komplete bundle..
I’ll tell you what’s been a pain in the butt though.. setting up audio. I don’t know how much of this is to blame on how Apple does things, or now much could be laid at the foot of Native Instruments.. For one thing Kore is working as an interface, but it’s not allowing me to monitor via it’s head phone out.. which is quite a pain in the but.. and ultimately means that Kore is sorta useless to me.. as far as operating stuff in a stand alone way.. The only way I’ve really been able to do things is via opening them up inside of Digital Performer..
DP allows me to route to multiple available audio interfaces at once.. which can be Kore, my attached Zoom H4, or the Mac’s built in audio.. so once in DP it’s all things go.. but none of Native Instruments stand alone apps are so generous.. There’s enough gear in my studio that these kinds of problems aren’t real big problems.. but they are problems none the less.
I don’t know how much of the problem might be a Kore incompatibility with Leopard, versus how much could be.. a broken Kore.. such is the way of things at this juncture.
Fudging around, playing my guitar through Guitar Rig, lots of ideas emerge nearly instantaneously. I have this one idea that starts out rather bluesy.. kind of 12 bar blues esk thing.. but bent into a dissonance that evokes the coming of the dark one.. The idea would be you’d start off with this… and this would eventually lead us into some very very heavy metal sorta stuff.
There’s a bit of an open question as to where my sound projects might take me going forward. Generally, I’d like to bring my guitar playing into my music more then I have to date. The problem is.. creating guitar based music, at least for me, takes a lot longer then my usual electronic fair..
My Guitar Process:
The Basics
Different processes lead to different results.. I have more approaches to guitar, but I’ll give you “lets go write some stuff on the guitar” sorta shtick.
You just pick up the thing, and you play around. You don’t have to be plugged in.. but that can help. At some point in the process you’re working on different riffs, different ideas. Ultimately you have to really own these riffs and ideas… you just have to be flawless in your execution.. to the point where it will sound flawless under a microscope.
This is a sorta problem exacerbated by working with electronic music. Computers play dead on the beat every time.. if you don’t want them to play dead on every time.. you’ll have to mess with things. Humans are not so dead on.. This really isn’t a flaw.. there’s a whole art to how one might play around the beat.. who plays where.. and the tempo might change from one section of a song to another.. or be an expressive element.. in a way that’s difficult to model on the computer using current production technology.
The problem is.. with were I’m at.. is that the electronic elements will highlight any imperfections with my performance.. the result being that I can literally spend a whole day doing nothing other then working to perfect a riff.
Becoming a Better Guitar Player.
You sorta have to have goals. “Where do you see your self in 5 years?” Your skills, your chops, your performance frameworks, this is all stuff you build. As a composer, working with electronic music, my technical chops with the software become the language I try to make poetry with, so to speak.. On the guitar, my process of thinking is almost not thinking.. It’s somehow through muscle memory.. inside of which composition it’s self can be stored.. I mean there’s music theory that works on a muscle kind of level, if you can imagine that.
When I think about what sort of a guitar player I’d like to be.. one of the things I think about is “how do I want to think with my guitar.” You have these things called “scales” on which chords and melody are based.. knowing the scales allows you to think on the instrument. Most folks don’t really know all that many scales.. I mean its mostly just a question of what note you start with on the same scale.. and where on the neck you are.. if you’re good you’re maybe able to do this at any point.. at best you can’t really call these multiple scales.. its more like knowing different modes of the same scale…
My guitar playing isn’t that complex scale wise.. There’s a little bit of the pentatonic, the harmonic minors.. diminished scales, and augmented scales.. along with the conventional diatonic stuff.. but in my brains these exist more like abstractions of each other.. The way I would describe it is.. I’m almost thinking like “what sort of colors do I want to play with today” and I move in that direction.
See, chords are built on scales.. my knowledge tends to be fuzzy on a certain level.. On a 3 note chord I’m basically thinking in a spectrum between diminished, minor, major, and augmented chords.. that can be inverted anyway I please.. As far as I’m concerned I can forget scales and just play chords.. playing around with what chord is being played at any particular moment.. and thinking about chordal interrelationships as I move around.. In this way of thinking.. scales become a side effect of your chord changes.. what exactly constitutes a “chord tone” or a “scale tone” is an open question.
