So, as planned I was about to do a live stream of a part of my creative process. BUT….
Technology has screwed me again. It’s a few days before I leave my Rome studio and head back to Sydney, and my slackness with streaming over the last while has come back to haunt me…with none of my cameras working! So, rather than waste hours doing fault finding, I’ve just created a quick WIP sample of what I’m working on – the (working) title of the track is At Most Fear:
I’m not even sure if this track will make it onto the album. I’m still in the process of creating a bunch of tracks and will see what cohesive theme and vibe emerges – much more a process of discovery, rather than creation.
This track started life as what I call a splurge (actually my creative coach Mike Monday came up with the term, as well as many of my processes – catch him here if you want some great coaching). A splurge is the musical equivalent of creative pages (for writers), and would have been a brain-dump idea that I threw down (at 5:30am), in 30 minutes. It then ‘incubates’ for 2 weeks when I don’t even listen back to the ideas. 2 weeks later I take a listen, and see if I think there is anything in the music worth taking further – I rate the musical ideas:
1 – In Play (I’m super keen to work on this music NOW!)
2 – Has Potential (definitely will do something with it, but not right now)
3 – Good [thing] Has an element that is worth coming back to in the future to develop, or cut and paste along with other bright ideas
4 – Ok (nothing too exciting…for now. That could change as my subjective mind changes).
All splurges that have been rated as above end up in my Sketchbook which is a massive wealth of musical creativity (I currently have 26 tracks rated 1 – In play, over 600 rated 2 – Has Potential, and over 200 rated 3 – Good [Thing]. And that’s with me finishing a track a week for the last few years.
The music I work on at any one time comes from the 1 – In Play rated tracks.
So the above track had 30 minutes spent in the morning – actually from October 2022, and then one session to discover more about the track. This is where I’m at…and I’m almost at the point where I know that this track will be. I won’t have created all the parts, but enough to know that’s where this track will go.
I’ll post some more of my process as I go along.