NewSc2

(personal diary stuff… this isn’t gonna make sense to most of you, but it’s what I write in my personal diary)

Read Kierkegaard today, his “Either/Or”

Notes: Aesthetic (pleasurable, experience-sense) vs. Ethical (religious, pious, grounded).

I enjoyed this read, but after reading up on some analysis, it feels too religious driven. Given the time period, and how Kierkegaard ended up supporting Christianity and trying to explain it, I don’t think this philosophy applies. Moreso, I think most historical philosophers don’t have an applicable point anymore — the use of the internet and Wikipedia have changed humankind in ways they could only begin to imagine (talking to somebody across the world, without seeing them face to face? that’s sorcery).

After going over Either/Or, and reading further onto Kierkegaard’s life, I did take away a few things — Kierkegaard was kind of a tragic figure, always in love with Regine (his broken-off fiance), and wanted an almost divine intervention to bring her back to him. But he lived his life single and a little hermit-like, and was (by all accounts) just focused on his work. I wouldn’t mind that.

Regardless, I need to develop a strong personal philosophy and remember its tenets. Perhaps even use them in a musical sense, a la spoken word.

It’s… March. Wow. My Daylight Savings post is only like 3 down. Damn you Tony-of-6-months-ago! Here’s your fricken hour back.

Short and sweet—this blog has apparently turned into a biographical tome, something to jot down a frame of mind. A frame of mind that never really changes… only the circumstances around me differ. I’m still stoner Tony from college, gamer Tony from high school, lame Tony from junior high, clueless Tony from elementary, and what-the-hell-is-going-on Tony from 4 years old.

Major things: music has been coming along, stylistically. I finished my whole year’s worth of studying production, to finally figure out how to produce (see earlier posts). I needed to figure out what to produce, what “good” music was. Now I’m there. And now I just need to take those ideas into songs. It’s not so much different from fleshing out a thesis into an essay, or a news bit into an article. I have good ideas, I know how to write, I know how to polish stuff up. And much like my blog posts, my songs meander, with no real direction. But at least my songs are “talking” about something good, in a cool-sounding way.

Beyond that, I’m going to be moving out soon, which I’m hoping will give me a much-needed refresh. A $650/month refresh, but a refresh nonetheless. I’ve started studying for my GMATs again, and have gone through a little maturation period.

Growing up isn’t really about learning new things… it’s confirming to yourself what you thought was right, was right all along. Vegetables taste better as you get older. Not because they taste any different—I’d still take a Happy Meal over a salad, based on taste alone. But they taste better because it’s the right thing to eat, and it makes you feel better after you eat them. Deferred rewards.

As I’m growing older, saving money becomes easier to do. It wasn’t because I once thought saving money was the wrong thing to do, it’s because the feeling behind it changed.

Working hard and studying, toning down on going out, feels better (okay, I hear you guys laughing, but seriously, I do get in a lot of personal time =P). Working out feels better. Okay maybe not, working out actually doesn’t feel as good as reading for 3 hours, but my point’s been made.

And that’s basically been my mindset over the past few weeks. Don’t see it changing anytime soon.

P.S. (Addendum post—Business School, Here I Come!) I used to think going to business school would doom me into life as another cog in the wheel, but I’m looking at it in a different light now. Sure, there’s a chance I could end up in middle management, with a dead-end job, but that’s if I don’t put in the work. If I’m lazy, I don’t get the prime positions in life. Guess I should try to see what I can achieve, and bitch or downgrade from it when I’m there. Pretty confident I’ll always make do with what I have.

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.

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. =)

Obligatory Monthly Picture (me, Will, Andre — Hi Will!)

I know what you’re thinking. That Cinco de Mayo picture looks like Will failed. (We caught him mid-blink). Unfortunately, well… all 3 of us failed. Miserably. I barely remember taking this picture. It was like, Drink #11. And it wasn’t our last. Easily the worst hangover I’ve had in over a year.

Hm, what else. Surprisingly, I don’t have a lot to say. NewSc2.com is one of my bookmark tabs. I got sick of clicking on it to see a 3-week old blog update, so here I am.