On some level I think of this as an almost more advanced way of thinking.. when you look at music theory.. its sorta all about what’s being played.. what this chord or that chord is.. how these things relate.. and blah blah blah.. but my compositions.. while on some level they might be intellectual exercises.. The actual choices I make are very often not purely rational. In fact the way I use reason is in the service of whatever trip I might be on.. Things get more interesting the further out there I go.. It eventually becomes a question of how out there can you go without loosing your grip on things.
Its sorta a basic principle of consciousness that you can only be conscious of so much at any given time..
Many days, perhaps moons, latter:
What I was trying to get at, maybe difficult to elucidate. Imagine musical composition.. theory, process, results, whatever, as a 3 dimensional object. What I’m talking about is changing your perspective on how you relate to that object. If you sit down at a keyboard, or on some staff paper.. that’ll organize how you think. The organizing of thought is like a way of organizing that 3 dimensional object. On a keyboard or on a staff paper, things like scales become vary obvious.. you’ll often start with a sense of scale.. and that will organize all the choices you make.. or this is sorta how things conventionally work.
When I talk about being “out there” what I’m saying is.. you’re in some sense blind folded.. you’re working with less information… less understanding. If you play chords, while being aware of the interrelationship of the notes of those chords.. scale becomes an implied thing, but its not the central starting place of what your doing.
I suppose how I work is a little bit like juggling musical composition conceptual frameworks. Each framework has a relationship to the other frameworks.
As I write these words I’m watching a thing on the Beat writers, on Ovation. I’m feeling possessed by an inspiration for the adventure ahead.
What does art need to do today? What does art need to be today? What is the job of the artist today? What must we give voice to?
I am a man of many worlds, and different worlds seem to have different ways of relating to the cosmic round.
A while latter:
I play around with my guitar. I am off the rails, though not manically, more poetically. Or seeking in that sorta way. Give up on thought, give up on preconceptions, exterminate rational thought.. Just feel it, just hear it, just open up to it. See it man. That’s the spirit of it. Can your eyes, ears, and whatever.. is that enough to navigate the spaces of the unknown that lye just inches out of sight? I’m not saying don’t think just think different.
Think as if thinking where an art form. Can life be lived as an art form: from childhood, to middle age, to the grave?
Embrace the anarchy so that your sensitivity might reach out to future values that are now seeking to express them selves to our people. Be one of the hearing to these voices. Fight to stay open.
Life is anarchy, reality is anarchy, nature is anarchy. Anarchy is nothing but an existential relationship to cognition. Anarchy is a seeking of a new cognition. Cognitive dissonance is transient, as is anarchy for that matter.
I’m a digital artist.. well analog to.. or traditional media to.. but the digital space is.. an area where I specialize. Digital, Analog.. the tools you use have implications on how you can work. Now that my studio has moved a few light years forward.. I find myself in a space of possibilities unexplored..
A few latter:
I’ve had some sort of a studio for about 10 years… and so I have work dating back at least that long. Not all of that work is so great.. In some cases the changing technological landscape dates the old work.. and sometimes the evolution of my self as artist dates old work. Still.. there are often golden seeds left behind.. dreams still waiting be brought to full flower. And this is at least part of where my dreams turn today.
Yet a little bit latter:
So something that’s pretty groovy about Ableton Live is.. you can import audio, find the tempo of it.. and match it to the tempo of something else. What this does is allow me to use all that old work as the raw building blocks of new work. Bringing this idea into my work.. has many implications.
These kinds of ideas, of course, are not terribly new or radicle at this point in time. It is, after all, the life blood of DJ culture / certain strands of electronic music. Though you could call me an electronic musician.. I don’t actually listen to too much of that kinda thing. For me.. most of where I’d hear that sorta thing is with someone like Frank Zappa.. which is very different.
Generally we associate these sorts of ideas with DJ / Electronic Music culture.. and Hip Hop. True music snobs will associate it with avant guard music since the second world war..
I think of my approach to music making as.. often at least, being like that of a painter.. And that makes it so I’m not really approaching music from anything like a traditional vantage point.. at least on some levels. And there’s clearly something in this that allows me to take the painting metaphor to the next level.
Latter that night:
The land scape of possibilities opening up to me is much broader then what I’ve described here thus far. I suppose the trouble is.. with the new possibilities comes new challenges, new struggles. That’s maybe both good and bad. The bad of it is largely just a sort of negative point of view.. the realization that in taking this path.. I’ll have to start from the begging… which is a way of saying.. all the muscle I’ve built up thus far.. all the skills.. I’ll have to leave them be while I try and develop all new skills… and as I head out on this adventure I’ll be demoted from master to novice.
