8 Clicks from Nowhere Productions ䷀

A
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NOWHERE

  • Sound Filling

    Another equipment confessional. 

    I’ve been making music for well over a year now, and having stocked my makeshift studio with a growing list of instruments, audio interfaces, microphones, pedals, and other acoustic accoutrements I am almost ashamed to tell you I’ve been patching it all through an aging set of old computer speakers.

    For a while I had an old stereo amp plugged in and was routing some of the sound through that, but it became a bit of a hassle and we did some basement remodelling that borked up my configuration.

    And then, as I posted about recently, I found myself in the park one summer afternoon with my little synth and pair of headphones, and I was thinking about just how mellow that feeling was, specifically the portability of it and… well, long story short, pocket amps were on sale last week and…

    I realize all too late that the hobby equipment rabbit hole is deep and deceptive.  

    I picked up a little battery powered five watt pocket amp with a bluetooth speaker and a quarter inch input jack, and even now I’m wondering why I am sitting at a computer typing when I could be plugged in to some music making outside in the park.

    I feel a little guilty for buying yet another toy for my profitless endeavours, but alas, life is too short for bad speakers at the end of your signal chain, huh?

  • Exist Deny

    When I was in middle school I would have told you with absolute conviction that I was going to be a famous published author by the time I was twenty-five.

    In a few short months I’ll be twice that age and neither published nor famous.

    Nuances of that pipe dream aside, having found myself firmly in the middle of middle age and midlife, I can’t help but also look both forward and back as I recognize this deep and urgent need to make something that matters.

    I’m sure we all stumble upon this kind of existential crisis sooner or later, and while some might sooth that thirst with a fancy car or a quirky hobby or a dangerous liaison, there are more than a few of us who look at middle life as a moment to evaluate our creative output and try to get our minds around how to adjust its trajectory for a rapidly decreasing timeframe.

    I don’t have the first real clue towards a solid answer, if I’m being honest, but I do have a lot of questions and even more thoughts on the matter. Maybe you have some of the same questions.

    Under the category of Exist & Deny  I’ll be writing more on this topic as the months wear on.

  • Mile Stone

    Once again I am going to pause and point out one of the core tenets of this blogging project: iteration and incremental work leads to interesting things.

    This post not only marks the end of July and the end of seven months of regular posting here, but the one hundred and fiftieth mini-essay.

    It is all that extra little bit impressive (to me, anyhow) because I also managed to take a week-long vacation where I was almost completely without usable internet for most of the trip and still managed to have set up this project to hum along without human intervention for the duration.

    Blah, blah, blah, whatever—you shrug.

    But here’s my whole point: I do stuff like this all the time. I learn new skills, I build crazy projects. I tackle huge efforts of fitness, art, or creativity. And then people wince and say something like—well, good for you but I could never find the time or energy or motivation.

    Incrementalism. That’s it. One little bit at a time. One piece each day. A few words. Ten minutes of practice. Pulling your attention away from the screen in your hand and putting it onto a keyboard or a pen or a musical instrument or… whatever. 

    Incrementalism. It leads to works of substance and beyond.

    Seven months ago I started typing a few words about the push behind creative life and at the heart of that was this silly example—which is now a blog with one hundred and fifty articles, and no plan to stop.

    Golf clap. Or start something for yourself today. And tomorrow. And the day after ad naseum. 

  • Undramatic Scapes

    We recently spent a week in the mountains. We hiked. We camped. We stood admiring broad vistas of indescribable beauty and grandiosity. 

    I took a lot of photos.

    No really: a lot of photos.

    And mixed in among the obvious well-metered shots of the mountain landscapes and epic sunsets, colourful wildflowers, and happenstance wildlife encounters, I also made sure that I took a lot of photos of the mundane. 

    I snapped shots of leaves, and moss and bark.

    I aimed my camera at interesting shadows.

    I photographed light pressing between cluttered stands of trees.

    I zoomed in on interesting textures in the stone and boulders and cliffs.

    I even stuck a camera into a gushing mountain stream and took images of the bubbles tracing over the rocks.

    While the other tourists were standing with their camera pointed out at the obvious vistas, I was the weird guy who did the same and then went to pointing it at the vegetation or the rocks, too.

    I have hinted previously at the value of finding beauty in the less obvious, and that story comes from seeing that beauty where others often forget to look for it… because none of those photos were unconscious or happenstance. I went there seeking to find an uncommon perspective.  Sure, some of it is far less dramatic than the monumental curves of a world class mountain range, but I might also argue that it’s no less interesting or important.

  • Saxo Phone

    I remember the day in the sixth grade when the band teacher from the junior high school came to our elementary school and assigned instruments: I was rocked to find out I got to learn to play the alto saxophone.  I don’t know how I landed it. It was the coveted beast of the band, and I had rolled a Natural 20.

    That was, hot damn! Forty years ago!

    I still have my original saxophone. It’s not a high quality instrument by any means, a simple student model Yamaha, but its my first and only. I’ve replaced the corks over the years and bought a new mouthpiece (apparently they go sour, who knew?) and it has (sadly) sat in a corner in the house idle for a very long time: decades. 

    I tell people in my orchestra (where I play the violin) that the saxophone was a stepping stone for my amateur musical career: I could read treble clef so I only needed to learn the instrument when I took up violin at forty, not learn to read music, too.

    It’s mostly the truth. 

    As it was my experiences during that era—in band and junior high school and keeping up with the practice required and a long list of other tween drama—soured me long before my mouthpiece went bad. It was a kind of low grade creative trauma and avoidance, and the thought of performing as a saxophonist has left me thinking I must harbour some residual subconscious vibes of aversion and recoil.  

    Even so, something compelled me the other day to pull the saxophone out of its case and ensure it was still playable.

    It needed a new neck strap, but otherwise (and to my surprise) together we could still make a few reasonable tunes emerge from this brass-hued beast.

    I don’t think I’m getting the band back together, but maybe I’ll keep a reed at the ready in case I decide to jazz up some musical therapy in my basement.