I've begun recording.
The songs for the "Mockingbird" album just, yes, came all at once...out of the blue.
So i've started recording them here in our closet. I'm calling it the "Cloffio" (Closet, Office, Studio)
And it seems I've kinda forgotten how hard it is to record into one microphone with a not-so-great program on a kinda old computer. this however is the story of my life, along with lots of other people who try to be honest with themselves. we are surrounded with things, people, ideas, and passions that are often broken. but that seems to be where real art, in life and in creativity, take place. in this place where to get it right you have to repeat yourself over and over over; editing out more and more of what you thought was good stuff to pare down your life, your art, and your expression to get down to the bare, clean minimum. and this is a hard process. this process kinda sucks really.
To get to that perfect EQ on a vocal or guitar, or that perfect rhyming line, or that place of balance in life is a journey that must be undertaken with a determination to see it through to the end. ive found myself just wanting to do anything but record and write. i don't want to hear that song again for the 1200th time today. i don't think i have the ability to really get it sounding right. i don't think its going to ever sound a good as it did in my head that first pure time i played it.
but what is the consequence if i give up? i will have nothing to show for my time spent holed up in a closet, or out living my life, or writing at my desk. and that seems to me to be a terrible place to live. i will live a life of "what-ifs?" and 'Why didnt I?"
and I dont think I could really bear that. So I keep going. It's not that we keep going on into some perfect future we can see though. I have no idea exactly what these songs will sound like when I reach that moment when it clicks. I have no idea when my life will suddenly feel "right". I just keep going because I don't want to live a life void of created things. I want to make and fill the space around me. so i keep going until it just fits. until I can say "there is nothing left".
Saturday, March 5, 2011
Thursday, February 10, 2011
to keep myself accountable (or, "jacob tries to have more disciplined song-writing")
Im thinking about working on two new albums.
one of covers of Townes Van Zandt songs, just to do it and get them under my fingers and in my mind.
the other, a little more challenging writing-wise.
I'd like to write and record an album dedicated and inspired by To Kill A Mockingbird.
This book and its subsequent movie have always had a very important place in my life and I'd like to explore them. I just have one small problem:
I have a hard time writing specifically about a subject when it is the cneter of my focus.
if and when i write a song, it seems that it comes from out of nothing. i sit to play and suddenly a song has nudged into my mind, under my fingers and onto paper. while this is a very organic process, its not very dependable. or deep. while often, actually almost always, i find myself working through the song later on, i find subtle personal meanings in each that i had not seen originally, it often seems these connections are not intentional. they just happen to come from my the deep recesses of my mind and find their way sneakily to the page.
dont get me wrong. i love this process. i love the unpredictability. i love the organic "just feelin it" groove. i love surprising myself. but sometimes i want more out of my songs. i want more out of myself.
i want to be able to sit and ruminate on a subject, topic, emotion, thought, etc...
and from that meditation i want to write. not expecting anything great or singable, just to write.
i would like to take the subconcious process that just seems to happen when im playing for no reason, and turn it towards being disciplined about my creative process. this is not to create more efficiently. in fact, it might work just the opposite. i might spend days pondering and come up with nothing but jibberish. and i dont want it to be about creating more. i would just like to connect my words to well, deeply thought out and deeply questioned ideas. to get that deepness, i feel like i need some dedicated rumination.
does this make sense?
it shouldnt be about a creative process that forces me to think just so i can make more music. it should be about actually exploring and digging into the passing thoughts that blow through my mind.
so id like to start this with an album about To Kill a Mockingbird. id like to meditate on the novel, the story, the characters, and ultimately maybe the meaning. because it has always had some ephemeral impact on my heart and mind, id like to explore what that looks like when i sit down to give those impressions detail.
ive written a song from atticus' persepctive with the "it just happened" style of writing. now id like to write a few more songs that come from a more thorough exploration.
so im committing here in public to write this album.
a huge step for me. i dont like pressure, even when i put it on myself. but maybe we all need some more connected thoughts.
one of covers of Townes Van Zandt songs, just to do it and get them under my fingers and in my mind.
the other, a little more challenging writing-wise.
I'd like to write and record an album dedicated and inspired by To Kill A Mockingbird.
