it was the beginning of the second week of my self-imposed month-long meditation/reading/writing retreat (21.12.18 - 20.1.19)
it was one of the first times i managed to record a multi-part song live & all by myself
and i actually kinda liked it

i remember going to sleep with it playing from my phone 
it made me feel less lonely

an impossible question
is the one that drives you
you could never answer it
you couldn't even phrase it

and yet you can't let it go
knowing what you know
you can't get rid of it
you can't resist the appear of it

so you keep picking at it
but like pinching water
it gets you nowhere
or does it?

a few months earlier...

i played with meditating while i was playing guitar

it's been a while since i figured that if you can meditate sitting, and you can meditate walking
then you can also meditate biking or cooking or playing an instrument
it's really a matter of concentration and often action demands more concentration than inaction

not much to figure out really
i mean i probably heard it from somebody
just seemed pretty straightforward when i thought about it
i guess in some circles it would be considered inappropriate
or unseemly
or unbecoming
i would just say less traditional

in terms of how it actually did or did not affect me -
much harder to say
i don't know
i have my theories

**
here's the recipe for the song:
capo2 thumb picking 0220xx 0000xx 3200xx

i was pretty big on / deep into / heavily invested in buddhism back then
i was meditating for about 0.75-1.5 hours a day

i was following the guidance of a structured meditation system called TMI - The Mind Illuminated
I considered myself to be at stage 6 (out of 10)

when you get to 10 you're supposed to become enlightened
(i think, don't take my word for it)
or at least be super primed to get enlightened
because of all of the meditation that you're doing to control your mind
but also to learn to let go of control (by realizing that you never had any in the first place)
and to study it
to see how it works
how it *really* works
beyond what you think about it
or at least that's the promise
the story they tell you
(not out of malice, i don't think)

**
oh and i was also on vacation in a greek island this week, apparently

from my first encounter with meditation i'd been both enticed by it and weary of it
the buddhist philosophy made so much sense to me
it felt like for the first time in my life i heard someone addressing questions which have occupied my attention for many years
but which i've never had an adult conversation about

i saw it everywhere and heard it spoken and sung by everyone
it explained everything
the only thing that it didn't explain was -
why wasn't everybody else seeing it?
if it's so obvious, if it is truly true
why am i the only one i know meditating every day?
how is it that enlightenment is promised but never publicly delivered?
and assuming it is possible, what are the odds of achieving it?
why aren't there specific instructions?

well i guess it makes sense because just like you can't have specific instructions for writing a song or composing a melody
you can't give instructions on how to get enlightened
every person has to find their own way to their song

i'm not sure if that's a metaphor
i mean, if i mean that as a metaphor
or what does that mean
nevermind!
what i know is that i was highly motivated to succeed in realizing this goal
(and therefore highly incentivized to believe in the existence of such a thing as well as the possibility of getting it)
but at the same time i was very skeptical

how can something make so much sense while at the same time making so little?
is this for real?

this melody contains a lot of components that became central to my playing
both in terms of the finger picking method and the specific chord formations used

it reminds me of other recordings of a similar melody
i feel like there's a certain melody-sequence (song?) that i played a lot
i'm not sure when i started playing it, but i remember feeling like i had the best version of it the Sinai 2019 trip i took with my sister
so this is close to year before that, i think this evolved into that

capo2: 002200 003200 102200 103200

i never considered myself to be a good guitar player
i used to dream that i would be, but always felt embarrassed about my actual abilities

i knew some chords, and some scales
but couldn't really figure out how create a song out of them

when strumming chords i always sounded bad to myself
too much... not even sure what, just didn't like it

so the way i managed to feel like i was playing fluently and sounding good was by finger picking
i would find specific sets of notes (i.e. chords) that sound good together and play with them

anyway, i had a bunch of these little formations, which i thought of as locations on the guitar (like points in a territory)
and i was looking for ways to connect them

and eventually i found them
and they started connecting
and from individual melodies for a minute there i thought they were turning into a song

and so i tried to capture it
but since it is half-improvised
there is no specific recipe to follow

so i did get it
but only a version of it
and unfortunately the version just before this version for the recording was better, but what can you do...

