GarageBand

've been starting to get really into music again, after a lengthy period of ignoring my musical instruments. My boss bought a Mac this month, and ordered a guitar-to-Mac input cable to go with it, but they sent him two. I offered to buy the extra, but he just gave it to me. Now that I can get my guitar and bass to input, I've been overflowing with inspiration and musical creativity. None of the tracks really make sense yet - they're basically just two unrelated instruments, fluttering about, overlaid on top of one another, with a drum loop thrown in to make it seem more complete. I do have a master plan, though. At least, I think so. Every night I think I'm concocting something beautiful, but the next day when I listen to what I've laid down, it's just garbage.

We watched a documentary on the evolution of electronica last night, called Modulations: Cinema of the Ear. It was fairly interesting, and gave me a little more insight into the idea of using everyday sounds as instruments. That's led to an overflow of muted notes on the guitar, overwhelmed with effects and textures so they sound more like a rhythmic device and less like a stringed instrument. Autumn and I discovered Kraftwerk earlier this month, and have been madly in love with that ever since. As a direct influence, I'm starting to experiment with getting those kinds of sounds out of the guitar and bass, anything to get away from the standard verse-chorus-verse chord structures at this point. The problem is that I'm still not sure what kind of a voice I want to have, musically. I'll want to write a serious track, but then I'll sit down and the only thing that comes out is goofy, comedic noises. And vice versa. I read the epic Wikipedia entry on Frank Zappa last week, who's a guy that seems to cover every emotion in the book without fail, and while it was supremely interesting, I really didn't even begin to understand how he managed to do it.

When I played with bands in the past, my contributions were never all that thought-out. Either I'd pick up on something another person was doing and add my own twist, I'd be daydreaming and something original would vent through my fingertips, or I'd just follow the leader as he progressed through the tones. It would seem that my lifelong interest in going the J Mascis route and playing every single instrument on a full album will require a little more foresight and planning than that.

When I have something presentable, maybe I'll post a link. Probably not. At this point, it's years away from anything I'd consider playing in public.