This over states things, to be sure, but it is the psychological truth that lys at the heart of an artist trying to take a giant step into the unknown. The deeper truth, of course, is that broadening your horizons is growth.. so it can only add to what your doing.
I feel some need, have been feeling it for sometime.. to jump off the deep end and go nuts.. to try and loose myself in a grand new adventure.. that is basically a lot of mess making.
Painting is maybe a good metaphor… with paint, you could realize a highly photorealistic painting.. one where the brush strokes became invisible… a realistic rendering of whatever. The world of photorealistic art, or art that aspires in this sort of direction, is very large indeed, but it isn’t the whole universe. People who think of this as the highest realization an artist could aspire.. when confronted by impressionism they freak.. never mind any kind of abstract expressionism.. modernism or postmodernism…..
And you see these artists.. paint splashed all over the place.. making such a mess of the canvas.. ahh.. but do you feel the energy and the emotion in there? You see this is sorta what I’m talking about in my sound work.. moving from realism to abstract expressionism, or something of this order.
Well sort of. The point is I want to create work that has that kind of explosive energy.. whirling madness.. I want to create work that’s like.. some building held together by Elmer’s glue. I want the quality of the construction to be expressive.. I want my way of relating to media aesthetics to be expressive.
What I’m describing is probably not like anything you’ve ever encountered before because, after all, I am thinking in the terms of “formal elements” which have nothing to do with style…
A few latter:
In the long term, the way this project will work is.. I’ll basically run around trying lots of different things.. lots of little adventures… experiments. These projects will not be “whole projects” but mini projects. It will be “lets think of something that might yield interesting results.” The results don’t have to stand on there own.. they will simply be raw building blocks of other projects.
Many hours latter, arguably the next day:
The Challenge
I feel cursed with a monstrous ambition. I’m on an adventure seeking some kind of greatness, a greatness that is beyond conventional notions of the possible. As my ambitions present me there challenges, the fear comes over me: am I up to them? This moment in my artist’s story is one of horizons pushing back, of limits opening up. To achieve a true greatness one must develop a technical mastery, one must speak with a virtuosity, and one must also have something worth saying. In the confines of the limited, the challenge of great mastery and virtuosity is much less then in the world of the limitless. And so there is the nagging question “am I nuts to turn in this direction?” Do I have the energy to make this journey?
There are the questions of my inadequacies. Nietzsche advises ‘beware in throwing out your demons that you don’t throw out the best thing in you,’ a wisdom that suggests it’s your demons that make your virtues great. I only wish my feelings of inadequacies were not so great… and of course these feelings are exhasterbated by entering into this new larger space.
I’ve been listening to this sonic experiment.. one that I plan to post in a podcast shortly… along with some commentary on the matter. It strikes me as amazing, and yet at other moments not so much. There is the feeling.. in working this way.. that “bad craft” or “bad production values” do have an expressive quality.
If you read me at length, or even listen to me at length, you will realize that I have a rather large and complex philosophical framework inside of which I think– perhaps even outside of which. This framework, it seems to me, is probably the shape of my art to come.
I started off talking about working with Ableton Live.. and really all of this can be seen as about this; about the new vistas Live opens up to me. If my experiment is as good and amazing as I feel it is, when I’m feeling good about it, then the fear of the challenge is not really the issue it appears to be. I have some hope, that in charting this new territory, I can still lean on the virtuosity and mastery that is already in my possession. If this is so, then the new work will, at least on some level, just be like new colors to old work.
What I love about my experiment is the mad guitar.. perhaps more then anything. It is a heavy metal thing gone off the rails.. exploding through space..
One of the challenges working in this way brings is.. the element of chance. If you construct raw building blocks that do not have an awareness of one another.. that then get brought together.. there interrelationships are products of chance. When you bring these parts together.. you have different choices for how to bring them together.. which is perhaps like a chance to play with how you want to frame those interrelationships. The positive effect of chance is that it can bring your work to places that your conscious will would not have brought it.
