about three weeks ago, i looked up and realized that i hadn’t been very productive lately. it got to a point where i was spending a lot of time noodling around and not a lot of effort getting down to writing something. for some reason i started thinking about managing my musical projects the way i manage things at my job. that means deadlines.
i got really crazy. i opened up my mac and started a todo list. i decided that i would do a sketch a week. what this means is coming up with something i could call a song every week before i go to bed on sunday night. my plan was to accumulate four songs and then take one of the four and clean it up to a release quality recording. actually produce the song. and i would do one of those every two weeks. the crazy part is that i want to keep sketching underneath the re-recording of the songs.
tracking things with the todo list and iCal turned out to be a stroke of genius! it turns out that if i put it on a calendar, i suddenly have to meet or beat the deadline. and right now, today, i am one week ahead of myself. i have three tracks down and i started my fourth tonight.
more productive simplicity? don’t mind if i do! all of my sketches are done in garageband. why garageband? partly because it’s easy to set up and record but mostly because it’s limited. there are no options. no settings to go on and on with. no desire to tweak this compressor or mess around with yet another reverb or audiounit. i click record and go. and man if it isn’t working! record a track, duplicate it, record another take. simple.
again, i find myself a parody of the mac switch ads, but the thing is, i’m getting a lot done this way. more than i expected. and that’s what a computer should do: facilitate my work, not get in my way.
and where are the fruits of my labor? not quite ready for prime time. they are, after all, sketches. but i’ll have something posted soon enough.
0 Comments.