Making music is great. #

You come back home after a day of work, you open Renoise, or just switching on a synth or even the guitar amplifier and start ploinking away.

The making is never a problem, it's "you versus the stuff" and it's where you start projecting your ideas, throwing them at an invisible wall, see what sticks and go with it, then build a persona for this project, visualise the story-telling and you 👏 just 👏 get 👏 to 👏 it.

Making music is great.

I started making music on my computer as a way to escape the reality of a boring summer and I missed it all these years I had other important shits to do in order to put food on table, roof on head. Being far from music making makes me sad, antsy, incomplete.

Making music is great.

I remember when living in a different city, doing a job at a place I did not like but still had to keep cracking at, I would come back home, say "hi" to at least 5 or 8 IRC channels, open Renoise and start making music. Rinse and repeat, till 2am, go back to work the day after.

Making music is great.

I never had too much money for gear and I remember the 2000s with their plethora of free plugins and "free" plugins and I remember the discovery of every little new thing, every new website to make new friends and frenemies and places to spam my music, get new friends along the way oh boy these days.

If it was not for all these people that I've met through music, that kept emailing me when I was not available to make music and that kept supporting me, I would probably feel different about it all, I would have sold back the synths and just put on a tie earlier in my life.

Making music was great.

until the parallel play #

I don't know if the Germans have a word for that exact feeling so I'll try and just describe it:

Remember that kid who runs along the football field, follows the ball like he's playing with the others but he is not? That special kid.

That's me.
(And I don't like it.)

Think you got your thing, the job's cut out for you, this time people will click, listen and engage and you'll gain a voice again, a tiny (pink) seat at the table to feel content, accepted, in your lane, done, you're a music maker now Harry!.

You think "this time, once again, the weird kid running on the side of the football field will play with the others a little."

That's still me.
(And I really don't like it.)

I can't stop the loneliness #

Some people get to play on the field.
Some people get to watch the others play on the field.

The ones that are tired of seeing the others playing on the field may go to the bar and start their own league of something, with blackjack and hookers.

I've been with these kids too, it's just about the same in the end, you're doing the very same things to others as the cool kid playing football did to you (it's not about football, you got that, right?).

The only way up is: keep doing what it is you're doing.
Making music keeps the bad voice away.

One step after the other, in your room, with your toys, make the music happen to you, put it out there and wait for someone to send you an email and say "hey".

Because making music is a great little hobby.
(I'm pretty sure someone reading this will feel superior because for them, it's a lifestyle… lucky you, you have friends that play with you!)