NewSc2

1. Lose 15 pounds (I’m in shape now, but I want to slim down/easier to run)
2. Save $5000
3. Continue growing in music:
• 1500 hours. (4 hrs. a day/28 hours a week)
• By the end of 2010, my music should be very close to release-quality.
• Consider doing amateur-professional work (web/TV/radio/game stuff).
• Get music lessons—in jazz, audio engineering, or production.
4. Do something academic-related (take GMATs, or apply to complete a second bachelors degree in Econ).
5. Drink less, or at least continue the lowered consumption levels of the 2nd half of 2009.

EDIT: 6. Go to bed around 1am every night… no later than 2am.

2010, here I come!

Has it already been a year? Did I really graduate college 3.5 years ago? Have I really been working for TACCIA for 6 years?

It’s always odd doing these retrospectives, but I guess the end of a decade is as good of a time as any to look back.

My years usually find themselves defined by a singular theme—relationships, friends, failures, or achievements. 2009 was no different. With all of the turbulence 2008 brought, 2009 was a much-needed emotional change.

The first half of 2009 brought along a different social tangent. I went out a lot more, met a lot of new friends, and got to know old friends better. The second half was a little counteraction to all the partying; around July I holed back in and hit the books.

Music in 2009 also saw two halves. I started taking online courses in March (eventually notching 3 courses total, with lots of material in between). When I started the courses, I was doing things “by the book”, whatever that means. I wasn’t intimately familiar with my music programs, and couldn’t “feel” the music—my attempts were basically a rehash of my homework assignments and exercises. It was a step up from 2008, when I felt like I was blindly stumbling onto music pieces—at least now I had control over the music—but the music quality arguably suffered and became more methodical and planned.

After I took the last class in August, and tortured myself through laying out a few songs, something “clicked”, and the computer became an instrument again. My music workflow became natural again, and now I had the synthesis, mixing, and theory knowledge to tweak sounds and shape them. I mean, I’m still not an expert, but earlier this year I wouldn’t know where to start to create a specific synth tone or sound effect. Now I can break a sound down in my head, get to a starting point on a synth, and know where to go. I still struggle with perfecting the sound, but at least I have a clue. I can read audio books and at least understand the advanced techniques.

Good music (like most things in life) is created from a person with confidence and experience. Just listen to an amateur guitarist vs. an experienced one—they can both play the same guitar solo, with the same notes, but the experienced guitarist plays with more “oomph” and style. I’ve been trying to figure out what defines this “je ne sais quoi”, and over time it feels like it comes from practice (confidence) and knowledge (experience). If you’ve played 100 different melodies, and labored over them to prove to yourself that yes, #37 has “it” and is the best one… that stuff comes through to the listener’s ears.

So, to sum it up, in 2009 I:
• Took Point Blank Minimal Ableton course
• Took (both) Point Blank Trance courses
• Went over ~20 courses on Sonic Academy (good arrangement tips/exercises)
• Reviewed another 2-3 courses on MacProVideo.com (workflow enhancements)
• Took Point Blank Deep House course (finally made music production “click”)
• Studied DMP Synthesis DVD (great for synthesis/ear training theory)
• Studied DMP Trance DVD (made me realize it takes an awful lot of time to polish songs up, and sometimes, polish is all that makes or breaks a song)
• 12-15 Future Music DVD’s (good insight into professional producer mentality—use whatever you can—samples, presets, etc., as long as it sounds good)
• Countless hours on KVR Forum and Gearslutz ($$ lost, but sometimes the tools really do make the carpenter)
• Read Mixing Audio by Roey Izhaki (awesome book, taught me tons about EQ and mixing tricks and techniques)
• Read Composition for Computer Musicians (one of the better books out there, but I can’t seem to remember anything specific I learned from it, other than to use Latin percussion the same way you’d program an acoustic/rock drum beat)
• Read Mixing With Your Mind (Michael Stavrou) and The Manual (by KLF). (great pop/philosophical books. Catchy music is all about the hook and the groove, never forget a good “hit” or “emotional” song puts people on notice and has them humming your hook.)
• And produced a ton more, read another ton and a half of stuff online, and random Sound on Sound articles, production videos, manuals.