this is another recurring melody that has been with me for at least a year and a half
i made a short video with another version of it in february 2018, during the protest

i'm surprised i didn't call this one "the only song i know" because it seems even more characteristic of my playing than the other one
i wonder which one came first, i guess they both had been with me for a while at this point

we came down to Sinai, my sister and I, because she was feeling depressed and anxious
and i suggested we take a trip to chill out and talk for a bit

she had a number of panic attacks during the trip
neither of us knew to call them that at the time

during the trip i transitioned back and forth between two modes
one of being very empathetic and sympathetic towards her, and the other of being very angry at her

i think the sympathetic, nice part gained her trust by showing her that i understand her situation
(to the extent which i did, which was less than i realized)
i think the angry, commanding part made it very clear what was what and where the boundaries where

although i had some second thoughts about certain moments in our interaction
i think both parts were crucial

i thought the trip would lift my sister's spirits
and it might have

but she continued to feel bad, often
this was recorded on another occasion in which she asked to be supported

i don't remember the precise circumstances
but i know which setup i was using - my little irig keys and the ipad with the animoog app (which i gotta admit - has some pretty cool synths)

since i don't really even know chords on the keyboard
all i can do is basically press the buttons and see if something interesting comes up
(interesting = something that i like = something that makes me feel something)

so here even though the sound is quite full, i'm pretty sure i'm only playing the notes: C B A
i might be wrong though

so so far we've had: guitar, midi synth on garage band, midi synth on animoog, electronic drum machine
i think that's it
this here is a dj set
which i dj'ed on my traktor s8
which i had bought a year earlier

i had been dj'ing for about 2 years at this point
since april 2016
before i got the s8, i was controller-less
i was using the app "virtual dj"
controlling it with the mouse (trackpad in my case)

in virtual dj you could create playlists
and he would play the songs in order and create fades between them
and you could custom edit the fade to control where one song would end and the next song would begin
and that was kinda easy, and fun
the hard part was choosing the songs
and pretending like i was having a good time

anyway, after about a year with the s8
getting to know it and what it is capable of
i really wanted to create something original
so i tried to mix some songs

my feelings towards what i created were (as usual) a mix of admiration and disgust
i loved parts of it
was really proud of some of it
felt like some of it was a "good draft" (nice idea, insufficient execution)
and was really embarrassed about a lot of parts that seemed to me to be "unacceptable"

listening to it now
i'm surprised
it's not so bad
some parts are really cool

it does have coherence, glue, flow
i feel like it's definitely coherent enough to be considered a thing
as in - a dj set, a new, created thing
not just an amalgamation of subcomponents (list of songs)
and it is not unlistenable (is it? maybe some parts of it are?)

i should probably credit the original songs
i guess that's proper etiquette
(assuming the artists would be willing to be associated with this mess lol)

i'm not sure about the legality of what i did
tbh the laws are really hard to follow
and they depend on the country where you and/or other objects are
and they change all the time
i mean playing the songs on my traktor - that's gotta be legal
or maybe depends on how i acquired the song files
yeah...
but assuming i got them all legally
then playing is probably fine
and recording what i play is surely fine
and uploading it as a podcast? not fine? cause it's public?
what if i put it as a shared file on my cloud drive? also no?
even if there's no profit being made?
no fan art allowed?
i mean i picked the songs that i really liked and connected with
by artists that i have a lot of appreciation for
i mean, we're talking 
the roots
we're talking
four tet
i'm not completely sure but i think we're talking
caribou
and probably some other artist that is too small for me to remember!
to you personally, if you recognized your music in my dj set and i didn't credit you - sorry!

is this still a podcast description?
ok i better get outta here

next day, attempt #2

new day, another attempt (#3)

about a month before the initial echoes saga