The main thread of my electronic music is conscious will.. I would describe it as a process of painting where you paint your self into a corner.. where being in that corner… the complexity of how to wrestle with your predicament grows stronger till you get to a point where you don’t really know if you can pull it off.. and in this tension great things can happen. The particulars of the predicament are, it would seem, analogous to chance.. they are are a way of chance speaking to your work.. and the effect of this is like a dialectic between conscious will and chance.. or conscious will and mystery. Still, the chance of it might be thought of as illusionary.. as it is really the effect of your own actions, of your own will.. It is, in someways, the voice of the unconscious.
A while ago I was reading a book by Leonard Bernstein, that explored the interrelationships of linguistics and music. I think I must have been listening to this while working on Deep Space Adventures, because I began to think about the implications of this on ideas of the remix in art and music.
It’s sort of interesting.. I mean imagine that you have these raw building blocks that are the products of various processes. As our compositions / productions take us in and out of the spaces of these building blocks.. we are recontextualizing the building blocks. On the other hand.. lets say the building blocks where material you were familiar with… Lets say, just as a for instance, the building blocks were in many cases musical projects that I gave away for free. In this case, these would probably be the bits of my work you would most likely be familiar with.. that you are now experiencing in a transmogrified form.
If you imagine that what a thing is is how it contrasts with its context.. we are talking about shifting contextual ecologies.
As I write something else comes to mind, a theme in my work. There’s this kind of range.. between the cliche and new or the never heard before. The cliche is somehow dead.. we experience it as “oh yeah, I’ve heard that one before, and probably way to many times at that.” We are deaf to it. When I see this in films it drives me nuts.. and is probably the number one thing I hate about so many Hollywood films. But if you can somehow experience the cliche, as if for the first time, you may find a symbolic resonance in it: There is a reason it got to be a cliche after all. The funny thing is.. in that Hollywood film, it would seem the film maker has no idea about that symbolic resonance.. and has actually rendered the cliche in such a way that it has not connotation sorta relationship to the deeper resonance.
Some time ago, I blogged about my philosophical process. One of the ideas is that you have these ideas / concepts that are 3 dimensional models.. the problem I have is I want you to experience it as a 3 dimensional model.. As I talk about this or that thing, and try to explain it’s implications, I do wish your awareness of the thing could be one that goes beyond whatever it is that I’m talking about. I want you to see the 3 dimensional object of it.. and be able to connect it to other objects your self.. and see the implications your self.
I often feel that in explaining a concept.. I’m doing so in one context.. but the concepts implications have different effects in multiple contexts.. and I feel as if I have to paint the whole painting for you.. in order for you to see the whole picture.. which of course leads me to writing very long blog entries.. like this one I suppose.
It is interesting to think.. that the remixing of stuff, as I’m speaking about.. is analogous to this problem. Another words.. the recontextualization of the building block, is like seeing the 3 dimensional conceptual model in a new context.
Well I suppose this entry is long enough as it stands.. so be done with it!
Oh, let me leave you with some video ReMix sorta projects by EBN.
I wanted to give an update on the podcasting adventures.. just in case anyone’s interested.
I have 2 podcasts… which I update pretty infrequently these days..
The first one to note is the Asymmetric Biz Cult Podcast… For this one I team up with Mark Hanser, and Evan Pew.. where we talk about “the new asymmetric business of culture creation.” Umm.. this is a somewhat complex subject.. but basically it’s about how modern technology is changing business, and what this means for artists.. or at least that’s sorta what it aims to be. Beyond this I have my own personal take on convergence.. a kind of complex evolving philosophy.. which I regard as having some value.. I think in someways I have a very unique take on what’s going on in these departments.. and if I can ever get the podcast so that its “actually good,” it may just become a must listen.
I think the Asymmetric Biz Cult podcast has faded for a few reasons.. One of which is just the events in our lives.. my mom died, Evan had a baby, and Marks life has grown its own complications. The other reason, I think, is because I’ve been obsessed with this area for a few years now.. and Mark and Evan are sorta new to this stuff to such an extent that.. that I don’t know if they’ve even known quite how they could contribute..
The Matt Searles podcast is another matter. Again, loosing my mom has turned my life upside down in a lot of ways.. and I’m still just sorta struggling to maintain sanity in the wake of it…
My mom’s passing, and the sorta of shifting realities that go along with that.. have really put me in a position where, at least for a little while, I can focus on what I think I need to be focusing on.. in a way I haven’t been able to do for years.. This includes upgrading my studio.. and putting together a tool set that is appropriate for what it is I see myself as all about.