This book and its subsequent movie have always had a very important place in my life and I'd like to explore them. I just have one small problem:
I have a hard time writing specifically about a subject when it is the cneter of my focus.
if and when i write a song, it seems that it comes from out of nothing. i sit to play and suddenly a song has nudged into my mind, under my fingers and onto paper. while this is a very organic process, its not very dependable. or deep. while often, actually almost always, i find myself working through the song later on, i find subtle personal meanings in each that i had not seen originally, it often seems these connections are not intentional. they just happen to come from my the deep recesses of my mind and find their way sneakily to the page.
dont get me wrong. i love this process. i love the unpredictability. i love the organic "just feelin it" groove. i love surprising myself. but sometimes i want more out of my songs. i want more out of myself.
i want to be able to sit and ruminate on a subject, topic, emotion, thought, etc...
and from that meditation i want to write. not expecting anything great or singable, just to write.
i would like to take the subconcious process that just seems to happen when im playing for no reason, and turn it towards being disciplined about my creative process. this is not to create more efficiently. in fact, it might work just the opposite. i might spend days pondering and come up with nothing but jibberish. and i dont want it to be about creating more. i would just like to connect my words to well, deeply thought out and deeply questioned ideas. to get that deepness, i feel like i need some dedicated rumination.
does this make sense?
it shouldnt be about a creative process that forces me to think just so i can make more music. it should be about actually exploring and digging into the passing thoughts that blow through my mind.
so id like to start this with an album about To Kill a Mockingbird. id like to meditate on the novel, the story, the characters, and ultimately maybe the meaning. because it has always had some ephemeral impact on my heart and mind, id like to explore what that looks like when i sit down to give those impressions detail.
ive written a song from atticus' persepctive with the "it just happened" style of writing. now id like to write a few more songs that come from a more thorough exploration.
so im committing here in public to write this album.
a huge step for me. i dont like pressure, even when i put it on myself. but maybe we all need some more connected thoughts.
Wednesday, December 8, 2010
Who we are
Ive been reading Wendell Bery.
And in that context:
My life, and the lives of many of my friends, seem to be in many ways constantly in a state of flux. Always moving, always changing, always becoming "more". And we pursue this intellectual, emotional, and personal exploration in a very interesting way. we have been raised with a higher level of education that any generation before, exposing us to so many different ideas, theories, and trains of thought that our intellectual lives become a sort of buffett from which we get to choose what we think is best. and in the name of enlightening ourselves, we are free and encouraged to change these values at any point in our lives. A times it feels that we have become a generation of self-analyzers. It is considered a mark of true intellectual development to be one who can disconnect from your mind (and soul at some points) and try out or delve into anything you wish in a type of scientific exploration of the self.
For example. In my own life "Change"has been to the one constant I keep track of where I am by. If I were to trace the origins of the things that lend me the capability to move first 300 miles from home and then 1800 miles from where I was born, Im pretty sure my mind would be blown. The same is true with the books i read and the news I keep track of. I am connected in a way that allows me to take in a synthesize information like no one ever before. and I am not alone. These things are true for an entire generation of people just like me. We are allowed to change, to move, to have some sort of linear motion in our lives.
This idea holds great possibility. If i can change whenever I like, I can move from a bad place to a good place, bad ideas to good ideas, and bad experience to good. the same is also true the other way around however. I am free to move from good to bad at will. and this is the balance of our lives. the place where we find that all of our knowledge and self-analyzation comes from. the need to know when to move forward, or to stay still, or to change position. because we are so intellectually, geographically, and spiritually mobile, we must call on the science of our seperated minds and souls to find out what move is best next.
"seperate, dissect, and find the truest way. seperate, dissect, and find the best way. seperate, dissect, and find the most advantageous way." -the mantra of our inner life
but what about those before us? those who had access to limited information, limited mobility, limited chance for what we percieve as "growth"? did they experience the same levels of self-analyzation? the same tension in the heart of one who has so many options that it becomes overwhelming? the "blessing" of choice?
Was their life better? Worse? different for sure.
even asking this question I am doing the very analyzation that I am talking about here.
if their life was better, how to I return myself to simplicity while remaining happy about limiting myself?
if worse, how to I reconcile this need for slowness, groundedness and rooting that I feel within myself to the benefits of living in my mobile world?
(this is where things get personal)
i do feel the need for these things (see last paragraph). things like long term friendships not altered or starined by moving. a sense of constant place that is not perfect, granted, but is where I am from. a feeling of putting myself deep into the world around me, to not just pass by in the viewing car of the train of post-modernism. to sit and stay for a long long long while. play my guitar. eat my food. talk with my friends. love my wife. be still. know my Gods quiet voice.
but how do i get there without utilizing the tools of mobilization i am so accustomed to using? Is it possible to live that life without some sense of better/worse? I realize this is an old zen kind of question. but Im asking it. I want to just live a life. like I imagine those before me living. making decisons based not on global movements or foreign ideas, but on my community around me and how I relate to it.
making music for my community. eating food from my community. living near friends from my community. being a part of a physical, real, place and time. i would like this.
maybe this is rambling, but i dont care. its my blog. haha.