Might as well use this space to list out all the good things I’ve stuck to in 2009 (the shitty things go into my private Gmail diary }=)> )

Reading/Communication:
I’ve been keeping up with a reading schedule, and I’m pretty happy with my finishing rate. There’s maybe a dozen books that I haven’t gotten to yet, and about a dozen more that I started but put aside, but I’ve finished about a dozen in 2009 so far:

- Blink, Malcolm Gladwell
- The Art of Seduction, Robert Greene
- IV, Chuck Klosterman
- Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs, Chuck Klosterman
- Neatest Little Guide to Personal Finance, Jason Kelly
- Neatest Little Guide to Stock Market Investing, Jason Kelly (re-read)
- On Writing Well, William Zinsser (re-read)

Okay, so maybe that isn’t a dozen, but it’s over a book a month. I have several more that I’ve half-finished, and will get around to (Now I Can Die In Peace, Bill Simmons and The Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell, among others).

I’d highly recommend the Personal Finance book (out of print, but it’s about $2 used on Amazon.com + $4 shipping) and The Art of Seduction (torrent it). Surprisingly good. Blink, well, isn’t that good. You can read the Wiki.

On top of all the reading, I’ve been listening to a lot of Adam Carolla and Bill Simmons podcasts.

Reading a lot of well-written non-fiction and listening to social/sports commentary has given me a lot more confidence to speak my mind. It’s sort of like writing papers back in the day. In high school, I stuck to a format. In college, I started to branch out and explore my voice. Somewhere in that transition, and to this day, I started to realize that top-notch writing wasn’t some magical, fantasy skill. All the articles I read for fun (ESPN, New Yorker, Slate, Economist, gaming mags) were examples of the written word from top professionals. As long as I wrote in the same voice and style as the stuff I’d been reading, I could come close to good communication.

Same with my voice. If I just fleshed out some of my thoughts and philosophies, put in some interesting anecdotes, and honed succinct storytelling skills, I could probably be an effective verbal communicator. I feel like I’ve matured a little bit in that respect in 2009.

Personal Finance:
Say, @ age 25, you save $13k per year in a 10% account. By 30, you’ll have about $100k. Save $10k every year, and continue to put it into this account. By 40, you’ll have about $400k. By 50, $1.2mil.

By 60 (retirement age), $3.2mil. And that’s all off $365k total saved. The magic of compounding interest.

The DJIA, up until 2006, grew at an average rate of 10.5% over the previous 75 years. Yes, I know there was a crash. I haven’t re-calculated the returns up to 2009, but a 75-year period is a long time, and shouldn’t affect the overall return rate by too much.

Music:
Currently going through a Trance course. I’ve gotta say, my productions have gotten somewhat better over the past several months. I was probably around a 2.5 (out of 10) in 2008, but now I’d put my music production skill/knowledge at about a 3.5. My songs aren’t that much better, but I have more arrangement knowledge. My songs aren’t coming together due to luck and random button pressing — I actually have some experience on how to approach a track.

I need to hammer out a few kinks and tricks over the next couple months, but there isn’t much preventing me from getting that 3.5 to a 5.

Hopefully, the end of the year will see me at 6 (i.e., “that song is actually kinda decent~”). Dunno how I’d get to be a 7 (”hey that’s actually pretty good!”), or 8 (”wow… I might put this on my iPod”). But I’m not thinking that far ahead. (Don’t bother asking where I come up with these subjective grades.)

Fitness:
Still continuing my weekly/twice weekly 4-mile runs, and 3-4 trips to the gym. My fastest 4-mile trail run came in at 32 minutes back in March, but I put in a 33 minute run last week.

I think I’ve been doing crunches wrong for the past 4 years. I guess I was leading in with my head and neck, and a couple people at the gym commented that I was arching my back. So I adjusted my balance to lead in with my chest, and keep my back straighter, and I was sore for like, 4 days.

Weight’s stayed pretty steady at 166 lbs.

Anything Else?
I need a haircut. Photography is coming along pretty well. Thinking about buying a second flash, or at least an off-shoe flash cord.

Oh, and I guess I did have a lot to say.

No, but after years of cooking, this may be the first time I’ve seen twins. On second thought, I might’ve seen it a couple times before… I ate the pictured, mutated egg with a Chinese onion pancake, but left the yolk kinda runny. (Probably wasn’t paying attention as I ran around with my camera.) It wasn’t that good. The natural order of yolk:white was off.

Bulletin time! What happened today?

- Saw a woman run out of gas at a stoplight in Newport Beach. She panicked, ran across the street to the Shell, and an attendant walked over and filled her car with a gallon of gas. The car was a Bentley Continental GT. Damn woman, yes your husband let you drive his nice car — it guzzles gas like a mofo, keep it filled.

