Loneliness and composition

Ive been in a very dark place lately.  Ive lost a lot of friends over the past year and the ones i still have are becoming almost intolerable to me.  I hate how unreliable and selfish people are and it makes me wish i could just be a hermit.  Every day i feel a strange mix of hopelessness and anger and i have no outlet because nobody wants to hear what i have to say.

Simultaneously i have been more productive and creative over the past month than i was for the past year before that.  I have noticed this trend throughout my life.  I become much more artistically prolific when i feel absolutely unbearable loneliness and emotional atrophy.  For some reason misery motivates me to creativity.  This has, in the past, deterred me from making decisions that were likely to result in happiness out of fear that i would lose my compulsion to pursue artistic creation.

I have lately been working nonstop at a new composition to commemorate the tenth anniversary of my first album and it has become something of an obsession.  I have lost patience for anything that isn't related to the project that I'm working on and I can't bring myself to rest even for a brief moment.  It is consuming my life.

This isn't an unfamiliar experience to me and I've made some of my best work in similar places.  I think it's because at the moment there is nothing else in my life for me to think about, and musical projects are an effective way to remain productive while experiencing emotional distress.  I will continue to obsessively edit this one piece every day until i finally make it out of this.  Who knows how long that will take.

  On 8/29/2023 at 3:33 AM, Summon Dot E X E said:

I've been there, and I also worried that if I did things differently I would lose my artistic drive or skills. What actually happened was the opposite - becoming more satisfied in my life motivated me even more to be creative.

Don't despair and feel you are trapped. You don't need to be miserable to be a good artist. I know that's the cliche, but it is possible to find a good balance.

This is a dark time in history. Mistrust is at an all-time high. It's due to a number of causes that are outside of our control. People are demoralized and divided, seeing terrible news everywhere they look. I'm sorry about your loss of friends. Perhaps if you focus on your passion and try to stay positive, new relationships will replace them.

Good things will come to you if you keep trying.

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I think the problem is mostly just that people my age dont care about anything.  Theyre all lazy and disinterested in everything around them and i cant change them.  I dont think anything good will come out of my generation.

How is your piece coming along, drill?

I was thinking about this post yesterday. I've been pretty creatively dried up for the past few months. For most of June and early July I was trying to do daily tracks again - that is, to have a finished wav file at the end of each day, although a lot of the work was focused on finishing up pre-existing unfinished things because sometimes I feel crushed under the weight of how many unfinished tracks I have and what is the point of continuing with any of it if a) I just keep starting new shit and finishing so little of it, b) no one is listening anyway lol and c) the impermanence of all things and ultimate futility of it all, making music as merely a distraction and frivolous entertainment to pass the time in an otherwise meaningless existence. A track being "finished" meant that the wav was the final result and I wasn't going to work on that track anymore. Lots of it was still just garbage, lots of very short tracks (under a minute) and many are just beats with no harmony/melody. But it helped to know the thing was "finished", like I was gradually clearing up the pieces. But then I also wasn't starting any new tracks anymore because of the burden I had taken on of "needing to finish these" and ultimately stopping again altogether sometime around mid-July because none of this was appealing to do anymore. 

Meanwhile I acquired the keys to a relatively private space where I could get an actual piano and move some other keyboards in and stuff, and ultimately was going to create a studio there, all starting back in June. At the time I was so excited, it was like this massive step forward in my life as a musician, after feeling stifled for over 2 years in my current apartment where I can't make any fucking noise at all without the neighbours bitching (which actually has a huge amount to do with how blocked I've become overall) - but my enthusiasm for it wore off quickly and it became just another thing I've been putting off.

