Published on 12, July, 2020
I am learning both the Guitar and Violin. I started with the Guitar first and play the chords with a pick. More recently I started to read music and learn the guitar fingerstyle.
In the past two weeks I have started to learn the Violin. However, I have to wear ear plugs because of it is so loud and starts sensory problems.
Does anyone else do something similar?
I make electronic music. Moved over from hardware to software about 12 years ago. I still own a few synths, and an Akai MPC 3000. I'll probably never get rid of the Akai. It's sexy. I love the simplicity of how you can sample. The gritty sound quality isn't there in the software, well it takes more work.
Lately I've had a rest though because I'd become a bit too focused, I'd stay awake for far too long, a few times I've been awake more than 48 hours, even though I can save what I'm working on much more easier on software! Hyperfocus is great but yeah, it can take over. Sometimes it can lead to overload too especially when programming drums. The patterns overlap in my head. I still enjoy it though. Progamming synths, samplers, and drums is my favourite part. The mixing is the part I find a chore, well not a chore, but not as fun.
I can't understand music by reading it, but I can program something that is all in key and in time by ear. I have done a few things with vocalists too. I usually ask them for the vocal at a certain bpm, send them a simple loop at the speed, then work on the vocal they give, or record it again when the beat is done.
Cloudy Mountains said:Progamming synths, samplers, and drums is my favourite part. The mixing is the part I find a chore, well not a chore, but not as fun.
That's always been my Achilles' heel with synthesised music (and recorded "live" instruments to an extent.) My hard drives are littered with half-finished music projects that I ended up getting frustrated with when I got to that point where I had no idea whether my mixing was making them better or worse. If I don't finish them in a single session, they'll just get left when some other new bonkers idea occurs to me the next day.
The "tinkering" I absolutely love though. I went over to all-software about as soon as it was possible on a home PC (a 200MHz MMX CPU - wow, the power!) The sheer variety of soft-synths and effects makes me feel so spoiled when I think back to what I had to work with back in the 80's and 90's, even if they are a bit less visceral than the best hardware. I love just experimenting with what sounds I can patch together, and learned SynthMaker (now FlowStone), so that I could create my own VST plugins, which became the focus of my hobbyist coding. I can lose myself for hours just playing with the modulation options between two oscillators, or slicing and dicing a snippet of me talking gibberish into a mic (my usual test signal when building a new effect plugin.)
It could never replace playing my live instruments, as that's a completely different kind of hyper-focus for me, but even then, I can spend several hours programming a patch on the multi-FX pedal-board that I usually run my bass through. Even just inventing ridiculous, punning patch names for my new sounds can keep me entertained longer than it really ought to!
Trogluddite said:My hard drives are littered with half-finished music projects that I ended up getting frustrated with when I got to that point where I had no idea whether my mixing was making them better or worse. If I don't finish them in a single session, they'll just get left when some other new bonkers idea occurs to me the next day.
Yeah - the infinite world of half-finished work. And when you go back to try to finish them you just can't get into the old groove. They stay unfinished for ever.
Plastic said:Yeah - the infinite world of half-finished work. And when you go back to try to finish them you just can't get into the old groove. They stay unfinished for ever.
I WILL finish them all.......well maybe, it's a depressing thought!