Week #3 Self Experimentation

[Note: This late entry spans 10th – 15th December, 2023 and reflects my moods and knowledge during that specific period of my life. Getting back to ‘current time’ as soon as I’m able. Enjoy!]

I’d like to preface this week’s entry be describing just how much I DID NOT WANT to do stuff this week.

It was like my gut was saying no, absolutely not, to basically any music admin stuff, and to a lesser extent, any music writing and production stuff. So, I listened, and did barely anything on that front. In the past I would have pushed through and ignored that feeling, but I decided to experiment with what would happen if I just did what I felt I could.

That said, I ended Sunday night with some recording work. Go figure!

Sunday

Tonight I lazily recorded some vocals for that collab track with the artist/producer I found through the Discord feedback listening party from Week #1.

When I say lazy, I mean lazy. I just popped on my headphones to listen to the backing track, sang into my phone recording to Voice Memos, synced to iCloud, downloaded it to my PC then banged it in Ableton.

I did discover there were ways of using the formant shifter on my tuner to create some interesting layers that sounded quite good, even with just phone mic audio.

I’m still not any further ahead with the rap verse or hook or anything, but this bridge section is sounding pretty solid, so it’s a start.

Monday

My painting came! It’s hanging in pride of place above my bed.

A few weeks ago one of the artists I follow on Instagram, Prince of Marss, posted a reel for his daily art challenge and he revealed in his sketchbook this adorably forlorn pigeon sitting on the ground. I immediately fell in love with it and asked if I could commission him to make a larger version painted on a canvas board. He agreed and I proudly put down my deposit through his Ko-Fi.

Today I happily opened the package and I was completely thrilled with how it turned out!

This was my first ever commissioned painting, and it’s a banger to be honest. It hangs in pride of place above my bed, and I’m thinking of getting an absurdly ornate frame for it, just to emphasise the vibes.

Tuesday

It was wonderfully abandoned in the gym this morning (for the first half hour or so, at least) so I took the opportunity for a couple of cheeky mirror selfies, and to scurry around tidying up errant plates.

As well as that I hit a new squat PR of 50kg for two reps. I filmed it, but then wasn’t happy with my form, so tried a second time and it was much more acceptable. As part of my routine that day I practiced a lot more with just the unloaded bar, and I’m actually really happy with how far I’ve come in terms of form. I went from not even being able to bend my body in the way I needed, to getting a lot closer to squatting my own body weight.

I learned something else important: I shouldn’t be breathing in as I lower my body, I should breathe at the top, hold it, then only breathe out again when I’m past half way up again. Really curious to see how this helps my form next time.

Later that afternoon I hopped on the bus to Preston and met up with the boyfriend. We had pretty terribly made chai lattes at a café near the bus station, then had a brief walk around town before getting something for tea. We went into the Oxfam bookshop and I got a nice book about seashells and a couple of pretty greetings cards (my plan is to use them as decorate prints for if I ever get some walls of my own to hang them from).

We were both feeling like we needed some peace and quiet rather than deal with a busy restaurant, so we went to Aldi and got a few ingredients to cook something at his place. We settled on a nut roast from the freezer section, got some chestnut mushrooms, and I was reliably informed there were potatoes and leeks at home base.

When we got there I put the stuff in the kitchen and went to put my shopping bag away. By the time I got back he was already half way through preparing everything, and asked me what sort of herbs I wanted on the veg. Wow. I picked good this time. The food was amazing and it was lovely to spend time somewhere quiet and cosy. This definitely made me feel better, what with my overwhelming desire to hibernate at the moment.

Wednesday

Today I was meant to be meeting a friend in Wigan.

We had rearranged so many times, I didn’t want to have to rearrange again, so yesterday I sent a message to Izzy Kershaw while on my bus journey to ask if we could skip this week’s mixing lesson. But then I got a message from my friend that evening to say they couldn’t make it. I tried to get the lesson back on, but Izzy had made other plans. Facepalm.

That was ok by me though. The moment I got back from the school run in the morning, I retreated back to my bed, fell asleep, and didn’t wake up again until lunch time. It was amazing!

My Collab Partner got in contact on Discord, so I sent him the little demo from Sunday which he really liked. We discussed how to move the collab forward. I’ve got to admit, I’m really struggling with this one. It’s like I’ve run out of things to say and things to express.

Thursday

Today I was feeling some of that old fashioned depression, so I tried blowing off the cobwebs by going for a walk along the sea wall.

I walked down onto the pebble beach and looked around for any cool stuff. Threw a barely alive startfish back into the water. Collected some chunky sea glass. Listened to a few episodes of the Robcast. Got a hazelnut latte and cake from the café at the gym. Picked up vitamin gummies and lip balm from Home Bargains. Clocked my 10k steps.

Winter is getting me down. I haven’t felt this specific feeling for a while now. There were some years of my life where I spent months at a time in this state of mind. I feel grateful that it’s only a few days here and there now.

I’ve come into contact with a couple of sources criticising the idea of ‘growth’ recently, and they resonate with me.

