After this season of realizations, I was ready to start exploring, and so I did. I knew for some time that I wanted to explore using hardware for creative purposes and expand my network by collaborating with other artists. I felt like it could be a very valuable addition to my practice, but I never really gave myself the chance to do it. Now that I had the ball rolling within me, I decided to take action, be congruent with myself, and get occupied by contacting other artists, going to the studios at school, and taking creative risks by using different types of hardware such as Analog Rytm, Nord lead, Minitaur, modular synthesizers, recording live percussion, multiple combinations of guitar pedals and electric bass. This journey was very interesting because I felt like I was growing new limbs within my creative practice but at the same time I felt like I was beating myself up. I say this because as my exploration went on I had very valuable experiences that expanded my musical horizons, and also experiences that weren’t the most pleasant.
A “not so pleasant” experience was that I wanted to learn how to use new gear and one of them was the Analog Rytm by Elektron. I had never used a synthesizer or drum machine from this brand, but I knew that they can be very powerful so I decided to give this drum machine an opportunity, long story short, I spent 3 hours in the studio trying to figure out how to even get sound from the drum machine which eventually I could get a single out of it. A few days later I told this same story in class and luckily one of my classmates had owned one for several years, and luckily he offered to teach me how to use it. After he taught how to use it, I saw the potential of this drum machine and I also imagined how my music could benefit from it, however, at the time I was more interested in using synthesizers and instruments that could create melodies, chords, and basslines such as the Nord Lead and electric bass. When I would use the Nord Lead, I would find myself thinking and creating lots of melodies, and after I would play a bassline under the melody. This combo felt like an inspiration machine and I got to make lots of sketches with this combo. I also found out what types of pedals I like to use, and some combinations that would create sounds that I really liked.
I decided to collaborate with 2 artists (Jo Minje & Emelie Trahan) whom one of them is a friend of mine and the other is a singer/songwriter that has a close friendship with another friend of mine. I have been wanting to collaborate with these two artists but I never really took action until now. I love collaborating with other artists because I feel like I get so much value and inspiration from their creative input. When it comes to making music with other artists, I like to approach with an open mind and communicate that I’m open to any suggestions because I feel like in that way we can easily establish a relationship that is based on trust so that we can work peacefully and whenever there are some issues we can openly talk about them and figure out a way to solve them together. We had some issues throughout the development of the collaborations because we each had to work on other projects as well. The collaboration with Emelie had a lot of pauses because she was very busy because she had her final exams from school and she was also applying to university. I had to be patient with her and give her the time she needed, for that reason we couldn’t finish our collaboration in time. However, we are still working on it, and or song will be part of an album I am making.
On the other hand, the collaboration with Jo Minje went very well. The reason why I wanted to collaborate with him was that he is a very skilled piano player and I wanted to make a song with the main focus being the piano. Right from the start, I told him what ideas I had and he was very clear that he didn’t want to be part of the production of the track, but at the same time he was very clear and he told me this analogy “Imagine that I’m the tool and your are engineer”. At first, it confused but then we cleared things out and I took care of the production side of the track and he created all the chords and melodies in the song. We also had few minor issues but we were both patient and polite so it never became a bigger problem, we both really enjoyed working together.
I have learned to be more polite, truthful, flexible, patient, understandable, a better communicator, and a better collaborator. I know that there are still things I need to work on, but I am very keen to improve and become a better collaborator for my own benefit and theirs as well. In the end, this exploration phase was a complete success because I gained very valuable experiences that taught important lessons which I know will improve the way I develop myself and my practice.