Wow, that is a lot of time. I mean, in instruction alone, that’s at least 500 hours. Probably another 500 hours in production too.

2010 goals/resolutions to follow…

(P.S. Forgot to go over the year’s themes. 2007—Silky’s & Brewbakers, 2008—The Breakup & DJing, 2009—Understanding Music Production. 2010? Applying Music Production :D)

Yay, it’s the “got an hour back” day. Autumn’s Daylight Savings used to mean “yay! I get an extra hour of sleep!” but in the past decade or so it’s morphed into “yay! I get to stay awake an extra hour!” Think I went to bed around 5am (new time) yesterday.

To be honest, nothing really new to report since August. Work has been busy (which is good). And a few more skills are coming forward in music. It’s all a bunch of little things that are coming together—when to EQ, when not to EQ, when to compress, how to approach a blank template, how to start arrangements, advanced synthesis techniques, envelope modulators, LFO shapes, etc. A lot of practical workflow stuff. I made a good default template, with decent starter sounds and drums, which has helped speed up my initial inspiration.

This is all quite vague, I know, but the whole process isn’t really clear in my mind (yet). All I know is the little daily exercise/song bits I write are sounding more unique and better.

I’ve dabbled in a few different genres—hip-hop, trance, house, and techno. Techno was probably the most difficult out of the 4, next to House and Hip-Hop, but after a few epiphanies it’s come together. It’s pretty weird coming from a classical music background and trying to use a computer creatively. After putting together a solid base of synthesis and mixing techniques, I’ve begun to just let my creative juices “flow”, and not worry about what tones are going on.

It’s a kind of odd process… you have to have listened to a bunch of good music, to know what works and what doesn’t… and then develop your skill to emulate that… but the last step is a quantum leap of honing down and trusting your instinct.

Anyway, after reading Malcolm Gladwell’s “Outliers” (great book), I’ve re-dedicated myself to start taking my studies seriously. Which also means I’ve been a shut-in for the past few months. I’ve been spending about 8-10 hours a week at the HB Library, another 8-10 hours/week at Kean’s Coffee, about 10 hours/week in front of my desktop (see picture), and another 5ish hours just reading manuals and guides in my spare time at work or elsewhere. I’ve been downloading new music like crazy, too, and probably go through about 10-12 hours of new stuff a week (on top of the 10ish hours of old stuff I still listen to). It’s a bit taxing, but in a way pretty rewarding.

And with that, I’m off to Kean’s and Barnes & Noble. Gonna try my hand at some more Berghain-style techno, and read up on arranging.

Been a while since I tried to work out a riddle. I came across this one on a site, which said I would get some, $200 worth of clams if I solved it and sent the answer in, without Googling. Of course there was no e-mail address. Interesting blog, though, some of those recipes look good. (seedmore.org)

Anyway, here’s the riddle, and below the spacer is my thought process to come up with the answer. Took about 10 minutes.

RIDDLE

Rick is a strange liar. He lies on six days of the week, but on the seventh day he always tells the truth. He made the following statmenets on three successive days:

Day 1: “I lie on Monday and Tuesday”
Day 2: “Today, it’s Thursday, Saturday, or Sunday.”
Day 3: “I lie on Wednesday and Friday.”

The questions: On which day does Rick tell the truth?

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Okay, here’s where I’d usually do the “click Next to find the answer!” but I don’t use that formatting for this blog, and I’m not quite sure how to add it to just this post. Anyway, the riddle is solvable, so if you’re feeling nerdy, write it up and don’t look below.

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“Thought Process for Solving Riddle”

Let’s figure this out.

