26 Finding Your Voice is Overrated

I've been diving into a new artistic medium

I’ve started over. I’m back at the beginning of exploring a new medium of creation, and it’s been an interesting experience to observe myself starting to explore something new again.

For the past few months, all the of the music in my Youtube videos has been original.

I started making my own music out of frustration, because I could just never find the right song for the vibe I wanted. Not only that, but when I’d find the right song, I’d hear it everywhere on a bunch of other YouTube Channels due to most creators going to the same services for their music.

My goal is that if you watch a Double Negative video, you’ll know top to bottom that it’s a Double Negative video. I’m trying to just make it into its own weird thing.

But I suck at making music largely. I have next to no idea what I’ve been doing.

I’m technically limited, so maybe I can hear the song I’m trying to make in my head, but it just never comes out that way. The other day, I watched Akira Kurosawa’s High and Low, and I loved how the movie mostly has very little music except when things get intense. I wanted to create a similar sound utilizing the tools I’ve downloaded on my iPad, and it just doesn’t come out to nearly what I’m aiming for because I’m a beginner.

It doesn’t sound dramatic or intense, it sounds happy, like I’ve found a gold doubloon or something.

I’m forced to work around my limits, so the sounds that come out are coming from my limited ability or knowledge.

It made me realize how I experienced the same exact process when I was learning photography. I’d see an image in my brain, but when I tried to make it, something different would happen. Sometimes the result was just bad and unusable, but sometimes, it would make a lightbulb go off and lead down a path of new ideas and thinking.

My work in multiple exposure photography is an outgrowth of trying to work around my limits, and it’s lead me down a long winding road over time. I didn’t choose this life, it chose me. I didn’t think, “Oh yeah, double exposures would be a good path to cool work and success.” It just kind of happened. In fact, I tried to unlearn my “voice” for a few years, and it was clear that trying to outrun myself was kind of impossible.

Basically, through trying to learn how to make music, I realized, whatever it is I’m gonna make, I’m gonna make. I only have so much control over the results. There’s so much time and effort and worry around the subject of “finding one’s voice”, when really, you’ve already found it. You’re born with it. Whatever is thrown into the blender of you is going to come out in the process of being a beginner, and that struggle of trying to make what’s in your mind is going to lead you down the road of whatever your style is. It’s gonna just happen, whether you like it or not.

Good news: You don’t have to spend a lot of time trying to find your own person unique-ness. Bad news: You’re gonna have to struggle and wrestle whatever it is in your mind you’re trying to get out there. Especially, when you’re starting something new.

Why Would Meta Post This??

This week’s video is a sermon from me about a ridiculous threads post from the Meta account. I don’t usually get worked up about AI, but this shocked me.