Social Media

“She’s Not That Good” – Producing Video, Mixing Audio in Logic Pro (#Music #Production #Audio #Excerpt)

March 31, 2023

I just had to do another video for “She’s Not That Good” on YouTube. Maybe because I was scrolling through my videos and saw this one of the Mariachi Band playing Jazz in the Piazza on the Crown Princess sailing the Mexican Riviera.

But this time I used the video editor in Logic Pro, meaning, I pasted the video I already had into Logic Pro on 1 track, which separated the video and sound into 2 tracks, and then ecorded my audio recording of a book excerpt on another. This way, I could match the video with the sound. It was so much fun!

 

And now here’s the result:

About “She’s Not That Good”

Meet Brandi Redwine from my latest release “She’s Not That Good”

Failing to launch an adult career, haunted by thoughts of never being good enough, Brandi Redwine searches for something she is good at. After chasing music and the exboyfriend in Nashville, she returns to San Francisco feeling like a loser.

Her best friend steps in and recommends her for an opportunity to compete for a job onboard a cruise ship. Her high school sweetheart is also on board, and his girlfriend is competing for the same job.

Will her entire future rest on a final performance, or will she finally realize she is good enough when she pursues what’s really in her heart?

Available now on Kindle

Chapter 1 Audio Excerpt
Chapter 4 Audio Excerpt
Chapter 7 Audio Excerpt

FAWM23, Song #1: A Lover’s Lover

February 1, 2023

Okay, so it’s day 1 of FAWM 23, and I’ve uploaded song #1, A Lover’s Lover.

What else am I doing on day 1 of FAWM 23? Continuing my read of Digital Minimalism. I do like minimalism, don’t I? I’m almost finished reading Essentialism. Similar ideas.

Both validate my whole POV anyway. But it’s always good to be reminded and to realize you’re not alone in thinking these things and in practicing them, too.

What to do about social media is always a struggle, but it’s good to know the best way to deal with technology is to choose the parts you find essential and to toss the rest.

Take FAWM, for example. It is a bit social media-like and can trigger the dopamine rush checking to see how many comments you get and what people are saying about your music, but it’s also the motivation I need to get some music done. So, overall, I find it worth keeping.

Now, on to some more reading and writing and listening. That’s how FAWM works. You listen to others and they listen to you and you often discover some real gems – both people and music – along the way.

Emotionally Sober (#FAWM Countdown)

January 31, 2023

As I count down the days until FAWM (just 1 more day) I’m catching up on my reading. Julia Cameron’s latest book, Write for Life: Creative Tools for Every Writer (a 6-week Artist’s Way Program), hits me with this thought: Emotionally Sober.

Struck sober at age twenty-nine, I was at the mercy of my moods. Without alcohol to buffer them, my moods were savage. I needed a new way to write and to live. I needed to be emotionally sober. – Julia Cameron, Write for Life.

She stays sober by writing her morning pages daily and by writing 2 pages of whatever writing project she is working on.

Another thing that inspired me was reading Becca Syme’s words of wisdom in yesterday’s email, about February Social Media Challenge (no social media for the first 30 minutes of your day):

If I could put my finger on the one piece of advice I give the most often recently, for any number of different problems, it would by far be: just stop with the social media. – Becca Syme

This answer might solve:

  • Empathy problems (where the Empathy Strength is overloaded by too many people having access to your emotions)
  • Input problems (where you’re using low-quality social media input to fill the well, but it’s only making a penny instead of a dollar because it’s also taking things from you)
  • Intellection problems (where you’re “really quick”ing yourself into social media when you’re stuck, only to realize it’s not making you unstuck
  • Strategic problems (where you’re avoiding the pain of being stuck by soothing on social media)
  • Learner problems (where this one time, you learned something on social media, and now your Learner is getting co-opted by your dopamine receptors into doing social media “really quick”)
  • Relationship-Building problems (where you’re isolated and lonely, and you’re hoping social media will fill your bucket, but again, it’s pennies instead of dollars)
  • Influencing problems (where you’re not getting the impact you want, and you’re hoping social media will give you some impact hits, but again, pennies, not dollars)

Yes, we all know this, right, but sometimes, we need to hear it from somebody outside of ourselves, sometimes we need to be reminded of what we already know, and sometimes we learn something new about something we thought we knew.

How To Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy (#BookReviews)

May 14, 2021

“Read Like an Artist,” this week’s topic for Austin Kleon‘s weekly newsletter, mentions his new book club. And the first book in this book club is How To Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy. That grabbed my attention immediately.

I started reading the sample and then proceeded to deactivate Twitter one more time. Yes, I’d reactivated about a week or so ago. Big mistake! Now I start the 30-day countdown all over again. Here’s hoping I make it this time.

The thing with Twitter is it can be fun, but too often it disappoints. People ignore you or don’t reciprocate when you outwardly support them. Those are the good days. And then you realize Twitter exists just to create chaos and war. After the last 14 months, I don’t need another war right now. So this book came at just the right time.

And now I’m going to do absolutely nothing, except purchase this book and enjoy the day reading.

Have a great weekend!

#DeleteTwitter Countdown: April 30, 2021

April 30, 2021

Two days ago I deleted my Twitter account again. As a member since 2007, it’s been hard for me to pull the final plug and allow it to expire in 30 days, which is how you delete Twitter. Actually, you deactivate and 30 days later, if you don’t log in, your account is deleted. I’ve never made it that far.

I logged in the day after, reactivating my account, thinking nobody would read this blog if I didn’t post it to Twitter. And then I deactivated it again after reading the first chapter of Stillness is the Key (another book recommendation from Roni Loren).

