Master Plan
I've thought a lot about music for the last two decades. All types of crazy thoughts. From way out in the clouds in the world of the "what ifs", to down in the weeds of thinking through the inner movement of various chord voicings and systems to exploit it, to building audio software to explore better ways to sample things (myself, records, etc). Music is bugged out. For some, it is simply background noise. For others it's such a personal expression. What makes certain musical elements ressonate with each of us? Each of our personal life experiences are all so different, and yet somehow there are musical things that resonate with more than one of us.
I believe you can chalk some of this up to the notion that everything is a remix. I don't just mean this in the, we create hip hop via samples, kind of way. I believe there has to be some element of the familiar in music for it to strike an emotional chord with us. Why are there certain songs, that upon first hearing it, do something to you (in a good way)? Why doesn't that happen with all music of a specific genre? I don't know that it's alway true, but often times upon analysis for myself, I come to realize there is some element of familiarity to it. Not to say that it's a knock-off or a cover of something else, just something enough to make some element ring familiar. More specifically something familiar to something else for which we already have an emotional connection.
I believe music, when approached correctly, has a deeply sprititual element. There is something about what makes each of us who we are that is rooted in this underlying pulse, rhythm, harmony, melody, voicing, and cadence. I also believe it's deeply personal. The frequencies at which our soul resonnates if you will, are the sum of our musical experiences. Take emotions and life's experiences, then paint them against the sum of your musical make up, your record collections, and that builds a calculation that resolves to the frequencies at which your musical soul resonnates. It is unique to you. It should be unique to you. From time to time that inner musical frequency has something in common with others.
For years, while working on the Sound Providers, I felt in tune with Soulo. We didn't always resonnate at the same frequency. But I became aware of, and was able to define that frequency for myself. Even more powerful, I believe I got a glimpse at what that was for Soulo. This is not to claim that we somehow became in sync that way. We both had our own slant on things musically. There was enough commonality between us however, that we were able to find a place that we were both excited about the music. And often excited about the same music. That excitement became the propulsion that drove us to create music as The Sound Providers.
So what? What the heck is your point J? I'm pushing up on a personal turning point where I'm not going to be okay, unless I find a way to express the inner music that's been building. I'm not hearing exactly what it is that I'm looking for. There is certainly still good music happening. Music is more accessible now than ever. I however, find myself looking for something that I am not finding. It's going to be a process. I'm not even sure how to describe it at this point. Not necessarily hip hop, not necessarily jazz, not blues in an of itself. Certainly elements of each of those are in there. Any of those elements taken too far, and it skews the balance that I'm looking for. Deep down, I'm a product of a few decades of hip hop. It will have to have an edge, a grime, that speaks to those roots. That's all that I'll say about it for today.
For now, I'm thinking of a master plan. Time to dig deeper, while looking for ways to pull this together.
Stay tuned.