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Towards Effortless Composing

Yesterday, the biggest issue I faced was getting tense while working on music—literally clenching my jaw while playing. I’m taking this too seriously. I’m currently working on an instrumental song I’ve randomly called “Tasty Message.” I’ve reached that exciting point where I know it has enough interesting ideas and material to become a full arrangement, so I’ve mentally moved it to the “arrange” stage in my project management system. But now I’m finding it challenging to connect these good ideas. Too much good material? Ha! In trying to compose transitions and through-compose from the good ideas to find workable variations, […]

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Developing main characters

After a couple weeks on vacation and recovering from a nasty cold, I got back to creating music. I met with my coach on to review one of my song ideas, Quirky Digestion (and randomly generated name). The big revelation? I realized even when I think I’m developing a song idea I often stay stuck in brainstorming mode. I keep jamming out new ideas instead of developing the good ones I already had. Alex helped me identify the main “characters” in the track—the core musical elements that I wanted to be the focus. They were what I already knew were

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Live mixing to kickstart arrangements

I’m working on my second album as Big Stitch. (Regretfulnot is my first.) I’m following a general approach that I’ve outlined here and here, which is inspired by (and personally coached under) Alex Joyal’s approach. Over the past several weeks, I’ve been jamming out ideas — brainstorming possible elements for future album tracks. As I documented, I used Loopy Pro to jam ideas. It was the first time using Loopy Pro. I really enjoyed the software (really, really). I discovered that live looping is a highly fruitful way for me to generate and develop ideas. Possibly too fruitful. Alex coaches

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Since leaving social media…

So, how have things been since I decided to leave social media? The most important aspect is that the benefits I anticipated are clear. I don’t miss 99% of it. The 1% I do miss is mostly the memes that my wife shared with me on Instagram. While I could easily find funny cat videos elsewhere, having those moments to laugh together is something special. However, I truly don’t miss much else. Instead, I subscribe to newsletters from artists, organizations, venues, and even restaurants that interest me. I’ve even started using an RSS feed for their Instagram accounts. I would

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Creative Rhythms

The last time I journaled was June 25th. The last time I sent out a newsletter was July 8th. The last time I posted on my blog was July 9th. That’s at least five weeks away from what I define as work—my regular practices for creating. (Do I regret that? No. I feel blessed to have a new home, moving into a dream house with my dream family, and having gotten to a place–mentally and environmentally–of being settled.) If you’ve read my past newsletters or my blog, you’ve probably noticed that a theme in my life is always having to

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Workshop (PAST): Practice Creativity and Produce Music with More Ease

Workshop was held on August 12th, 2025 at the Recreational Psychoacoustics Lab in Seattle, WA Description Let’s explore how you relate to your creative work, not just how you organize it and technically produce it. This workshop is both a facilitated conversation about creativity and an introduction to practical frameworks for making music with greater ease and authenticity. The emphasis will be on creating music authentically and effortlessly – understanding how to relate to your unique creativity rather than force it (to be like someone else’s practice). We’ll start by sharing our creative stories and current challenges, then dive into

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Busking, even e-busking, adds magic to the world

Shawn Reynaldo, it is an outstanding newsletter First Floor, asked an important question for not just folks like me, but any world that values thriving culture: Everyone says they want independent music culture, but is anyone willing to pay for it? When I read Shawn’s work, I tend to imagine Eeyore, rather than Tigger or Christopher Robin. I’ve never met him. But mostly his articles are gloomy and follow the unfortunate journalistic writing of “bad, bad, bad, bad, bad, glimmer-of-hope.” He’s no solutions journalist. And I don’t mean to suggest he should be or that all journalists should be (we

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Taking lessons from Nazi resistors

I recently read an opinion piece in The Guardian titled “I Study the Resistance Against the Nazis.” It resonated with me for a couple of reasons, as I try to figure out my role and routine in the world nowadays. Part of my now-years-long transition away from being a full-time academic to full-time…um…artist?! The author, Luke Berryman, uses his analysis of stories of little known people who resisted the Nazis to provide some insight into how people in the US can resist far-right authoritarianism and fascism. He describes how the resistance hasn’t worked well so far, proven by the fact

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Making music on the go

One of the challenges of traveling as a music producer is finding a way to create music when you’re on the go and can’t bring an instrument or even your laptop. A couple of years ago, I bought Polyend’s Tracker Mini so I could get immersed in music-making while traveling, particularly on the plane or moments of downtime. A tracker is software or gear that allows you to compose music in a way that is kind of like a chronoligical spreadsheet. When I go on trips, I tend to challenge myself to finish a full track, using my Tracker Mini.

