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…

Nevertheless, it was of course (again) a bit naive to think, that after these 3 weeks there will be an EP to be released. Here I can let my activity circle full-time around music and sound, but I had to reconfigure myself first. Get myself on track again, after my head was dug into some other stuff for university (programming Flex/Actionscript for example).

Still, i get something done. Have ideas to follow, loose ends to connect and instruments to play. The feeling turned out to be right, that my basic musical nature is about playing “real instruments” with direct control over all aspects of musical expression. I’m falling in love with the piano more and more. It has such a beautiful and warm sound. Just hearing the sustain of a nice chord reminds me of home.

So beside my Ableton-activities I also wrote a little piano piece, which is not yet completely finished. I recorded it, all the tiny little hick-ups included. But in the end they really don’t matter, as the message lies somewhere else…

Small Piano Piece from Nicken on Vimeo.

I assure you that all of my activities will definitely lead to an upcoming EP, but there is still a longer way to go for me. 3 weeks not enough (who would have thought). So stay tuned…