Music as a mindful meditation

In the year 2018 it is amazing how much music is available to us, which means that it is incredible how much music is being made, and then recorded.  DATA, DATA,DATA!! It's everywhere.  I suppose that in a way, it is consciousness.  Being, is the biological process of digesting and evaluating data, using our brain.  Anyway, that is really for a different blog isn't it?

My reason for recording music was, in the beginning, just for personal documentation and analysis.  After a while I got a bit satisfied with my music, and then got happy about my music.  That's when the recordings had a purpose outside of being for my own personal use.

I firstly shared them with my brother, and closest friend, just as a way of keeping up with each other and what was going on in our lives.  Then it started to be a thing unto itself.  Making a recording that I was able to enjoy was a throwback to my younger days when I would make mixed tapes, or even before that when I would collect albums.  the difference now was that I didn't really have to record a song to enjoy it, I could just play it.  But I enjoy the tech side of being able to make a record.

When I was young, have the technology to make a decent recording was not a common thing.  One could transfer data that was already recorded if you had a tape to tape cassettes deck.  But not many had the equipment needed to make new recordings of any quality.

With todays technology almost everybody has enough recording equipment in the palm of their hand, almost constantly, to make airable quality recordings, by todays standards and by the standards of yesteryear too.

I'm old enough to really be thrilled by the possibilities that are available to me now with the current, and very common technologies.  Making an "album", or the individual tracks that make up an album, is a  process of creation of it's own that I kind of enjoy.

Holding up a cell phone and hitting record is one thing, but balancing the inputs of the different elements of a song, and then choosing the right kind of mastering effects for a particular recording, is a bit of a puzzle that I find engaging.  It used to be that only the engineers with access to million dollar studios got to play with this kinds of toys, but now with little more than the standard software of a common computer or tablet or even smartphone, anybody can play.

Like most things these days, many have the power but not so many have the wisdom, or artistic adeptness to use that power well.  I like the idea of developing these skills.  It's a bit like the playing of an instrument, the more technique I can acquire, and practice, the more potential for really good recordings.

I had a friend who was really good at making mixed tapes.  It was a whole thing just to sit down with ones music collection and sort thru, trying to imagine a playlist, and then a song order that worked best for a particular theme, or intended recipient of the mix.  It was fun, and a bit of a way of putting oneself into a process creative.  I think that today, using the algorithms that one can sign up for to make choices for you, removes a bit of the fun and participation that was required when I was younger.  We were one step more participants rather than consumers.

Producing a record is fun.  It is fun for me, and I know that the guys who do this on a professional level, record company level, also have fun doing it.  Creating is fun, and it seems as though a large bit of us are kind of missing that point in our consumer society.  It may be that all the uptake of social media has something to do with the fact that creating is fun.  Each persons representation on social media is a chance to "create" in an almost constant stream.  The problem is that it seems to be less like bringing forth something from ones mind, and moe like evacuating ones brain.  With the increase in the amount of data out there has to come the increase of boring, derivative noise.

Not everyone will like my art, my music, but then again, why should they?  It is personal, and in order for another to appreciate what is personal to me, I must first be known and important to them,  or, at least, I must being saying things that are common thoughts to many, and in a way that is easily understood by others.  So I don't really expect my creations to connect.  But then again, that isn't why I create.  Like I stated, it is an act of mindfulness, and act of meditation, a bit of yoga, or tai chi, a practice that does not try to separate the mind from the physical world that it exists in, but rather celebrates and nurtures the phenomenon.

It's meditation, yoga, tai chi and poetry
My Guild D150 guitar, pulled from a trash pile and restored to usefulness.  It's
the subject of my song "Second Hand Heart."  photo: Luis Bruno.