I’m gonna say “no” to yes/no questions and then give an explanation that should have gone along with an answer of yes.

Example:
Q) Do you have an alcohol problem?
A) No, but I drink waaaaay too much.

Have you ever been in a situation where someone screwed up your account and you had to call customer service and tell them off? What about someone asking you to do something above and/or beyond your responsibility and you had to tell them to check your job description? Before you told off the customer service rep or let that person know exactly what your job is, id you consider the consequences?

I think I might have said this in previous entries, and I will in future ones – one of the two best pieces of advice I ever got was ‘choose your battles.’ Don’t waste time and energy fighting battles you don’t have the chance to win or that aren’t worth the cost it takes to win. After a few recent observations, I have some more to add to that. When you chose the wrong battles, you can end up waging war against innocents or sometimes even yourself.

A woman walked into my office yesterday and was upset because a letter she had requested was not completed to her satisfaction. The letter she did receive contained the information we normally give out – for what she wanted, she was actually in the wrong place. Still, someone wanted to make her life easier and he stepped up, prepared to bend the rules a bit to help her. When he tried to talk to her to get more information on the situation, she responded rudely and snatched a sheet of paper from his hand. He changed his mind about helping her and told her she needed to call the person that originally gave her the letter she wasn’t happy with and he walked away. That woman never knew how close she came to getting what she needed. She walked out of the office unaware that she had just crippled herself by fighting a battle that wasn’t even there to be fought. Now she’s going to have to make a bunch of phonecalls and make another trip to the office.

It seems that in an overwhelming number of situations like this, the cause of the problem is that people do not see other people as people. That woman came into this office yesterday seeing an organization. She did not see a man who was treating her politely and respectfully and who was trying to help her. She saw an extension of the institution that had in her opinion messed up, so she took out her anger on the individual. Her taking that attitude was not only unnecessary and unpleasant, it was detrimental to her. It’s the same sort of thing when someone asks you to go a bit beyond your job description as a favor and you recite the rules to them. Even if you’re at work, every interaction does not need to be on a business level. Do a favor simply because you’re spending a chunk of every day around that person and it will help create a pleasant atmosphere for you to work in.

Some might say that some people need drama in their lives to survive. I don’t know if those people really exist, but if they do, I’m sure they are not the majority. Those of us who like straightforward , easy lives need to do our best to keep our lives that way. Right now I’m sidestepping the whole moral question of whether its fair to treat a person a certain way because of how someone else in his organization acted and I’m ignoring the idea of doing favors just to be nice just for the sake of being nice. There are immediate and practical reasons to be nice. Be pragmatic. There is a potential bridge between you and every human being you will ever come into contact with. Don’t line a bridge with dynamite and light it on fire before you even have the chance to see how sturdy it is. How you treat people is important – it often has very significant ramifications. Whether it be the customer service representative you want to yell at, some random guy standing next to you, or your co-worker. That random guy may find himself in a position to help you or do you a favor one day and it would really suck for you if he didn’t do it because you were rude to him without provocation at some point in the past. That co-worker could have the opportunity to cover for you if you slip up one day and it would be a tragedy if he didn’t because he didn’t like your attitude. That customer service representative…well, I told you what happened with the girl. Every one can’t be your friend, but by being courteous to the people around you and treating them as individuals, you will ensure that they are not all your enemies.

I just had a conversation about relationships. A girl asked me “Should a woman have to tell a man what she likes?” She believed that if a couple had spent enough time together, that should be unnecessary. I couldn’t subscribe to that belief. Too much experience. ‘Should’ isn’t a word that works very well in that type of situation. We shouldn’t have to tell our mates what we like. We shouldn’t ever disagree or argue. Love should conquer all. Apples should have legs. ‘Should’ is basically a meaningless word here. The important words in relationships are ‘want’ and ‘will’. When you know what you want and don’t want, you can decide what you will and will not do.

An attentive partner will most likely figure out what you like to some degree, but what about those likes that slip past the radar? If you really want them, you will either tell your partner or you will have to learn to do without. It’s that simple. Why play games hoping and waiting for them to figure it out? No matter how much you may love, care for, and pay attention to a person, unless your last name is Cleo, you are not a mind reader. Neither is anyone else. If you are searching for a mate who will magically understand your every need and desire without the need for vocalization, you’ll probably find him/her next to the fountain of youth sipping cocktails with the king of Atlantis. A much more realistic goal is someone who cares about your desires. Someone who once they do know what you want (because you said what you want) will make it a priority to give it to you.

It is important to differentiate between fairy tale romance, true romance, and bad romance. Someone that can read you mind – fairy tale. Someone that does their best to understand you and please you – true. Someone that doesn’t try to put in the energy to figure out what you want – bad.

