nckn.music.

What you see above is the trailer of a russian documentary, that I will contribute sound and music to. We are still in the beginning of our workflow, but it is a very nice team around russian director Sergey Kachkin and the romanian film-producer Andra Matresu.  I am really looking forward to compose music, that is inspired by the pictures and the mood of the film. Long russian streets. Cold russian winters.

A melancholic love poem in modern times of Russia – this documentary unfolds around a married couple at the age of fifty. He is a truck driver. She is his woman tending for love. Nobody knows when the situation will change until one of the family member dies…

What you see above is the trailer of a russian documentary, that I will contribute sound and music to. We are still in the beginning of our workflow, but it is a very nice team around russian director Sergey Kachkin and the romanian film-producer Andra Matresu.  I am really looking forward to compose music, ...

Imagine the words “What have I become?” out of Johnny Cash’s mouth. This is what’s left of my thoughts after one wonderful concert: Peter Broderick and Nils Frahm. Again, just as with Hauschka’s concert, it took me down to earth. Being there, sucking in the atmosphere it makes everything else so obsolete.

Music is about people. Music is between people. Real people. Music is about moments. Creating moments, sharing moments. Recordings are the attempt to capture the moment. Fail.

All the “the-internet-is-so-great-for-musicians”-evangelists have all one big, big misconception. The same way as good music comes from the countryside and is performed in the cities, good music comes from no-internet-land. (yes, well… and distributed over the web)

The internet, with all its “hello”s, “have you seen”s and “*ping!* you’ve got a new ***”s, eats up your mind. Or lets say your creativity. Or maybe just your intrinsic motivation expressing yourself through music. It’s not good to see, that there are tons of guys all making the same stuff. It’s not good to see your idea being around everywhere else. It is just not good being referenced all the time.

After a Broderick/Frahm concert I accuse myself. You are being a person, that spins his activity around the net. You were a person spinning your activity around music. What have you become?

Imagine the words "What have I become?" out of Johnny Cash's mouth. This is what's left of my thoughts after one wonderful concert: Peter Broderick and Nils Frahm. Again, just as with Hauschka's concert, it took me down to earth. Being there, sucking in the atmosphere it makes everything else so obsolete. Music is about ...

I’m a huge fan of Soundcloud. Always wanted to take some time to write down a kind of Manifesto ala “Reasons why I love Soundcloud” (as opposed to MySpace). Maybe that will follow some time in future. There are several things Soundcloud does really different, thus making it a superior music-service.

I also always wanted to somehow spread the good music I come across now and then. Often stuff by some guys, just like me, doing music for the sake of it. Living in other corners of the world, with no big fanbase or following. Still, they are doing great stuff. One idea was to start doing a podcast. Just collecting the nice tracks and putting them together into mixes. Again, maybe that will follow some time in future.

But until now (as I recollect my energy for Bachelor-thesis finals) – there will be a new series of posts, called “Found in the Cloud”. I will take one track I found on Soundcloud, embed and discuss it. Or maybe just stress one element or idea in it, which I think is remarkable.

Maybe – no promise here – I can contribute to a small moment of focused music-listening, which got somehow lost in today’s music-landscape. But that, again, is another topic to be discussed…

So watch out, there’ll be one post per week. Starting today…

I'm a huge fan of Soundcloud. Always wanted to take some time to write down a kind of Manifesto ala "Reasons why I love Soundcloud" (as opposed to MySpace). Maybe that will follow some time in future. There are several things Soundcloud does really different, thus making it a superior music-service. I also always ...

Since my last band split up two years ago, my solo-endeavours were nearly the only musical activity I followed. Looking back on the results of that last period, I must say, that there is not too much output. There is Mixed Sessions, which I now can’t really listen to anymore, since it’s so old and kind of nooby and dilettantish in some regards (excluding These Days)
And there is LifeB, which got signed to Om Records. And then? Some experiments here and there – that’s it.

But why? Why didn’t I manage to put my musical ideas (which I guess are still there and vital) into actual pieces you can listen to?

