Sorting by

×

Filter posts by category

Doing music full-time can feel weird

I’ll be honest: I can feel a bit weird about deciding to do music and art full-time at this point in my life, especially when my social media network knows me from academia and disaster management or maybe podcasting. Posting about music feels out of place when I know these folks connected with me for completely different reasons. Music has always been part of me, though. When I was choosing a college major, I had three directions: civil engineering (that’s what my dad did), psychology (maybe I had an inkling I was neurodivergent and bipolar), and music (it’s what I […]

Doing music full-time can feel weird Read More »

The Merry Times is a track inspired by The Maritimes

The Merry Times is a techno-inspired track that expresses the joyful significance I felt while experiencing Nova Scotia’s maritime culture, first vacationing there and then living there. I took the field recordings on the shores of Lunenburg, Halifax, and Laurencetown, Nova Scotia. I highly recommended a visit to all three places. (Lunenburg’s a UNESCO World Heritage Centre.) I recorded the mandolin, which is the source of the track’s looping hook and granular, glitchy ear candy, on the field recorder in my living room. I never thought I’d use the field recordings or the mandolin noodles in a track on a

The Merry Times is a track inspired by The Maritimes Read More »

“Regretfulnot” is about simultaneously regretting and not regretting

My debut album as Big Stitch is a six-track EP titled “Regretfulnot.” The album is tightly thematic. It explores my experience of (re)discovering, living in, falling in love with, and leaving Nova Scotia, Canada. That experience led to a peculiar emotional state of joyful disappointment. (Or disappointing joy?) Making the album was an existential reflection centered on the idea of regret. It’s about processing regret when I don’t believe in regret (or at least its validity). In other words, the album simultaneously represents regret and the absence of regret—the paradox of both being equally true. My spiritual center is Buddhism.

“Regretfulnot” is about simultaneously regretting and not regretting Read More »

Genre makes me anxious

I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t insecure about my prospects for success doing music and audio professional full-time. There’s a lot in that sentence to unpack, which I will do down the road. But writing the post about what Big Stitch’s genre is (or genres are?) got me reflecting on genre (yet again). Simply put, thinking about genre makes me think I won’t be able to find an audience and will not be able to build a community and connect with individuals who enjoy my music or my music-making process. Why? Well, as is my nature, I’ve done

Genre makes me anxious Read More »

What is Big Stitch’s genre?

So what is Big Stitch? Well, it’s me and exploring musical ideas, audio processing methods, sound sources, and social messages/meanings that I’m curious about right now. Specifically, I’m interested in combining acoustic music/instruments with electronic music, as well as field recordings and found sound (typically spoken word) focused both relatively timely issues of the day and universal themes across those issues. Of course, people and algorithms want tidy genre labels. There are four ways I can answer that. The first is what genre tag I chose when I submitted my upcoming album (it’s done! …more on that below) for distribution.

What is Big Stitch’s genre? Read More »

Big Stitch is a go!

I am kicking off my music project, Big Stitch. This kick-off is for me more than you. I need to uncork this thing so I can start sharing & leaning into Big Stitch. The website is enough: it’s live. If you go there, you’ll see my first album is done too! https://scottmiles.studio

Big Stitch is a go! Read More »

Subscribe to my newsletter to stay connected.

Scroll to Top