Latest rant!
I’ve been lazy with the ranting lately, i know. Things have been strange, scary, quite discouraging, and at the same time there has been a wake up call of sorts that gives me both hope and a huge kick in the arse. The rant this time is a bit confusing as i will do some serious “Figure it out as i write”- ranting.
I very often find myself making excuses for things, like the state of the website, my own somewhat pathetic social life, anything I manage to fail to finish, start, whatever. I really do that alot don’t I? It is quite sad actually. I mean, considering that the world actually does not revolve around me and that the sun really doesn’t rely on my current mood, these puny issues are like a fart in a windstorm for everyone but me. Really eh? And a tiny fart it is too, damn near odourless and silent too.
It is what it is and will be what it will be. Right? Hehehe, she mumbles and starts muttering under her breath. About what, I’m not quite sure. In any case it’s not of any consequence as I believe I shouldn’t listen to her anymore.
There has been a few slowly emerging realizations lately that have some promise of change. Let me explain, and pardon me if you really don’t much care because one of those changes has to do with exactly that; what does it matter what anyone thinks? I pay for hosting of Studio Chaotic and have maintained a website of sorts, starting with the now dead JennyK.net in the nineties, for my own reasons. At some point it might have been for attention and a hope of some sort of fame. Probably. But that has never happened. My realization regarding this is coming down to one important thing:
Admit that what you’re trying to do is beyond your reach, accept it and do something different without looking back.
Sounds simple? Yeah, in a way it is getting easier to think that way. The other day I was working on a rock song mix. I thought I’d be doing okay, got the session all set up, some basic eq done, some plugins added. Not a biggie. I am learning this stuff, and I thought I’d mix and master something okay and enter it into a contest that’s going on right now. It is perfectly doable, I have the skills to make a decent mix, get a fairly good sound despite lacking in many ways. And I got started.
And it never got off the ground. I listened to this guitar track, thought about it, analyzed what i might want to do to it to fit it with the drum bus I’d already magnaged to get just right. And then I stopped. I sat there for a moment, just listening to this guitar, with the drums, without. Added in the vocals, muted them, unmuted them. In something of a daze I realized something. I suddenly knew that i would never get that guitar sounding good. I’d never fit those vocals into the mix. I’d never upload this mix anywhere, not even on my own site.
What I suddenly knew was that I hated that guitar. I didn’t want to work on it. I didn’t even like the song all that much. In the end, this mixing some tune for someone I don’t know for a contest i don’t care about, for a purpose that has nothing to do with me. It’s not me.
wasn’t me.
Whoah what a relief that was.
That might make me sound like an egomaniac and that’s fine. But damn it, it is what it is. I’ve gotten to the end of my education of basic mix tecnique and I am done. I am done, finished, ready to move on and just let the knowledge i’ve gathered over the last year and a half or so be part of the rest of my scattered wisdom and leave it at that. I want to use it exclusively to better my own music production and songwriting. And I’m glad for it. I’ve learned alot, and that’s that. I don’t have the interest I thought I might have. I don’t have the drive needed to get really good at it And I accept that.
And trust me; that is ok. I am liberated of performance anxiety that was perhaps necessary when starting this venture, but which became more and more destructive and totally unnecessary with time.
I accept and i move on, and I will do something in the coming weeks that feels right. Changing direction again, like a fart in a windstorm. Watch out for the next jennyK project:
Fearless – a web novel – another try to finish something.
I’ll start out by publishing the first chapter today, 25th of April 2013…
More about Fearless and the projec I’ll call “Just write, keep writing” in the next Studio Chaotic rant. See you then.
Cheers all
Jenny K Brennan