Audiobus: Use your music apps together.
What is Audiobus? — Audiobus is an award-winning music app for iPhone and iPad which lets you use your other music apps together. Chain effects on your favourite synth, run the output of apps or Audio Units into an app like GarageBand or Loopy, or select a different audio interface output for each app. Route MIDI between apps — drive a synth from a MIDI sequencer, or add an arpeggiator to your MIDI keyboard — or sync with your external MIDI gear. And control your entire setup from a MIDI controller.
Download on the App StoreAudiobus is the app that makes the rest of your setup better.
Comments
Everything, also music and architecture has equal value. There is nothing more or nothing less unfiltered by God than anything else is. Is one snowflake compared to any other snowflake more inspired by God or less? Whether one takes the size, the shape, the beauty of the snowflake as criteria, the assessment remains a human-made labeling. This is the same with the evaluation of human work: Whether in music, architecture or art, seen from the spiritual perspective, seen from the Absolute, everything has always the same value, only human assessment renders it to something diverging.... Matthias Poehm
Totally.
I love Phrygian, one of my most favourite scales after twelve tone.
Truth is over rated.
Now a good sandwich or a chili con carne, that’s something to get excited about.
Make your music and have fun. Truth will take care of itself...
I definitely don't think anyone is absolved of anything, if anything everything is everyone's fault because we are all connected, but we all have the power of choice, ghastly criminals might be doing the best they can but if so they've chosen to do the best they can at being ghastly. In the end we are all just pawns in the earths latest attempt at suicide, at least it feels like that sometimes as We are the only species that inherently wishes for a zombie apocalypse. Until then, defend thyself.
haha
pride kills, the farther you can get away from it the more uninhibitedly creative you can be...maybe.
I think if you create an aesthetic that you truly enjoy which can only be obtained from yourself then you have achieved a sort of personal truth in art.
Terrence McKenna said “The good. What is it? Tricky, tricky, tricky. The true. What is it? Trickier, even trickier. The beautiful. What is it? Easy to discern. The beautiful is easy to discern. You are going to be condemned to live out the consequences of your taste.”
This thread is making me think that some of the posters here might enjoy learning about Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP).
It's a complex subject, and there is a lot of info available about it by searching on google or youtube. I think many here might find it very fascinating to learn about.
Serendipity, Syncronciity. Inspiration. Enthusiasm. Tools of creation.
Good (harmless) NLP trick for all to try.
Person responding must say first thing come into head after each question, or no work. Shows mind tricking itself.
Q1 - What fall from freezing sky in Winter?
Q2 - What colour bride dress?
Q3 - What do cows drink?
Most people say =
A1 - Snow.
A2 - White.
A3 - Milk.
Second later, will realise how mind has been tricked to say white thing most related to cow, when all know cow really drink water!
I have really enjoyed reading all of your comments. It is kind of humbling to learn about the different roads people have taken, the struggles they’ve had and the approach they take to making music. It helps me to put my own search into perspective.
Thank you for your advice, and your inspiration. This morning I woke up with a stronger connection to my feelings, having been stuck in my left brain and studying books for the last weeks. I’m 41 and have only fairly recently started to emotionally cope with my emotionally absent father (he passed three years ago). I won’t go all mushy mushy now, just saying that I’ve underestimated my feelings in this regard up till now and I have some serious catching up to do, especially in regards to my own sons.
I’m going to take all of your wise words to heart and start to enjoy making and listening to music a fun and playful experience again. I’ll try to approach it in a more free form manner, not discarding my concepts and philosophical inclination, but starting a journey of experience, free of expectations and norms and see where the road takes me.
The availability of too many musical toys was mentioned as a hurdle somewhere in these posts. A few months ago I bought a Tascam Hardware recorder to free myself form my ipad with its many apps and distrsctions. I know that a true can use any tool available, but I haven’t reached that level yet... For now I”ll leave you with a picture of my messy music mancave. Thanks again for caring and I’m looking forward to seeing how this thread develops.