Recently I’ve been working on a remix of a Bugz in the Attic tune (that will be available on myspace in the next few days.) I was playing it for someone yesterday and she told me that she thought the music I composed did a good job of bringing out the melodic character of the vocals I was working with. At first I took it for what it was – a compliment from someone who’s opinion I value very much. As the comment stayed in my mind, I began to see it in context with my musical development . . .

I started off taking full instrumentals and recording vocals over them. From there I moved to chopping up samples. One of the milestones in my development was when I had an epiphany – “I can make my own music!” Around that time I started paying more attention to the hip-hop I was hearing (as that was my main genre at the time) and I noticed that often the music was overly repetitive and far less complex than the norm in other genres. I set a goal for myself. “An instrumental should be complete in and of itself.” I figured that if an instrumental was sophisticated enough to stand on its own, then it could only serve to improve the song when vocals were added.

I was very wrong. I never explicitly stated that to myself or out loud before today, but I’ve known it for a while now. This remix I’m working on is proof of that. I started with an acapella which I built the music around. Now that the music is complete, if you take away the vocals, there is definitely a hole. I revise what I said previously – an instrumental should be sophisticated enough to keep interest on its own. If you take away the vocals and you’re left with something monotonous and boring, there’s a problem. The music should improve the vocals and the vocals should improve the music. If that symbiotic relationship isn’t there, chances are there is something that should be fixed.

As I write this, a bunch of different ways that this idea could be abstracted to apply to life in general spring to my mind but I’ll leave it to you to take the metaphor where you like.

I went to my old house this weekend and it changed. Throughout my life there, my mom has made various changes, repairs and upgrades. I never thought much of it until now. I’ve been out of the house for several years now but I visit regularly. I didn’t notice so much as she continued to change it after I left, but it really hit me this weekend. The first thing that jumps out is that the big tree that was in front of the house is gone. Some of the sidewalk is brand new. The hole in the backyard that was a swimming pool first and then a dumping ground for leaves and cuttings, is now a patch of dirt. The countertops and floor in the kitchen are not the same. It’s all so different. I went to get a plastic bag, and they weren’t where they were supposed to be. Strange.

I spent eighteen years of my life in that house, and it’s not so familiar anymore. I have to ask where things are or search for them when once upon a time I would have grabbed them without a second thought about their locations. In my apartment-changing, far from stable lifestyle, I’ve always of that place as home, and in a way it will always be that, but in a way it is not anymore. It’s kind of like a close friend you haven’t seen in years. When your paths recross, you still feel that closeness and that love, but its awkward because those years apart have made you guys strangers. So much has changed, but underneath all the change, so much is still the same.

Life goes on. I guess that’s the lesson here. You step away from something (or someone) and it doesn’t freeze. Life is constant change and we are surrounded by life – the lives of others and the life we give to the objects that surround us. Make sure you appreciate each and every moment because no matter how wonderful and fulfilling the next one will be, it won’t be quite the same.

Creating music is one of the most wonderful and exciting journey’s you can embark on. And yes, it is a journey. Any worthwhile composer/musician will never find himself in the same place for very long. Music is constant change – evolution, regression, reversal. The route doubles back, loops , turns at acute angles…you name it.

Tonight I gained inspiration and knowledge that will contribute to the next stretch of my journey. Maybe my excitement is not soley due to the concept running through my mind right now. Maybe its partially caused by the music itself. The music I heard tonight was constantly moving, packed with energy. The revelation part is that I realised how that feeling is put into the music.

Pause – this is not a post about general life experience that I think everyone can relate to, it’s about making music. Forgive me if it bores you – Unpause

I’ve been sleeping on shakers and on fast paced miscelaneous percussion in general. Back in the day, the hi-hats on many of my tracks were monotonous. I would routinely lay down a hat on every eigth note regardless of what it did to the feel of the song because I didn’t know any better. Eventually I figured it out and both slowed and varied my placement of hi-hat sounds. Today I realized that what I was dooing was not necessarily wrong or bad. Back when I had that blanket of hi-hats in songs, it gave them energy and a sense of movement. Take a simple drum beat – something real simple (booom-clap-boom-clap…) and add those eigth note hi-hats and suddenly the beat seems to not want to stop moving. Underneath the steady, solid beat there is a light double-time groove going on. In house music, that double time groove can make you want to move. Done properly, it can give a song that feel that makes your foot start tapping when you weren’t even aware that you were listenening. AND, it doesn’t even have to be hi-hats. Tonight, I heard it done with hats, shakers, and other miscellaneous percussion. Oh the possibilities!!!

Ummm…yeah, that’s all. I’m going to sleep now.

I’m gonna start finishing people’s sentences for them…with completely random endings.

You know how people can’t think of the word they want sometimes but its obvious to you so you say it for them. In situations like that I’m gonna start saying a word that is obviously not what they were looking for, one that makes absolutely no sense in the context.

“So he got in my car and wouldn’t buckle his…err…you know…”
“Cornucopia?”