Sorry I've been distracted. I started setting up a pay wall here, I got as far as the announcement and began building the pages but that's where the distraction came in. It might be a little early to think that people are going to pay to hear what I have to say, I don't even know if anyone's reading it for free even.
I've got a few things on the go and I have a hard time switching between personas seamlessly throughout the day. I can take one direction in the morning and it's gonna stick until bed. I got a few different hats I wear; the writer, he's with us now reduced to blogging, the musician, the song writer, the sound engineer, the cook, the builder, the artist, the designer and the bum. I'm sure I got more but they're not as obvious because they're not getting acknowledgement right now. I can't be anywhere but in the now, no matter how hard I try to be elsewhere. Sometimes I wear two or three hats at the same time, sometimes it works, if I get the order right. A doo rag under a beanie under a ball cap under another turned backwards with a sombrero on top. Some hats are harder to put back on once I've taken them off, and some are hard to take off. I pretend that I don't like staring at a computer all day, and it's true, but everything I do right now seems to require working with one. So why writing or recording music feels more organic then building a web page I don't know but it does. It's probably just further within my comfort zone. I've been using a keyboard since I was a child, I don't hunt and peck anymore, but I definitely still look at which letter my fingers are hitting instead of waiting to see which letter appears on the screen. I find that the laptop keyboard is a bit narrow to type with my fingers on the correct keys, at least with it sitting on my lap, and where else would I be using it. It's right there in the name. Logic Pro X is another issue. For the most part I can achieve the results that I am listening for, but I often think there's got to be a better way. I don't mean analog, although that would appease my old school ideals, it's a dream to aim for. A real band in a real studio with an engineer and an album worthy of pressing to vinyl. That would be the goal, the one day dream. I'm getting closer to it everyday, it's coming. No the easier I'm taking about is learning all the shortcuts of my chosen DAW. Every time I'm editing my sloppy midi playing note by note I think this is too labour intensive to be the only way to do it. Of course it's simple enough to figure out the basics, and somethings might be easier with a proper mouse and keyboard but I've watched enough tutorials to know that there are tricks to the trade. Many of them I don't have occasion to use immediately and then when the problem arises it's a question of time. Is it quicker to do it the old slow way I know or search through the bookmarked list of YouTube videos until I find the tip I'm looking for. That's a dangerous road when you're in the middle of a project. The black hole of YouTube verses a lot of clicking and dragging.
What has been distracting me lately is sounds. I have been recording a few songs this past week, thinking I'd create something to offer beyond the pay wall. It's just me on guitar with whatever computer generated instruments I think would sound good. I know it doesn't compare to tape and live musicians but it sounds nice to hear my songs come to life in a way they don't when it's just me and a guitar. My belief is that a song needs to be able to stand on it's own, just me and guitar, to be worthy of being played in regular rotation, but some of them I wrote to be rocked out. Some just need some background, because it's there. That's where the distraction comes in. The sound library of Logic is unlimited and I don't always know what I'm looking for until I find it. Finding it though often leads me down another path. If I know where I'm going on the project I'm working on I'm free to dive down the rabbit hole of sound. My latest obsession is little eight bar projects. I've noticed that the average attention span of watching reels is about four seconds, I thought I'd capitalize on that. I started at nine seconds cause that's how long eight bars at 100bpm turned out to be, it worked out pretty well. One day of running and it's at 1.1k views with a whopping 21 likes and it garnered me seven new followers. Ok it's not a stunning number in comparison to the size of the internet, but it was a picture of a rattlesnake with nine seconds of "music" that was 7 samples and 4 notes in total. Most engagement I've gotten with anything other then the dogs and trending sounds. I've made a few more little song snippets in the last couple of days but I think that the next challenge will be to make short little videos and score them appropriately. Right now I'm just throwing stuff at the wall and seeing what sticks, I guess once I see enough results I'll be better situated to build it all from ground up with purpose.
Kind of sounds like this blogg.