Trouble with Focus and Organization
Since the change in “regime” on Jan. 20, I’ve had a lot of trouble with focus. This past 2 weeks I didn’t hand in any work — even my daily random note exercise had been impossible. I would sit in front of the piano, unable to think. After 300-some random note exercises, it’s interesting that that behavior was knocked off the rails. “I was so upset I couldn’t even do my favorite thing”.
I had my bi-annual meeting with my psychiatrist the previous week and we talked about some behavioral strategies to help with the anxiety. These have been working, and my hum of background anxiety is growing quieter. Yesterday I was unexpectedly gifted with a beautiful set of bookshelves. I decided to make a tapestry fabric panel for the front, and use the rest of the fabric for a screen for the other end of the room. This process took several hours. By the end of it I felt the most normal I had in weeks, and I woke up this morning feeling clear as well.
But even when I am anxiety-free, I still have a lot of trouble deciding WHAT to do. Ex. what to work on first! I think the problem I have with clutter and disorganization also relates to my difficulty with making decisions. The times I’ve done the best with organization and decision making are when there’s a beautiful, singular creative idea that over-arches and unifies the process.
I also have the occasional day when I wake up with clarity and look around and say “I can’t stand X any more, and I know just what to do to fix it”. And other times something makes me angry to the point where I think “fuck it, I’m throwing this stuff away”. But I can’t be too angry, because that leads to destructive decisions! There’s a Goldilocks zone which doesn’t happen very often.
In conclusion, I’m able to make decisions when
it’s just the right kind of project
I’m in just the right mood.
Here is a video I watched today while having lunch. It inspired today’s line of thought.
A video by Bandsplaining
I’ve been thinking about what I will work on after my album project is done. I’m still working on my Random Notes of the Day but currently I’m guided by my mood and patience level. At some point it might be interesting to challenge myself to write in a series of different genres.
This vid talks about “Library Music” — music that was recorded specifically to be used for film and TV — and the many genres it encompasses.
Note, I had not heard of this Youtuber before. He has an interesting series of videos.
Lost momentum
I had a couple of things that caused me to lose momentum since I last checked in. One is politics — after keeping away from news since November, I did finally Gaze into the Untempered Schism. I became depressed and anxious for several days. After that I started watching random Youtube shorts because I was too demoralized to focus!
Another reason for loss of momentum is, I’ve had trouble setting up a person / group to report back to. My former tutor is swamped right now. And the Discord server I joined doesn’t seem to be a good place for me. I haven’t figured out how to behave in that environment. Instead of working on the music project, I’m obsessing about how much / how little I should say in the Discord, did I say the wrong thing, are they wishing the awkward old lady would go away etc etc.
Back on track!
My daughter has volunteered to be someone I can submit things to once a week. Not that she is going to read them or listen to them — just that I can hand her the thumb drive and check off that box. Break the big project into smaller pieces.
This video was helpful!
A series on the music of Final Fantasy 6
This is an amazing performance by Alessandro Granato and friends. Alessandro leads the channel Orchestral Fantasy and plays many of the instruments in this version.
A Funny Video about FL Studio
I just found this vid about FL Studio and why this particular musician does not like to use it. I thought it was pretty funny — and it also helps me to get over my resistance to learning Ableton Live.
This one is pretty funny too, though Cameron didnt think it was funny at the time.
He finally got in touch with his friend The Flashbulb who helped him out.
Here is Benn, who is very fluent in FLS, going to Ableton
Finally for the fun of it here is the vid that came out when I was first getting started with FL Studio. I love this song they made. Its so over the top!
Old Sam Peabody stops by
This morning was Random Note assignment # 298. One of the chords was a C diminished (which I insist on spelling C Eb F# A ). I was trying to figure out how to connect this chord with another one in the group, and then outside the window I heard a faint warbling whistle at the birdfeeder. “Old…Sam…Peabody Peabody Peabody”.
F# F# Bb Bb Bb Bb Bb Bb Bb Bb Bb
I made use of that suggestion to build an Eb minor 6 chord C Eb F# Bb
Thank you, Old Sam!
I was a bit brain-spinny at the piano this morning. Here are some of the thoughts I scribbled onto my manuscript paper
- “I’m thinking about, when I get my 70 dice, I can toss them all at once! There will be some phrases that make sense. Put into Midinous, connect in interesting ways.”
- About revising music from 3 years ago. “I’m going to treat it as if a friend had written it and gave me a box of stuff to complete. My job is to carry on her vision of the piece.”
- “I have to balance: talking & writing ABOUT music vs actually making it”
- “Trying to play these into a recorder is difficult. I can’t read my own writing. I’ve forgotten the chords already”
Remember, those arpeggios are chords!
First we hear a quick demonstration that the arpeggios of Bach’s Well Tempered Clavier (book 1, prelude in C) form a progression of chords with wonderful voice leading.
He then plays a series of his own block chords, spread out over the right and left hand.
The chord progression evolves using different inversions of the chords, creating a melody floating on the top and a bassline on the bottom. The melody and bassline don’t ever duplicate each other, and often are moving in different directions! (I remember this idea from voice leading in Music Theory 2).
The results are lovely!
He then arpeggiates these chords several different ways. On the piano, bottom to top. On the piano, top to bottom. Then he plugs in the synth. Note that when the synth arpeggiator doesn’t quite line up with the musical phrase, he makes use of those little glitchy irregular moments.