There’s been some real questions for me.. as to what the hell this blog, and the podcast, ought to be about. I think if you want to be successful, and of course it depends on your definition of success, you can’t think of your blog or podcast as being about you.. it’s about your readers / listeners / community. Of course I’m not at a stage where I have an active community.. so its hard to know what a community would want.. so if you have any wants.. do communicate them to me!
But the point is, I feel like I’m a little to focused on me. I suppose I’m an artist, and my art is what I tend to spend my time thinking about.. and I’m basically just blogging about whatever might be on my mind on any given day.. which, you know, is fine.. but…
Next day sometime:
Well I guess my point is that I want to create a blog / podcast / whatever.. that has value. It’s an odd sorta thing though.. and maybe I’m just speaking from the vantage point of my own anxieties.. It’s almost as if there were certain “strategic considerations” that I’m.. aquatinted with to one level or another.. that have to do with how you gain some success in social media.. but… you know, you gotta be you.. and who I am is in someways antithetical to the strategic stuff..
I suppose, in someways, this is the point I mean to get to, and even why I’m here.. in this space. It’s this feeling that we need to harmonize our own internal nature with the external demands of life.. That this is important for our mental health.. and social media might be a way of going about this.. and certainly from the point of view of the artist and the arts.. what a true artist does.. you don’t start from questions of commercial viability.
Here’s the way I would describe it.. and it is perhaps somewhat radical, at least in some ways: You can literally go in any direction you like.. and if you can bring that direction to a certain state of evolution.. of maturation.. you’ll eventually get some place of value.. some place of interest.
A mass media market place has different views on this problem.. and tends to dictate, to one degree or another, what directions could be considered commercially viable, and what directions might not. I tend to believe that if you have something that’s “good art,” wether it’s commercially viable or not has more to do with how we approach the markets then it does the art its self. This might not be 100% realistic, but it’s an idea with some merit. The merit is made more true by the shifting economic realities brought about by our current technological disruptions… This is a shift who’s implications are still only faintly understood today.
This blog, I suppose, is like a journal of an artist trying to explore these new realities.. or at least these ideas of new realities.. as is the podcast. It’s the chronicles of his experience.. often in a very introspective sorta way. That onto its self is interesting, it seems to me… and gives this blog, and the podcast, some value.
Further, I think the challenges I face are not challenges unique to myself. I suppose if I’m looking to nurture a community around this blog.. around these efforts.. what would likely bring us together is the commonality of the challenges we face.
At one in the same time we have both the common and the individual: I’m at this exciting, and somewhat scary, moment.. where I have all this new technology to try and learn.. DP, Kore, Komplete, Adobe CS3, Final Cut Studio, Cinema 4D, and the list goes on… and on and on. My guess is.. when I talk about these technologies.. I’m not sure to what degree we hold these in common..
Well I mean I want to write in such a way that a general reader can follow me, even into the most technically challenging of subject matters.. I mean if you want to follow me in there. Sure, it’ll probably be challenging in that you’ll have to learn a good deal in order to follow me so far in there..
See, I read the collected works of Freud and Jung when I was in high school.. And it was wonderful as, in a certain way, I felt like I got to hang out with those guys.. and wrestle with there challenges. I loved that experience.. and I’d love to give you that experience.. to sorta bring you to the challenges I’m facing.. wether or not you’re an artist or not.. or wherever you might be coming from.. I mean if this is something you might find interesting.
The last bit I want to talk about is the technical challenges.. I have a Zoom H4 that I usually use for podcasting.. its a portable recorder.. with which you can record right onto these SD cards.. trouble is, and I don’t know why, I’m not able to get the files of the Zoom and into my Computer.. so I’ve recorded stuff for the podcast that way, and it hasn’t wanted to work.
Secondly.. I seem to be having some trouble with Digital Performer.. which doesn’t want to export my audio… I finished another podcast episode last night.. but DP doesn’t seem to want to let it out..
I’ve really only just starting learning Native Instruments Kore… I’m in that zone where you can’t be bothered to consult a manuel.. yet your life would be so much better if you could be so bothered.. I’ll tell you that Kore is a very cool thing… from my limited experience of it. I suppose some of that might be just where I’m coming from but.. Kore ends up being something like a cockpit by which you control your space shuttle.. I’m very much used to controlling things via mouse and keyboard… I’ve grown used to this kind of thing.. and I’ve never really had a good solution for controlling software via any other means… And I can tell you Kore offers a very good solution.
