Feeling Extraordinarly Good

It's almost a week since my last entry. Almost two or three weeks since an entry of any substance. It's a good thing though. I've actually been busy doing stuff! I'm on a record run of drawing cartoons. Some of my cartoons actually look like identifiable things. At this point, I'm copying the work of other cartoonists, but I am feeling more confident that I will develop my own style if I keep at it. Learning to cartoon has been a lot of fun. It's also reconnected me to myself in many ways. I've always loved animation, comics, comic strips and graphic design. I devour graphic novels when I can get my hands on them. I've always stayed away from drawing though. My perfectionism (once again) got in the way. I was also a victim of over-focus. I used to feel that I had to focus on one thing or interest and shut out all other distractions. If I played an instrument, that was it. No writing, no drawing, sculpting, whatever. If I were to write, that was it. I think this outlook was fueled by perfectionism (if I work ONLY on this it will be perfect). I am now recovering from this very limiting philosophy.
It has been unbelievably hard to recover from, but I am making progress. All last week I drew AND practiced on bass. This is huge for me. It's also given me a much better outlook on life. About two weeks ago, I was in pure misery. Hated my job, life, etc. I was also bored out of my mind. Then the cartooning kind of wound up. I started taking a sketchpad to work and doing some practice during my lunch break. At the same time, I've been keeping up music.
I think the one of the important things I've realized in this last week is that I can do these things just because I love them. I love music and everything about it. Same with cartooning. I don't have to be perfect at them. Hell, I don't even have to be good (although I have noticed some improvement).
So, I have been enjoying the week. I especially enjoyed yesterday...a good day off from work. I went and picked up some art supplies. I did some cartooning. I practiced the bass. I read, took naps. An epically great day. The kind of day you are just happy to be doing what you are doing. I'm hoping to continue my recovery from perfectionism...and thus have more days like that. Here's hoping!

A Boring Entry

I haven't had much to blog about as far as making music lately. I've actually taken some time away from trying to get the studio to work to just play. More specifically, I've been working on my bass playing. I actually went and jammed with a friend over the weekend. For me, this is a big step. We worked out some simple blues stuff. I'm going to practice that and go back over some bass fundamentals. I still want to get my studio running and do some composing and songwriting. I'm just lowering the priority on it a little for now.
This blog isn't meant to just be about music though. I think I'm going to start introducing some of my other interests over the next couple weeks. Need to start expanding my blog world a bit so I don't run short of material.

Lemons and Lemonade

Well, I'm having more problems using the MIDI controller with Cakewalk. The plan I'm kicking around now is to use the MIDI controller with the laptop -just a as keyboard. In other words, use my soft-synths in standalone mode, not as a Cakewalk plugin. If I need to record it, I can always use my old analog 4 track and dump the track to computer later. I'm going to leave Cakewalk on my uber computer and use it as a multitrack recorder. I have an analog 4 track but Cakewalk is unlimited. That way I don't have to mess with the goofy MIDI problems I'm having with equipment right now. Sometimes you just have to go with what you know. Sometimes something that seems like a really good idea isn't...but you have to go on. So, I'm disappointed that things didn't work out as I planned, but I'm not letting that derail me totally like I used to. It might even turn out as good thing. Who knows, maybe this will influence a part of my style (when I get one) in some way.