“Give Yourself an Assignment”
Nathan talks about a period of time where he was trying to increase his following on Instagram, so he posted a synth improvisation every day. The Instagram account was a mixed success, but he was very happy with the amount of productivity that came from the assignment. He put together his album “Signals” based on the best of the improv tracks.
He says that it’s easy to get so into watching tutorial videos (or shopping for plug-ins? 😉 that you aren’t actually making music. His concluding remarks were “Give yourself an assignment; see it through to the end; do that over and over”.
Album minutes 25 through 30
Here’s my Planet Project in one Audacity file. This week I’m going to transcribe and think about this 5 minute section in the middle.
The overarching story of the whole album is setting out, finding, losing, and reaching acceptance. This middle section is after the Traveler has found her home planet and put down roots there. She is in a confident state of mind and is enjoying the exploration process (where many times before it was scary / uncomfortable). She visits several planets that are home to different kinds of Angular Creatures.
Min. 25 — Angular Creatures 1
Some warm, floaty chords with an analog synth sound as we land
An aggressive bass riff as a tiny but angry creature charges up to the camera, “yells”, and whacks the observer several times. The bass riff gets louder as the creature comes closer.
There is a squeaky sound on an irritating nasal note representing its skittering footsteps.
Its call is from the Angular Creatures motif, Bb Db C F#
Min. 26 — Angular creatures 2
We come in for a landing. Soft analog chords
We see two enormous angular creatures. They are peaceful. Their footsteps shake the earth (tympani). There are 2 orchestral chords which might be the observer saying “Wow…just wow”.
Min. 27 — Angular Creatures 3
We see one green angular creature with an insect like head; it skitters away. Next, a group of medium sized ones run around nervously. They call (Bb Db C )
Instrumentation
a mallet instrument in the style of Frank Zappa
a rhythm track
a synth texture (from the synth plugin Kaleidoscope)
a vox “aaah”
Min. 28 — Angular Creatures 4
A scene at night. The mood is mysterious. Small angular creatures stomp past, stirring up dust. Their footsteps are synched to the beat of the music. A second drumbeat comes in when a second creature comes marching in from out of frame.
Min. 29 — Angular Creatures 5
Another scene at night. Human-sized angular creatures run around joyfully; one of them comes right up to the observer. This is the first time in the whole video that one of the alien creatures has acknowledged us. This happens again on the very last world.
In a sense this is the emotional high point of the album? All’s well with the world; the traveler is content. She is able to enjoy the moment because she knows she has a home to return to. The next stop on the trip is coming home to a planet that has been devastated.
A First Look at FL Studio
I love FL Studio because I can make colorful quilts of note patterns, and I can zoom in and make the notes as big as I want.
If you open the software, one of the first things you see is a column on the far left. It’s called the Browser. It’s like a closet with way too many things in it, it’s overwhelming. But check this out — hidden in the back of the closet — demo tunes!
There’s a lot!
I clicked on a song by Benn Jordan — I’ve been watching a lot of his vids lately. He is a huge fan of FLS. (Your version of FL Studio might have different demo songs.)
Right click to open, and the song loads.
The gray rectangle in the middle is the Channel Rack. It has the list of all the instruments that are being used in the song. Right click on one of the instrument names and select piano roll to see the midi notes.
Here’s the way it popped up, but I like to change how it looks by making the notes bigger.
The controls to change the size of the notes are a little weird. To make the notes larger, squish this section of the top bar smaller.
To make the notes taller, mouse up and down over this tiny little place in the upper-right corner.
This is as big as they will get.
Here are the tools for working with the notes. I spend most of my time working in the piano roll window, going back and forth between “P” and “E”.
How to get back to the view where you can see the whole song at once? There is a bar of navigation controls at the top of the page. The three I use the most are the Playlist, Piano Roll, and Channel Rack.
Now we are back to the Playlist.
The different multicolored strips are called Patterns. The patterns might be things like an intro, a verse, a chorus, a drum fill, a sound effect. In the Playlist page you can move the Patterns around — repeat them, overlap them.
The controls to make things larger and smaller work here too. Here’s the whole song compressed onto one page. To make the song image “smaller” you pull the squishy bar longer.
And again to vary the vertical dimension, mouse over the teeny-tiny thing in the upper right corner. This is as compressed as the Playlist can get.
When you zoom in close to the Playlist, you can see the midi data. But to edit the notes, you have to get back to the Piano Roll window.
It’s possible to have all 3 of those windows open at once, though I don’t like to work that way. FLS was designed so that you can figure out your own best workflow.
FL Studio has a lot of redundancy built in. Whatever you want to do, there are probably 5 different pathways to do the exact same thing. That is part of what makes the interface look so complex. In my case, there’s a couple things I do and I basically ignore everything else lol.
I used to resent FL Studio’s complexity until I watched this video. Benn talks about how it’s different from another popular DAW, Ableton Live. Ableton was built to be used live, on stage, with everything as compact and streamlined as possible. FL Studio is the opposite!
Another video that helped me appreciate FL Studio’s complexity is this one. For example, there’s half a dozen EQ plug-ins that all do basically the same thing! But they have different interfaces and display the info different ways. So, basically, find the one you like the best and toss the rest to the back of the closet.
This same guy has what looks like a good tutorial series, though I haven’t watched them yet. He certainly has a soothing voice.
Finally — there is a printable PDF of the Getting Started manual. This is 88 pg.