I am waiting... on the final masters for The Queen of Time... and I can't believe how much delay there is between every step of this process. On the bright side, now I know what to expect for the future, and how to better budget and allot time for all the things that need to happen. Making changes on my end of the project (the actual writing, and mixing/production of the songs) causes everything else to take... at least twice as long. Yes, you can technically go back and change things before it's officially released... but realistically those changes ADD UP. And cause huge delays in the project's timeline.
In the grand handing-off that is music production involving multiple engineers, the ability to give the next set of hands a *truly finished* thing is invaluable. Doing absolutely everything you need to do *before* handing off to the next person can save everyone a LOT of time and money. The sooner you realize something needs to be fixed, the better.
That being said, each step actually reveals new things, and that's part of the advantage of working with multiple people. Going blind to your own mix is a common problem in music production, and getting someone else to make changes and listen fresh is really important. Hearing your mix again for the 1st X 1000th time actually allows you to listen fresh, too.
I'm don't regret the path I chose for this album. I think it benefitted a lot from every step that it took to get here. I just wish I (as an artist) were still as excited about the project now as I was 2 years ago when the songs were being written/worked on, daily...
Releasing the thing is going to be difficult for me, too. I've always had a lot of trouble publishing work and declaring it done - but that's a topic for another blog post.
In other news, my adventure to Black Rock City to participated in Burning Man 2023 is less than a month away! It's hard to believe it's actually happening! I've been preoccupied lately with packing and making sure I'm properly prepared for extreme desert heat and dryness. There's a lot to know, and a lot goes in to simply not dying while spending 10 days in the middle of the Nevada desert. My goal was to have the project out well before leaving so I'm not concerned about missing emails and things while I'm away- but that's looking more and more difficult to control at this point 😅
This week, I was reminded of this peculiar power of suggestion when I encountered the poem "In Praise of Mystery: A Poem for Europa" by Poet Laureate Ada Limón. The poem was discussed in an NPR interview with the author. She was asked to describe what it was like to write a poem knowing that it would be inscribed on a spacecraft and sent towards Jupiter's icy moon.
The interview featured a recording of her reading the poem out loud, and the first words I heard of the actual poem were:
Still, there are mysteries below our sky
the whale song, the songbird singing its call in the bough of a wind-shaken tree.
This caught me off guard- to begin a poem with the words Still, there are mysteries below our sky (knowing this poem is about a mission to space) says something powerful. We are implicitly invited to seek footing in the first line of a poem. To being a poem with the words Still there are- means that the poem exists in a context that is ongoing. The context that proceeds such a poem is... your lifetime of experiences. It's as if to say While you were doing whatever you've been doing- STILL there are mysteries... there never ceased to be, and they continue to puzzle us- below OUR sky. You and Me, whoever we are, and whatever we do in the endless flow of existence- STILL there are mysteries...
That line reminded me that human existence is long and full of curiosity and that we are creatures who habitually seek and discover mystery. (which clearly was the intent.)
Knowing this was written for a mission to Jupiter's icy moon, I was struck by the decision to begin the poem in a completely different place. Looking not upward, but forward- at what exists below our sky. In the realm where we exist and move and create things. It forced me to reconcile, Yes, there are boundless and enduring mysteries in our world... but (you and I both know) this poem isn't about that. It's about the pursuit of yet ANOTHER mystery, far away from our world in deep space...
Naturally I had to read this full poem.
... I quickly discovered that Still, there are mysteries below our sky is *not,* in fact, the first line of the poem... It is actually the first line of the third stanza, where the editor of the interview chose to cut in.
The true opening line reads, Arching under the night sky inky... Which makes much more sense as an introduction. It grounds the reader and nudges them towards an exploration of the vast mysteries of space in a way that is inviting, curious, mysterious, and enticing. This line lures the reader in with urgency, Arching (a present tense verb), and compels you to explore deeper into the unknown opacity, inky...
I absolutely love this poem. I found myself tearing up while reading it for the first time, and I tear up, still, reading it now. I will not endeavor, here, to give a full breakdown of why this poem is excellent, but I strongly encourage you to read it for yourself ❤️
It is an artists mission to interrogate and pursue powerful experiences with the intent synthesizing and creating new work. In this pursuit, I do not think it's right to discount experience and epiphanies born out of misunderstanding. Misunderstanding can be a powerful force for artistic and creative generation. Believing you are seeing something as it was intended can encourage you to make sense of something in a totally new and interesting way. There have been many times in my life as an artist where I found this kind of 'productive misunderstanding' to be extremely fruitful.
These moments put ideas in your head that are radical and new and push a genera forward- simply because you thought (for a moment) that the genera was already there! You suddenly discover a whole new expressive capability of a medium. It is easy to believe that something new and powerful can exist in art if you've accidentally convinced yourself that it already has existed.
Just because the original author did not intend the exact experience you had, it doesn't mean that your experience of the work cannot be meaningful or inspire you. To be an artist, you must have faith that your experience as a viewer can be replicated, and that new work can be made from them. This isn't to say that the artists intent does not matter- I believe it is appropriate and important to consider and appreciate a work as it was meant to be viewed, but not to let that experience be the final arbiter of what you can learn through your individual exploration of the piece. The author Charles Dewey postulates that all works of art are unilaterally characterized by their capacity to generate meaningful experiences over, and over again.
Just because the original author did not fully mean for you to see whatever you saw- it doesn't mean that you can't deliberately craft whatever experience you had for someone else in the future.
This week I've been dusting off some songs for Invertebrate Waltz and thinking a little more seriously about that project as a whole. I've also been making some sketches for another collection of songs I wrote a few months ago that feel like could be a larger project someday, too. I was having a conversation about some of my future projects/albums this with a friend recently, and they reminded me how lucky I am to be in a situation where I feel like I have *too much* work, rather than too little. I'm grateful that I haven't really ever struggled with Writers Block or anything- but maybe that's just because I'm not actually being forced to make work? I find it a lot easier to sift through your ideas and figure out whats good while nobody is actually asking you to deliver anything. At this point, I feel confident enough in the concepts behind the projects I have in the works that I wouldn't have trouble developing them much faster if my situation changed and I had to suddenly get them done on a timeline. To be honest, I should probably be getting my head back into The Queen of Time. That project is quickly approaching release (after a *very* long time in development...) and if people actually enjoy it- they might expect me to be able to talk about it and play the songs on it! 😅 One of my goals for that project is to play the album live... somewhere... at least once, lol. In all honesty, *that* is probably what comes next for me.
Speaking of which, I updated the pre-release of the album on this website to include the preliminary master of the new mix for All Along the Western Side- so check it out! 😁 (We're still on track to release in August! <3 )