Article #8 - My Life & Music in LA.
Embrace the future.
Technology is either the friendly, bio-mechanical beast that pulls your men out of the ice age & welcomes them to a modern world, or it will transform itself into the root of your fear & discouragement while taking on the form of everything your mind has convinced you to run from. These digital, robotic enhancements need no food or water to survive, however, they create a responsibility within us to stay updated & informed by utilizing every available platform to avoid the risk of obsolescence. Those who attempt to utilize advanced, musical technology without an insatiable appetite for knowledge, are similar to those who wish to master deep sea diving without ever being submerged. If you find yourself standing alone, shivering, afraid to get your feet wet, you better hope someone comes along to push you in, otherwise the amazing ocean of knowledge that churns before you, will become no more than a giant pot for you to piss in.
Despite the familiar role of technology in today's consumerism, which is focused on smaller, faster, lightweight, convenience, the part technology plays in music production & performance isn't as simple & may instead seem to introduce intricate layers of complication. In order for technology to become a liaison between you & your music, this level of complication has to be reduced. The time frame involved can be comparable to the time it would take to master walking the tight rope for those of us who weren't born in the circus. If excess wealth has afforded you the time it takes to be great, then you are fortunate & should not take this opportunity for granted, however, most of us operate on borrowed time & are forced to train in the late night & early morning hours, replacing precious sleep with valiant effort. This powerful discipline can be an unhealthy one, so be sure to hone your time management skills in this regard to avoid further complications associated with sleep deprivation. Most true artists are crazy, but find an outlet for the stress involved & don't lose sleep or you will incorporate more bad, unbearable crazy & less good, creatively inspiring crazy. As in all things, balance is essential.
Technology, in this sense, has to be an enhancement rather than a replacement if you wish to refer to yourself as a musician, otherwise you might spend more time surfing the Internet with your "instrument" than you do making music with it & you will come to adopt the title of a programmer. I have been fortunate enough to adopt & maintain both titles & my thirst for knowledge & advancement deems them equally as accurate. It is extremely important to refrain from sacrificing any previously incorporated strengths in our quest for new ones. Don't forget how to write songs & play your instrument after endless hours of editing MIDI notes & adjusting sonic frequencies. Create a balance as we discussed earlier & your efforts will be rewarded 10 fold, spread yourself too thin & you'll find yourself falling short in every category. Strive to build on your strengths & cancel out your weaknesses, not the opposite.
In the quest for technological advancement, while implementing new software, you will incorporate other necessary aspects of preparation to endure before the time comes to execute & perform. Not only will you need to create your material, but now you will have to record, arrange, & fine tune your ideas, eventually turning them into the many layers that become our favorite songs. This part is only the beginning of a long journey into the digital realm of electronic music which can be overwhelming in the face of the infinite capabilities inherent in technology.
You wrote the parts that make the song, now it's time to create the sounds for those parts, then those sounds need to be adjusted before you can mix them down. Once they're adjusted & mixed, you'll have to pay special attention to the sonic frequencies so these sounds aren't competing with each other. After a sonic balance is created between bass lines & melodies, percussion, & leads, an arrangement may be in order which often time convinces you everything needs to be redone. If the arrangement holds strong, & the layers complement each other, then you'll need to figure out your main parts so you know what will be programmed & what is to be played live. You might find yourself working for months or years before you even have any material to rehearse so I would suggest you maintain your live setup while writing & creating as to not fall too far behind in one respect or the other. Stay focused & productive & you may be blown away by the material you create with the help of your digi-tech bio-mech beast.
Embrace technology & utilize the advancements to your advantage without loosing the essence of your musicianship, & you & your music will evolve dramatically as you enter into the digital realm of information in this modern world. Everything changes at this point & you may feel either ahead of the curve or way behind in the light of all there is to learn. My suggestion would be to concentrate on the task at hand followed by singular steps which will slowly lead their way to giant leaps & eventually flight. Fear nothing & feed your appetite with fists full of streaming tutorials & reference manuals & you'll be surprised by what you become capable of in a relatively short period of time. Come to understand the nature of our true potential & you will never be intimidated again.
An advancement in technology cannot be forced, the evolution of any concept will develop naturally but only when the time is right & the conditions are ideal. If you have to push for something, be aware of the resistance & its origins to better position yourself. You will waste your time if you spend it on trying to grow 2 more fingers on each hand, rather than on creating a solution to the initial problem. Once you have the ability to creatively write & perform music, while digitally recording & processing it, you bridge the gap between technology & the personal mechanistic & spiritual aspects of creating music with knowledge of an instrument, fueled by emotion. This transfer of emotion through music also evolves & transforms in the digital realm, & the form it takes on through electronic interpretation, combined with visual production, leaves no room for words. Upon this realization, you're musical & artistic capability becomes limited only by what you believe you can accomplish.
”I learned this, at least, by my experiment: that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, & endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours. He will put some things behind, will pass an invisible boundary; new, universal, & more liberal laws will begin to establish themselves around & within him; or the old laws be expanded, & interpreted in his favor in a more liberal sense, & he will live with the license of a higher order of beings. In proportion, as he simplifies his life, the laws of the universe will appear less complex, & solitude will not be solitude, nor poverty be poverty, nor weakness be weakness. If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them.”
H.D.T.
Jaison Karner
Roms
Blog
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Solo 2009
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