I’ve had some down time lately as I transition jobs. Its been a strange experience as I’m not one who can normally disconnect very easily. Not having any obligations looming over me, I felt more relaxed and free of emotional burden than I have in years. But, this also left me with an abundance of free time, like actual free time with which I could do anything.
I’ve dabbled over the years in electronic music production. Something just to tinker with and learn about that is mostly unrelated to what I do everyday. I’ve spent the last 4 weeks engrossed in learning as much as I could to fill in knowledge gaps and allow me to enjoy this hobby on a more regular basis. My hesitation previously was that the things I didn’t know were slowing me down, and therefore holding me back. Having limited time to dedicate to a hobby offers additional hurdles to the learning curve. Time is a valuable resource that we must spend in the best way we possibly can, often priority and timing dictate it shouldn’t be spent learning new skills that are professionally and financially useless.
Never-the-less, for the last 4 weeks I’ve been playing with music and synthesizers. I’ve learned a ton, and its been incredibly wonderful to flex some creative muscles. I love tinkering with new software the additional integration of software and hardware here has me very excited. Music and production has always been apart of my life. I won awards for broadcasting in high school, I briefly worked as a videographer, and I’ve been involved in technical theater for as long as I can remember. Through all of that I’ve had a very keen interesting in audio production and engineering. Making music has become a means to and end so I can dabble in this thing I’ve been on the fringes of my whole life. I am by no means making good music, and I may never really truly share it with the world. But I’d like to think the engineering of my music is good and is consistently getting better.
I think something I’ve learned from this whole experience is that, I need to vacation better. I’m terrible at disconnecting and letting myself relax. I feel a constant pull to help and serve my teammates, and I’m not even sure if that is something possible for me to turn off. For the last 5-8 years I’ve been in a constant state of wound up, feeling a pull to serve my team.
I think what I hope to get out of this the most is a new way to escape, a new way to disconnect from the cycle of thought. Just focusing on a sound, its nuance, frequencies, the subtle harmonics that spread into each other creating sonic magic. Being able to shape and change all of the aspects of a sound, given the correct application of the correct tools. All of this feels powerful, it feels magical, and it feels relaxing.