For today’s “Short Raw Take”, I was thinking about motivation where I see others doing what they passionately do and it motivates me to work on what I am passionate about: music. Unfortunately it wasn’t always this way for me. There was a time I would see the results of people who have put in thousands of hours into their craft/passion and get jealous or be that person who is a hater. However as I get older I accept more and more that for me to get the results that these people are getting I need to put in thousands of hours of work myself (hopefully work that matters). So now I am happy for those who are doing well and at the same time motivated to spend whatever time I can working on my passion.
Optional equipment include my Native Instruments Maschine and my Presonus Firestudio Mobile audio interface.
Nice and simple. Yet the process of getting to this setup and accepting this new setup took time. It required some introspection and evaluation of two pieces of information: my goals and core values.
Goals:
While re-evaluating my goals I concluded that what I wanted was to 1) create music and 2) finish projects. I defined creating music as anything from making beats to doing covers, composing pieces, and arranging or remixing original songs. The other goal, finishing projects, was a little bit more tricky to define. I had to be honest with myself with expecting everything to be completed all the time (my perception). However, the only way to have finished projects is to finish a project. So then finishing a project would then be when I upload music that I created to the internet. With goals in place I have a purpose and an end destination.
Core Values:
Determining core values required some introspection which fortunately was something that I did a few years ago. Knowing my core values guided me in what actions I took to achieve my goals. I learned that If I took actions that aligned with my core values, I reached my goals in a more enjoyable and satisfying way. On the other hand when I took actions against my core values, I accomplished my goals but it usually came at a cost of something(s) or someone(s) that was not worth losing. Family and being honest with myself are core values that came into play the most for me. Being honest with myself helped me to dispel any reasons or justifications that I believed about why I needed to do or purchase certain things based on my perceptions. My family or my reality, is what drove me to move and create a simple studio in the family room.
Having my goals and core values in place did not mean I became invincible to any sort of challenges. I had to learn how to handle my every day responsibilities since I am physically exposed to them (i.e. kids). Other challenges included adjusting to things like comfort (standing instead of sitting) and access to other studio equipment (my drums, bass and guitar for example). However these challenges were overshadowed by all of the benefits which included:
I got to be around my family even if I am not actively doing something with them.
I learned to focus better.
I have embraced and utilized ideas and tips that I never thought to use before.
Challenges and benefits were going to happen no matter what actions I chose. However, the challenges are now easier to overcome. At the same time the benefits are more rewarding simply because my actions are in line with my core values and still allow me to accomplish my goals.
There is perception and then there is reality. Perception: I need a minimum of one, continuous, uninterrupted, hour, three times a week to create a beat from start to finish. Reality: I can create that hour but it will be broken up due to interruptions and it can occur over the course of seven days.
What I just described is a transformation that I am purposefully committing myself to. Why? I would like to not drive myself insane anymore. While my situation is unique to me, dealing with perception versus reality is something that everybody has to confront when attempting to reach goals or to work on projects. I have this perception that in order to make a beat I have to lock myself away from the world, start from a "blank canvas", hash out musical ideas, arrange and record those ideas, and finally mix and master those ideas for uploading to the internet. Simple, right? Well...yes, sort of.
What makes this format difficult to accomplish is that I have a family (wife and three kids under the age of 6 as of this writing) that I love as well as a 9-5 job that is not in the music industry. Those two things alone are enough to make it difficult to set aside one hour of uninterrupted continuous time to work on beat making. So what do I do? I could quit my job and dedicate my time to making beats. I could literally lock myself in my home studio when I get home for an hour. Or I could change my perception of what I see myself doing and adopt strategies based on the reality of what is happening. Based on my current situation and my core values, I choose option three.
Adopting strategies based on the reality of what is happening in my world requires thinking and restructuring my perception of making beats to fit the reality of my world. This includes things like:
Creating work environments that would fit my reality
Evaluating the resources that are available to me
Figuring out sensible workflows and
Manage my time in a way that I can accomplish a lot of work in a short period of time from session to session.
