jamuary 18, 2025

I have less time for Jamuary on weekends, perhaps ironically. So I have to move fast. When I hear issues — or things that require some overhauling to change — I have to make a decision quickly. Do I tear this apart? Is there a quick fix? Can I work around it? Through it?

I felt that dissonance today. There are three tracks in this song: Decent Sampler’s chord organ, volition strings, and a plucky synth, all powered by an instance of Fugue Machine. It’s all nice, except…

The strings, which provide the bass, and the tension, aren’t quite right. There is just too much movement in the Fugue Machine midi, and I need something that is, frankly, less harmonically interesting. I needed another instance of Fugue Machine entirely, or, even better, a more straightforward midi sequencing app.

I could have set off on that adventure. Maybe it’d all fit into place immediately, or maybe it would highlight other issues — I could foresee a simpler bass line casting focus on how sedate the piece is overall, and I could foresee myself trying to find room for another texture or melody. And now, in retrospect, I feel like I should have thrown some distortion on the strings, to make them more of a shuddering force and less of a lost, low tone.

But I had to move fast, and it’s Jamuary. This bass line isn’t a mistake, and it isn’t wrong, but it creates an anxious pull in my brain. It’s not what I want, but the reality of life meant I had to let it go. Will I go back to this song to iron out the deficiencies? Build it into something expansive and interesting, with notes that make more sense and textures that dance around each other, forming a cohesive and arresting whole?

I dunno, maybe. If I stick with this project I’ll have 31 of these fragments by the end of the month. Pieces of music ripe for regrowing or resampling. A palette of inspiration built from the ground up, tirelessly, over a month, even when time wasn’t on my side. Sounds that can be picked from and picked apart and even left entirely alone.

// tags: making music jamuary

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jamuary 17, 2025 If you go back and read any of my previous blog posts about this Jamuary, you’ll see some usual suspects: the iPad, Decent Sampler, big reverbs and

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jamuary 19, 2025 I came into today’s Jamuary with a goal: make something mean. I enjoy blowing sounds up, but the majority of my output this month has been airier