Why do we create stuff? Is there some inbuilt need to innovate, put your place on the world. How it connects to the brain is fascinating, the need to redeveloping something fresh and original. I create pieces of music, hours spent slaving over a hot Digital Audio Workstation (DAW) perfecting sections. Although I don’t really have the attention span for attention to detail. I love developing the structure, creating the whole outline, building up parts but then you need to go back and alter hi hat positioning, the velocity of the odd kick drum, automation across your strings pads, hone the reverb until it sounds glassily transparent, build echoes onto certain moments so that that they last just the right amount, don’t mask or clash but aid the flow. I love creating melodies, interlocking parts that flow off each other. Rhythm less so. I like a pulse, a beat, but I keep missing all those intricacies that make up a great drum track. Creating the music is one thing, but then what happens? In previous eras you could go to your local studio, record some live parts over the basic structure, mix, master and create an artefact. Get friends to help in creating cover images, get your vinyl from the Czech plant. Burn straight to 1/4 inch tape then DAT. Avidly, we created packs and sent them off to our favourite DJ’s and record shops. If it was any good then it got played. Not necessarily in large amounts but there was some traction, a point to the creative process. Nowadays I am increasingly thinking about the pointlessness of sending music out into the world. It is a saturated market, flooded by accessibility. The conundrum that the top 100 albums feature regular favourites the Beatles, stones, Neil Sedaka and Nana Mouskouri. Spotify has endless music. Everyone can get their music on the platform, the gatekeepers have been sidelined at this point. Although you now need them to make an impact. To get plays, streams, downloads you need a record company or influencer to catch onto your track, to like it in a way that connects with their other material. Companies such as Label Radar or Groover provide this service, enticing you to pitch your music to an endless supply of record companies. It does work. If I am lucky, one of my tracks gets taken up and then you are onto stage 2. Promotion. Friends and family will sometimes listen but reaching beyond is so difficult, battling the tide of artists who have also released music that day. Estimates range between 60 to 100k releases per day. Every day. Still, you turn on 6 Music and Marvin Gaye is thoughtfully crooning along. Wonderwall is still building. The Smile continue to sound like Radiohead. The Gatekeepers have shut the door and thrown away the key for infinity and beyond. So should you keep making music I hear you cry? Well possibly, but now its often a case of moving your head from thoughts of Top of the Pops and stardom to a process, going through something cathartic. You need to make the music for yourself, to get what is inside out. Anyway, I still check my Spotify streams, have extreme pleasure when it says that someone is listening to my latest track Rise up by Inochi. So maybe that is the point, personal satisfaction that someone somewhere gets it, gets you.
BLANK CANVAS 