January 18, 2025

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…

TDLPA · Force (Jan 18 2025)

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