1. Keep making music.
Well, yeah. I’ll keep recording stuff, releasing albums, and entering into compilations.
I might consider submitting music to netlabels, or otherwise doing some actual promotion-ish activity. No promises though. That’s not really what I’m about.
I have no specific theme in mind for the next album. (While albums may be old-fashioned or may simply fit my favored genre range best, I still prefer albums over singles and will keep doing that.)
I still have no plans to perform live. As a thought experiment I considered “patch from scratch” performance style with “tape” running the whole time — maybe I will give that a go sometime and see what it brings me. Maybe it’ll be the basis of an album. If I can do that, I might feel more comfortable with the idea of actually doing that live in front of people.
Attending KnobCon Eight is a possibility. I skipped Seven, because Six was overwhelming at the time and because I felt I didn’t really need the “gear show” aspect of it every time. We’ll see.
2. The gear plans.
I have a different idea of the music gear I plan to buy and sell than what I posted three weeks ago.
Early in the new year when orders open again, I’ll pick up an Orthogonal Devices ER-301 Sound Computer. This is a highly versatile programmable module — something like the Teletype except for audio signals rather than control, and programmed largely by arranging and connecting “units” rather than terse lines of code (though Lua and C will also be opened up to users). It can act as a six-track digital audio recorder while also doing sampling/delay/looper/granular duties, FM synthesis, more experimental things, a VCA matrix, and so on. Its capabilities aren’t totally limitless, but continue to grow as the firmware is developed further and its users contribute to its library. And it works closely with Teletype via a behind-the-panel connection.
I expect the ER-301 to replace some — potentially a lot — of my current modules, leading to a “Version 2.0” of my system that is markedly different, and perhaps smaller, than the current version. I don’t know for sure until I use the module in practice for a while, though.
I do still intend to get the 16n Faderbank or something like it, as it will open up the Teletype and the ER-301 (and anything else really) to more hands-on interaction.
Whatever else happens, I will start actually tracking money spent and received on gear trading — not with a specific budget, but just to stay mindful of it. I expect to fund new gear mainly from old gear. For instance, the ER-301 is already half paid for with gear sales; selling the minimum of two modules that will make way for it will offset the rest.
3. The health plans.
I don’t realistically expect to lose significant weight. But I do want to nudge my appetite into being quieter, and not give into dessert-related temptations on the kind of regular basis that it can so easily turn into.
I want lower blood sugar. At my recent eye exam, the fancy camera thingy found the signs of (I had to look it up) mild nonproliferative retinopathy — microaneurysms leaking tiny amounts of blood into the retina. It has no effect yet but is a warning sign, and is reversible with better blood sugar control. So there’s some motivation.
As for mental health, I already outlined the online stuff and I wrote a little about anxiety. Keeping clear of trouble there is my goal. I’d like a bit more equanimity about things in general, whether it’s the constant flow of idiotic political news, the bad habits of local commuters, or the cat parking his butthole directly on my forehead for the umpteenth time. I’m considering some sort of spiritual/mindfulness practice to help with that (and I just find aspects of Zen as well as Taoism intellectually and emotionally interesting). Or QiGong to loosen up both physically and mentally.
4. The house plans.
Out of necessity, we did a bunch of work to maintain and clean up the house this year, but overall we do tend to let things slide. I want to put some effort into keeping up with that on a semi-regular basis. I have a continuing list of areas of the house to reorganize and things that need to be repaired. Some of it we can’t or shouldn’t do ourselves, like replacing the deck with stairs leading from the back door down to ground level, but some of it is stuff that we can and should, like finally finishing the last, most awkward section of cutting out carpet and replacing with vinyl planks.
5. Other.
Keep remembering that nobody else really fits into this world either, even if they are better at pretending so than I am.
Keep it weird.
Keep a weather eye on the horizon.
Just keep swimming.
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