It helps that I’m a Native Instruments Komplete user in the first place.. by which I mean Kore is built in such a way that.. the Komplete Library is instantly a part of Kore.. without you having to figure out how to make Kore work with.. whatever it is you wanna make Kore work with…
You gotta understand that Kore, among other things.. it has a little LCD screen.. and on that screen pops up the name of whatever it is you’re editing / controlling… So you’re software has all these controls… and if you touch one of the rotaries.. or whatever.. its going to tell you what you’re messing with.. as you mess with it.. so one assumes.. in the process of making instruments and effects play well with Kore.. that you must tell Kore what the parameter names are.. but then I really haven’t messed with Kore enough to have any idea…
The interface is not always 100% intuitive in all places.. There are lots of places where its just a pain in the ass to try and figure out.. though I must say, so far, as soon as I get so I understand how something works.. it makes good sense to me, and I find myself loving how it works.
The experience, I must tell you, is absolutely awesome. It turned an old classic synthesizer, one that I just haven’t been all that into, into a synthesizer I love.. just because of how you find your self interfacing with the software.
You have to understand the limitations of the one point interface thing.. by which I mean everything you do on a modern computer is done via the manipulation of one mouse.. one pointer.. with which you navigate the interface. This has a lot of implications.. but the implication I wasn’t expecting is how this effects the way you think…
In working with music production you are always playing with audio effects.. Generally.. the way most of us approach effects, when approaching them for the first time.. we start out with pre programmed factory presets.. from there you get into the business of playing around with an effects individual parameters.. But the thing is.. via a mouse.. you can only play with one parameter at a time..
But with Kore.. you got 8 rotaries and 8 little buttons.. and it’s just like.. you can think about programing that effect unit in a very different way.. Your thinking much more in terms of parameter interrelationships then you are programs.. It’s very cool.. .
Cinema 4D actually seems approachable to learn… which is sorta amazing if you ask me. A 6 month learning curve? Really? Oh yeah.. I mean I can see that.. but it’s really not a “this is going to take 6 months to get so I can create some great work” sorta situation. Killer work will no doubt take a lot longer then 6 months to achieve.. but..
About Cinema 4D and 3D
Ok.. maybe I should slow down here.. so as to speak to those who might not know what the hell I’m talking about. I’m talking about a program that goes by the name of Cinema 4D. If you’d like to check it out further.. you can find out more at the Maxon website. Cinema 4D is serious pro level 3D graphics.. It’s the kinda think they those 3D graphics type movies with.. The use it for special effects in TV and movies.. they use it in video games.. etc, etc..
Different programs of this class have different levels of penetration into different industries.. As I understand it, Cinema 4D is probably most penetrated into the world of Broadcast TV..
What I want to do… I don’t even know how realistic this really is.. But I want to create work where I’m integrating video and animated elements.. via chroma keying, and what not.. So I want to create 3D worlds.. and animations.. and do this whole sort of thing.
I’m interested in charting new territory in digital film making. Most of this is sorta too complex to go into in detail here.. But I will say that I have a number of ideas that have been gestating for well over 10 years here.
So taking on Cinema 4D…. Assuming I go the Cinema 4D route.. this will be my first serious 3D program. I’ve played with a number of 3D programs in the past, and I’ve gotten good with some of it.. but there’s a world of difference between what Cinema 4D is.. and my past experiences.. and yet, to a fairly significant degree, I feel as though those past experiences do serve me as I try an orientate myself to this exciting new world.
The Larger Challenge of Learning
Lately my fear has been that I’m simply taking on too much.. as far as all I’m trying to learn right now: Final Cut Studio, Digital Performer, Komplete 5, Kore 2, Adobe CS3 Web Premium, Ableton Live 7… and then to add to this a program like Cinema 4D which is supposed to take 6 months to learn.. and then you have stuff like… lets go learn photography.. lets go get a new high def video camera, lets learn compositing and lighting in video.. It’s just an intensely large world of stuff I’m trying to pack into my brain.. enough so that I’m going “Jesus, is this all really realistic?”
Flash
It’s funny.. I’m doing a Flash project with a friend of mine, or for a friend of mine.. one where I will actually get paid.. so I’m now thinking “I should really bone up on Flash.” Flash is a part of that Adobe CS3 package.. I’ve been using Flash for years.. but haven’t jumped into the latest version too much yet.. and haven’t yet explored it’s integration into the total suite.. But Flash, as a platform and even if this project doesn’t require it, is a hugely complex platform.
