februari 2023 – Cornerman

The music journey – Making an album (week 15)

The move to a minimal setup continuous, spend this week with the Moog Mother-32 and the Digitakt. Haven’t recorded anything remotely resembling a song but have been learning these 2 machines a bit better. It’s really funny how my initial idea of minimal was way to big. And now this setup has defined minimal for me again.

In a related way I have started looking at the album project. Which will remain intact. But lacked a sufficient foundation in skills. Coincidently I have been setting up a project at work which needed a solid dive back into the books, mainly the theories on design. From the broader aspect of design down, via design principles down to the day to day design decisions we all need to make.

In order to get that project going I need to build a basic model of all functions in that system, in such a way that it runs from the start. So a lot of effort is going into making the framework and the proces design. The detail will fill itself in later.

This got me thinking on my own proces in making this album, It lacks the correct framework, the basic design idea & concept are there but the music making framework isn’t working yet. I can’t get ideas out of my head fast enough. Especially considering the limited time I can spent with full cognitive functions on making music.

So the focus needs to be on getting to know the tools a lot better and get it to such a level I can get ideas out very fast. So that’s going to be the goal for the next few weeks (al least).

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 !

The music journey – Making an album (week 13)

This week marks the return to making music. With a smaller setup consisting of a mono-synth, a drummachine and some effects. And Ableton Live. That’s it. The complete Eurorack system, however cool , just has too many options. I keep playing and adding stuff to a patch and don’t have enough time and energy to produce anything with the results.

I still use the eurorack, but limited the amount of modules. My choice for synth is the Moog Mother-32, a good sounding and versatile synth in itself. The effects are a Noise engineering distortion, Make Noise Morphagene & Eventide Starlab. Dor drums there is the Elektron Machinedrum. Which I am working on and still reading the manual.

The sessions with this setup give a peace of mind and focus when it comes to making choices.

The second thing this week was a homework assignment from my music coach. Working on the arrangement of a piece of music we made samples for in our previous session. And here I also struggle with choices and I have a hard time making decisions. Setting limits here also helps a lot. Coming week I will thinker some more with this song.

The week was a succes and the choice for less gear one which will benefit me going forward. I can now work on stuff with a brand new focus.

The music journey – Making an album (week 12)

This week was all about inspiration, I had a coaching session planned and I have been to a festival. And bought myself a musical gift. Even managed to put in a few music making hours as well. A modest but significant succes.

Coaching session

After a few weeks of cognitive problems and a general disfunctional brain this week I planned another session with my coach. It was very good catching up and talking about the creative proces. And what I can do in order to get to finish some music. Limitation being the magic word. Which I thought I had done when setting up the project. But as I got to work with the setup it became obvious that within that setup the options are still almost endless. To get going with a limited framwork we started an Ableton session with a few sounds and now I have to make a composition with just these sounds.

Pretty obvious, but I just could not bring myself to limit the options. I get lost in endless patching without pressing stop on the record button and get on with composition. And with that in mind I got to think about limiting my setup for this project further.

As such that I don’t get overly lost in the possibilities of the larger setup and keep exploring. More often than not I end up just making sounds without any tangible result. Also because my cognitive energy is all gone by the time I start thinking on composition. More on the smaller setup next week. A slight tip of the veil is the gift I bought myself, a Moog Mother-32. A synth voice in Eurorack format. Always wanted a Moog and now I finally got one.

Etmaal festival

Last Saturday I went to the day program of Etmaal festival, absolutely perfect for me, as it is during the day, it wasn’t overly crowded and ample opportunity and space for some recovering in between shows with some food & beverages.

Etmaal had a total of 32 hours and is focussend towards Electronic music with lots of space for performing with modular synthesizers and other unpredictlable musical instruments such as tape loops and so on. In the night it was more geared towards dancing and during the day more experimental performances.

For me the day kicked off with a performance from Heinbach, who brought a tape machine and various other bits of kit and he changed the tape loops during the show, which for me seemed pretty risky. Very cool and interesting show with lots of beautiful moments coming out of the time & duration of the tape loops. If this was the case or not, perhaps the level of control was bigger, it delivers some very unique and beautiful music and sound timbres.

Time for a spot of lunch and after that it was time for JakoJako feat. Alvin Collantes. A live performance with a modular synthesizer and a diner. A beautiful symbiotic performance in which the dance seemed controlled by the music. Cool seeing the levels of control a dancer has over their body and execute the movements with such fluidity. The tension on the body is very impressive to watch. The music was great as well. For me the highlight of the day.

A bit of a dash getting in time to the live show by Rødhad & Vril live, this time not in the theater , but in a club setting. Very good show and for me very nice to see a performance by a duo which music I like too listen too. Very inspirational.

The final show of my day was Dasha Rush & Schloss Mirabell. Really looking forward to this one, as I love the cello as an instrument and was very curious in the combination with electronics. For me it was the least accessible of the shows I had seen, musically. I couldn’t always keep up, which might have something to do with my mental fatigue at that stage of the day. Some very beautiful moments I got too experience and In other moments I was behind the curve a bit and had difficulty in understanding it (If you get what I mean)

A very cool day indeed and I finally got to see some of my favorite artists, it was a real present being able to go out and experience music again in this way. As most of these things tend to be in the evening or late at night. Hopefully more things appear during the day in such a setting.