For this week’s response on Ch. 5 + Interlude of Artful Design, I want to respond to a small remark made by Perry Cook on pg. 290 that caught my eye: “I don’t believe in top-down design; I tinker, I make, I try to craft a piece -- not an instrument (the latter naturally emerges out of necessity.” This small remark made me think about my approach to music production. I struggle a lot with perfectionism and trying to make things perfect the first time around, even as I go through my creative process. Music production was one of the first tasks that allowed me to start departing from that mentality, because I realized it was impossible for me to create a song if I started with the aim of trying to create a hit every single time. A lot of my music came from being prompted to experiment, tinker, make some horrible sounds (definitely not showing anyone the stuff I made back in middle school), and then music would start to emerge the more I stuck with it. The hardest part of every project is starting. It’s still so scary to dive into something without knowing the ins and outs and having solid footing, to have to feel my way through, knowing that my direction will likely change. Seeing Perry Cook’s little remark was extremely reassuring. :)

I also want to discuss the idea of an instrument that is easy to play, but offers lots of potential for expression (pg. 291). This low-floor-high-ceiling idea intrigues me, especially coming from a classical piano background where it takes a grueling amount of years and hours to even master the bare minimum technique needed to play it and start tapping into expressivity. I remember first playing with a MIDI in middle school, and I could produce sounds like a kick drum, marimba, violin, flute, bassoon, saxophone, with just a press of a key. I remember feeling almost guilty that I could bypass years of practice and mastery of others by just plugging something in and pressing a key, but I quickly realized how powerful it could be. I also realized that expressivity was much more difficult to reach using generic MIDI synth sounds. There’s definitely tradeoffs between actual instruments and MIDI, and it’s very interesting to see things like the Squeezevox (pg. 239) that seem to gracefully navigate the middle ground between this tradeoff, incorporating principles from both traditional instruments and modern digital tools.