Stop listening to others

As many of you know, I have always been a creator of music.  I have within me a profound desire to create a symphony every so often so intense that I have recently come to realize it will never just go away or vanish.  I have tried to squelch it in the past.  So many hurtful memories were associated with it and wrapped around it that I just couldn’t look at it; I would not allow myself to hear it. 

I take you back about 3 to 4 years ago.  I had little desire to play music.  I remembered the wonderful days long ago when I would adore it but to think about it a few years ago sent waves of pain through me.  It was one of my largest lessons in this world.  To deal with the regret and sorrow those memory traces held for me was my #1 Forgiveness subject for 10 years. But some strange thing happened back 3 years ago.  I started building a “music room” in my house.  The guitars made sense…I like guitars.  The drums made sense since I was a drummer for years when I was younger.  The keyboard made sense because I played some keyboards on the songs I made with the band and you can use it as a Midi sampler.  Now…the Bass was a little strange.  It is an instrument I have had very little contact with and resonance with.  Within the band I was the singer/ songwriter and composer.  I acted like a conductor at every stage.  Pre production was my middle name and there is a video I just placed on youtube from back in 1999 where my role is obvious.  As well as videotaping the practice session, I was guiding the music within the song…”my” song that they were playing. I was videotaping for an Australian TV station that wanted to do a feature on us and I thought maybe we could film and they would edit it and piece some things worthwhile together.  But why buy the damn Bass?

The next thing I bought was some rack gear.  Compressors, delays, Exciters, Limiters, monitors and Microphones.  Not dynamic mics (the kind you would use onstage) but Condensers (the kind you record with). I even bought digital multitracks.  Now THIS was all completely strange.  I knew how to use very little of it.  We always had a professional sound engineer in a professional studio.  But all that Gain staging, mixing, editing and mastering were foreign to me in many ways, I wasn’t paying attention…or so I thought. Why did I pick the equipment I picked?  Why buy it if I didn’t know how to use it?

I thought maybe I was just trying to feel better about myself, to recapture the past, or maybe even because I have been a compulsive Aries at other times in my life.  Buying equipment because it had cool knobs and it softened the blow of a past that still rang bitter in my heart. The music room (or “studio”) sat for a few years silent.  I spent very little time in there and thought I should just sell everything off and make it a spare guestroom.  I remember walking past it with a feeling of dread since I had invested so much in it and used it practically nada.  Something would not allow me to get rid of ANYTHING. I tried to post much of it on Craigslist about a year ago and the circus I had during that experience with illusive buyers and no shows was too stupid to be discussed. It was obviously for a reason.

Then about 6 months ago my mind started engaging in music again.  I had a feeling to go into Digital Audio Workstations (All computer based recording).  This particular idea made me feel nauseous.  I thought I hated technology when it came to creating music.  I was in reality scared of it. A client of mine mentioned she used a particular program to create a small piece for a show she had done.  I thought “If she can do that, why can’t I?”  So I stared to study music creation again.  Today I am taking online classes from the Berklee College of Music on full music studio production. And I am learning a great many things…much of what only the people who visit my office would understand. Yes I am learning technical mumbo jumbo, but mainly I am learning I already know what to do.

I was reading a book about 2 weeks ago.  It was speaking about “Near field Monitors.”  These are Monitors studios use to listen to tracks they just recorded and are especially important during mixdown where the type of speakers you use can determine a bad mix or a good one.  In this book the author, who was a very accomplished sound engineer, spoke about how having Monitors with Bass reflex ports was unacceptable to true music production.  He had tons of facts and figures as to “why” this was the case.  It was like a scientific dossier on why Carbs are no good for you with flow charts and dynamic polar patterns all included.  The author pointed at the fact that so many professional studios had these monitors. He was right, I remembered they did (or did they?)…at least I remembered seeing them in the 6 studios we recorded in. I felt like I was punched in the gut and I scrambled…I had bought monitors 3 years earlier that did indeed have Bass reflex ports in them. I felt a sinking feeling…I was going to have to rebuild this whole studio from the ground up.  I started searching for monitors without those ports…and they were EXPENSIVE (monitors are already pricey but these were just stupid). 