I have a whole lot thought out as far as what I want my web presence to look like.. or Mattsearles.com anyway… and Flash figures into all that prominently.
Where I want to be with Flash requires digging in deeply into into the Flash Platform, and the developer side of things, even if only to facilitate the design side. Most of my work with Flash has involved using Flash as a tool for web based animation.. even if I haven’t put my stuff on the web.. and indeed.. my web based animation has largely been designed for 56K dial up internet.. as a pose to the current broadband universe. Where I want to go is to a more sophisticated sort of user interface design.. script based animation.. a certain amount of what we might call web 2.o mash ups.. a few web application development projects.. and stuff of this nature.
To these ends I’ve taking a route deep into the bowls of OOP or Object Orientated Programing.. and design patterns. My skills in this department are not yet ready for prime time.. but they are getting there..
So this gives some indication of the challenge ahead… as far as all the stuff I’m trying wrap my head around.
Back to the Studio
As we speak it looks like my Kore issue is worked out.. I’ve installed Kore, and now Kore is examining my AU plugins… as a part of starting Digital Performer for the first time after installing Kore. This process seems to want to take in the vicinity of an hour to get through.. fun fun.
I’m still having trouble installing the Kontakt library.. it seems to have stalled after getting to second library disk… What a pain.
I’d really like to have Kontakt fully loaded for some of the sound projects I’m currently engaging myself with.. The most significant of which is scoring a video I’m working on.
A little latter:
Kore seems to be in hell… It doesn’t seem to want to work at all. Its probably a Leopard thing.. where it simply doesn’t work with the current OS. This is basically fine.. assuming we can get our free upgrade to Kore 2.. which ought to work with Leopard.. but still.. you’d like to have these things not be a hassle every time you try and move forward a step.
Back to Cinema 4D
It’s probably just the Pixel Corps that make it seem so approachable.. They have soo many tutorial videos on Cinema 4D, that take you from the basics into the advanced.. And as you watch these you get the feeling that the complexity of your adventure doesn’t have to overwhelm you in anyway.
Yeah, so I joined the Pixel Corps. The pixel corps is.. well they describe it as a kind of guild.. for 3D graphics, animation, special effects, design.. all this sorta thing.. lets call it “media arts.” The biggest part of what they offer, at least for me, is training. I got in on a special deal for 3 months for $50.. which seems to me to be pretty amazing.
A part of being a member of the Pixel Corps is access to software.. which you are free to use in an educational capacity. This would be software that would otherwise costs thousands of dollars.
In my case, I’ve identified 3D graphics and animation as a core part of what I’m going after.. the trouble being that this is some expensive stuff.. (see this blog post for something of an overview.) At this point I don’t even know where I left my budget considerations.. I only know that my budget could use some adjustments… I believe where I was left was thinking I’d go with Lightwave and Modo.
At any rate.. the Pixel Corps give you access to Cinema 4D for a period of 3 months.. and Modo for as long as you stay a member.. as well as other stuff like XSI Softimage (a high end 3D package on the PC)
The trouble, from my perspective, is a few fold. For one, I want this software to work on my projects.. which is not exactly none commercial use. The next problem is that 3D graphics typically takes 6 months to get you’re head around.. and really up to speed. If you go and spend 6 months learning a program, and you don’t own that program, that’s kind of a problem.
So.. my deal is like.. use the resources for tools I expect to own. For 3D, my feeling has been.. that Lightwave probably has a lot to offer, but I’ve been a little concerned that it might be a bit of a back water, at this point, in the 3D graphics industry. I would like to learn a tool that would help my employability in the long term.. but mostly just what’s right for me.
Well one of the things the Pixel Corps offers is special pricing on software. Basically.. they are this huge guild, and that gives them / us collective bargaining power.. I mean if we are going to buy your software in mass.. that can give you some incentive to give me a good price. I’m not sure how much I can tell you about this sort of thing.. only that now.. Cinema 4D.. we have a sale on… which looks very tasty indeed.
The only question, for me, is which bundle.. and how might that fit into my budget.. or how might I adjust my budget. Seeing as I don’t exactly know my budget.. I’m not really sure.. My blog post, that I link to above, talks about the different tears to Cinema 4D. I think it, to some degree, goes without saying that I need the XL or Studio Bundle. The Studio Bundle would be optimal, but at a retail price of $3495… that’s a lot out of my price range.. and at the XL bundle, at $2195, is also a lot of money.
