Process

Generally speaking, the majority of how I handle process is illustrated below. That said, I also enjoy using loops and samples when the inspiration calls for it. The vast majority of my creations do not use direct samples from popular songs or releases, although I have been known to not be able to help myself when something really speaks to me.

Whether it came out of stubbornness, a need to find a way to express and emote, or some other reason or drive, I have developed a sort of technique for playing my phone almost like an instrument.

I try to use minimal quantization, especially as it relates to the bass and drums, because I feel it is often the imperfections that make something truly beautiful.

At times, I also get satisfaction out of injecting a little research into my creative projects. That might stem from a book I am reading or have read. Sometimes it comes from a movie or a conversation I may have had. At other times, I have been known to use research as a way to work through writer’s block or move beyond a creative unknown or uncertainty. Research can provide another direction to explore when the creative path itself is not yet clear.

The entire process takes place with a great deal of patience, trial and error, and a willingness to let things develop. Sometimes the path to a completed song becomes clear immediately. Other times, that path does not reveal itself until much later down the road.

The Why of It All

For a lot of people, the explanation of process may have ended at this point, give or take a few details. With me, however, the why may be more intriguing than the how. Below is an illustration of what I use, but what I use is connected to a reason—the why of it all.

One reason I use the items, materials, sources, programs, and apps I do is simply because I believe in them.

I have a love for discovering what is newest across all of those categories. I believe technology has always played an important role in shaping genre and overall creative output. With music in particular, there is a special relationship with technology.

Technology can affect the future of music through what it offers next, but it can also shape that future through what it has left behind, replaced, or discarded. New tools create new possibilities, while older and overlooked tools can take on entirely different lives in the hands of someone willing to use them differently.

The emergence of hip-hop provides one of my favorite examples of this relationship. Hip-hop developed in the Bronx during the 1970s, within communities facing significant economic limitations. As documented by the Smithsonian, early hip-hop culture involved creatively repurposing and experimenting with available audio technology and sound-system components.

Turntables, records, mixers, speakers, amplifiers, and headphones became more than simply equipment for playing recorded music. A device intended to play a finished record could become an instrument itself. Records could be manipulated, rhythmic breaks could be extended, recordings could interact with one another, and sound could be altered in real time. Through experimentation, repetition, and trial and error, techniques such as scratching, mixing, cueing, and extending breakbeats became part of the foundation of an entirely new musical language.

That history fascinates me because it illustrates something I strongly believe about creativity: limitation does not necessarily prevent innovation. Sometimes limitation creates the conditions that demand it.

When someone cannot simply purchase the perfect solution, there is a greater possibility that they will have to discover another one. An obsolete tool can become a new instrument. A workaround can become a technique. A technical limitation can become an aesthetic choice.

In that sense, technology influences music not only through what is new, but through what becomes available, affordable, overlooked, repurposed, or left behind.

That relationship is important to the way I think about my own tools. I do not necessarily need the industry-standard option, the most expensive option, or even the option that was originally designed to accomplish exactly what I am trying to accomplish.

Sometimes what a tool wasn’t intended to do is where things become interesting.

Technology also affects the business surrounding music, the ways music reaches and is experienced by consumers, and, of course, the creative process itself. For the purposes of this explanation, however, I am most interested in that last relationship: technology and creativity.