essay

working in Cubase feels like an uphill struggle at the moment and even though I have a very good synth loop lying around gathering dust I do not dare to try to build anything around it as I am afraid of spoiling it by choking it in uninspired stuff.

So I thought I'd just write something here to keep the ball rolling. A reply in a forum I made earlier today sparked an old idea of mine to life that I had thought about much and refined to the point where I took it for granted, a synthetic a priori, and just let it sink away to the background.

The idea is about creating something that is good and enjoyable for others, and why some artisans simply are better than others. Surely I think the biggest explanation of it comes down to that he who practices the most becomes the better one, but what is there to practice? Becoming swift and accurate playing chords on the guitar, finding your style and perfecting it, learning the inner workings of a synth, is that all that it takes to become good?

These are miscellanelous factors, because in my view creating something is depicting something of what is inside you. We are polysensual creatures, some people might be more graphic inside their heads while others are more reliant on sounds - even the engineer with his mathematics takes something out from inside of him when he constructs his bridge. The more accurately and lifelike you can capture what is inside you and put on a paper, on a recording or whatever, the better your work is.

If a painter is suffering and depressed and successfully can capture that on a canvas then he has created a fine piece of art, has he not?

But then the young beginner who stares at the canvas feeling all his feelings and tries to paint with his clumsy fingers and runny paint, he has no less of an artistic vision than our first suffering artist, he simply cannot express what he feels and therefore is not an as good a painter as someone with the experience and knowledge of how to let out what is inside him.

So am I saying that everyone can create just as good art as anyone? Well, both yes and no. Theoretically yes, but our lifespans are in reality often too short to truly find what form of art suits you and therefore it mostly comes down to luck if you pick up a medium that corresponds to you. Also this ability to let out what is inside you, trainable as it is, varies a lot from person to person in regards to how strong it is.

So to take a modern example of an at least in my eyes truly great artist, Banksy, he has a mind full of ideas which he can express with a medium that both suits him and he knows well from years of training. A good artist lets his audience see what he sees, Banksy sees a lot of aspects of modern society in a particular and clear way and that he can share that vision to others is something not only I greatly admire him for, but also other people too.

But what I think everyone who aspires to be someone has to practice is the ability to open the valves to their insides and let it pour out. It is very much a psychological thing, but you can only reach so far copying others and if you want to reach further, then tap what is inside you.

Find your medium, learn to wield it and then fuel it with something personal.

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Everytime I've pumped out a few tracks in a row or written a lot in a short space of time I feel a bit drained and have to let it wait. I still try but it results in little more than what banging your head against a wall and repeating yesterday would do. You guessed it; I am in one of those lows now.

But one last word of imagined wisdom, being a commercially successful artist also takes another skill; namely consistency, the consistency to negate these valleys between your peaks.

I guess that is what I am training now...