[editors note: Matt is trying to go off the deep end.. linking a change management orientated business strategy… where you don’t actually tell folks what to do so much as you think about the ecological context of there work.. with his own creative process.. so this becomes a kind of first person narrative… somewhat unreliable narrator style perhaps.. (though this is perhaps for certain existential reasons)… case study: Another words this blog entry is really about how business might operate in the future.. but um.. you probably have to think pretty deeply to work all that out.. for the rest of us it’s just him talking about his process.. and dealing with various technical challenges.. while plotting out his future.. or like.. the future of his process… or something like that…
yeah.. so its a long winding rant of a post.. hope you can dig that sorta thing]
So.. I just posted an entry on some of what I’ve been sorta exploring in my music production adventures.. I have yet another post in rough draft form, to add to that.. and then there is yet something beyond that I’d like to post.. on process and the finely tuned human instrument.. or something like that. But all of that seems like old news to me today.. Indeed my last post on the subject was largely written about a week ago.. so lets get to the now moment of it, shall we?
What started off as a somber impressionistic piano piece has evolved into… well it makes me think of a fight between Toshiro Mifune, and John Wayne… if you can imagine that. It’s gone into a full orchestral type production (with some asian percussion)… and it’s now sounding very much like music made by yours truly.. which is something had I wanted to hold off from..
You know.. maybe we could go into that bit about the fine tuned human instrument stuff?:
This is a somewhat complex idea.. But basically we are complex ecologies.. we humans. What is it that causes us to crave ice cream one day and nachos the next… that’s the ecology. Every moment, just where you’re awareness is.. that’s the ecology. This is profoundly important if you want to understand the mysteries of you’re own being.. and I dare say it can lead into a direct experience of God. Ok, that’s probably a controversial statement, but what the hell!
For an artist this means.. what colors you’re attracted to; what color relationships.. what ideas.. the whole of you’re consciousness.. this is the subtext of process, to put it a certain way.. and if you look at art.. its kind of like a window to the soul… Or at least lets say it can be.
My process is one of embracing this kind of idea… There are different approaches you could make to the artistic process.. which can influence what sort of an effect your underlying ecology has on your work. Still, the ecology will effect performance, thus the value of industrial psychology to business…. to say nothing of a companies culture.
In this blog I’m starting to talk about this subject.. under the guise of “mystery management.” What I’m talking about is ecological optimization.. management not through direct control, but by influencing the ecology.
Ok.. so that’s like a quick overview that idea… Now another thing I’ve been thinking about blogging on is.. my studio change’s impact on process…
Today is the first time in my life where I felt like I had a sound studio that doesn’t really compromise… That’s not to say that this studio isn’t a budget studio.. or that there aren’t things I should think seriously about investing in.. Only that.. I don’t feel like I have to compromise with my work… or any compromises I make, its not because of studio limitations really. The implications are dramatic.. When you’re used to living in an unrealistic situation.. with unrealistic limitations.. you don’t have uber high expectations. When I look back at my old work now.. there’s a lot of places where I think “gee, I wish I had done something about that.” The truth is.. this is common even among grammy awarding wining sound engineers… whom are normally not working under the same kind of limitations. But lets face it, everyone’s working under some kind of limitations.. you know.. we have x amount of time to get this thing done.. we have y amount of money to spend.. None the less I now feel like I don’t need to compromise….
Next day:
My strategy has always been.. lets work in a circumstance where we minimize our burn rates: If I find a way of working where the cost of working is minimal.. the cost fo time.. energy, whatever… so that I can maximize how much I put into my work.. if I make that one of my differentiators.. I could potentially create work of a higher production value then someone going through the conventional process. So… the notion of time limitations is not one that I really want to deal with in my “personal work.”
Ok, enough said on that for now.. lets get to the implications, of my studio shift, on process… in light of the “finely tuned human instrument concept.”
My strongest background is probably that of a visual artist.. even if this isn’t a muscle I exercise as much as I’d. If you’re a painter.. you have the subject of “how you apply paint to the canvas.” You could do the Jackson Pollock painting dripping thing… you could drop water ballon full of paint on your canvas.. you could use an air brush, you could attack the canvas with a brush so that the brush gestures are a part of the energy of the painting.. you could pain in such a way that the brush strokes seem hidden.. where we perhaps have a realistic depiction of whatever it is you’re painting…
The attack the canvas thing tends to be a very aggressive sort of thing.. it’s about emotion and perhaps intuition.. perhaps about sensation. All this is expressive of your ecology.. It, at least on the canvas attack part of it.. tends not to be highly analytical… Though I confess I’m a highly analytic painter.. but as you well might imagine from reading this blog.. my analytic process integrates this kind of attach process.. integrates chance, integrates accidents.. integrates all of this.. in an analytic sorta way.. or perhaps in other ways.. The analytics of it is a juggler of sorts.
So… when it comes to music production, composition, mix engineering… I will often just attach the sonic canvas… which of course produces expressive results just as it would with a visual arts process.
