A Simpler Path

It always amazes me how, no matter my intentions, projects seem to always get more and more involved, time becomes harder to allocate as the complexity increases, and invariably I get to feeling a bit lost in the process.  On a lot of levels the truth is that is not necessarily a bad thing, but in matters of a creative nature (whatever that means) there are so many times that I just wanna be able to get lost in the creation, not the process.

So lately, I've bee taking stock.  We've already done a total revamp the main website, which was surprisingly cathartic; and my pet project for the last several years of seeing how far I can take the notion of making music live, from nothing, with multiple lines/textures all going on simultaneously has started to see some real progress as well.  In fact, the truth is that it was largely my recent progress on that method of music making that kind of got me really thinking of this idea of simplifying.

I plan to write more about the specifics very soon - hopefully to coincide with video of some performances to show it in application - but, if nothing else, the "break through" seems to have occurred when I had finally gotten reasonable hold of the open-source technology elements required (programming pedals to talk to other gear to talk to computers, etc. without any of it being relegated to any of the gears' proprietary or design limitations)

The fact is that this took so long in no small part because it took me quite some time to develop a musical approach let alone conceive of a manner to actually do it to say nothing of execution.  Anyway, as I made all this recent progress at some point I took a step back - something I should do more often - and noticed that while it would all work in theory, in practice I could see it lacked the necessary simplicity (can I say "elegance" instead?) to really work without requiring a counterproductive level of focus.  I saw it as leading to getting far too lost in the process and not the music - not at all my intention.

So once I realized that, it's been a matter a retooling and simplifying.  Once the musical concept was clarified it seemed like a good idea to branch out, so the website was the next logical step.  Obviously there is more to do, and though I am not entirely certain how far I can take this, it has felt very therapeutic in general, so I am highly motivated to continue.

There is a lot more and as I reread this post I am clearly writing even more ambiguously than usual - which is certainly saying something.  It's also very possible that this is all related in some manner to my upcoming birthday causing me to take stock of life in general and this is just the current manifestation.  Or maybe I need a nap.  Or both.