JANUARY 2, 2021 | Standing in the window of the loft, barefoot, wearing just a big hoodie, it’s raining outside, my tea’s cold.
Today’s lesson: Play your acoustic instruments first! They’re reliable. You can pick them up and go, start playing and drop into flow state. When I wake up in the morning, every morning, I start with a cup of tea and morning pages (my journal). Next, I play scales. Scales on piano, guitar, vocals…whatever. Doing the scales brings me into rhythm and tunes me up mentally. It’s not just finger dexterity and training my mental pitch, it’s also drawing in my focus, my concentration. It’s a form of moving meditation.
I keep my large piano at my studio and I keep my guitar at our loft. So no matter where I wake up (sometimes I sleep at the studio), I have an acoustic instrument to play. I’ve been craving piano scales in the morning so I could play along with Davey when he’s practicing his guitar but there is no way in hell I’m hauling my giant heavy Roland across town on the regular. So for Christmas, I asked Davey for a mini MIDI controller piano; aka an electric piano that weights almost nothing and is easy for me to set up in our studio loft so we can play together and I can feel free to play piano on the go. We researched real quickly, spent a few hours in Guitar Center and came home last night with the Launchkey49 MK3 MIDI Controller.
This morning, after writing in my journal I went straight for the laptop and electric MIDI keyboard. MISTAKE. Right away, we had technical difficulties and troubleshooting. This was the roadblock stopping me from my morning scales. I wanted to play piano scales but I realized that stress was building (I caught it so quickly because I’ve been through this before!) so I shut down the computer, walked away and picked up the guitar. Play the acoustic instrument first, it’s guaranteed to work. I locked myself in the bathroom and turned on the hot pink LED light so I felt the vibe. I was sitting on the edge of the bathtub beside the toilet but the whole room was glowing pink and the metronome was clicking by my side so it took a few minutes and then boom, I was in the peaceful focused little flow of guitar scales. Happy. Clearing my mind. Connecting with music.
After finishing my scales, I felt ready to tackle the new instrument and computer challenges. Challenges are a fun part of the music making process but it’s soul crushing if they’re the first thing I face in the morning. So my lesson today and for all artists is to connect first with the easy love. Sing, hum, dance to some music, do something that easy quick, easy, reliable, fun, awakens your energy, gets you inspired and excited to create and then…only then once your enthusiasm is here and you remember WHY you’re here and WHY it’s worth facing these challenges do you step up to the big scary MIDI controller. ;)
Also, we installed the Addictive Keys plugin into my Ableton so this MIDI controller will now be programmed to sound like one of the world’s most beautiful grand pianos! Also, Davey stepped in to help me (he’s my tech & troubleshooting hero) and he reorganized my entire plugins folder on my computer because apparently I had installed everything incorrectly…years ago when I was wondering wtf a VST was…still not entirely sure. A quick Google search tells me….
Virtual Studio Technology ( VST) is an audio plug-in software interface that integrates software synthesizer and effects in digital audio workstations. VST and similar technologies use digital signal processing to simulate traditional recording studio hardware in software.