- I was driving alongside an ambulance a couple miles on Brookhurst. A fire truck came blaring over the overpass, slowed down, motioned to the ambulance (as traffic was stopped), and the ambulance followed suit. Thought that was kinda cool.

- Randomly saw several hot chicks at Barnes and Noble and Kean Coffee. Dunno why, but seeing a hot chick almost brightens my day. I’d talk more about it, but it’d probably come off as chauvinistic, or desperate, or.. something…

- Ran 4 miles today, in 40 minutes (total). Paused a couple minutes to take pictures of the Fire Department hosing down portions of Back Bay. (Different fire truck)

- Weighed in at 165.6 lbs. today, after a 20-hour fast. Down from 175 after a huge meal last week.

- Read up on Fantasy Baseball. Draft is tomorrow.

- 4 days and counting of no alcohol! Coffee, however, is a different story…

- Fleshed out 2 new tracks for the music course I’ve been taking. Assignments are due tomorrow. Need to start from scratch for my assignment because the beta software I’ve been testing is not backwards compatible with the course.

I’ve been pretty busy these past couple weeks. Tax time is around the corner, and I’ve been trying to save up as much as possible, which has kept the staying in to a maximum.

I’m also taking an online techno course, and this past week/the next week are the busiest two weeks of the 4-week course. The course is taught by a music school in London called Point Blank, and so far I’m very pleased with the results.

The basics of minimal techno music production get crammed into 4 sets of lessons, and this past lesson covered sound sythesis and rhythmic sampling. Needless to say, sound synthesis (programming basses, leads, sound effects) is a topic that can’t be fully touched upon in 1 week, but the exercises we’ve had to do are pretty deep and rewarding. Of course, this means I’ve been holed up in front of my laptop and computer for 4-5 hours a day, practicing, and it’s left little time for anything else (which is a good thing).

Sheepathon: did you have a lovely day?

Hm, let’s see. How did my day go…

12:01am saw me at Silky’s, drinking with Andre, Stan, and Andrew Chang. The economy must be hitting really hard, because the whole bar was dead. There were only a couple others besides us and Ernesto. Chatted with Ernie for a good half hour, and boosted his ego a little bit, calling his drinks “some of the most balanced drinks I’ve ever had (between alcohol strength and taste).” Blame the alcohol =)

2:15am — went home

4:45am — fell asleep (damn you Daylight Savings)

9:45am — woke up (another day, another 5 hrs. of sleep. 3rd day in a row?)

10:20am — let Teddy out to pee, brought him back inside (he’s so cute), drove to work

10:45am-2pm — met with our consultant. Elaine (my cousin) showed up around 1:30pm. I planned out mailers to potential customers, revised POs and invoices, and summarized February’s financial data.

3:30pm — stopped by Kean’s during a quick stop to our storage facility. I ran into Gary Matthews, Jr., and:

1. He was wearing all blue. That confused me for a good couple minutes. I knew he was a baseball player, and I thought he was Gary Matthews, Jr. but the blue made me think of the Dodgers. He had this weird aura about him — I can’t really put my finger on it… Maybe it was just odd seeing a black guy in his late 20’s/early 30’s dressed expensive-casual at a coffee shop on a Tuesday afternoon.
2. I didn’t want to ask — Hey, are you Gary Matthews Jr.?! and mistake him for someone else. He got his coffee to go, so I waited until he left, and asked another guy for confirmation.
3. Gary puts at least 1/4 cup of sugar into his coffee. Wth?
4. He doesn’t look that athletic for a professional baseball player. Kind of has a small belly, maybe only a couple inches taller than me, and not that buff. *cough* steroids *cough.
5. He drives a black Bentley with a Texas license plate.
6. Seemed like a nice guy from what I overheard.
7. Kean’s Double Espresso Macchiato = delicious.

6pm — ate mom’s Chinese sticky rice, some steamed broccoli and carrots, and sliced lamb.

7pm — gym. 7 sets of Clean & Press (75lbs. to 95 lbs.), elliptical for 15 minutes.

8pm — home: laundry, food, garbage, and music. I’m currently taking an online techno production course. All the sounds used in this loop were built from the ground up by yours truly: 2009-03-10-PBLesson1b.mp3

12am — snack, Sportscenter

1am — this blog update.

2am — read investing books, sleep early, hopefully get 8 hours. The mock portfolio I created last October is just about back to even. Amazon and Morgan Stanley have been coming through~