Rick only tells the truth 1 day out of the week. That either means a) all 3 of the statements are lies, or b) one of the statements is true. (so b1, b2, b3)

Break down a). All are lies.

Many ways to read these statements. The wrong way would be to construe the first statement, “I lie on Monday and Tuesday”, as “I lie on Wed-Sun”.

Specifically, lying about “I lie on Monday and Tuesday” would mean that he tells the truth on Monday or Tuesday. Hm, well what about Day 3 then? “I lie on Wednesday and Friday” Doesn’t one of those two have to be true?

For simplicity’s sake, let’s just go with that. Day 1 or 3 is true, the other one is a lie. And Day 2 has to be a lie.

We’ll go onto b).

Day 1 — Truth or Lie
Day 2 — Lie
Day 3 — Truth or Lie (opposite of 1)

Day 2 = Lie means that Day 2 is either Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday or Friday.

Scenario 1: Truth Day is Day 1, which is a Sunday.

If Day 2 were Monday, Day 1 would be Sunday, and Day 3 would be Tuesday. Let’s break it down into Day 1/3. Day 1 = Lie (that means he tells the truth on either Monday or Tuesday). Day 3 = Truth (Wednesday and Friday are both out). Then Monday/Tuesday can’t be truth days, because there would be 2 truth days. (Wrong)

Scenario 2: Truth Day is Day 1, which is a Monday.

Day 2 = Tuesday, Day 3 = Wednesday. Only 1 Truth day, Monday, so Tuesday and Wednesday are lie-days. This can’t happen, because Day 3 truth = Wednesday and Friday lies. (Wrong)

Scenario 3: Truth Day is Day 1, Tuesday.

Day 2 = Wednesday, Day 3 = Thursday. Yet again, Truth day cannot be Tuesday because that would go against Day 3’s statement (Wednesday and Friday have to be truth days). Seeing a pattern here, but it’s late so I’ll continue.

Scenario 4: Truth Day is Day 1, Thursday.

Day 2 = Friday. Again, Day 3 annuls this point, because Wed/Fri are both lies. Onto the next set of 4 scenarios.

Scenario 5: Truth Day is Day 3, Tuesday.

Day 2 = Monday, Day 1 = Sunday. Huh, I’m confused. If truth day is Tuesday, then why didn’t the first scenario work out? Well.. the dates were wrong I guess.. oh well let’s just trudge on.

Scenario 6: Truth Day is Day 3, Wednesday.

Day 2 = Tuesday, Day 1 = Monday. Doesn’t work because if Truth Day were Wednesday it’d annul point 3. He can’t lie on Wednesday Day 3

Scenario 7: Truth Day is Day 3, Thursday.

Day 1 = Tuesday, Day 2 = Wednesday. Day 1 Tuesday = lie doesn’t work, because the lie is on Thursday, not Mon/Tues.

Scenario 8: Truth Day is Day 3, Saturday.

Day 1 = Thursday, Day 2 = Friday. Again, doesn’t work, because if Day 1 were a lie, then Monday or Tuesday would have to be a truth day.

So I’m going to conclude with Tuesday. I’m not sure why the first run around didn’t conclude Tuesday, but it works as so:

Day 1 (Sunday): I lie on Monday or Tuesday — LIE (he tells the truth on Tuesday)
Day 2 (Monday): Today it’s either Thursday, Saturday, or Sunday — LIE (it’s Monday)
Day 3 (Tuesday): I lie on Wednesday and Friday — TRUTH (he does lie on Wed/Fri).

Hope this is correct, going to google it.

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Yay, I’m right!

