title: ADD and music stuff
status: incomplete

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<h3>Some Notes on Managing ADD</h3>

<p>This <cite>ADD-Friendly Ways to Organize Your Life</cite> book recommends a few things
that I independently figured out through the years,
though I sometimes forget them.
The helpful thing for me has alwayus been:</p>

<p class="important-point">If you really want to do a certain task, <strong>go do it</strong>!</p>

<p>But with the caveat:</p>

<p class="important-point">Whatever task you take on, only take on a small, somewhat well-defined, finishable chunk at a time.</p>

<p>The smaller and more well-defined,
the more likely you can finish before getting distracted by something else.</p>

<p>So if I were to be like
"oh my gosh, I really want to build a 12&Prime;&times;3&Prime; wooden panel and stain it RIGHT NOW",
I should take care that whatever piece of that project I take on can be done right away.
"Cut a board to 12&Prime;&times;3&Prime;" is a good, small chunk.
"Cut the panel, drill the holes, apply a nice finish" might not be,
since I'll probably start daydreaming about what finish to put on it,
or halfway through the task decide I need to build a dipping tray.
Also, and this might be a more minor point, but:</p>

<p class="important-point">Don't skip ahead to do later steps of a project for which you haven't already done the earlier steps.</p>

<p>In the case of the dipping tray example, I might not even have a piece of wood to stain, yet.
Maybe I decide that the dipping tray is more interesting to work on, so I do that first anyway,
but only if this doesn't hold up some already-started project.</p>

<aside>
<p>After writing that last sentence I got sucked into
a <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24951351">Hacker News discussion</a>
about Typhoon-class submarines,
which led me to
<a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/WarCollege/comments/9abbo3/what_were_some_of_the_different_design/">this
Reddit post</a>, which is probably <em>super interesting</em>,
but I should really finish this journal entry
if I'm going to follow my "finish a single task" advice and all that.</p>
</aside>

<p>So anyway, the current Thing I Was Driven To Do was write up some notes about</p>

<h3>What Kind of Music Do I Want to Make?</h3>

<p>Was doing some music stuff before taking Tina for a walk, which is great;
I don't do music stuff enough.
I think It's <em>the thing I want to do</em>.
And so while I was out on this walk I had this series of thoughts:</p>

<ul>
<li>I've made several nearly-finished psytrancey-tracks lately; maybe I should make a big mix of all of them.</li>
<li>I like it when mixes have a consistent BPM, so I'll make variants of the tracks at a specific BPM.</li>
<li>What BPM should I use?</li>
<li>I'll ask Google "what is the best BPM for progressive house music?"</li>
</ul>

<p>Google said 125-130.
Techno/trance being 120-140.
Regular house being 115-130 (which is why I used to label some of my tracks as 'house'),
dubstep 140 (but usually half-time), etc.</p>

<aside>
<p>Deadmau5 tracks are commonly but not always 128.
<a href="https://youtu.be/lPVBrRd9wCo">N'to - Trauma (Worakls Remix)</a> is exactly 128BPM&mdash;I can play along to it at that speed.</p>
</aside>

<p>And <em>that</em> got me thinking: if I were to persue a specific type of music to make,
what would it be?</p>

<p>The current road I'm going down is psytrance but with 'progressive house'/'progressive techno'/'progrechno'
(whatever you'd characterize Deadmau5's recent work as, because that's what I want to make) elements.
Because:</p>

<ul>
<li>I really like the melodies and chords in Deadmau5 tracks.
  This is the thing about them that makes me feel like it's similar to my own work
  and what I'd like to work towards.</li>
<li>I don't want to just try to be Deadmau5.
  Deadmau5 will always be better at being Deadmau5.
  And maybe if I consciously pick a particular style to focus on,
  I can get really good at blending <em>that</em> style into whatever I do naturally,
  which is Deadmau5esque (and "has Underworld and NIN influences").</li>
<li>I like psytrance because it feels like it's trying to be a building-blocks system,
  like Lego or gridbeam.
  Tracks follow familiar patterns, like dropping the bass drum out for a bit at the end of phrase,
  and then something changes.
  Bass usually stays at a single note, so it's easy to layer stuff and mix tracks together.</li>
<li>Alternatively, muddy shoegazey EDM might be the way to go.
  Since many of my earlier attempts to achieve a 'puts-you-into-a-trance' sound,
  e.g. <a href="song:TOGoS-Mulker_39.2">Mulker 39</a>, took that approach.</li>
</ul>

<aside><p>Oh f*** Mulker 39 is cool.  I should make a punchy remix of it.</p></aside>


<h3>Assorted Thoughts</h3>

<p>Cats are terrible for ADHD.
You try to go do something and they <em>sprint</em>
into whatever space you're in and demand food and/or attention,
and then you have to either distract them or lock them out,
and sometimes that doesn't work.</p>

<p>Should I just buy the latest Reason so I can import my old tracks again lol?</p>

<p>I've been trying to create my own 'psytrancey' sounds using the operator
but having a hard time.
Dash Glitch's tutorials all assume I have some other fancy software.
I know it's possible to do these things in Live with envelopes
and whatnot, but it's not quite as streamlined.</p>

<p>There's probably Psytrance sound packs for Ableton.
Maybe I should just buy one.</p>

<p>Should I buy phase plant / snap heap?  Do they work with Ableton Live?
I got so used to not being able to use that stuff in Reason
that I never really bothered to look into them with Live!
I have Max for Live but have tended to avoid using any instruments that use it just because it takes a long time to load.</p>

<p>Speaking of paying money, I could upgrade to Live 10 for 250$
and finally get my wavetable synth back.
I didn't make enough use of it back in the Reason days!</p>

<p>Speaking of things I didn't make enough use of,
Live 9 has a tone of presets and even several devices that I've never touched;
I should make a point to learn what "looper" does.
And use the 'Spacious Choir'.
And find out what chain select zones are about.</p>

<p class="todo">TODO: Link to latest track, which is maybe ambiencedevice2001something.</p>