“It had that perfect commercial combination: startling originality and easy classification.” — Sarah Bakewell, referring to the first published version of Montaigne’s Essays in her book How To Live, or, A Life of Montaigne.
I’ve been thinking a lot about style and arrangement lately. In fact the closer I get to wrapping up the composition phase of this album, the more important it seems.
I’ve gone about this album in an unconventional way. First of all, it’s an album…
There is no one who, if he listens to himself, does not discover in himself a pattern all his own, a ruling pattern, which struggles against education.
– Michel de Montaigne, quoted in How to Live, or, A Life of Montaigne by Sarah Bakewell (translation: Donald Frame)
For a few years prior to putting out Java St Bagatelles in 2006, every time I ran into my friend Ryan Goodman he would ask me how the album was coming. It was coming slow. As I’ve said elsewhere, I wasn’t even necessarily planning to make an album until, probably, 2005 — I was just practicing. And recording. It was a great feeling not to be rushed. I didn’t feel like there was anything that I had to…
I know, I’ve been scarce around here lately. Here’s why.
There’s been a lot of exciting stuff to do at Masterdisk recently, and I’ve been spending more time doing it — full-time, basically. Then there are freelance projects that need wrapping up, and regular music work in the mornings (without spectacular consistency, unfortunately). As my grandfather used to say, “there’s a limit”! So, I’ve dropped way down on blogging and social media activity. At this point, it has been…
These concertos [Nos. 11, 12, and 13] are a happy medium between what is too easy and too difficult; they are very brilliant, pleasing to the ear, and natural, without being vapid. There are passages here and there from which the connoisseurs alone can derive satisfaction; but those passages are written in such a way that the less learned cannot fail to be pleased, though without knowing why … The golden mean of truth in all things is
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This is my final post for now about dealing with time management. For the earlier posts see: Switching Gears, Part 1 and Switching Gears, Part 2.
Now to talk a little more about time spent on craft. Personally, I need to work on my music every day in order to stay on good terms with it. I mean that I need to keep my chops up, but it’s also a mental thing. It’s about momentum. One or two…
Back to time management. Actually, I wish there were a better term to use than that — it’s so business-y and one of those terms that future generations will snicker at as being so “turn-of-the-century.” But it’s the best shorthand I’ve got at the moment, and I don’t mean for these posts to be real long, so shorthand is a plus.
Should it seem that I’m writing from some position of wisdom about managing time — maybe just for writing…
I’m a musician; there are four things I need to pay attention to every day. 1) craft, 2) career (i.e. audience), 3) job(s), and 4) personal life. All of these require specific skill and attention. But what I really need to get a handle on — more than any one of these areas — is how to fit them all together. Time management.
I could be better at it. I tend to go through phases — sometimes a couple of…
I’m ready to start working on a new track. I’ve got two already in the can — they’re near finished really — and I figure I have ten to twelve to go before my project is complete.
That project is the “demo version” of my fourth album. My first three records were done pretty much 100% by myself — this one’s going to be different. (It’s going to be different in lots of ways, but I’m not going to go…
