The small enclave of ideas I managed to bring all the way through, even the fairly shitty ones, is surrounded on all sides by the corpse-mountains of the many many more ideas that did not. But! Some of the pieces that got done last year were Failures from years past. So sometimes there's still life germinating in the bowels of the old & dead.
It's actually encouraging to me to know that you consider some of last year's output shitty.
Sure, some were certainly better than others, but I feel like every single piece had something going for it that made me glad I'd read it, whether it was a turn of phrase, a clever twist, or just the conceit of the piece itself. Knowing that it's possible to make an entertaining read out of nothing more than one good idea is really liberating - I don't have to polish every idea to a high luster, I don't have to build a great novel out of every single idea; sometimes it's enough to just have an idea, put a funny hat on it, and send it out on stage for a cheap laugh. It's like, writing as vaudeville rather than a blockbuster, cast of thousands kind of production.
Getting the fails out of the wayext_394454January 17 2011, 07:31:16 UTC
I am in failure mode right now. Working on a new plugin, and churning through algorithm ideas at a rapid rate. I suck at math, so if I have an idea, it is easier for me to code it up and listen to it, rather than go through the analytics of why it may or may not work.
My hard drive is littered with the corpses of ideas that just don't work. What I need to get better at is writing these down, so I don't rediscover a bad idea in the future (it has happened a few times in the new year).
Re: Getting the fails out of the wayext_394454January 17 2011, 18:38:48 UTC
Maybe I'll collect some of the algorithms and put them in a plugin. I'll call it "ValhallaBeautifulLosers," to pay tribute to that amazing Leonard Cohen novel that I haven't been able to finish in the few decades I've owned it.
Someday I would love to publish a book, or write a chapter in a larger book about audio DSP. I still think your filter shootout would be useful in there - I learned a lot from that. Some of those filters sounded great, some sounded not as good, and that is all important information. Plus, one person's failure is another person's glitch art, so describing how and why things don't work is crucial.
I often think my art brain is like an old car. When it starts, it does a lot of sputtering and backfiring, but once it gets all that out and is up to speed, it runs pretty well. If I turn it off, we have to go through the sputtering over again. The longer I leave it off, the longer the warm-up phase takes. So, I try and turn it on regularly, even if I'm on break, with a quick drawing or just fiddling with some wire or anything that keeps the engine turning over.
I'm looking forward to seeing what your year yields. Make sure you date your list! If you did it more than one year, I bet it would be interesting to start noting your annual productivity cycles.
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Sure, some were certainly better than others, but I feel like every single piece had something going for it that made me glad I'd read it, whether it was a turn of phrase, a clever twist, or just the conceit of the piece itself. Knowing that it's possible to make an entertaining read out of nothing more than one good idea is really liberating - I don't have to polish every idea to a high luster, I don't have to build a great novel out of every single idea; sometimes it's enough to just have an idea, put a funny hat on it, and send it out on stage for a cheap laugh. It's like, writing as vaudeville rather than a blockbuster, cast of thousands kind of production.
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My hard drive is littered with the corpses of ideas that just don't work. What I need to get better at is writing these down, so I don't rediscover a bad idea in the future (it has happened a few times in the new year).
Reply
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Someday I would love to publish a book, or write a chapter in a larger book about audio DSP. I still think your filter shootout would be useful in there - I learned a lot from that. Some of those filters sounded great, some sounded not as good, and that is all important information. Plus, one person's failure is another person's glitch art, so describing how and why things don't work is crucial.
Reply
I often think my art brain is like an old car. When it starts, it does a lot of sputtering and backfiring, but once it gets all that out and is up to speed, it runs pretty well. If I turn it off, we have to go through the sputtering over again. The longer I leave it off, the longer the warm-up phase takes. So, I try and turn it on regularly, even if I'm on break, with a quick drawing or just fiddling with some wire or anything that keeps the engine turning over.
I'm looking forward to seeing what your year yields. Make sure you date your list! If you did it more than one year, I bet it would be interesting to start noting your annual productivity cycles.
Reply
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