The value of constraints and irreversible decisions.

I would love to launch a thread starting from this example that comes from music production,
and I would love to hear analogue stories from other steemians.

Music production has gone so far in the last 20 years as to allow anyone,
even "music illiterates", to produce music with the same chances of success of emerging bands.
The process of recording, sampling and programming has become everyday-friendly,
the interfaces resembles the gaming interfaces.
Indeed, music has become a game anyone could play.

This is due in my opinion to the lack of contraints (by using loops and VST you can recreate real-sounding full strings) and the possibility to reverse mistakes and wrong decisions dictated by lack of skills.

All good so far, I'm not wining the incremented "noise" and competition in the music environment.
Still, personally, this hype has driven me in the opposite direction.

I felt the need to go back to the constraints that allowed so much great music to come out in the second half of the last century. So I decided to start by putting my hands on the apparently easiest piece of equipment available for analog production: a four-track cassette recorder.

Knowing and being used to the augmented possibilities embedded in modern production softwares like PT, Logic and Ableton, the first attempt using this little machine felt like being buried alive. Limitations dictated my creative choices, discomfort was all over.

Only when I realised how to turn those limitations into actual guidelines I started feeling the creative grip again.

1. First of all, working screen-free made music making "magic" again.
   Having to wait for the tape to revolve, being sure to deliver the best performance (the tape gives you limited re-use/re-dub shots, too many overdubs will result in lack of sound definition, tape-consummation)

2. Real time mixing and direct bouncing meant taking a unique creative direction out of the many possibilities I had previously considered. If you go Pasta, you won't go hamburger or Nachos. Easy as that.
   Because of that, music for me is losing importance overall... and acquiring relevance in the moment.

3. The social environment, the experience and the narrative behind a specific recording regained relevance in face of the "sit down and fuck around with loops" attitude I was into. I started to travel more, I started to look for other musicians to interact with on the songwriting basis. In summer 2016 for example, I took a musical residency in the Slovakian town of Zilina and, together with the local singer songwriter Marek K from the band "Ditch the Fridge", we wrote and recorded a full-length album by writing down some of the town's daily talks and buzz. All done with a 4-tracks recorded, used to the very maximum.
   

Taking irreversible decisions is a life-guiding path. It is about accepting the inner limitations that comes with reality (physicality for example- you can't experience place A and B at the same time, in the same way), and learning that there is only one main direction that heads above, and will resolve in a contribution to the realm of creation.