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I deleted my social media accounts …mostly

So I deleted my Instagram account. And my Facebook account. And my Threads account. Oh, and even my Bluesky account. (And I do want to delete my WhatsApp account.) So, how am I going to share myself and my work now? I mean, it’s not like we have to share the intimate details of ourselves, even though our surveillance capitalistic world does push that message. But as an artist and entrepreneur (yeah, I want to come up with ways to earn a living with my art and my artistic process and experience), I do need to share to provide examples,

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Using a track from Gigi and Loopy Pro for frictionless jamming of a new idea

I was playing along to the track Tew Ante Sew from Gigi and was just inspired by the simple arrangement and orchestration that integrates Ethiopian music and electronic production. I was listening to the track because of this article from Hearing Things about what tracks inspire the artist Lyra Pramuk. Then I just wanted to pick up my Epiphone Dot Studio guitar. I realized I should be recording–something I want to do more often when I find myself picking up an instrument and noodling. So I quickly got my iPad and iRig Pro out of my bag. (The gears was

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A new digital home… and a real one

June has been a bit all over the place for me, work-wise. On the home front, I’m excited that my wife and I bought a new home in the Fremont neighborhood of Seattle (where we live now and where we met). Among the many reasons I’m excited about our new home is that I’ll have a dedicated room for working; I’ll be able to move out of my office. My office situation is great–it’s been a godsend for my productivity and focus–but it’s also not ideal because I can’t make much noise. Most of the office clients are therapists–both massage

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Creative resistance and finding the right path

Today, I’m feeling some resistance about moving on to the arranging stage of the composition process of my album. I think I am a bit overwhelmed by the number of ideas I created. The transition from Loopy Pro to Studio One has required more effort than I was hoping, which has taken me out of the flow (but probably giving me some good separation, too). And I’m starting to give the process more weight and meaning than I should. Jamming and developing ideas was easy to maintain detachment from the outcome. But now I’m thinking, “is this good enough to

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(Past) People Fixing the World

My first freelance reporter gig was for the BBC! The episode for People Fixing the World is now live. I had a great experience with the BBC staff, which reminded me how much I love working with audio journalists. It’s a wonderful story I have a personal connection to: Seattle Children’s Hospital and their gaming therapeutics program to improve patient stays. I’m from Seattle and had a multi-day stay there as a kid 45 years ago—they had nothing like this then. Have a listen if you’re into solutions journalism, healthcare, gaming, or great BBC audio stories. I’m available for freelance

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Listen to a 90-minute protest march in 5 minutes

I wanted to speed up the audio from the No Kings that I attended in Seattle protest, so you can hear it all in around five minutes. I did that using Davinci Resolve. Here is that audio, which has been compressed and EQ’d so there are no big changes in volume or super harsh noises. What stands out to you most? For me, it’s the overall waxing and waning of people’s voices and energy. Then I couldn’t resist seeing if I could turn that audio into a bit of a noise composition. So I did a speed run (for me,

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Gotta be creative? Get back to bass-ics.

When I started working on my second album, I thought I had a sound and a process fairly figured out. My first album, Regretfulnot, was the result of a year-long crash course in electronic music-making—MIDI controllers, virtual instruments, drum programming, sample selection, patch building, and layers of electronic effects processing. Though, crash course makes it seem more intentional and systematic than it was. More like a hodge podge of online courses, following YouTube tutorials, rabbit holes, and working for a short time with an unhelpful mentor and a long time (still!) with a helpful one. I am pretty proud of

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Having trouble managing a creative project?

How do you manage your artistic, musical, or other creative projects? Are you wanting a different way? I’ve tried a lot of different methods for project management in general. As far as music making, years and years ago, my approach was very unsophisticated and disorganized–scribblings across multiple journals (that would get lost and stolen), Word documents with difficult-to-decipher hints at chord progressions, and other random files that were unclear whether they contained a promising idea, bad idea, or something that was almost finished. The point is, I’m sure I lost a lot of ideas and could have written even more

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Principles to be an impervious creative

Today I watched this video from Venus Theory: He cited a new book by music creator Liina Turtonen titled “Creative Confidence and Music Production.” The book and recently losing a freelance gig made Cameron — Venus Theory — think of seven principles to help creatives become more impervious (his words) to the ups and downs of our calling. They are: His points really resonate with me. I don’t think any of them are super new to me, perhaps “act in your nature” is the most new. But they are all ones that are important to me, that I do work

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Got Loopy Pro running on Mac

As you know, I’m really digging Loopy Pro, an iOS app that is somewhere between a looper pedal, full-blown DAW, and rapid user-interface builder. Overall, I’ve enjoyed using an iPad to brainstorm musical ideas. It reduces friction and makes it so you can always have a tool for recording ideas wherever you are. The challenge with Loopy Pro on iOS is reorganizing a messy brainstorming session, whether that’s moving clips around or renaming clips (rather than the default Clip 1, Clip 2, Clip 3, etc.). And unlike some iOS apps, it’s not possible to install Loopy Pro on a Mac

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