I'd go there and all I would do was practice this one piece on the piano, a relatively difficult piece and especially for me as my training is in jazz, improvisation from chord charts etc is my MO, and so learning fully written pieces note by note and all the embellishment and mastery that has to go into something like that is a pretty novel challenge for me. A similar thing happened in early lockdown although I wasn't creatively blocked at the time, I was still improvising, I just wanted a new challenge. This time has been different, like an obsessive fixation. Learning a jazz tune you just memorize the chord progression and the melody and then you "know" the tune. But something like this is a never-ending spiral of perfecting this and that, maintaining accuracy and nuance at faster and faster tempos, and then just keeping the skill up over time because it can go away so quickly. And it has been all I've wanted to do when I go to this place that is a blank canvas for a whole new era of creativity for me. Just working on this one goddamn piece, hammering it out. If I "zoom out" and look at myself in this situation this piece has very clearly been an outlet for all my frustration and stuckness. It has been fun and rewarding of course and now I can play this complex fast piece and impress people or whatever lol, whatever that's worth. But I now see it as this kind of phenomenon that encapsulates the overall massive blockage I'm experiencing now, after 3 years of pandemic, stifling living conditions, heartbreak and sexual frustration, disillusionment. I'm glad I was able to stay musical at all during this time, but I can't help but wonder when my passion for making tracks, writing new music, pursuing "professional" musical opportunities again, will come back. I just can't be bothered with any of it right now. I still work on tracks (like I say the unfinished pile is always there waiting for me) and have even made a couple that I really like over the summer. But for the most part I'm still avoiding all of it.

Anyway thanks for reading lol

  On 9/30/2023 at 11:22 PM, toaoaoad said:

How is your piece coming along, drill?

I was thinking about this post yesterday. I've been pretty creatively dried up for the past few months. For most of June and early July I was trying to do daily tracks again - that is, to have a finished wav file at the end of each day, although a lot of the work was focused on finishing up pre-existing unfinished things because sometimes I feel crushed under the weight of how many unfinished tracks I have and what is the point of continuing with any of it if a) I just keep starting new shit and finishing so little of it, b) no one is listening anyway lol and c) the impermanence of all things and ultimate futility of it all, making music as merely a distraction and frivolous entertainment to pass the time in an otherwise meaningless existence. A track being "finished" meant that the wav was the final result and I wasn't going to work on that track anymore. Lots of it was still just garbage, lots of very short tracks (under a minute) and many are just beats with no harmony/melody. But it helped to know the thing was "finished", like I was gradually clearing up the pieces. But then I also wasn't starting any new tracks anymore because of the burden I had taken on of "needing to finish these" and ultimately stopping again altogether sometime around mid-July because none of this was appealing to do anymore. 

Meanwhile I acquired the keys to a relatively private space where I could get an actual piano and move some other keyboards in and stuff, and ultimately was going to create a studio there, all starting back in June. At the time I was so excited, it was like this massive step forward in my life as a musician, after feeling stifled for over 2 years in my current apartment where I can't make any fucking noise at all without the neighbours bitching (which actually has a huge amount to do with how blocked I've become overall) - but my enthusiasm for it wore off quickly and it became just another thing I've been putting off.

I'd go there and all I would do was practice this one piece on the piano, a relatively difficult piece and especially for me as my training is in jazz, improvisation from chord charts etc is my MO, and so learning fully written pieces note by note and all the embellishment and mastery that has to go into something like that is a pretty novel challenge for me. A similar thing happened in early lockdown although I wasn't creatively blocked at the time, I was still improvising, I just wanted a new challenge. This time has been different, like an obsessive fixation. Learning a jazz tune you just memorize the chord progression and the melody and then you "know" the tune. But something like this is a never-ending spiral of perfecting this and that, maintaining accuracy and nuance at faster and faster tempos, and then just keeping the skill up over time because it can go away so quickly. And it has been all I've wanted to do when I go to this place that is a blank canvas for a whole new era of creativity for me. Just working on this one goddamn piece, hammering it out. If I "zoom out" and look at myself in this situation this piece has very clearly been an outlet for all my frustration and stuckness. It has been fun and rewarding of course and now I can play this complex fast piece and impress people or whatever lol, whatever that's worth. But I now see it as this kind of phenomenon that encapsulates the overall massive blockage I'm experiencing now, after 3 years of pandemic, stifling living conditions, heartbreak and sexual frustration, disillusionment. I'm glad I was able to stay musical at all during this time, but I can't help but wonder when my passion for making tracks, writing new music, pursuing "professional" musical opportunities again, will come back. I just can't be bothered with any of it right now. I still work on tracks (like I say the unfinished pile is always there waiting for me) and have even made a couple that I really like over the summer. But for the most part I'm still avoiding all of it.