I think, module wise, I need serious character animation, serious rendering, serious particle systems.. Hair.. And so I’m seriously looking at the Studio Bundle.. which… in the special Pixel Corps sale… is probably not out of reach.. but it’s still something that might very well require a rethinking of my budget.
On the positive side it’s looking very much like I have a Flash Job on my horizon, which translates into income that might allow me to get a few things that might otherwise not be in my cards.. so more of a push to the full studio… We’ll see what I do.. I have Pixel Corps training to go through.. the Flash Project.. this sale will be available for a little while..
Ok, how about some commentary on Apple’s iPhone announcement from yours truly? Before we get started, let me remind you that Apple is still dead to me.. ok
You can watch the apple announcement here. Basically Apple’s released the iPhone SKD, so developers can develop apps for the iPhone.. which will be sold and controlled through Apple.. Apple takes a 30% cut… many apps will no doubt be free.. and Apple has done a good amount of work to make the iPhone more ready for.. enterprise stuff.. which translates to making it better for working with your company.. basically.
Matt’s commentary
What really impressed me the most is how capable the iPhone is as a gaming platform. I figured.. just for the iPhone interface, and what have you.. well I didn’t expect it to have any kind of 3D graphics ability to speak of.. but if you watch the above announcement, you can see what Sega and EA, in just a couple of weeks of work, where able to do with the iPhone. I dare say it makes the iPhone a gaming platform! One who’s controls are scarily close to that of the Wii.
What’s also impressive is that the iPhone is really poised to be a whole new kind of platform.. as a kind of mobile.. almost computer, with internet… the built in camera, etc. Which, of course, has been an impressive part of the iPhone all along.. It’s just that maturation has been taking some time, I suppose you could say.
It’s hard to truly envision what the possibilities of the platform likely are. What we take for granted on our computers is.. computing is context sensitive.. on some level.. its just that on a computer the context is static, where as.. in the mobile world.. its not. So its like… as you go about your day.. what kind of app would you like…. what would serve you? How could your iPhone serve you?
I can think of many types of things I might like.. but I’m not entirely sure what the iPhone is truly capable of.. processor wise. I live in a world of high powered computing.. so most of what I use a computer for.. I can never have enough power for.. so when I think of things.. I usually think of things that might need a little power.
For instance, could you build media arts tools into an iPhone? Lets say you record a message into it.. and want to trim it up.. turn it into an MP3, and send it some place.. or hell.. just use it as the message you want to leave on an answering machine? Would it be possible to, via the iPhone’s built in wifi, or perhaps via the internet for that matter, to bring video into the iPhone and edit that? Could you use the built in camera to do stop motion animation? Could you make a little art program / image editor? Could you make a little sound tool? I don’t even necessarily know why you’d want to.. I suppose for working with utters, seesmic, and the like.. emerging social media stuff.. these kinds of tools would be great to have on the go..
Mobile Social Networking
I’ve always thought mobile social networking would be an interesting thing.. the equivalent of finding your date on MySpace.. accept.. transfer that to some other space.. could we look at modeling human interactivity and how this could add to a particular social experience?
One thing I think of is.. something like “the tracks people leave.” So you go to an online store and you comment on a product.. and other people comment on that to.. and this allows us to see how humans, on a mass sorta scale.. harnessing the wisdom of the crowds, so to speak, feel about things in cyber space.. but what if this same idea where applied to real world locations? I mean there’s the obvious.. lets look at user generated reviews to this restaurant we just wondered by, or even into.. drilling all the way down to particular menu items..
Maybe we get gossip on the individual sales people at a given store. Maybe the notion of local could play a roll in community building.. like you’re walking around the city when you realize, not from a lamp pole, but from your iPhone.. that Cindy’s cat is missing.
Well.. I’m just speaking out loud here.. random stuff.
Closing Thoughts
The SDK is free.. but if you want to test directly on an iPhone, or distribute your stuff through Apple.. it’ll cost you $100.. and with that you’ll get some tech support. It seems like a cool thing to explore, and I know its something I want to do.. but with all that’s on my plate.. I don’t expect I’ll get the chance to too soon.
But all this does make the iPhone that much more enticing to me. Right now.. its just a question of getting a faster internet, plus a video camera built in.. so I can do qik.. if they do that, I’m sold.