Last weekend it became clear, that it was form. In the days of playing in bands everything was quite fixed. The band setup consisted of drums, bass, two guitars and vocals. I was one guitarist with some songwriting-responsibilities. Time I spent for the band was either practicing guitar, writing songs or riffs and attending rehearsals. Note: 100% of that time is directly connected to music. 100% of my ideas were direct musical ideas.

Now switching to music done with the computer. Just adding this device into your music makes everything a lot more complicated. You have to question everything that was kind of pre-set in your band. What kind of music do you want to do? What is your sound? How do you perform this music? Adding to that, computer is technology. And technology needs to be adapted to your needs. So you have to learn about programs, underlying principles and interaction-patterns.  These topics are all barriers in your way of developing musical ideas.
And this is the reason I look back on not too much output. I did not find answers that satisfied me. So I looked further. More energy and time was consumed dealing with stuff surrounding music than focussing on actual music.

Hopefully this will change now. I finally found a setup that fits my needs. A first version of a setup, that is Ableton-centered but not screen-centric. Actually I can turn off the screen and put the laptop aside.
It makes use of  all of the MIDI-equipment I have now (M-Audio Keyboard, NanoKontrol, PadKontrol, Nocturn and FCB1010) and is all about looping both external input and sounds I collected. It uses multiple instances of Ableton Looper, a self-hacked Step-Sequencer for the PadKontrol and some instrument racks. One for key-sounds, the other for collected sounds.
I guess I will do some sort of video tutorial round-trip of the setup when time is right.

The most important thing, though: I finally found answers to all conceptual question and solutions to all technical problems. I now know, that I can spend my time again thinking about music, not about technology. And when I have enough pieces done, I can now easily perform them.

So stay tuned…

Since my last band split up two years ago, my solo-endeavours were nearly the only musical activity I followed. Looking back on the results of that last period, I must say, that there is not too much output. There is Mixed Sessions, which I now can't really listen to anymore, since it's so old ...

I’m happy to see my older work still appealing to people. Recently i was asked if my track “These Days” could be used for the graduation project of two german film-students: Christopher Holme and Frank Seleger.

They made a really good and professional Short Documentary on Kite-Surfing called “Synthese”. Paid a lot of attention on small little details, which I really appreciate in film. It is in German, but even just watching the footage and listening to the nice soundwork pays off. Enjoy!

Synthese – Vereinigung von mehreren Elementen… from Tranquillity on Vimeo.

(For the impatient ones: These Days starts at about 60/100)

I'm happy to see my older work still appealing to people. Recently i was asked if my track "These Days" could be used for the graduation project of two german film-students: Christopher Holme and Frank Seleger. They made a really good and professional Short Documentary on Kite-Surfing called "Synthese". Paid a lot of attention on small ...

Welcome reader, or so to say, welcome listener. This site is dedicated to the musical outcome, the musical passion and musical practice of Nicken.

Nicken: a 22 year-old media-student from western Germany. Mind fulltime dedicated to music. Body struggles to do so, but since there are still Bachelor-Thesis’ to be written, it’s a tough balance between doing what you should and doing what you feel about doing.

You will find 3 types of posts on this blog:

• Posts about music, that is absolutely worth listening. I’m not planning to do a full-featured music-listening blog; but i have the strong urge to feature and support artists that really had an impact on me.
• Posts about my music. If you want to be up to date about my artistic output – subscribe!
• Posts about music production: stuff i have learned so far. Best practices, music philosophy, Ableton Live… you get the idea.

Oh, and just a few words for better communication: I am not a full-time blogger. There will be a post, when there has to be one AKA all killer no filler. Subscribe and Enjoy.

Ps. You can find my personal blog over here (German, sorry)

Welcome reader, or so to say, welcome listener. This site is dedicated to the musical outcome, the musical passion and musical practice of Nicken. Nicken: a 22 year-old media-student from western Germany. Mind fulltime dedicated to music. Body struggles to do so, but since there are still Bachelor-Thesis' to be written, it's a tough balance ...