{"id":659,"date":"2011-08-02T17:30:20","date_gmt":"2011-08-02T22:30:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.othertime.com\/musicblog\/?p=659"},"modified":"2011-08-02T07:20:40","modified_gmt":"2011-08-02T12:20:40","slug":"getting-serious","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.othertime.com\/musicblog\/?p=659","title":{"rendered":"Getting Serious"},"content":{"rendered":"

The writing of my “Artist’s Statement” and manifesto is not entirely unrelated to the last six or so years of my life being innundated with change. I won’t go into too many details, but moving to Texas, getting married, having two kids, and taking on a pile of responsibility at The Day Job have taken up significant mental space. Being who I am, my reaction to massive amounts of change is to try and take a quick inventory of things that are important. In other words, what can I throw overboard to make sure that what I’m doing that is<\/em> important gets its due? Writing helps that along.<\/p>\n

I’ve been keeping a rather extensive daily journal for years. Now and again I will leaf through an older volume, wince a little, and try to pick out themes. I’ve done those sorts of meta-reviews for a long time. To make that simpler, I now keep a pocket notebook with the title “Daily Accounts.” This is a nod to the agricultural notebook<\/a> in which the information finds a home. It’s also a way to remind myself that this is a book that tracks details; just a few bullet points per day. Looking back over my pile of them I can track my reading habits, when I’m doing good studio work, the ordering of instrument supplies, and other details that would otherwise slip through the cracks. I know what I was working on and when. I can also weight the relative importance over a period of time and note patterns. A great pattern to note is that I do absolutely nothing of any worth between June and August since my move to Texas. I can correlate that with the average ambient temperature and humidity and figure that, perhaps, temperatures in the 100+F range are not conducive to my work. Or moving.<\/p>\n

During one of my little sessions with my notebooks, it occurred to me that I really needed to take stock of where I stand with my creative work. At the end of last year I had about four musical projects in various states of incompletion. Nothing was moving. My sketches were getting sparse and I needed to reset a few things. Digging through older journals, I saw that my focus had shifted heavily over the past few years. My experimentation with electronic\/computer music was all but gone from my regular routine. I wasn’t working on chamber music anymore. In fact, if it didn’t involve an acoustic guitar, I wasn’t doing it. There’s nothing wrong with any of this, I simply hadn’t realized that my scope had narrowed itself so dramatically.<\/p>\n

I sat down and made a list. I wrote down all of the pieces I would like to write. Then I reviewed the list and determined which ones I wanted to write that night. That was enlightening. It’s like making a list of movies on the Netflix queue. All of the cool art films get put on there when making the list but the only thing that actually gets watchedn on a quiet Friday night is the complete Kids In The Hall collection. Our better angels make those lists and then bug out when it’s time to produce. At least mine do. I started to give some real thought about what I want on my Done<\/strong> pile when I’m really done. Getting there won’t be easy.<\/p>\n

Writing out what’s important to me as an artist and defining my direction is really important right now. I am finally starting to understand the laser-like focus that is required of someone who leads a double life. There are more than a few sacrifices and to make good decisions there have to be good guidelines. There has to be a plan.<\/p>\n

My statement is my plan.<\/p>\n

The exercise of writing it is more important than the final document. I see that now very clearly. And every weekend I get out of bed before the kids are stirring and I sit down and write more. The more I write, the more I really understand what I’m doing is carefully examining what stays on the boat. Knowing what has to stay makes tossing the other stuff easier.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The writing of my “Artist’s Statement” and manifesto is not entirely unrelated to the last six or so years of my life being innundated with change. I won’t go into too many details, but moving to Texas, getting married, having …<\/p>\n

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