Ugh… head hurts. Spent most of the weekend watching music tutorial videos, reading jazz theory books, getting frustrated at myself, and finally biting the bullet to turn in a Deep House loop that I was marginally pleased with. (I’m taking a Deep House course online)

I also spent the weekend doing one of my bi-annual (or tri-annual? quad?) room rearrangements. Saw this post on Lifehacker and it inspired me to de-clutter my room, and lower my desk (it’d been adjusted too high). Shit hit the fan (toilet flooded, and laziness settled in), so I didn’t really get my desk back up till about 3am last night (Saturday), and I spent about half of the day today (Sunday) working on my music project. So my “office room” is currently in half-disaster mode, my bed has about 2 weeks worth of old clothes I don’t wear anymore — but! I have a very aesthetically pleasing desk:

which is what really matters. Now I can (hopefully) comfortably zone out in front of my own computer, and not have to deal with finding power outlets and uncomfortable coffee shop tables and chairs. If I could only do something about my internet addiction…

Damnit… where was I.. I always digress. Oh yeah.. remembering stuff (no, that aside wasn’t meant to be ironic).

With all this reading/studying/skill-acquiring I’ve been doing recently, I’ve found myself approaching my brain-enhancements differently. On one hand, I can easily skim through a book and not remember specific details. Hell, I do it with movies all the time — Up was a movie (SPOILER ALERT–SKIP TO NEXT PARAGRAPH) about a boy who hitchhiked with an old man whose wife passed away, and whose dream was to visit a South American waterfall/jungle. Man meets childhood hero, who turns out to be bad, and along the way makes 2 animal friends (this is Disney, after all), and eventually becomes the hero.

Do I remember much beyond that? No, not really.

On the other hand, I never really review my written notes. It helps me remember things, but maybe just in the short-term? Like in college—you listen to the professor, you read, you take notes, you do homework, you take a final—then forget everything. Do you remember your high school foreign language as well as you should?

So I’m thinking I could glean a lot more in a shorter period of time by just skimming over the books and stopping on those “A-Ha!” moments.

… I don’t know where I was going with this, but I’ve been debating how to study recently and keep myself focused. Basically, at the end of a month of studying, I have absorbed some instinct, but it comes so incrementally. I’m better at music, I’m better at photography, I’m better at — whatever. But ever-so-slightly. I’m not sure if this is just the way things go, and I’d like to speed it up.

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I don’t have a sheet next to me of “Everything I’ve Ever Learned” written on it — I just… know things, and do them. Absorbing what you’ve learned into your mind is a very, very strange process.

Series of photos depicting China. Most are pretty depressing (child labor, overcrowded living, poverty), but give good perspective on life. This one isn’t depressing:

Street side tailor making an instant repair on a skirt.

Page 1 (Survival), Page 2 (Relationships), Page 3 (Desires)

On a Mac, keyboard shortcuts:

Option + R = ®
Option + 2 = ™
Option + 3 = £
Option + 4 = ¢
Option + 5 = ∞
Option + 8 = •
Option + Shift + “-” = —
Option + Y = ¥
Option + “=” = ≠
Option + Shift + 8 = °
Option + Shift + K = 
Option + Shift + 2 = €

from xkcd.com

That’s not me, is it?

I have more than 4 blog posts! I’m not apologizing for lack of updates! (at least… not today)

Just got home from DC. I’m pooped. Must shower, sleep (hopefully in that order). It took me 3 days to acclimate myself to Eastern time. I better not lose this early-waking habit in 1 day.

Yes, yes you do. I’ve pretty much taken most of my journal entries private, so I wouldn’t have to worry about being too explicit or revealing about my life on here. Of course, even my private journal entries are still mostly filled with boring stuff like:

“What I Learned Today, 7/6:
- Finished the Electro Tutorial:
- even 3-4dB in volume automation shifts makes a big deal
- solid, big bass/lead patches have a good blend of 3-4 oscillators
- set up delays and reverbs on sends, 2 each should be good enough
- a little “bleep” or tonal sound effect at the end of an 8 bar can be paired with a dropped kick and bass very effectively”

and

“Analyzed Danny Tenaglia - Bottom Heavy 2008 (Phunk Investigation Dark Mix)
- very progressive song
- very basic song — synth parts only play 3 notes, most play 1
- 5 drum tracks (kick, snare/clap, snare/tom, off-beat CH, distant stuttering sample, 16/16 CH pattern - only plays in main after break)
- 1 bass track (2 parts, 1 Eb vamp, 1 Eb vamp + slide at the end)
- 5 synth tracks (main melody, higher bell-like duplicate melody, delayed Eb line, delayed arpeggio Bb-Eb)
- 2 vocal tracks (vocal “oom” and spoken word)
- 3 effects tracks (1 or 2 reverse swooshes, cymbal, and a sharp woman’s vocal to finish the breakdown)
- something happens in every 4-8 bars, without fail
- because of the sparse elements, it’s usually a reverse swoosh into a melody coming in or out, or a drum sound dropping in or out.
- breakdowns are done very effectively
- maybe it’s because of the good call and response with the “buum” sound effect and the sparse melody?”

and

“Did two chicks at the same time. Threesomes are awesome!” … just kidding…  …   =(

As you can tell, not much is going on in my life. Well, okay, I have actually been going out quite a bit over the past couple weeks, but it’s winding down.

Burgers, meat, and beer = few pounds gained, no matter how tough my workouts have been. In fact, I think the tough workouts + high-calorie food spazzed my body into a bulk cycle. I deadlifted 295 the other day, my max in a very long time, and clean & jerked 130 lbs. (new max), with relative ease.

Growing strength means growing muscles, which also means bloated muscles, which — isn’t a good thing during beach season. My weight’s back up to around 172 lbs. — hasn’t been that high for a year — and I have to flex to see good ab definition =(. I was holding steady at 167 lbs. for a while, with my low around 163-164. On the flip side… my upper back and shoulders have never been stronger~

Work hasn’t been doing so hot lately, and on top of that there isn’t much to do at work itself. I’ve been feeling really Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde with work transitioning between a 3-4 hour, internet-browsing lull to a 3-4 hour “omg-must-finish-report/must-figure-out-new-ideas/must-outwork-this-slow-spell.”

I wasn’t perfectly sure of it till today, but it looks like I’m going to take a week off. Went in to talk with my mom, and decided an unpaid leave would probably be the best for TACCIA and me.

I was getting frustrated with my music studies, pulling my hair out for days on things like how the i-IV chord progression could sound so good and natural — those chords aren’t in the same key — (try i-VII-VI-IV — a descending C min, Bb maj, Ab maj, F maj).

Downtime at work would see me on the internet, researching topics like “diatonic chord progressions” and “modal interchange”, without a piano in front to play with. And then I’d have to take care of a bunch of stuff from Taiwan, whose workday starts at 6pm PST. I wouldn’t leave the office till around 9pm, and that pushed studies back till 11pm-3am.

Anyway, I’m gonna dedicate myself to a good 8-10 hours of studying per day this week (which happened today… 1pm-6pm, and 9pm-1am). It’s a little frustrating because every concept I learn usually opens up 4-5 new questions, but there aren’t many ways around this.

I need to start cutting through the crap and just delving in. I already upgraded from reading forums to watching videos, and now I start needing to conceptualize stuff on my own, and not having somebody hold my hand. Produced a track today, figured out why it sucked, and then analyzed tracks like it to figure out why my track sucked so much. And I learned a couple things. Which I’ll try out tomorrow, on a new track.

Johann Sebastian Bach once said, “The aim and final end of all music should be none other than the glory of God and the refreshment of the soul.” If that’s true, then I’m sorry God. Give me the knowledge so our ears won’t be in such pain for much longer. =)

Practiced this for about an hour tonight.

Chords: E, B, Db min, A. (variations of the I, V, vi, IV chords — the infamous “doo-wop” chord progression is I-vi-IV-V)

EDIT: Speaking of which, who the heck is “Bic Runga”? Wikipedia’ed it but never heard of her before.