For me it’s a welcome kick in the butt - so although it’s a bit exhausting (especially with getting back to work this week) I’m welcoming it as a positive thing - like starting a new workout routine or changing your sleeping habits.
I’m also using it as an opportunity to take some of the pressure off of the kind of music I’m making - try different genres, styles and approaches, and not worry if I only get 40 seconds of usable music - I find the less frequently I make music the more critical I become of what I do make, but not in a way that I’ve found leads to better results.
I’ve definitely been pressuring myself to try to create a full track each day, with very mixed success (see yesterday’s ). But it’s still a great push to experiment and be forced to learn new things quickly and I love it for that fact. I’ve also always liked starting a bunch of new things at once when I was painting and found that a great way to stay motivated and interested in the output, so I’m curious to see how that will pan out with tunes this year.
That’s why I’m doing this jam-a-day thing, to see what I need to learn about workflow and even my own process too.
I absolutely hated everything I did yesterday. I think the 3 ideas I scrapped sounded better than what I posted, but that’s the challenge part of it.
Monday through Friday is the most difficult time to get something up, but again it’s something I wanted to push through to maybe fix a few things about my approach.
Yeah, I’ve already figured out a few things I’ve been doing wrong in building these tracks so I can repeat performances. Previously, once I recorded something, I could essentially never reproduce it because I didn’t have everything configured properly for it (wasn’t a problem because I don’t ever actually perform live after getting a ‘good enough’ recording down and was only really working on one thing at a time on the machines).
I’ve also got a running list of ideas for things to try this month, so the pressure has been good for process ideas for me too. The first couple recordings I did yesterday were even worse, haha.
#5. A slightly different approach today. I remembered that I once bought Fugue Machine for iPhone and never used it. 110 bpm. Simple pattern, 4 playheads that were hooked up to Studio Electronics SE-3X, Roland SH-01A, JX-08, SE-02. For FX I’ve used Raindrops from Dreadbox and OTO BIM + BAM. Mixed on Model 1. Processed on live in Ableton. I had a lot of fun and I’m sure I’ll experiment more this approach.
Day 5 - the Polyend play turned up today so had to put it to use-very mixed bag. I love parts of both it and this jam, hate other parts of both as well-but I’ve only had about 30 mins play time with it so far so will see how it goes!!
Yeah exactly - the fact that I just can’t afford to spend too long every night so I’m trying different things, different gear and not worrying too much about it.
Though it does kill me a little, putting stuff out -even to my non existent audience - with mistakes. Like the last one would be so much better with the clicks at half the volume. But I guess at the end of the month I can come back to it.
day 5 (no Elektron box today but a Prophet rev5, a dx7 and Pigment on ableton live)
Each of my jamuary is inspired by a fictional video-game picture (AI generated).
Today’s one is “Aquarium” : an aquarium simulator in which the player have to sit back, put its gamepad down, and observe again and again and again and again and again…
). But it’s still a great push to experiment and be forced to learn new things quickly and I love it for that fact. I’ve also always liked starting a bunch of new things at once when I was painting and found that a great way to stay motivated and interested in the output, so I’m curious to see how that will pan out with tunes this year.
Super mellow and moody synth stuff.