And in that context:
My life, and the lives of many of my friends, seem to be in many ways constantly in a state of flux. Always moving, always changing, always becoming "more". And we pursue this intellectual, emotional, and personal exploration in a very interesting way. we have been raised with a higher level of education that any generation before, exposing us to so many different ideas, theories, and trains of thought that our intellectual lives become a sort of buffett from which we get to choose what we think is best. and in the name of enlightening ourselves, we are free and encouraged to change these values at any point in our lives. A times it feels that we have become a generation of self-analyzers. It is considered a mark of true intellectual development to be one who can disconnect from your mind (and soul at some points) and try out or delve into anything you wish in a type of scientific exploration of the self.
For example. In my own life "Change"has been to the one constant I keep track of where I am by. If I were to trace the origins of the things that lend me the capability to move first 300 miles from home and then 1800 miles from where I was born, Im pretty sure my mind would be blown. The same is true with the books i read and the news I keep track of. I am connected in a way that allows me to take in a synthesize information like no one ever before. and I am not alone. These things are true for an entire generation of people just like me. We are allowed to change, to move, to have some sort of linear motion in our lives.
This idea holds great possibility. If i can change whenever I like, I can move from a bad place to a good place, bad ideas to good ideas, and bad experience to good. the same is also true the other way around however. I am free to move from good to bad at will. and this is the balance of our lives. the place where we find that all of our knowledge and self-analyzation comes from. the need to know when to move forward, or to stay still, or to change position. because we are so intellectually, geographically, and spiritually mobile, we must call on the science of our seperated minds and souls to find out what move is best next.
"seperate, dissect, and find the truest way. seperate, dissect, and find the best way. seperate, dissect, and find the most advantageous way." -the mantra of our inner life
but what about those before us? those who had access to limited information, limited mobility, limited chance for what we percieve as "growth"? did they experience the same levels of self-analyzation? the same tension in the heart of one who has so many options that it becomes overwhelming? the "blessing" of choice?
Was their life better? Worse? different for sure.
even asking this question I am doing the very analyzation that I am talking about here.
if their life was better, how to I return myself to simplicity while remaining happy about limiting myself?
if worse, how to I reconcile this need for slowness, groundedness and rooting that I feel within myself to the benefits of living in my mobile world?
(this is where things get personal)
i do feel the need for these things (see last paragraph). things like long term friendships not altered or starined by moving. a sense of constant place that is not perfect, granted, but is where I am from. a feeling of putting myself deep into the world around me, to not just pass by in the viewing car of the train of post-modernism. to sit and stay for a long long long while. play my guitar. eat my food. talk with my friends. love my wife. be still. know my Gods quiet voice.
but how do i get there without utilizing the tools of mobilization i am so accustomed to using? Is it possible to live that life without some sense of better/worse? I realize this is an old zen kind of question. but Im asking it. I want to just live a life. like I imagine those before me living. making decisons based not on global movements or foreign ideas, but on my community around me and how I relate to it.
making music for my community. eating food from my community. living near friends from my community. being a part of a physical, real, place and time. i would like this.
maybe this is rambling, but i dont care. its my blog. haha.
Friday, September 17, 2010
record time.
these two words have a lot of meaning. like most language, their meaning can shift and slide with usage and emphasis.
with the right emphasis, they connote speed. faster than any before, and yet still be waiting to be beat.
or
record time.
the act of remembering and relating the events, acts, and thoughts that happen within the measurements and span of what we call "time".
or
record time!
a time to talk about records(musical)
these two words have a lot of meaning. like most language, their meaning can shift and slide with usage and emphasis.
with the right emphasis, they connote speed. faster than any before, and yet still be waiting to be beat.
or
record time.
the act of remembering and relating the events, acts, and thoughts that happen within the measurements and span of what we call "time".
or
record time!
a time to talk about records(musical)
id like to write more, so ive started a blog. i named it "record time" for all the reasons listed above and more. that is really all there is to it. id like this to be a place i can exercise words in a variety of ways, so im going to try and fill it with random record reviews, recording my time, and positing a part of myself into the record of the internet.
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