Jafeel
What a week. In the aftermath of my brother leaving I had a bit of a rough time getting back into my usual mode. Before he was here I was doing a media purge where I’d limit the media I consumed (pretty much no Youtube, Reddit, Netflix, etc. and only watching “essential” stuff like mixing or plugin tutorials). I attempted to do the same this week but failed miserably. I have a terrible habit of laying in bed before I sleep with my laptop propped up on my stomach watching Youtube until I get sleepy. I’m slightly ashamed to report I ended up doing this almost every day of the week :’(
Well… I’m much more optimistic about this upcoming week. I spent all of today (Sunday) pretty much easing back into the media purge and not really indulging too much in my media urges.
Highlights of this week:
Went on two dates. First date we went to a board game cafe and got ramen. Second date we went to Mala project and hung out at Washington Square park for some people watching
Hung out with some friends. Rode from Brooklyn to LES. Got some Malaysian food and went to Ice & Vice for ice cream afterwards (my friend wanted to go because it’s going out of business soon).
A few different things have been happening that made me think I should shake things up a little.
First, I’ve been getting reports from a few of my friends on their travels across the country. One of my friends is living temporarily in Hawaii. Another has been roaming across the pacific Northwest.
Second, some of my friends have told me that they’re not coming back to New York after all. I’d been under the impression that one of my friends would come back in the Spring (he even has some stuff stored at my apartment) but that’s no longer the case… He’s just staying out in Jamaica where he’s been for the past few months. Another one of my friends also just said that she might end up living in Taiwan a year or two where she’s been living with her family for the past few months.
Third, the repetitiveness of life has been getting to me. Most of last week I kept bitching to myself about how repetitive (and sometimes pointless) it all felt right now. Rona life…
All this came to a boil when one of my friends asked me where I saw myself in five years. First I asked her if this was a job interview. Then I realized I had no idea where I saw myself in five years. After thinking silently about it for a couple of minutes I responded saying that I either 1. wanted to be out of tech or 2. wanted to be in tech but at least have released a few of my songs and pushed them as far as I could.
I still don’t know if that’s the most accurate answer but the question made me think that at each stage of life you’re in a sweet spot for something.
High school—like it or not—is time to grind for your best shot at college. So few people really find out who they are during this time so might as well just work hard and see where you end up.
College is time to relax a bit. Fuck around. Learn about yourself. Experiment. Meet different people, different things.
20’s is an extension of college with a little more responsibility sprinkled in. Nothing has been cemented. You still really have to figure out who you are as a person, what you want and how to get what you want. I’d imagine that for most people this is also one of the last times you’ll have so little responsibility/accountability.
And then 30s—idk haven’t really thought about them so far.
Anyways my long winded point is this: I think I’m in the sweet spot where I have some of the least responsibility I’ll ever have in my life along with the most resources I’ll ever have in my life. I owe nothing to no one. I don’t have to support anyone but myself. I’m ballin out.
I think I’ve gotten so complacent doing things the way I have but I keep forgetting that if you don’t shake things up the way you want now you’ll probably end up having a mid life crisis and fucking up your life in your 40s or 50s.
So long ass story short I think I’m just gonna travel more. Once my lease is up in February I want to travel around the country and the world living in each place a couple of months. I don’t know exactly where I want to go but I think Korea (get in touch with my roots), Toronto (just seems like a smaller version of NY with more Asians and great food), and the Pacific Northwest (haven’t been yet—want to see what it’s like) would be a good start.
Ok. Back to the music stuff. This month I’m rebooting an old song that I never finished. It’s a song my collaborator (aka Chimpy Chimperson) and I started a few Thanksgivings ago. The idea was to create a Thanksgiving carol centered around romance.
I’m pretty happy working on this song because it’s so low pressure. With my other songs I sometimes feel I’m taking myself way too seriously so it’s nice to be able to goof off on something like this. I figure it’ll be great practice for mixing and a great opportunity to get better at recording vocals. The prechorus and chorus are the first vocals I’ve recorded in my new vocal booth.
One little tip I ended up using was to compress the guitar and piano at the prechorus (0:45) with a slow attack and a fast release. I saw this in a Bob Powers mixing video where he makes the attack slow so that the transients come through but the sounds immediately after the transients are squashed. This gives the impression that the sound is more dynamic (maybe even a little louder too) and just a lil more poppin. I’m still kind of a noob sometimes when it comes to compression but I liked how it sounded after following his tips.