But something was speaking to me.  I was going to pull the trigger on a new set of speakers but I felt internally “wrong” about it.  All these years of listening within has taught me that is a sign you are about to do something not in accordance with the will of the creator.  So I waited and I was still plagued by the feeling of having insufficient equipment.  But I had this thought within my mind, it was small but relentless. I KNEW this “voice.”  I knew it had the same feeling of truth in it as I can have about so many subjects.  It was the Voice.  I immediately went inward and asked “show me what this is for.”  I somehow knew what I had was sufficient and right and that I was given all I needed. I was safe.

The next morning I was browsing the internet and came upon a page (not by accident) that has PDF versions of books and there were two books I had seen that stuck out.  One was “How to play piano,” and another was “Equipping the professional Home studio.”  The piano book was great, It spoke to what I needed without giving me volumes of notation lessons.  The other book was a serious sign and I scrolled through the pages.  And YES of course this happened…I found myself on the chapter called “The question of Nearfield Monitors.”  The author (another non slouch with tons of credentials) explained the difference between monitors. Here is the excerpt I stopped at:

“So, to bring this into recording studio context, which should you choose? Should you choose a closed box loudspeaker which will give you a more accurate sound quality and tell you what is on your recording, or should you choose a bass reflex loudspeaker which in fact is going to fatten the base content of your recording? This is one situation where we have to go against the doctrine of nothing but the truth. If you monitor on closed box loudspeakers, you are hearing something that is different to what the vast majority of customers who will buy your recording will hear. So you don’t really know what it’s going to

sound like on their systems. It will probably have too much bass because their speakers have more bass than yours. So for this reason it is usually advisable to choose bass reflex speakers as your studio monitors so that you’re more in line with potential listeners to your music.”

Wow.  So, here I found two completely different views on the same subject (Shocker!).  Two “experts” disagreeing once again…oh my Lord how is this possible? :-) There it was, the nonsense I had been doing all my life.  I had a pair of speakers that I bought for seemingly NO REASON and a studio filled with equipment I bought in a state of ignorance and I didn’t realize I was being guided?  I went immediately and started looking at the equipment I bought. 

I wrote down model numbers and was already reading another book on Home recording I was guided to. It was common for me to read about the need for a piece of equipment and go in and find I already owned it.  That happened so many times I started assuming I had it hidden already.  MUCH of the time I was right.  Whatever I did buy I didn’t really need, so Amazon must have been frustrated from all the returns from Charleston within a few months.  The equipment I already had was well received with 5 stars on Amazon across the board.  Wow, how did that happen?  Where the Hell was I the whole time? Of course it would be that way, of course.

I already had what I needed.  I had the voice within.  It is the same voice I amplify for my clients on a daily basis.  For some reason to apply it to music was illusive to me.  It is the battle between my egos need for “more” and never being good enough and Gods knowing I am fine and perfect with what I am and what I have.  So in short I feel I’ve discovered the secret to living simply. It is this:
Put your hands over your ears. Close your eyes. Now loudly say, “La la la la la. I’m not listening to you!”

I’m serious. Sort of.

The number one key to living simply is to simply listen to God and stop listening so intently to everyone else around you or that incessant voice within you that says you somehow need more.

Now 15 years later I am creating music again. I am actually smiling when I am hearing it coming through the studio monitors (With Bass reflex ports).  I feel like a little kid inside and saw myself jumping for joy the other day when I was playing drums on a particular song and it sounded…well…”right.”  I am so in the now, so present during the making of music that I cannot call it anything else but deeply spiritual for me.

By the way, I will be creating a CD of my new material over the next coming months.  It is high time. :-)