The first was an email newsletter from a musician and entrepreneur called Lisa Machac who runs an organisation called Omni Sound Project which aims to showcase the work of marginalised people working in the music and audio industries. I’ve been signed up to this newsletter for a while and don’t always spend a lot of time reading it, but lately they’ve contained something more akin to blog posts which have interested me more than your typical marketing email.

The article was about resisting this idea that we must always ‘scale’ whatever it is we’re doing. Oh, you want to pursue something niche and specific that most of your audience won’t be into? Sorry, that’s not scalable! Stop immediately and only use your energy for stuff that will generate the most revenue!

I really liked this quote by Lisa.

“I’m noticing a shift in the music industry. People are tired. All we want to do is make music, but the focus is on explosive growth, growth, growth (or scaling), instead of creative satisfaction. I’ve spent far more time in the last three years making social media posts than I have music… a realisation that makes me nauseous.”
– Lisa Machac, Omni Sound Project

The podcast episode I was listening to while on the beach, Sign and Scale on The Robcast by Rob Bell, covered some related ideas. He talked about his own experiences having book signings back when he was the darling of American evangelical Christianity. He has since left those spaces, and now he found himself reading from his latest book (a fictional novel largely ignored by the Christian Corporate Machine) to a much smaller audience, an audience who had actually come to see his friend who had invited him to the event. He wasn’t even the main thing! And yet, it felt so much deeper and grander than his book signings of the past, where someone else would be in charge of dropping off the books, doing the promotion, driving him around. On this occasion he had to bring his own copies of the book in the back of his car, and you hear the laughter in his voice at the absurdity of it all. He talks about how much more he enjoys these times, of just a few people, of real conversations and a sense of unravelling the mysteries of life together with your fellow humans.

When I say I want to be successful, people immediately start talking about how I can up my numbers. That’s… not exactly what I’m after. I need enough numbers, but what I want more is the depth. There’s enough broad appeal and broad audience stuff in the world right now. Is there really any need to add to that? Or to wrap what I’m doing in similar trappings so I can trick an audience into liking me?

I’m growing frustrated again. I think it’s mostly a tech issue this time. I need my Ableton not to struggle to load and play projects. It makes me want to not work on stuff. I’ve asked my brother about getting more memory, and it’s probably time I updated to Ableton 11 now that 12 is already out.

I’m feeling a lot of resistance to doing those things, though. There’s a stubbornness in my gut about it all. A sort of ‘no’ response, and I know from endless repeated experiences, it is a bad idea to fight that no.

Almost every success I’ve had in music has NOT been connected to a go-getter attitude or making things happen approach. It’s always just come to me free and easy. So, come to me, then, since the rock in my stomach is too heavy to move without doing myself a burnout.

Tomorrow I’m doing a fitness class for the first time ever (unless you count a Davina DVD that I did with the ladies at church). This will be my first with a proper instructor. I’ll be sneaking in my bench press and overhead press before I start, then I guess I’ll see if I have anything resembling cardiovascular fitness these days. I feel like I need to do something to shake all this stuff off and out of me. Something with a bit more bite than just a walk in the wind. I’ll let you know how it goes.

Friday

This morning I showed up to the gym and snuck in my couple of lifts before it was time to start the fitness class.

I managed more reps in my sets for bench press, and the same for overhead press (although, since the weight room as been rearranged and the squat rack is no longer in front of a mirror, I’m having trouble keeping the bar straight, as you can see in this example).

The fitness class started at 10am, so I was in time and stood awkwardly among my fellow class members until the music started.

Now, you’d think something involving dancing to disco and dance music hits and colourful lights would be an inherently fun activity, but for some reason I just didn’t enjoy it that much. It was pretty tiring and I did have to stop for breath for four beats here or there, so it wasn’t a lack of challenge. The best part of it was being greeted by one of the regulars who said she recognised me by my headband and seeing me walk up and down in the weight room that is next to the main courts. I can imagine it’s amusing watching my little be-scarfed head bobbing around like I’m some kind of weight lifting gnome (a vibe, to be sure).

I’m going to try one of the other classes first before deciding on if it’s something I want to add to my week. There’s a different one that features weights and mats and stuff. That might be more up my alley, but we’ll see. Failing that, I’m just going to go for jogs again, but maybe less than 5k so it stays a little more fun and less about teeth-gritting endurance.

Conclusions

I found I was enjoying doing the everyday mundane stuff rather a lot more than usual. Things like giving my daughter a bath, drying her hair, reading to her from her current instalment of Warrior Cats. They all just felt like things I wanted to do rather than things that were demanded of me. They helped me feel a little better during this winter period by giving me a cosy, nesting kind of feeling.

I guess I just wanted to ‘do normal life’ for a while instead of entering the overwhelming world of music making and promotion. I’ve been thinking lately about why it seems to take so much from me when it’s been my dream for more than 20 years to write and produce songs professionally.

I’m not sure what the source of all this internal pushback is, but I’m sure it will become clear if I let it all have some distance.

Until next time, friends.

Caryl

[See you in Week #4 for another late entry.]