It appears that it’s time to stop posting music for a little while. The project started to get me thinking about music and writing music regularly, and that it did. However, I want units of music more than a minute now, and the self-imposed push to have something to publish is causing me to make progressively worse tracks — and lately, to make no tracks at all. It’s also preventing me from exploring creative avenues like sound and synth design, as I wouldn’t have anything to post, and I have a strong desire to post. So, the routine I tried to use to get me to write more music now has me writing less music, and that means it’s time to push pause — or more, to invert the rule that I publish what I produce and tell myself not to publish what I produce. The interesting lesson, to me, is that a good routine can be creatively liberating for a while and then become creatively stifling, and the important thing is to know when that’s happened. 

So although I decided not to take a break from making minutes of music, it looks like life made other decisions for me. Tonight won’t get one because I hurt my hand cooking and want to let it heal before I have to type all week. And even if it is mostly better tomorrow, my MacBook Pro is flaking out and I have to send it to apple to get repaired, so I’m not going to be able to do much recording without it. I’ll try to push BeatMaker a bit on my iPod and will have a couple of minutes (I hope) to post when my laptop is back, and otherwise it looks like I’ll have to be quiet for about a week.

I’ve been posting about a minute of music a day for the past two weeks, and as I’ve done it I’ve developed a little philosophy about it. You could even call it a project, at this point.

My goal is pretty simple: integrate making music into my daily life. A friend once said of improv classes (and I misquote), “It’s wonderful to have a scheduled time in your life dedicated to laughing.” I feel like almost any creative activity could benefit from that kind of regularity, improving life in a similar way. And lots of people do this; people take music lessons and practice every day, at least when they’re kids. But once you start working, it seems hard to do anything outside of work other than shower, eat, and sleep every day.

To try to encourage myself to actually keep it up, I’ve come up with some rules, or more anti-rules:

• I should make about 1 minute of music. Forty-five seconds is fine, as would be 90 seconds; aiming at something song length would probably be too ambitious though.
• I should do this about every day; however, this isn’t a religion, and missing a day is fine. Missing four days would be pretty disappointing.
• Quality matters less than consistency. Quality is a definite bonus though, and there’s no point in being lazy.
• The goal is to explore and improve. There’s no harm in repeating something that sounded good, though.
• If a song takes more than an hour, you’re doing something wrong. So far, each one takes about 30-45 minutes, from start to post.
• These songs aren’t an end in themselves; these serve to help me think musically to improve my bigger projects. They’re still something to be proud of, though.
• When it becomes a chore, the project is over; when you miss it, the project should pick back up. The point of the rules, however, is to keep it from becoming a chore.

Right now, to make the songs, I’m using a Korg Kaossilator plugged into a MOTU ultralite, Intua’s BeatMaker Pro on my iPod, and GarageBand with my midi controllers for added spice.

my music equipment

I’m trying to keep myself portable and low effort, which means no Reason or electric bass mixed in. I’m also making some longer, more involved music as time permits, and as those songs get into better shape, I’ll post them in this same space.

I’d love to hear about anyone else taking up this or similar projects; if you do, please leave a comment and I’ll excitedly add you to my feed reader, looking forward to about a minute of music, about every day.