/blog

We're away at the in-laws over the weekend so it will be a couple of days away from things.

I recorded an initial version of pH 3 but it's not mixed correctly and isn't fixable by EQ or mastering so I'll need to redo it all. The time away will give me some space to think about it, how it can be improved and exactly what I need to change. Plus it will give my ears a rest and I'll be able to come back to it more objectively.

pH 4 was completed before starting on pH 3. I knew what I wanted 3 to be and what became 4 just wasn't that.

I also know what I want pH 5 to be so when I next sit down to create a new track it may become 6 or even something else entirely depending on what comes out.

Austin Kleon wrote about Paul McCartney's "insistence that he doesn't really know where the music comes from."

While not wanting to compare myself with such an icon, I am very much the same. I'll make a deliberate start to something – laying down a simple 4/4 beat for example – but what comes next is often the result of a sequence of happy accidents rather than any predetermined plan.

I may begin a session with an intention but the results are frequently unaligned.

Listening back to initial recordings I will "hear" extra elements in my head that don't exist; it's like the music itself telling me that's how it should be. Maybe it's just my own mind extrapolating based on past experience and preferences but, whatever it is, I'm not normally in control.

It's often the same with writing. I've lost count of the times I've said that I feel like a passenger or a conduit, a vehicle for words that already exist, rather than their creator.