Anyway thanks for reading lol

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Thanks for thinking about this post and reminding me of it

The piece is finished and it will be included in my next album, an anthology of my favorite stuff that ive made over the past decade.  Im still working with people on the visual design for it but one of my friends has a small label and is putting it on cd.

Finishing the piece was like how you describe.  It was an almost debilitating obsession that held me captive for a month during which i wasnt able to care about anything else.  I would listen to it on repeat all day every day and make small tweaks when i had the time, only stopping when i had absolutely no more energy and had to go to sleep.  I managed to finish it just before playing at an outdoor noise festival in west virginia.  It was an awesome weekend.

Ironically, i started a new romance with someone i met at the festival and havent even thought about working on music for the past month and a half because of it.  Maybe my original post was true.  It might be too late for me.

  On 10/12/2023 at 6:55 PM, Summon Dot E X E said:

Also, just because a piece is "finished" in your mind doesn't mean you can't go back and make a new version of it later. Lots of my old tracks which i eventually saw as bad were able to be reworked or sampled into something new and good

Yeah some of my best pieces are just remixes of previous ones.  Actually most of the sounds that ive made in my life are just previous sounds edited to a point that theyre completely unrecognizable.  I just do that endlessly and it expands arborescescently.

Yeah same here, that's the positive flipside of having so much unfinished material and a huge library of sounds I've created over 25 years. Constantly repurposing parts of different things, or finding that an old scrap is exactly what I need to fit into a current track that's "missing something".  

It's still a lot to handle emotionally. Every once in awhile I start digging through the archives and feeling sad that I spent so much time on things that went nowhere. Especially really old stuff from highschool when I had the patience to program really meticulous shit in a tracker lol but the tracks don't really hold up today. Or anything over the years that I spent a lot of time on that ended up neglected and forgotten.

There are so many things I've made (I mean started) that I eventually forgot about as new projects and folders piled up. Then I get overwhelmed thinking I have to salvage it. Been a long time since I tried going through and doing a purge, definitively choosing that some things don't need to exist, and deleting them forever. It's like having a hoarding problem. I think the fact that things from the past appear at the right moment to complete a present project contributes to this problem in a way, even if it's also a kind of solution.

The idea of hastily "finishing tracks", ie. having a finished wav file and then never touching it again, was actually a solution to this issue, to give myself peace of mind that I hadn't left something unfinished. Sure I could come back to any of them but that's not what I want, in this case.

I guess what ties this together with your original post is the idea of being in an ideal state of mind to get immersed in a project. For you it was loneliness, not just loneliness but what sounds like a rejection of the people around you/your perceived rejection of you by them. And also a goal to commemorate a past project. This is relatable and probably why your post stuck in my head in the first place and why I eventually felt compelled to reply to it, even if my current issue is a bit different from yours.

And maybe that's because I don't have those same conditions; my current troubles are different from that. But I remember, in 2014-2015, my life had fallen apart, I had lost my job and I had alienated most people I used to know. I was spending most of my time in isolation, besides long walks and seeing my boyfriend. And I felt like it was finally my time to feel free to do nothing but create, like my only job was to be an artist. (Yeah maybe this is why pandemic conditions were not such a difficult adjustment for me as for other people lol). I made loads of material during that time, day and night. I was determined to finish some neglected projects and also conceived and completed an entirely new one that is still my proudest work. But the conditions of my life were kinda similar to yours and I had that same obsessive drive to do it - maybe not the same focus tho, as I had loads of files spinning out in all directions, but with a common thread.

I don't want to say I wish to experience that again lol, those specific life circumstances. It was my first time through the wringer and I was younger so I still had optimism about it all. I do wish that my current mental health/life conditions would drive me to create in the same way it did then, but things change, everything changes, and I just don't feel that way right now.

Ok i have another little update

I have been taking time to work on my projects again apart from my romantic partner.  I feel very fulfilled socially;  i have a band, a very cool and wonderful girlfriend, and a music scene that is supportive of my work, and despite all this i still feel compelled to work.  My original post may have been false.  I still feel the urge to put work into composition even when i am happy.

