spacey

kennywtelejazz
 
 
I'm curious to hear how folks around here balance all the different learning curves they encounter in their musical journey.
 How do you maintain your musical growth as a developing  Artist while you spend time getting better at learning and using your  DAW ? 
By all means , please feel free to discus any aspect of your personal music experience and how you have grown .
 
all the best ,
 
Kenny

Last quarter of the year I don't work much so thought I'd spend some time here in between some home projects;
 
I don't have many learning curves because my musical journey is that of an old man. I'm now living in a time where I really don't listen to music unless it's a blu-ray concert for relaxing/escape. 
I mean there is music around me...the radio etc. but it's really just background noise. Maybe once in a while I'll hear something because it caught my attention. Not like when music was a love and form of living...being a musician with musicians. Now I'm a guitarist that plays mostly to jam with tracks I create or backing tracks for "application" and it's all just to keep my fingers, brain and guitar working together while hoping I can play in my retirement years.
 
I have what is probably a "bad attitude" because I really don't care about keeping up with how the music world or marketing of it is going. It's not an attitude- it's that I just don't care what others are doing. Unlike when I was younger I'm now only interested in what I'm doing. 
 
With that said;
The learning curves- 
          The Guitar- application of new "things". Whether it be a new lick, theory application, or new exercises in general. Many ideas of things to practice "spurred" by jamming. That's what I love about jamming- when the conscious mind gets out of the way. Playing has taken a back seat to building guitars but they balance together very well.
          The DAW- Just not much to it. I handle it much like I did my guitar rig. A good guitar, amp and very few boxes. I think the most I ever used was 4/5. Volume pedal, distortion, Wah, Comp, Phase. - Vol./Dist mostly.
With me thinking that the most important part of recording is getting the sound right going in it doesn't take much more than "placement in the sound field" to have very acceptable results. Of course I'm not using the DAW for serious attempts and have no desire to do so. (and it takes more that panning for sound field placement as we know)
You can see it doesn't take much to learn or remember to record, edit and mix with Sonar. But I play instruments so I don't use many of it's "plastic" functions. ( a term the older ones will know what I mean lol) Mostly limited to Spectrasonics stuff. 
 
Personal Music Experience-
I don't spend much time with music now. I don't want to. I spent 20 years of my life 24/7 with a guitar in the music world. In '85 I got smart. Glad I did too. Fortunately I had enough time to secure a very comfortable retirement...if health permits, of course and so far, so good with that. Well, I can't eat Butterfingers when I want so that's kind of a bummer. - so looking back I can now say in response to your "how you've grown" as; I'm sure glad I grew away from the music scene when I did. A guitar to play and a way to hear it back is good enough for me. Nothing more needed or wanted.
 
All the best to you too Kenny,
Mike

Hey Mike ,
 
Glad to see your back around here on the forum ..
Yeah , I enjoyed hearing how you balance the areas you concentrate on with your music .
A Musical Freedom that  I have had reinforced from peoples responses in this thread is one size don't fit all .
Plus there are no musical right or wrongs when it comes time to spending time & energy on learning new things in one's personal musical development ...
I've had to back off and just take things as they have come to me in small bite sized growths in a few areas .
A little progress here, a little progress there is about all I can swing theses days if I want to stay reasonably sane lol
 
hey Mike it's been nice talking with you
all the best,
 
Kenny