Boredom, the most important kickstarter for creativity

Boredom, or being bored is what most people avoid at all cost. When we wait for the bus we get our phones out. When we think we have a minute to spare some content is never far away. 

What does boredom actually do? It creates space for finding new things to do, new things to explore. It leaves room for playing. Simply picking something up and play with it. In our over organized lives this room is often not there anymore. But it is essential for developing new ideas and give the brain a moment to wander around and figure out new ways to get busy. 

We have forgotten the beautiful art of doing nothing, really winding down and relaxing in order to give the mind and the body some rest and a reset. 

Being hard at work at your craft doesn’t mean you have to be busy every minute of every day. This is a surefire way to burnout and fatigue. Offcourse you can work hard and burn the midnight oil from time to time to finish a project or take advantage of a creative abundance, but take time off in between projects. 

When the mind is at rest it never stops, most people forget that these are the moments you have room for planting new ideas. It’s also something you can train. Up to some point at least. 

Another part of boredom is you can have space to play, just like your younger years. We have lives with instant gratification but if you put the distractions away and get to that playing mode, cool things can transpire. 

It’s not that we don’t have enough time, it’s the lack of attention that is causing the rut in our creative sides. And other important things we need and want to do. 

The practical side

I have struggled with this problem a lot, when I am tired and need to rest, I grab my phone and start scrolling. So nowadays I put my phone away when I need my rest. I also limit my social media consumption and clear my desk when I do my cognitive hard tasks. Like writing, making music or learning something. 

I plan these activities, and this is not to take out the spontaneous side of it, it’s to make sure I do these things. With all my focus and attention. 

I started with 15 minutes and 5 minutes of rest. And built it up to blocks of 25 minutes with 5 minutes rest. I my case maxed out at 2 hours total per day. 

With everything you do build it up slowly. You will not have the strength or endurance to do the chosen activities for hours on end. It’s also counterproductive. Start slow. Let’s take writing as an example. Write for 15 minutes a day or every other day and built it up from there. You can’t run the marathon straight away, so you also can’t write a book out of the gate. It might seem like people do. But it all derives from consistent practice. 

Take these 1% gains and don’t fear the setbacks too much, most of the things I do fail. I know this because that’s how I learned everything in life. We all know this but society has forgotten all that it seems. But there is no instant success. 

The second big thing, plan days or parts of days where you do “nothing”, whatever that is, go sit in a chair without anything nearby but a pen and paper. Go for a long walk without listening to music, a podcast and so on. Waiting for the train? Don’t grab your phone. It can be small things. 

At some point something hits you, maybe not all the time but simply being aware of your surrounding can work magic on the creative side of the brain. You can make a choice to write the ideas down in your notebook, or not. Just do what feels right. At some point all these “boring” minutes add up to build creativity. 

Why pen & paper

Another crucial part of this process is when you have an idea you want to save an idea, make sure you write it down, and not make a note in your phone. The act of committing the idea to paper by writing instills it in your brain much better than when you type it in your phone. It’s also easier to browse through a notebook than it is to scroll trough your notes in your phone. 

It might seem like a very small detail, but it’s a big one. It really works way better. One of the reasons I write instead of type things like ideas, thoughts, my diary and so on. 

Slowing down is not doing nothing

A lot of people fall into the “busy trap”, being busy is not the same as doing your most effective and best work. Things take time, ideas need to develop and need room to breathe. It also means we are doing a lot of things that don’t attribute to our goals, the things we want to be doing. Instead we fill our days with a lot of noise. Feeling tired most of the time. 

Slowing down and leave room for boredom, opens the mind up to creative thinking and focus. the fun thing, with a few easy “hacks” we can all incorporate this in our lives and find our creative side again. Have fun giving it a go. 

Shaping the creative space

This last week has been all about shaping the new creative space. Lot’s of cleaning up as well. I am trying to keep it as minimal as possible for now. To see how the space can be used and add to it while using it. Yesterday was the first day when I worked in the space and I liked it a lot.

Still some decorating to do, and some installation of stuff but it already feels good. It’s a very good space just to be in. All the important books, from inspirational books through manuals and technical books are sorted and the important ones are within easy reach.

I will keep the desk clean, and my instruments on and in a stand or cupboard, yet to be decided. So I can focus more easily and not get too distracted all the time.

That’s pretty much all I did, but I did some patching in Max again, which is becoming a staple activity every week, I hope I will get sufficient enough so I can work on systems in Max and generate ideas for music from that. Which I can later develop further in Ableton. I have also had a bit of a clean up and found some old and redundant stuff others might find useful. So I am trying to find people who can use it. 

