If I had to pick one thing that made me jealous of other flavors of artists it would be the ability to listen to music while working. A composer can’t really do that. Consequently, I lose a lot of listening time to writing. Weird, eh? But it’s true. I have to go pretty far out of my way to hear new music and I have to make time for it. Part of this is due to the fact that my day job doesn’t allow for it and my commute is better suited to podcasts than to new music. As a result, I really only have the time during my lunch hour when I’m sitting in a coffee hut somewhere with huge headphones on and either trying to edit or journal. Journaling time is new music time.

Come to think of it, maybe I am jealous mainly of writers. They can write anywhere. I hear about people taking up residence at a coffee shop or library to do their work and it makes me green with envy. Being able to work anywhere just sounds cool. Which means that it probably isn’t. Those people are probably just as chained to their chairs as I am to my studio. The on-the-go lifestyle probably doesn’t involve much moving around. More like moving from where you sleep to where you work which is what everyone else does every day anyway.

But there was a long time ago when I would go once a week to the coffee shop with a buddy of mine and compose at my laptop for the evening. It was nice to get out and be surrounded by other people who were deep into being alone together. Despite the horrible music they played on a loop (changed at the whim of the coffee dude) and the malfunctioning temperature regulation (regardless of the time of year) it was a wonderful place to get things done and to experiment. Being out of the studio was a good thing. It changed the rules by taking away some of my options.

I’m a big believer in limits. Someday I’ll write a great treatise about how wonderful it is that art and music today are more or less defined by the intent of their creator and how fantastic all of the opportunities for setting up our own constructive boundaries are. But not today. Today I will simply say that the arbitrary obstacles imposed by changing where work is done can really improve certain processes and not at the expense of others.

My limited time at the coffee shoppe eliminates my ability to record my guitar. I lose access to most of my noise making toys. It’s really just me, the laptop, and some headphones. It makes tasks like critical listening much easier because all I can do is work with that is there, not what I would like to record over top of it. I can really listen to what I have produced outside of the creative process.

After a week away from my most recent batch of songs it’s amazing to sit down with complete focus and listen to them as though they weren’t mine because once I’m done with them and they are released to the unsuspecting internet, they’ll just be things that show up on shuffle on my iPod. The tracks can play while I journal and notes can be made on things that stick out. If there is a buzz or hiss or screech that jars me, I can make it go away later. Levels become obvious. Spatialization is more pronounced. And the almighty flow of the song, that force that drives it forward and reveals any and all energy contained in the piece, is on display.

Emusic has had its ups and downs but I keep my subscription in tact for taking chances. Given the choice between dropping $10 on an album by way of a recommendation or hitting up Emusic for a pile of downloads, the Emusic options almost always wins. It is not, however, a place to dig up tunes that were influential in my musical development. There are so many old albums that I would love to capture digitally and can’t. But from time to time I’ll search on Emusic in the vain hope that something will show up. Occasionally that brings on some serendipity.

A search for Robert Fripp didn’t get me what I wanted but did return an interview with him done by his sister Patricia called From Good to Great: Beginner to Mastery. It seemed interesting enough to blow a pile of downloads on, so I did. It was an impressive talk. I have read that Mr. Fripp is quite a good teacher and I can hear that in his presentation. His words reveal a highly organized mind that spends its time really examining and simplifying problems. It’s the simplification that signals a good teacher. While at first blush some of it smelled like a training seminar powerpoint manifesto, in short order it started to make more and more sense. His presentation wasn’t a trick or a gimmick but was based on deep experience that dripped off of every word.

The thing that Mr. Fripp said that got my attention and stuck with me throughout was simple. In discussing a question about moving from good to great he chose to step back and go from bad to good. A fine point missed by many. In reference to the journey he said that you start “where you are.” In other words, it doesn’t matter where you were yesterday, to improve you have to start where you are today. Tomorrow is still a dream and yesterday is over. It’s all about today.

I personalized that a little too much as I rolled it over in my head. I neglected my creative work for the better part of a decade and that has filled me with regret that at times can cause paralysis. Where did all of that time go? How could I have neglected core parts of myself? Why do I think that I can produce anything of value after such a lapse? But if I start where I am today, with all of the experience I have to date, I can improve. Progress happens over time. Today is time.

It was about four years ago that I started to put myself back on track. A lot of water has passed under (and over) the bridge since then. Not to sound like a poster from the detention room in my Junior High or anything but the decision to start something is the first step to achieving something great. Without that spark, there’s nothing. Of course that spark without action might be worse, but that’s for later.

Computers have solved a lot of problems for me. My happy little MacBook Pro takes care of almost every facet of my life. All of my creative work is recorded there. My family pictures and my music collection both reside in its domain. Most of the communication I have with my friends and family is computer based. It’s a marvel and an incredible tool. But there must always be balance. For every Logic Studio there is a twitter account. For each video chat between my son and his grandmother there is a Facebook. In truth, the computer in my life is a time altering device. It greatly amplifies or diminishes the quality of my time. I see little middle ground.

Case in point: I have eight songs that aren’t so bad. I’m moving them around and mixing and remixing bits and pieces. Trying to polish them without losing any of the strange edges. It’s not easily done and it’s impossible to do with 100% focus. I should say it’s impossible for me to do with 100% focus. My mind wanders. I lose track of what I was listening for. The flow comes and goes. But if my hands are busy, I can focus infinitely. Since practicing scales or noodling with the guitar while listening does’t work well and I never learned to crochet, I have taken to painting while I listen.

Again, I’m not a painter. It’s one of the things I do without holding myself to any kind of standard. I’m allowed to suck. Everyone should have a hobby like that!

With the music moving and a notebook at hand, I drag the paint around the canvas on a tour of its edges. Colors combine and create divisions. I am calm and centered. It’s a meditation. When the songs end, I remember my comments exactly and I note them. The playlist starts over and I return to the paint.

After a second listening and some notes I’m reluctant to turn to the computer. The constant input is too much. I make more notes in my journal and enjoy the sound of the pencil on the paper. It occurs to me that in terms of creative problems, the pencil has done me more good than the computer. What I feel is a sense of the quality of my time. The computer can take tasks like recording or editing and make them so efficient that I can do more in an hour than I could do in a day ten years ago. I can fit a room’s worth of effect pedals and rack units in its tiny case. In those instances, it is improving the quality of my time. I can do more in less and that’s amazing.

It’s the other chunks of time that concern me now. Breezing through endless status updates or clicking random links. It’s like a slot machine but more addictive and less riddled with guilt. The addiction to the twitches on the web comes easily. Effortless stimulus on demand. Time simply disappears. And that’s the problem. If my time is going to disappear, I would prefer that it go in the pursuit of making things in a far less efficient manner. Pushing pencils. Filling notebooks and idly strumming on the floor of my studio.

I’m unplugging more (he said in his blog). At night, the computer goes into the studio and stays there. Less time on the network and more time using the tools. And much more analog activity. More notebooks. More staff paper. More pencils. And an evil side project that appeared to me in a nap and literally fell from the top shelf of my closet.