how do you cope with the meanwhile

Tape recorders are great for capturing spontaneous ideas.

this thread is BACK FROM THE DEAAAAAD!

answer to the original question:

i use a nintendo ds with nitrotracker on it, then later on I'll just open the .xm file in renoise.

perfecto.

I have a pda with bhajis loops and find it to be a pretty good solution for writing down ideas whenever i'm away from a computer. energy xt can also be booted from a usb drive and works with windows/osx/linux. I believe someone on this board was using it to write down ideas while at work.

I draw on whatever is available.

I know a good majority of watmm is anti iPhone but I use it to sketch musically - beats mostly but I also have a synth and theremin. Also use it for jotting down master plans.

iPod touches are quite surely the shit

usually doesn't even occur to me to write them down, how I tell how worthwhile they are, is how well I remember them.

  mushroom said:

there's a renoise file wasting away on my mac's hard drive that contains what I thought was the greatest melody ever, made with a very simple sine wave just to jot it down. I made it a year ago. I haven't done anything with it other than open it and listen with total indifference.

 

when I was in school I'd write down ideas for songs and sometimes entire albums or series of albums. these were simple ideas that bloomed into gigantic, sprawling, three-page manifestos of scattered thoughts that were almost incoherent when taken in as a whole. when class was over I'd always fold them up and put them in my pocket. then I'd come home, take it out and toss it on my desk, and months later come back to it and throw it away.

 

sometimes in a strange, manic frenzy of inspiration I'll walk around and twitch uncontrollably and make clicking sounds with my mouth that correspond with the most spectacular music anyone could ever witness that's rolling in my head. most of these experiences last for a good hour, with ten minute pieces filled with driving progression, no repitition to speak of, and sound design that only a human brain could manufacture. then I'll sit down, actually physically drained, and totally forget about all of it.

 

the reason that none of these ideas become concrete is that I have another train of thought parallel to them, reading as "you don't have the talent nor patience to see any of this through. this is masturbation. cut it out, you're just exhausting yourself." it sticks around long after the ideas actually fade. I'm pretty much doomed to just fucking around with the tools I use to do anything creative and creating at best incredibly weak imitations of these ideas.

dear fuck, let's be friends. that's how i feel several times a week

well blow me down. im quoting a man from two years ago. alas.