I've been sitting on this one for a while, and I don't know why.
My album Regulation and Classification. Download or cassette :)
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All men dream, but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds, wake in the day to find that it was vanity: but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act on their dreams with open eyes, to make them possible. —T. E. Lawrence
I have a new album on the way, released by the glorious Toneburst folks. The physical release will be super limited so I'm taking my time putting together my own Bandcamp page for it. Toneburst will be releasing it on their own platform too and I'll announce that here.
The more frustrated I get, the more stress I feel. The more stressed I am, the more anxious I become. As my anxiety levels rise, the less confidence I have in myself, and my self-confidence is very low at the best of times. The less confident I become, the more depressed I become, the ridiculous any idea of self-worth becomes.
You can see how I've discovered a genuine perpetual motion machine here.
I don't know where to start.
On top of that I compound these problems with several horrible mechanisms:
Baby steps.
One thing at a time.
- Break down each task to subtasks and handle all prep first and in the right order.
- Study, practice & take measured risks to assess progress *
- Reflection before & after action is important *
- "make time" rather than "find time" *
So how can I improve? Where do I start?
And that's a simple plan.
And now, three weeks into the New Year, I've stuck to the 3x a week gym attendance regime for a 6 weeks. Getting up at 7am is an established thing now, preparing breakfast and lunch in the evening is bedding in. It's going to be OK.
*some strong advice perfectly summed-up by BJC. Thank you Barry.
The 2018 re-record, remix & remaster of The Grunderhunter!!
Experimental soundworlds The Skittering and Handmade Arpeggio!
And from WeeklyBeats2016, the Lovecraft inspired They Return to Claim What is Theirs and instrumental guitar piece Loaded Dice!
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Hey people! I’ve released the third album my Song a Week for a Year series, this one entitled Summer. It’s a quarterly theme!
You can click below and listen for free!
https://mysterioso.bandcamp.com/album/song-a-week-for-a-year-summer
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Well friends I’ve finished compiling all the details and here it is, the second part of my Year of Songs project. This album covers the period from the 31st of January until the 24th of April 2016. It has some successes, like Blind (Instrumental) and Quenelles, a Trio (this is possibly my favourite from the whole year), but also has the first couple of proper failures where I was reaching for something that I genuinely could not achieve at the time. Still - it was a learning experience!
It’s available to buy or to stream for free over on Bandcamp! SAWFAY II - Spring
Happy listening and have a great weekend!
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I’ve released an album, it’s the first of four that I’ll be kicking out into the world over the next two months. This one is Part I - Winter.
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Life to me mostly seems like how it might be for a cat with a spinal injury, except in that nobody thinks I’m cute as I struggle to do the basic things that everyone else appears to do with ease.
It’s a shame to feel so jaded.
My current project, a Song A Week For A Year number 24 - ‘That’s the Message’ on #SoundCloud soundcloud.com/mysterios… This piece started off inspired by Black Heart Procession, but then traveled through Gravenhurst and latter day Nick Cave. Once again, it’s a bit dark. I started work on the lyrics before I’d completed all the instrumental parts and for once I had the time to come up with a text I’m happy with. The downside of this being that I ran out of time to work on the drum programming. Swings and roundabouts! Becca Allen joined in on backing vocals and autoharp.
Here is the continuing playlist for the project so far: soundcloud.com/mysterios…
Rob Brezsny has this to say, directly to me:
A bottle of Chateau Cheval Blanc wine from 1947 sold for $304,000. Three bottles of Chateau Lafite-Rothschild 1869 went for $233,000 apiece. The mystique about aged wine provokes crazy behavior like that. But here's a more mundane fact: Most wine deteriorates with age, and should be sold within a few years of being bottled. I'm thinking about these things as I meditate on your long-term future, Sagittarius. My guess is that your current labor of love will reach full maturity in the next 18 to 20 months. This will be a time to bring all your concentration and ingenuity to bear on making it as good as it can be. By September of 2017, you will have ripened it as much as it can be ripened.And frankly, I like this. That I've finally begun writing music again seems to frame the above rather neatly.
I haven’t been the best at publicising so as a summary here’s a playlist of the project so far:
Entry number 4 in the ongoing compendium is a lovely floaty piece of acoustic art-pop. Should I feel a bit self-conscious in calling it art-pop? Nope! No prizes for guessing my references for the voice parts.
SAWFAY number 3. I tried to use as few guitars and as many basses as possible and this is the result. I’m quite enjoying only using acoustic guitars in these compositions, especially for the lead or harmonic sections. I’m still a bit shy about singing though.
OK, 2nd week. I completely forgot to post this here at the time -the 7th of November.