Here are some examples of strategies that I have adopted so far.
I moved some of my home studio equipment to a general area where the kids usually play so I can keep an eye on them and not close myself off from the family.
I take advantage of presets when it comes to plugins and sounds.
I've purchased headphones to use for creating music and even mixing.
I set a goal or a plan of what I want to do in ten minutes. If I don't finish what I wanted to do in the 10 minutes, it's okay. I will either extend the time if it is available or finish the task during another 10 minute session.
With all that being said, what I hope to do in future posts is to dive deeper into some of the changes that I've made and the thinking behind why I've chosen to go down the route of what I made up my mind to do.
I found this video while I was lifting and ended up finishing my workout listening to this video instead of listening to music. It’s words of wisdom that has been echoed my many people but sometimes it just takes hearing that wisdom from different people at different times in your life to help you keep going.
My first blog post since redesigning my site has nothing to do with music. It’s all about fitness and getting myself into a better lifestyle from an eating, exercise, and cardio stand point.
Ever watch, read or listen to something and you thought to yourself, “I want to do that” or something similar to that thought? That happened to me after I came across the 44 Best Bodyweight Exercises Ever by Tee Major This is not the first time that I’ve seen this video but when I did see it, both for the first time and now, something inside of me said, “Hey, I want to be able to do some of those exercises. Plus I wouldn’t mind being fit so I can have fun with my kids into my 50s, 60s, 70s, and so on. However, this time I am actually going to attempt to do as many of the exercises as I can both in the video in the link as well as the beginner set of exercises as possible.
My goal is to be able to do a minimum of 3 reps of each exercise (except the back flip. That goal is a big fat 0) or 10 second reps for the exercises that are timed exercises. It’s a small goal but I will increase the reps and times when I accomplish the minimum requirements. Even though I’m into strength training and, for now, I would like to keep it that way I do also want to throw in some bodyweight exercises into the routine as well. I don’t have much of an approach to accomplishing these exercises except for attempting to do some of them every time I am at the gym or some of them every day at home.
I will not attempt to do each exercise every day. That’s just time consuming and dumb. Since some of the exercises look like they are helpful to build up other exercises (1/2 burpees could help build up regular burpees, which by the way I despise burpees) it makes sense to attempt many of the “helpful” exercises first and reach the goals of those then move on to as many exercises in the non beginner exercises. The plan is to attempt one more rep each day than the previous day starting with one, complete, proper rep.
While I don’t have an end/due date, as I am making this a life goal, I would like to complete as many of the exercises as possible in one year...starting now.
So get this. I'm trying to get my Google+ profile to have http:<whatevergoogleurl>/harranjwilliams but it won't let me have just harranjwilliams as my custom url. I have to apparently add something. So I googled how to get the custom url to have just be what I want without adding any additional characters and apparently having your own website is one way to get a custom url with google plus. Done! I already have the domain harranjwilliams.com...but I canceled my hosting.
So then I researched hosting companies and came to the conclusion I did not feel like paying some $100 plus dollars to host a site that I might update twice a month (my intention is to really update the thing more than once a week). Then I found out that I can have my domain point to Tumblr when people type in harranjwilliams.com in their browers and I didn't have to pay a thing. Done! Changed some settings in GoDaddy, and now that works.
Now I'm looking at the theme and thinking "I don't like this". Again didn't feel like paying money so I got this brilliant idea "How about I make my own theme". Done! Well, not done but that's what I'm doing right now. Of course I all had to remember that I added my Google Analytics stuff so that I can get my custom url which is the whole reason I started down this path to begin with.
Yes, the site looks like a mess right now, but it's going to be flippin sweet when all the code is in place. I just need to learn about Tumblr's way to input information (Done!) and refresh my memory on CSS and JavaScript.