  On 10/18/2023 at 12:09 AM, toaoaoad said:

Yeah same here, that's the positive flipside of having so much unfinished material and a huge library of sounds I've created over 25 years. Constantly repurposing parts of different things, or finding that an old scrap is exactly what I need to fit into a current track that's "missing something".  

It's still a lot to handle emotionally. Every once in awhile I start digging through the archives and feeling sad that I spent so much time on things that went nowhere. Especially really old stuff from highschool when I had the patience to program really meticulous shit in a tracker lol but the tracks don't really hold up today. Or anything over the years that I spent a lot of time on that ended up neglected and forgotten.

There are so many things I've made (I mean started) that I eventually forgot about as new projects and folders piled up. Then I get overwhelmed thinking I have to salvage it. Been a long time since I tried going through and doing a purge, definitively choosing that some things don't need to exist, and deleting them forever. It's like having a hoarding problem. I think the fact that things from the past appear at the right moment to complete a present project contributes to this problem in a way, even if it's also a kind of solution.

The idea of hastily "finishing tracks", ie. having a finished wav file and then never touching it again, was actually a solution to this issue, to give myself peace of mind that I hadn't left something unfinished. Sure I could come back to any of them but that's not what I want, in this case.

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Please dont delete your older works.  I dont know what they sound like but i personally couldnt imagine intentionally deleting even the stupidest old shit that ive made.  Storage space is so cheap these days that you can just put all that stuff into a folder of stuff you dont care for and forget about it.  Its better than deleting it forever.  I just bought myself a 512GB SD card for my music and my entire life's work fits on just 50GB of it.  It's worth it to keep even the stuff that you dont like, even if just for sentimental reasons.

  On 10/18/2023 at 4:01 AM, drillkicker said:

My original post may have been false.  I still feel the urge to put work into composition even when i am happy.

Glad to hear it!  I don't think this means your post was false though. It's true that creativity can arise out of lots of different states of mind and life conditions. Loneliness just happens to be one of them, and that was true for you at the time and led to a specific type of creative process. Happiness can be another one. You mentioned being in a band. For me, playing music with other people is a whole different story. I don't do any tracks with other people, so my process for making tracks is definitely a personal one and can be enhanced by circumstances that involve being isolated, alienated, or just from periods of staying indoors a lot to be cozy in the winter or avoiding the heat in summer.  But yeah I fucking love playing music with other people, I'm a jazz musician by training/education so the art form sort of demands the interaction with others to really be what it is. And there's nothing else that satisfies in the same way. So right on

  On 10/18/2023 at 4:04 AM, drillkicker said:

Please dont delete your older works.  I dont know what they sound like but i personally couldnt imagine intentionally deleting even the stupidest old shit that ive made.  Storage space is so cheap these days that you can just put all that stuff into a folder of stuff you dont care for and forget about it.  Its better than deleting it forever.  I just bought myself a 512GB SD card for my music and my entire life's work fits on just 50GB of it.  It's worth it to keep even the stuff that you dont like, even if just for sentimental reasons.

Ehhh, see if you still feel this way in another ten years lol. It really piles up. Maybe for me the mental burden is that I think some of the stuff is just embarrassing. I always imagine what if I die suddenly and my family and friends have to wade through this shit. Making tracks is a really personal thing for me as I mentioned above. For many years most people in my life didn't even know it was something I do, they just knew me as a pianist or whatever. I just have stupid hangups like that though, at the end of the day none of it probably matters. None of this does.

Also I don't want to neglect to mention that most books about creativity will all say the same thing: keep working on stuff whether you feel like it or not. I think that's especially true for people who are trying to make a living as creatives, but as a general principle it's true universally.

I haven't done this in recent years. In case it wasn't already obvious I've turned into a real miserable fuck since 2020. I haven't had enough desire to be creative in the first place to want to push myself to work every day like that. But there have been periods of my life when I did work on stuff every day regardless of mood. And it does work, because you get into a flow and ideas come more easily in that state. But you have to be a good editor too.

Good posts here, lot to think about! I don't have much to say right now.. 

 except don't be to so harsh on yourself. The reality can be very cruel sometimes!  
 Some periods I can stay all creative and in good moods but suddenly fall back into a black hole I can not explain. 

Very small creative outputs matters! And never feel bad for your achievement's even if you don't like it.