I’ve been teaching myself piano. Ehh, zoom out. I’ve been using a piano that I plug into my phone to play in the GarageBand app. Ehh, zoom out. I’ve been using this piano attachment, a MIDI Keyboard, to clack my way through making beats. Ehh, zoom out.
I’ve been faking it until I make it.
Ironically, my wife got a guitar the same exact time as I got the keyboard. We both went to Guitar Center on our way back from our honeymoon and spent some of our wedding money on something totally impractical and for us to – my grandmother’s demand.
It’s been a truly rewarding experience for both of us. If not approach in entirely different way – hers driven through structure and a curriculum, mine based on pure vibes, baby! I clack my way through the myriad of sounds on the GarageBand app, adding layer after layer until I have something that feels right.
I love playing around with my keyboard. I like the tinkering and problem solving of song production. How little choices can lead to bigger moments. How things grow. How adding one section all of a sudden changes the entire context of the song for me.
It’s kind of like writing for me.
But on the other hand, I am grossly aware of how unproductive the process is. Blindly creating. Unchecked. No structure. Just tapping my way into coherence.
I envy my wife’s structure. Both her acceptance for it and the understanding that part of the learning process is admitting that you actually need to learn something.
You don’t go into class expecting to be the teacher. There’s probably something deeper about gender politics that we could explore here, but suffice to say it’s starting to feel like a blind spot.
Of course, what we want from the product is different. I want to create. She wants to play. I want to escape. She wants to honor and master.
The process for those look very different.
And I did spend a chunk of my youth learning saxophone – around a decade ago – but I wasn’t the most studious there. And the thing about music production is it’s not just learning a piece of the process or an instrument; it’s the drums, piano, harmony, chords, bass, etc. The whole shabang!
Not something that some half-assed saxophone practicing from 15 years ago is really going to serve me.
I feel the clock staring me down. I hear the ticking. The seconds wind down. and I wind up.
I don’t want to miss anything. I don’t want to slow down. I don’t have time to stop and learn.
I’ll learn as I go. Build the plane while flying it.
Everything is too important. Nothing is not sacred.
It’s unrelenting from what I’ve been told. Intense.
The way I create and make music is akin to freebasing creativity. It feels great, but it’s the most raw hit. It gets you the highest.
I also know so much. But feel like I know nothing. I have no tangible vocabulary for the skills I have acquired. I know what reverb does to track and when to use it, but couldn’t at all explain it.
I can’t recreate shit. I don’t have technique – it’s all feel!
If you can’t recreate, then you can’t really be inspired by the things around you. You will watch YouTube videos lost.
Of course, I’m happy making music this way. It serves me. That’s good.
I also have no reason to believe I am running out of time. It’s good to slow down.
I fundamentally understand that when I die and ask the higher power what the meaning to life is balance will be one of the three answers. Right next to love and happiness.
So why do I fight it?
Maybe I should pick up gardening next. Teach my impatient ass to slow down.
Or maybe I should just enjoy that I have something to relax.
Of course, if you ask my wife she’d say she’s envious about my way to just dive in to life willfully ignorant ready to learn.
Something about opposites attract. A true better half.
The Beacon Beats 