Every once and a while, I come across information so unexpected and brilliant, that it seriously adjusts my understanding of how the world works.
It started happening again, while reading the Tao of Jeet Kune Do by Bruce Lee.
Bruce speaks of the dangers of falling into a “system”, a set of classical, ritualized movements that are static, and therefore do not actually apply to real situations, like a person having a conversation by reading from a script.
True freedom, true originality, comes instead by learning to perceive the movement of reality and keep pace and embed themselves in it. Or in layman’s terms, to put down the script and actually observe and listen to what the person in front of you is saying.
I’ve barely started the book, and it has already affected me in many ways, not least of which is my approach to learning how to produce music.
I realize I’ve been following a system too, working with preset plugins, preset courses, preset advice from preset videos produced by those in the industry.
It’s helped me play around with tools and produce decent imitations of the sound I want to create. But if I really what to make something 100% MINE, I have to go back to the beginning. I have to understand how sound is synthesized in the first place.
I tried doing this on Garageband, only to find it doesn’t give you full access to the synthesizer’s controls, or probably any other instrument for that matter – you can play with a few things, but it’s still based on presets they aren’t showing you.
And without total control of the sound, I don’t really know what I’m doing.
So, new plan:
- Start experimenting with trial versions of more powerful software until I find one that gives me the same level of control I would have from a real synthesizer.
- Mess around with the thing until I know what does what.
- Find/create some sounds I can be happy with, and start making music from them.
Okay yes, I realize that not all synths are created equal, and that I’m still following some presets by preferring one over another. I could go further back – to how sound is synthesized at all for example. I probably will at some point. Heck, maybe I’ll make my own bloody synthesizer someday. But I suspect what I’m attempting is intimidating enough, for the moment.
Credits:
‘Brown and White Rabbit Photo’ by Emiliano Vittoriosi on Unsplash