Maarten
Music has always been a part of my life. I had a rough childhood and it was my escape and a way to commune with the “other side” so to speak. My studies in the occult and music go very much hand in hand(Tolkien is a huge influence as well). The music acts as the vehicle to explore altered states. I like to meditate, state my will, etc before exploring with music. It speaks in such an abstract language that it tears down the filters, it does what I used to seek for in psychedelics. With my philosophical outlook, the idea of bliss is when I’m empty minded and I just exist. My guitar gets me to that state when I just let go and completely absorb myself in it and to me, that’s the most pure state I can experience. When I’m there is when the expression can thrive and I can speak in a language that goes beyond anything words can say. That’s when I can become a vessel and tap into whatever magic it is that I’m tapping into. That leads me to the music. I don’t think music is really worth making if it isn’t artistic. I like the idea of people making music from the heart and I think their personal spirituality and soul seeking makes meaningful music that moves people in ways much more deeply than commercialized pop music. One band that sticks out a lot is the Grateful Dead. Whatever it was that they were doing in those early days was something magical, they were exploring means of communication on stage with each other without words and just were all going to the same place together. Even the vibe in the audience would have a huge effect. A lot of the stuff in the 60s and the late 70s and early 80s underground stuff had that effect as well.
Exactly how I think about it! Trying to use music as a "replacement for language" will only work for yourself, but do you need any language at all to understand yourself?
I don't think so
Nothing to add. Good luck, take care and have a nice journey!
If nothing else, at least it's going to be for your own enjoyment
Hi Maarten, great to have you as a new voice here. I hope you will continue and take the opportunity to exert your own opinions on others! Love the studio... maybe cachet the books? Too deep!
I was going to pm you this old essay about how I learned to improvise. But, maybe others will find it of interest. It is concrete, basic, freeing and works surprisingly well, IMO. Learned from my teach, the late and great Connie Crothers who learned it from the later Lennie Tristano. He probably thought it.
https://forum.audiob.us/discussion/27012/how-to-improve-your-keyboard-improvising-100-in-three-weeks
A more Nihilistic approach I suppose.....
To quote one of my fav books on this topic (images and idols).. In this chapter the author is attempting to explain that the origin of creativity has everything to do with why we create..... And why we are creative at all...
" the modern creative community has more often than not replaced the intrinsic search for creativities starting point with an emphasis on output..
We have exchanged the philosophy of creativity for the pragmatism of productivity. The contemporary catch phrase "never stop creating" offers little space to consider where our creativity originates. Our contemporary fascination with creativities production keeps us so busy that we don't pursue creativities original purpose...... This is creativities contemporary mission drift : we are concerned primarily with how we are going to fill the shelves rather than why we want to fill them at all. While our portfolio may be full we will find it tough to explain - beyond subjective or pragmatic platitudes- why our portfolio exists in the first place.
This lack of an origin story for your creativity shapes you more than you can imagine.
Creativity actually needs direction, which means creativity needs a starting line. Like a traveler on her way, a point of origin helps determine our way. Without a beginning point for our creativity, we end up lost in a wilderness of our own design. We are susceptible to every mirage the culture offers us. Which means we are no longer on OUR way, or the way ; it means we are following someone else's way. This haphazard itinerary often has the intersection of exhaustion and superficiality as it's final destination"
https://store.humblebeast.com/products/images-and-idols-creativity-for-the-christian-life
This above paragraph really resonates with me as he pretty much nails my experience with creativity at certain points in my journey.
The authors of this book are wanting us to understand why they believe creativity exists in the first place and why we as humans are so fascinated by it... And driven to partake in it ourselves.
Many people tend to say that art is nothing more than self expression and has no true meaning beyond that.... But that really explainss nothing, leaves you feeling empty even after you create something amazing, and holds no weight.
I believe we were created with a desire to be creative, and that it comes from before us... And from what created us, that it is a gift, and we can use it to honor our creator and show people around us the truth of our existence
Interesting!