It’s not that his thoughts are all completely new to me or that I need Buddha to be told these things. No, not at all. But, in addition to presenting new thoughts, it also validates and is a reminder of what I already know. That’s often true for me and probably for you, too. You just have to allow yourself time to think and tune out all the noise out there.

I like the idea that by June 1st, to round things off, I could be Twitter-free.

“Never Met a Machine I Didn’t Like”

April 28, 2021

Will Rogers may have said, “I never met a man I didn’t like,” but my mother once said, “I never met a machine I didn’t like.”

Reading some of the “End of Absence” book I mentioned in my previous post, I realized a couple of things:

  1. The problem today isn’t the internet, it’s social media
  2. How you perceive problems today is who you are

In illustrating the “problem” today, the author tells the story of babies used to pinching an iPad to gain a bigger view and doing the same thing to a newspaper or magazine, as if that’s a problem.

The truth is, I do the same thing when I’m using a laptop. So used to mobile devices, I automatically expect the same thing on a laptop. Besides, when the baby gets older, he’ll know the difference between a paperback and an iPad. And no doubt they will still be around. After all, vinyl records have made a comeback when people thought they were gone for good.

I believe in human nature, and if all this technology creates a problem in the future, they’ll figure it out.

As for kids texting each other when they’re sitting next to each other, perceiving it as a need for companionship without the hassles of real-life people, I have to say that maybe that is a valid solution in today’s crowded, super busy world. If you know history or have watched movies set in the past or have read historical fiction, you’re aware of the “mountain” men who struggled when this country began to be populated. They increasingly sought out the wilderness, going to Alaska, etc.

So maybe texting each other, even in the same room is okay if you’re not neglecting other people in the room. Introverts react to today differently than extroverts.

Artists (writers, musicians, painters, etc) may react differently, too.

I’m definitely an introvert and have been using computers since 1976, unlike most people of my generation who reluctantly started using computers only when “forced” to.

I’m probably more comfortable behind a computer than sitting in a group of people I’m expected to interact with. But no worries there, I remember my mother, a business machines major back in the 1950s, once said, “I never met a machine I didn’t like.” We teased her about that and she laughed, a bit embarrassed. But oh so telling.

People are different and we all react to today’s technology differently. I, personally think the problem is social media, not technology. I’m absolutely thrilled how technology has given me the opportunity to create electronic dance music. I may be older and do not have kids so I don’t always know what’s going on with them, but my music is one way I connect with younger people. And I love that.

If Politics is the New Religion, Then Twitter is Church

April 27, 2021

I read somewhere that “politics is the new religion” and a light went off. So that’s why we all seem so divided and verbal about it today. This is a recent thing. Even if my childhood was long ago when people agreed not to discuss “politics or religion,” until recently, people really didn’t.

I’ve been trying to delete Twitter for some time (been off Facebook and Instagram for years – yay me!), but I keep going back for more of the Twitter Kool-aid. I keep believing the lie that somehow I need it. “Just this one,” I tell myself. I need one social media. YouTube doesn’t count, right?

But people on Twitter are annoying, to say the least, that it’s affecting how I feel about people. It’s giving me a somewhat skewed idea of who people are. This is not real life. There are plenty of lovely people out there. But social media (and reality TV shows) puts the idiots in my face. And they’ve never seemed more idiotic than during this pandemic.

Just yesterday somebody tweeted something like, “Have you ever known just looking at a person that they must be Republican?”

I’m neither Democrat nor Republican so I wasn’t offended by the statement. But that view, in my opinion, is taking politics way too far.

I deleted (deactivated) my Twitter account again today. I don’t want to be a member of a cult.

The other social media trouble spot I have is with Youtube and YouTubers. For me, that usually means the Disney vloggers and cruise vloggers where, after a while, I must question their value. I receive value from musicians showing me how to use Ableton Live or LogicPro.

But the reason I say I don’t receive much value from Disney and cruise vloggers, is that their experience is not your experience. Besides, at closer inspection, you realize their content reveals them to be either too stupid, too dishonest, or too lazy to educate themselves on their topic (not all, but way too many).

They’ve so fooled people that people send them gifts and money as if that will give them some kind of similar experience. My experience is always different from theirs. But sometimes I’m tempted to peek in when I can’t have that experience. What I’ve discovered is that by watching their experience, my experience is less than.

Full disclosure: I have a YouTube channel where I upload videos from my travels, or book trailers for my novels, and include some of my music. And I don’t mind others who do that. But not the ones who are aggressively marketing their channel, who will use click-bait headlines, the ones who make it their daily job to come up with just about anything to get views, often giving dishonest reviews, those who hold live chats where people send them “super chats” and they may or may not interact with you if you don’t (mostly not).

I confess, I watch them way too often. It’s been unbelievably tough during this pandemic, my head is still swimming, and I think a lot of us have leaned on YouTubers to get us through this. I know my channel got a lot of subscribers during this time, and are probably now busy unsubscribing – lol! I know I am.

I’m much better off if I spend my time in my studio, writing songs, producing tracks, writing stories, and reading. My latest find that I can’t wait to get to? The End of Absence: Reclaiming What We’ve Lost in a World of Constant Connection
(found on Author Roni Loren’s blog when she was trying to focus her life away from the internet and to encourage her son to spend quality time unplugged.

This is just one book on her list. I’ve read a few of these and find them fascinating how the internet and social media is changing our brains. Now that’s scary. But I’m hoping it’s just more inspiration to get me away from all of it, including YouTube.

Managing social media and other distractions is even more important for writers and other artists. After all, “Solitude courts the muse.”