But here comes the contrast between the old studio and the new: In the old studio there were a limited number of instruments you could use at once, and a limited number of effects. The positive effects of this limitations were.. it didn’t take long to set up a project.. because you weren’t juggling too many elements you could move through a project quickly… I mean if you look at my Zar Matt A Thustra’s Deep Space Adventures project, there’s a solo album created in a month, where speed was a principle value.
The project I’m working on now, at this stage in the process, has 11 instruments in it.. All those instruments, I’m pretty sure, have one insert effect on them, and beyond that, as described else where.. they all have some of there sound going off to an auxiliary reverb. Beyond this.. this project has been one where I’ve had to program, to one extent or another, many of those instruments.. and I’ve had to spend a lot of time trying to figure out how to program / configure stuff to get the results I want.
Out side of this, the programing of the instruments performances.. as a part of the composition, has been more elaborate then projects past…
What all this seems to mean is it’s like you go from working in a small sand box to working on some vast beach somewhere.. The scale is all different… It’s not a project you can just jump into.. you have to take your time with it.. so what does this mean when it comes to the subject of ecology and the finely tuned human?
A few latter, while working on said project:
So we now have 11 instruments. Normally I’d control the mix via mixer automation, and now I’m controlling the mix more via the individual key velocity of each individual note…. (meaning stuff is controlled more by “performance” then “mix.”) The result is that it takes much much longer to write a section, but the expressiveness of the section is many orders of magnitude more. In addition to key velocity, I’m often programing pitch bend and modulation to the instruments.. and there’s a number of other things I could be controlling, but haven’t yet gotten around to figuring out.
If this were not enough, in some cases I’m also controlling elements of the mix via mixer automation.. As stated in an earlier blog entry, I’m don’t want the mixing to call attention to its self too much. For this reason I tend to set the pan position in one place, and leave it there.. but for some instruments.. ones whom I can only control the dynamic range to a limited extent via key velocity and automation.. I now control them via volume automation and there effect send.. which means there’s elements of the virtual stage.. which is to say where the instruments are positioned in space.. that would seem to be moving.
This is a project where I don’t know where it’s going. I have a preconception that as it goes along, at a certain point.. I’ll start moving it away from a traditional orchestral production.. We’ll see the introduction of electronic elements to make us think of electronic classical, and perhaps I’ll start dealing with the mix in a manner I might normally control the mix.. which is to say having your sense of where the instruments are coming from spatially… in a constant state of flux.. This evolution will then be a central thematic element of the production / composition.
Latter that day:
I’ve done this sorta thing before.. In a composition known as “Information Theory: Plight of The Complex.” Which you can find as a free download as a part of my Indra’s Net project. However.. that project was more of a budget orchestra then this one..
Back to the subject of ecology:
Lets call it my psychological ecology, it’s effect on my taste guides me in my interactions with the production.. in the projects forward evolution. Any art project can be thought of as a product of a series of decisions.. You’re staring at a canvas and how you interact with that canvas is you’re reaction to that canvas: It is you’re “aesthetic response.” If you attack the canvas.. you’re throwing at it a lot of energy in a concentrated period of time.. so it’s a bit like the ecology of a moment.. when you work for days straight on a project, well, the ecology of that longer period gets imprinted on the work.
In you’re reaction to the canvas… over time.. certain things happen: If you’ve ever gotten sick of a song because the radio played it too often.. the artist’s reaction to the canvas can be many times worse…. as he / she is looking at it / listening to it many more times
An interesting quality to my work is that repetition often does not happen in the same sorta way as it might in conventional music. There is no verse chorus verse thing going on.. In conventional music this sorta thing aids the process by which you recognize order in it.. Aesthetic sense.. our notions of beauty… they are very much tied to our ability to recognize order.
Order is, to me, very important. Our concept of reality is a cognitive ordering of.. lets say sense impressions into.. perhaps a rationalistic framework.. though in practice it’s much more complex the this.. but basically. Order is a projection, it is not really the order of the universe. Or.. our framework for organizing reality has implications on how we experience and understand reality. The organization is a kind of lens… that magnifies certain things.. and also has the effect of making other things less visible.
The organizational principles of my music is a kind of critique of our conception of reality.. It’s, in a certain sense, about the organization. Part of what I find exciting about.. say in this particular piece.. is that it’s kind of a cognitive roller coaster ride. It’s in a sense saying “look, this is how you could look at things.” The vision I’m departing is one that produces a kind of cognitive vertigo.. It’s as if you suddenly looked around you’re world through the eyes of an alien. To the extent to which.. we were earlier saying ecology effects one’s notion of reality.. It’s a little like saying “what if we changed your ecology.” It’s like bending reality before your eyes… Could there be an “ideal ecology” that would produce the sorts of results in our lives that we might like to have?
At its best, I would argue, religion is about creating an ideal ecology.
So the point is.. if we explode our concepts of reality..
A couple days latter:
What the hell was I talking about anyway? Jesus, I’m trying to tie too many themes together here… and you just can’t develop all the ideas, fully enough, in one blog entry.. so screw it.. lets end here.