I often do find that music feels like an antidote to the conditioning of symbolic language. Now that I am constantly making music throughout the day with the iPad I get to take breaks and override the voice in my head (north american / canadian english eh). My music is always instrumental and not of a specific genre. There are genre influences sure, but having my own music in my head feels like a more honest and true reflection of my reflection of the world than the jumble of conditioning words and phrases planted by the culture.
“Does one ever really think about what their face looked like before they were born?” I just overheard in a coffee shop outside of Mount Madonna in the Santa Cruz hills. I took my order from the barista and when i turned around to see where the voice was coming from, a 70ish old little Nun and her 2 Sisters smiled sweetly at my son and I.
“Be sure not to put too much sugar in your drink dear...you might ruin the taste of perfection,” she said as she blessed both of us.
I thanked her and we settled into a table by the large window overlooking the ocean in the distance. “You see son, i told you that God was constantly moving around us. It’s just up to us to be aware of his presence. To be open to him.”
My son smiled, nodded and plunged back into his latest chapter book. As I looked at the nuns in line I felt a certain presence of grace in the shop. To love ones father so much that you dedicate your life to him. I was bearing witness to true devotion...a living example of an absolute divine connection...no fear...swimming in truth...always attuned...always listening...
I took a slow sip of my coffee and enjoyed the perfection of the brew. It’s bitter sweet acidic taste settled into a warmth which filled my belly and felt like the beginning of a great morning.
i've heard it said, and believe it to be true,
that because the ipad is so close to many of us physically
it is one of the most truely self-expressive instruments
how well our machines know us
now skills are needed fo sho , but as an instrument , it's so easy to tune
playfull interactions with the sound and screen surface
building things in AUM
learning (in spurts)
all ways fun
apps like Thumbjam, Gestrument , etc , make (my)self expression so easy and pleasing, it is simply a matter of time and inspiration
and Rosetta, Riffer, et al , make following the thread of creation ... for me, a joy
I found it very easy to enter a flow/trance state after I learned how to practice music correctly. The trick is to take a very small fragment of what you are practicing--very small, like two or three notes. Maybe even only one note. And you just repeat that fragment, with great focus. The goal is to play it absolutely perfectly. Perfect time, perfect timbre, perfect intonation. If you can't make it perfect, then make the fragment even smaller. Only practice playing absolutely perfectly, or as close to perfect as is possible for you.
This style of practice requires a lot of repetition, and very intense focus. That is what induces the trance/flow state. It works best with a very expressive instrument, where you have a lot of control over intonation and timbre. Practicing voice, flute, cello, etc. would be more conducive to entering a flow state than practicing a synth or a glockenspiel.
This way of practicing might sound boring, but it is the opposite: it's extremely pleasurable. It's also the most effective way to grow your musicianship.
I also recommend looking into dhrupad singing. Dhrupad is a very highly developed form of Indian classical music that is extremely conducive to meditative flow states, both for the listeners and the musicians.
Read this the other day and just seemed appropriate for this thread.
Yup. The MCU is not a hobby. Gotta pay dem bills.
Indeed you know the secret of music. Keep practicing and keep growing in a way very few can imagine.
And a follow up:
I try to see culture as irrelevant of the end goal. Audiences are for performers. What I do is about me and the void.
freestyle for 15-30 min straight and it'll be hard to leave the flow state
Truth!
sometimes I think we are taperecorders, and that creativity would not exist if we did not record sights, sounds, smells, and experiences to press play on.
"Jesus came to me in a dream and said: Pray. Then Bird showed up, and he said: Play!" from a dream Lennie Tristano had.
for me, Advaita Vedanta is truth. It goes to the literal, non-dualistic, core of what we are. And it is there that creativity and freedom are borne. Strangely, I just stumbled across this fellow, Rupert Spira. But he tells it exactly the same as all the other aware vedantists I have ever listened to or read about. Invest fifteen minutes. It just might be profound for you, as it has been for me. You may have a knee jerk reaction that this is nihilistic. It is a bit disturbing, but when understood is totally life affirming and freeing. At least it has been so for me.