A pretty short blog this week, not much on the music side of things and lots at the same time, as a nice space to be creative in is very important. 

Eurorack patching adventures

Last week was all about the new proces. The idea was I make a patch on my eurorack, record it, make samples and make a track out of it. I already encountered some time difficulties getting all this work done in a week. So I let go of the fixed time table and started at the first item on the task list.

Patching the Eurorack synth, it’s a pretty basic setup, think of a single voice mono synth with some extra modulation. The great thing about Eurorack, or any other like-minded system like Max MSP, Reaktor or VCV is that you can construct your own path of sound & functions. This is a double edged sword as it can lead to just patching and nothing further. Which is always a dangerous thing with me, being limited in time. 

It’s also a way to escape the limitations in processing sound by my brain, I can patch without sound and audition the results later. Perfect for me. So while time flies when patching, it’s a great way for me to learn more about developing sounds, signal flow and other sound designing stuff without over extending myself. 

The second part of the week was spent learning max map further and reading about design in general. Which is always interesting. Max MSP has a high threshold for me in getting fluent with it so it will take time mastering it to a degree I can write ideas without spending time in books and manuals but its fun and has the added benefit of not having to have sound on all the time. 

All in all a good week spending time doing music and music related things. Looking forward to next (technically this week as I am a bit late writing this blog) week. 

Music projects some thoughts on progress and goals.

Getting back in music is a bit harder than expected. I still have trouble listening to music for a longer period of time. Especially when working on music. Sound designing and listening to loops and getting stuff done.

So I am currently working on learning Max MSP so that I can work on music without the sound. Which is a bit of a paradox.

What I can’t let go are my goals. Simply because having my goals is the driving force behind it all. Somehow I will loose my consistency if I do that. It might seem strange, because just messing around with a drummachine is a lot of fun. But the fun alone isn’t enough for me to work on music on a regular basis. I easily skip it when I am not feeling it.

So I keep music making in my planning, and work on it at least 3 times a week for short amounts of time, preventing any problems that might arise.

I am optimistic that at some point I can increase the work and listen to music for longer periods of time again. Which then automatically gets me closer to my musical goals.

Max MSP a learning journey

As some older followers of this blog know I have been learning Max MSP. Which now has more focus since I can work on projects without sound. I have been looking at various ways to keep it going and not having to stop due to insufficient cognitive energy.

I have been working on a new way of daily planning which involves shorter time frames and more of them, which has some advantages and disadvantages. The biggest advantage is the continuous workflow. The short instances the biggest drawdown.

Max MSP itself for me has a steep learning curve, although the help files and the various books on it are great, I am going to try and fund some one on one teaching to get up to speed. Hopefully this will help.

I have dusted off an old looper project, my first idea for building tracks based on loops recorded from a Eurorack system. It was a pretty big system I had in mind which I now scaled down to make it functional as soon as possible.

Momentum is key now, otherwise I will keep trying to bite off more than I can chew. I will also try and compose and share some stuff from this setup.

New avenues – Thinking about the music making proces & other topics

I have been documenting my album journey for the past months. In a weekly format discussing the ups & downs of my attempts in producing an album. As I felt I written all about it I put an end to that series.

But I enjoy rambling about the creative proces a lot, as I do on other topics. I haven’t decided on a format yet, other than the weekly occurrence. I will just let my mind wonder around and see what topic springs to mind.

I am thinking about creative processes for some time now and I found them in almost everything I do, making music, writing software, researching things, cooking. All these things have a few things in common. On the surface its all about the end result, a program has too work, a song finished and a meal eaten. But when you look a little closer, it has everything to do with creativity as well, balancing the ingredients into something beautiful.

Most of these processes are defining the boundaries of the project, or problem you want too solve, searching for the right ingredients and make them work together. And a lot of attempts fail. Is that a bad thing ?

Failure is learning, as with anything you learn by doing. In a society were only succes gets shared it might seem that only talent is needed and the rest is inspiration. And then as some sort of magical cocktail the end result is there.

I know that this is not the case, I have made countless mistakes in my coding, investing, running and musical adventures. The only failure is quitting.

This is not just some bolstered never quit anything mantra. Sometimes things are not meant to be, a chosen field just doesn’t fit, and giving those up for thing better suiting is a smart thing to do. But if its something you really feel you want too achieve just keep going. Because after the initial joy and energy boost of a new endeavor, the energy levels drop whenever things get hard. The results are not what you envisioned, the problem seems unsolvable and so on.

