8 Clicks from Nowhere Productions ䷀

Category: Part 1 – Setting out to Nowhere

The creative self from the one you left behind to the one you are looking to become. The basics of creativity.

Chapter List

  • Good Vibrations

    The little speaker that I bought for roving musical adventures has a quirky side benefit—or, at least, a curiosity that has yet to become annoying.

    Regular readers may recall that I picked up a little battery powered five watt pocket amp with a bluetooth speaker and a quarter inch input jack. Specifically, it is the Positive Grid Spark Go (not an endorsement, just a side note) meant to be plugged into an electric guitar but simultaneously useful for both an aspiring electric violinist and his semi-regular synth jam sessions in the park.

    Then too, I threaded the output from my MIDI controller keyboard from the weakling computer speakers directly into the amp, so that when I sat down at my desktop in my home office to practice  I could make use of the richer sounds from the new speaker.

    It’s not great for more natural piano sounds, but as I explore the extensive instrument library that came bundled with the MIDI controller I have been building a collection of favourites that are a few standard deviations from natural—hybrids and bells and strings intermingled with raindrops—and many of those have rich bass ranges.

    The Spark Go has an interesting feature for a little speaker. If you lay it down on its back it has a bass pad that acoustically enjoins the surface of whatever it touches—the table or desk, in my case—and adds an audible and physical dimension to said surface.

    All that is to say, that when I’ve been playing bass heavy instruments on my MIDI controller and the speaker is on the desk the whole thing rumbles with a tactile joy that brings the music to life from and then right back through my fingertips.

    Curious technologies lead to simple joys.

  • Tiny Details

    There are so many forms of photography to pursue it would take a year of posts to give each of them their due here—and I’m sure I’d still miss something.

    But if you are stuck for inspiration with a camera in your hand might I suggest you think smaller: personally I have found macro photography immensely interesting.

    The trick to capturing the super-tiny perspectives of the world, of course, is having the right equipment. A dedicated macro lens used to be the only gateway to this world, but many modern smart phones have a respectable macro mode built into them these days. While one is not going to shoot magazine quality pics from such, I’ll be the first to argue that having good enough equipment is often the best way to sample a new hobby or form to see if it piques a deeper interest.

    As for subject matter, the world is filled with tiny things. 

    I have a vast collection of insect photos, but creepy crawlies are hardly the only mini subjects even in nature which is full of textures and tiny twisting tales to reveal to a curious photographer.

    I have often walked for hours looking for a great scene or a landscape worthy of a picture, but pointing a close up lens at ordinary things in my home or own backyard can be a virtual safari when inspiration is otherwise lacking.

    Don’t overlook the tiny details of the world when seeking creative inspiration… sometimes literally.

  • 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?

  • 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.

  • Voice Work

    I broke and I bought a new action camera.

    I’ll spare too many details, but the short version is that I’ve been meaning to upgrade for a while and we have three travel adventures planned over the next year, not to mention a long list of local walking and running adventures, and I’ve been craving having a (reliable) camera back in my hands for action videography. Long story short, I splurged and… well… new toy.

    One of the upgrades from my decade-old model tho piqued my curiosity: the new one has a front facing screen intended, as I am given to understand, for video blogging selfie-style recording.

    Ugh—was my first thought. I’m not very good at that.

    Hmmm—was my second thought: maybe that’s actuall a skill I should try to learn.

    New camera, new approach, new skill. And oh look! I have this place where I write and post about just that sort of thing: honing creative skills.

    Not everyone has a voice for video. Not everyone has a confidence for turning the camera on oneself and hitting record. And heck, I would be the poster model for those two hesitations and probably a long list of others I haven’t even considered.

    Maybe it’s time to remedy that.

    Maybe. 

    Or maybe I’ll just take some good running videos.