Initially I had a problem with my mix, the whole piece was overdriven once I’d exported it from my DAW. Eventually I discovered that somehow SoundForge is boosting the gain of everything it opens, even the preview feature in the File Open dialog. This piece is perhaps a wee homage to both Tortoise and David Bedford.
So I think I’m going to do a thing. Like really commit to something. I’m gonna make a piece of music once a week for the next 53 weeks.
This is my first piece. I’m keeping it rough and ready. This is only the beginning. soundcloud.com/mysterios…
Drum loops from Siggi Baldursson.
Meaty glorious guitar solo in the coda by Stevie McKnight: steven-mcknight1 Other guitars & percussion by me.
I am making the first of two decisions. When I complete my exam I will pick one thing and do it. I will take proper notes for every idea I have but keep my focus of that one thing.
The second decision is for after the exam, when I will decide on what to focus.
I’ve spent too long spinning in circles, getting nowhere.
First this:
Dieterich Buxtehude (1637-1707) was a German composer whose organ music is still played today. He was a major influence on a far more famous German composer, Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750). When Bach was a young man, he decided it was crucial for him to experience Buxtehude's music first-hand. He took a leave of absence from his job and walked over 250 miles to the town where Buxtehude lived. There he received the guidance and inspiration he sought. In 2015, I'd love to see you summon Bach's determination as you go in quest of the teaching you want and need.
And then this:
"If you have built castles in the air," said philosopher Henry David Thoreau, "your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them." That may seem like a backward way to approach the building process: erecting the top of the structure first, and later the bottom. But I think this approach is more likely to work for you than it is for any other sign of the zodiac. And now is an excellent time to attend to such a task.
I worked through this A/B test earlier, comparing a series of pairs musical excerpts. I didn't know what the test was specifically reaching for until I got to the end so I was a bit stumped sometimes in that I'd get pairs of tracks both of which I disliked and pairs of that both intrigued me.
And this is the result I got:
The quiz/test is available here: slm.tunehog.com/start/mai…You are quite a knowledgeable person who has an interest in the arts. Although you respect tradition, you will also happily try out new things from time to time. You have a wide spread of interests, both mainstream and unconventional. Others view you as an interesting but not alternative type of person. Overall, you are a reasonably tolerant individual.
It’s important to you that you complete the tasks that you begin. You are reasonably well organised but you’re probably not excessively tidy. You can be impulsive at times but you also recognise that you can’t always live for the moment. You follow rules and can be relied upon much of the time. You work towards goals but don’t strive for perfection.You’re not really an extravert. But nor are you a typical introvert. You’re quite easy going. Extraverts need other people to recharge their batteries, introverts need time alone – you’re a bit of both. You’re able to immerse yourself into social situations quite easily, but you’re also quite happy with your own company. At times you will seek excitement and at other times you will happily stay home by yourself.
Soft hearted and sympathetic, you see the best in people and trust others easily. You avoid conflict and tend to agree with others in order to keep the peace. Helpful, honest and direct, others see you as warm and caring. You are a good team player who cooperates well.
You tend to become stressed pretty easily and will focus on the worst possible outcome in any situation. You are highly sensitive and easily upset. You see danger where others usually don’t and can be quite shy. You don’t like to wait for things and may have a quick temper. You worry about things you have said and done, and can be hard on yourself. The problems in the world make you sad.
Hilariously it’s only taken me fourteen years to get this recording this far. Maybe it’ll take less to actually complete it.
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I’ve spent an afternoon relearning a short piece I wrote three or four years ago. I came up with it the usual way, a chord pattern turns up under my fingers, then a second chord that I like, then a kept poking until I find a complete set. A bit like collecting bubblegum stickers for a sticker album. I recorded a quick and dirty sketch mainly to work out some harmonies but ended up with synth backing instead. We used it as one of the pieces we performed with Shane & Terry until that fell apart, but I’ve hardly even thought about the piece since then. Relistening to it last night I was a little irked at the sloppiness of the playing but mostly I was confounded by how obtuse I’d been in my note choice. I know my ear is a bit rusty and this just underscored that rust before going back over each letter with a biro. I was deliberate in using chord fragments that don’t play to the usual major or minor & root configurations, and I think this piece is better for it even if the hand positions, the changes and the rhythm of it are awkward to play convincingly.
I tried to rerecord of to a click track once and failed completely, so I may try it again. If I can ever play it right.
Further to last, I have remedied my computing woes. Results at this link: soundcloud.com/mysterios…
If I get two days off a week and one of those days is a week day, what’s to stop me from going through the large sheaf of song ideas I have written down and recording one of those songs on that day?
Really, what’s to stop me?
Is it too late for a New Year’s Resolution or is it the perfect time?