Remember that the passion and the inspiration are the beginning and the end of a circle the rest of the circle is hard work and showing up. Next week I will go into the showing up part and how to create habits that benefit your progress.

The music journey – Making an album (week 22)

This week I have been jamming with a small setup and researching how I can get the most out of it. I have also had the recorder running so the tapes are there. I have planned another two weeks ahead with more of these jam sessions. So I am consistently making music. And get my focus back on the main event, making music. Hopefully my brain can keep up with it.

Another topic that I have been working on some more is figuring out the possibilities regarding releasing the music. For me the easiest, well not exactly easy but most comfortable way is to see release it. Getting stuff out there via a few platforms so I don’t get lost and see if I can create a constant schedule in releasing my music. Let’s see how I get on at first, I can always expand later.

Visuals are increasingly important as a way of getting music out there, especially with things like Youtube which are a source of new music for lots of people. In my original plan for my album project I had come up with the idea to integrate Touchdesigner for the visual component. And the fun bit about this is you can connect it to MAX MSP. I am now figuring out how I can incorporate this into my patches and generate a nice visual to go with my music.

A very good week, but I still fall into the pitfall of loosing my focus. As everything is fun and the joy I get out of researching stuff. But I feel I return to my original idea much quicker than I used too. So that’s a win. Now all I need to do is finishing music, and find the confidence to release it.

The music journey – Making an album (week 18)

Doing a fast forward like in a cassette deck like in the old days isn’t part of this journey. How frustrating it might be, my learning curve is what it is. I can’t speed it up or make my brain any faster. However there is a remedie to it, of sorts. Just carry on and persevere.

This week has seen it’s fait share of music activity. Mostly working with the modular & done some reading as well. My workflow is getting more and more of a final shape and proces. And thanks to limiting my setup I get more results out of my sessions. Simply because I know my way around it better.

I did however notice that I can’t always bring myself to not grabbing something else, another machine or more modules. Just because it gives me that extra bit of energy, or push my levels of fun. I love discovering new things and for me that’s a large part of the fun in making music. Discovering new and uncharted waters.

So I am having a bit of trouble committing myself fully to my new and smaller setup. I get lost in my Eurorack, or when patching in MAX MSP, despite the limitations I set before starting my sessions. Just because it’s easy to get distracted and it’s just loads of fun.

So it’s hard for me to maintain a balance in having fun and doing exactly as planned. It doesn’t matter how well I plan things, I am too easily distracted.

 

The music journey – Making an album (week 17)

Bit late with this post as I closing in on the end of week 18. Well sums up the delays in my music making journey I suppose. But week 17 has been a good week of the music front. I’ve been playing around with my Eurorack synth and recording most of it. Also spent some time working on making samples out of the results.

All in all I got to spend time making sounds, which was great. On the inspiration side of things its been a good week as well. Got some design books & magazines and had a nice chat with a designer on how to set intentions for your creative path.

It’s about setting the parameters of a project, or a session to set the tone or the direction of the desired result. Which can be as random as just sitting down and making sounds, or drawing random things, and hyper detailed and focussed tasks like sculpting the perfect kick drum from scratch.

It all has it’s function. And it can be utilized to break habits, periods of creative drought or simply to regain the fun in a project. Very interesting stuff.

The music journey – Making an album (week 14)

A bit late, forgot about updating this week completely. Another week has gone by pretty fast even this week has flown by as I am writing this while I should be writing about week 15 which is on its way. Anyway all is well and I have mostly spend my time with just one machine the Moog Mother-32.

Which is an awesome machine, instant fun and patchable as well, so it scratches that modular itch. Besides this machine I have been investing some more time in the Digitakt. Which I find very, very useful. I am in the process of making specific sample packs from my own recordings tailored towards use with the Digitakt.

It’s all about optimizing my workflow. And while practicing with single machines I tend to get ideas which would work for me in creating that effective and part elusive workflow.

So it’s been a good week, the amount of time spent on music wasn’t large but it was very focused and useful. As part of my day job I spent a lot of time in books and learning about designing systems. I am now reading a book which has nice quotes at the start of every chapter. This one is applicable on all creative professions (and pretty much everything in life to be fair).

“We should be taught not to wait for inspiration start a thing. Action always generates inspiration. Inspiration seldom generates action.”  – Frank Tibolt

Which is very true, by consistently working on something, ideas just generate sort of automatically.

I have also been listening to the new Album Spine by SØS Gunver Ryberg. Which is a beautiful one with very cool sound design and it sounds amazing. Go check it out if you didn’t already , here is the bandcamp page.

That is all for this week, hope to see you all next week !