2020

A lot can happen in a year! 2019 went relatively well, but here’s looking to 2020. (written in February, great timing as usual)

My primary concern is graduating. This Spring is my last semester, I’ll have my Japanese BA in just a few short months!
With school finally, FINALLY wrapping up, I’ll be able to put my focus back on my career properly, things are already looking good. Getting back into the swing of networking, and even picking up live sound gigs again (not being committed to Marching Band anymore REALLY opens up your schedule.)

I also have a new plan to work on my music writing, my sisters and I are trialing a system of collaborative songwriting of sorts. The plan is to just make sure we are committed to writing, but the hope is that it turns into something really special.

Guess we’ll see!

Re: Goals: 2019

Hello again!

It’s been a full year since my last entry, though I’ve written a couple drafts since then, I haven’t been satisfied with their quality or content enough to publish them. I’ve also converted many of my internal musings to a hard paper-and-pencil journal (thanks Jackie!), lest I regret throwing those thoughts up on the internet for all to see later. So back to the ol’ goal-oriented blogging!

Back to School…?

after lots of talks over the past year (and a realization that part-time state-funded college doesn’t really cost THAT much, compared to the debt I’ve already accumulated), I’ve decided to commit fully to finishing my Japanese study. I’ve run the numbers, assuming I do well, I’ll approach proficiency in Japanese by next spring, and can graduate with a Bachelor’s as early as summer 2020.

And do my final year of marching band while I’m at it. There’s not a significant benefit to my studies or my work schedule by skipping band, so I may as well run that out to the end.

The long term goal is to explore opportunities in the Japanese music industry. Even if I don’t work directly in music, there is demand for translators & interpreters who are familiar with music and engineering jargon. Plus, popping the degree onto the resume should passively make me more marketable in job searches, at least as far as working with in Japan or with Japanese people. Obviously, the option to add freelance translation to my list of possible gigs will be welcome as well.

So…what about music??

I’ve put that career on hold, I suppose. I’ll still take gigs where I can fit them. I still KJ for the karaoke bar, still freelance for Tech Art, and will still jump at a chance to work on music production anytime. But I’m not actively putting myself out looking for clients, aside from the occasional Groove U alumni event. But I’ve tried being a student, a self-sufficient part-timer & freelancer, and a OSUMB member all at the same time before and, well, it’s not a healthy way to live. The time for being a student and member of TBDBITL now has it’s end in sight, so I’m leaning into it.

I’m turning 26 this year, I think that’s old in a lot of ways, but if I can use this time now to build up my last few skills and degrees and have the work that I want to have 2 years from now, it’ll be worth it.

I think the best thing I can do for my music career during this return-to-college time, is do something that many in the audio industry have done but is something that I have yet to really dive into: work on my own music. I’ve been so in love with the production aspect of making music, I haven’t really bothered to put any effort into making music myself. I think I should do that.

By this time next year, I want to have produced at least an EP’s worth of music, all on my own.

busy schedule? As I’ve heard Jordan Payne say in summer sessions, “If you really want to do it, you’ll make the time for it.”

Goals

Oh hello, Journal. It's been a minute.

A whole Autumn season has passed; I've graduated Groove U, took another Japanese class, and started working 2 nights shifts a week (to the detriment of my sanity and said Japanese class).

2018 is going much better with no marching band, so now it's the normal matters of procrastination and getting places on time.

"So you've graduated, what now?"

Live day by day I guess. I've already renewed my current housing's lease for next year. No big moves to LA or NYC anytime soon. And since I'm tethered to Columbus by my bill-paying job, I suppose I have to play the freelance game for now. Which is going...ok? I've gotten a few jobs here and there, but nothing consistent just yet, save for an editing post at In the Record Store, where I edit and mix all the podcast episodes. Like everybody says; start small. one thing leads to another, etc. Anyway I'm hopeful.

What do you want to DO?

I've been saying that my ideal job would be a music composer, but it's been pretty challenging to get practice on that front. I have much more time invested in engineering and producing. Fortunately, I hear it's not so hard to get straight up audio jobs from companies these days, according to Circa Music owner, Allen DiCenzo. Really I'm ok doing anything in the music/audio spectrum, so I'm kinda winging it.

Another thing I've been entertaining is working in or with Japan. I've always been a fan of Japanese music, and Japan being the second largest music industry in the world, It's hard to resist the urge to see what the country is like. This is why I'm still a pseudo-Japanese major at OSU. (Plus, Japanese as a second language is always a marketable skill.) 

And now that I've seen an anime with a non-Japanese composer doing the music, the idea of writing music for anime suddenly seems possible. Kevin Penkin's score for Made in Abyss is absolutely INSANE.

2018

I'm not really planning on finishing the degree in Japanese at OSU, though I suppose the possibility will always be there. The degree would take me 2 more years at my part-time pace. I'm not willing to take a full courseload since that would make advancing my audio career very difficult, and I've already been in school for 6 frickin' years, those loans are piling up, and I'm kinda tired of school.

The lack of my own music in my life is really starting to bug me, so I really want to get some music written.

Before the year ends, I want to have near-fluency in Japanese and start writing music again.

Broadening Horizons

The first 20 minutes of The Wizard of Oz is in black and white, not because of technological limitations or the '30s audience's sensibilities, but for dramatic effect. It's used to express how otherworldly and vivid the land of Oz is to Dorothy. 
It's a visual effect (dubbed by TVtropes as Deliberately Monochrome) that we don't see too often, I personally have only seen it recently in a couple anime classics, The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, and Clannad. Interestingly, both of these examples use the technique to show the brilliance of a single character, not a place or mental state.

But what I want to talk about is that you can create this same kind of world-widening contrast in music, just as you can in film, though a specific use of dynamic contrast. And I would bet most people would agree that the aural effect of making something Deliberately Monochrome is way more pronounced than the visual form.

Dynamic contrast is an important element of music. Everybody (well, mostly everybody) hates over-compressed music, or songs that have the same volume and feel throughout. Dynamics can create or augment dramatic structures, allowing finales to be climatic and calm resolutions to be...resolute. 
But there's one use of dynamic contrast that causes something peculiar psychologically. When you queue up a song and hit play, you subconsciously begin to make assumptions about the sonic world that song inhabits. It only takes a few seconds, and then your mind just says to itself, "ok this is what this song is like." Songs can break that assumption by starting off quiet and thin, then suddenly and sometimes violently going loud and full. These songs always tempt you to turn up the volume. If the musicians and engineers go ham on this moment, you haven't just gone from monochrome to color, you've relearned of 3D space, a much wider spectrum of color, and broken the limit of how loud you thought the song would be, all in an instant.

Welcome to Oz.

Unlike the rare uses in film, this effect in music is fairly common. Taking a quick look through my library, some great examples of this technique are the intros of:
Pink Floyd's The Wall
Peter Gabriel's Up
Blink's eponymous album
Queens of the Stone Age's Songs for the Deaf

The effect that this can have is shocking, oftentimes literally jumpscaring people. It's far more visceral than it's visual cousin.