creative process

Here at the End of All Things

No, it’s not really the end of anything, other than this very delayed wrap-up post for Song-A-Day 2025. Many of the blog entries were written over the last several weeks. Clearly I lost the energy to keep talking about it while doing it and I’ll say more about that a little later. How Did It Go? It was a solid year. I didn’t reach any new plateaus, nor did I suffer any setbacks or meltdowns. That’s not to say that I wasn’t challenged every day. When I go through the folder for the month, there are several days where I … Continue reading

Apanthropinization

This is a “throw stuff at it” seat-of-my-pants piece. I know I was initialy going for something in a very early Kraftwerk style, but it ended up being something else. Something hybrid I suppose. It feels a little more 80s than 70s. I probably tried pivoting to a Lo-Fi track at some point, but that didn’t take either. So without a strong temporal anchor and no real hook to exploit, this is more of an exploration of textures and variations. Examples are that the sharp arpeggio that shows up first is actually the same synth patch as the more “fat … Continue reading

Invisible Biscuit

I’m behind on blogging again – this post is being written on the 24th, so the next few entries will probably be a bit short. In part, this is due to the natural fading of memory, but it’s also because some of the next few days feature music where there’s really just not a lot to say about anything. Today’s track is apparently the third thing I tried to write. I opened the two aborted projects to see how I felt about them now. The first may actually have some potential, but I know I dopped it because it was … Continue reading

Edgar Rescues the Damsel of Garstaang Tower

Many blog posts ago, going back perhaps 15 to 20 years, I wrote about a condition I had both invented and decided I suffer from: Salieri Syndrome. I have alternatively described myself as “praying to St. Salieri.” In days past, most people would have immediately gotten the reference, but as I sat down to write this post, I now realize that it’s a reference to a 41 year old movie.1Or a 46 year old play, if you want to be pedantic. Or even more than that, as Amadeus was, itself, based on the 1830 play Mozart and Salieri by Alexander … Continue reading

Olive’s First Snow

Today was even more of a “my mind is blank” day than yesterday. After a couple of hours of false starts, I started wondering if maybe I’m out of steam. I don’t want to write about anything current or political because… well, I just don’t want to deal with the intolerance of people who disagree with me and I’ve found that a lot of the stuff I do in that direction isn’t as incisive or poetic as I’d like it to be. I’m not recharged enough for another ambient or cinematic piece. Joy in the Snow We’d had a decent … Continue reading