pengosolvent

(hasn't opened FL studio yet)
beaches... i think IRL i'm actually scared of beaches, though i don't want to be

i'm trying to think of a positive association i have with beaches (as in, an association where i will feel energy i'd like to move towards, motivation) ... well, there's gonna be a "beach ending" for a game i want to make eventually, so it's not like i don't grasp the association of beaches and relaxation, but when i try to think of it for myself, it's hard to connect (which is really no fault of the prompt, genuinely, i've just got a lot of issues i'm trying to work through)

the first "positive" association with beaches for me ends up being the scene in dangan ronpa v3 where tenko wants to feel like a celebrity with a parasol and such??? even though that isn't even at a beach?
but i suppose my mind has spoken

i'm gonna look for the friendly song in drv3 to add as a sample (it's apparently called Becoming Friends)

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i'm thinking about how i used to assign a lot of meaning to the samples and instruments i use, and also how i used to feel fine with music taking a while to build up slowly

maybe i'll focus on more of a slow build up?
i tend to get anxious that other people think the music takes too long, that if i don't immediately convey everything all at once, it's a bad track
but... sometimes going slow is part of the information itself?

-- OH! i also love big the cat, his first level is emerald coast and that is a pretty nice track

there's something so nostalgic about big's fishing levels to me in sonic adventure 1, even if they're kind of clunky
i know a lot of people don't like them though

sonic adventure 1 just holds a lot for me... hum... yeah i'm gonna include that one too, in some way i hope...

i think big the cat is definitely a good direction...
the melody at 30 seconds in is really beautiful
there's such a longing in a lot of SA1 songs and i wish i knew how to capture it
like it feels to me like it's just really taking in how beautiful everything is, but it's so much that it almost hurts

ok time to open FL studio its been 20 minutes (i got up and got some food...)

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thinking about mac anu in dot hack now... again not a beach, but a water town and maybe some of the most relaxing music ive ever heard in a video game...

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starting a song is one of the hardest parts, i don't entirely know how to start with a vibe i want most of the time

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started with the DRV3 track, lowered it, chopped it some
ended up figuring out a key from there... i think it would be F major, but i ended up going with A# major instead for now if i'm using these terms correctly (and then i will use F major later?)

instruments, i put some piano, and an instrument called brightness
kind of weirdly actually sounds wobbly like water which is nice

i admit i am struggling with anxiousness, because i know i tend to be really hard on myself so i end up anticipating negative feelings if i don't immediately do things "right"

OCD is hard to handle

but currently i think i'm happy with how it's going and i'm also happy to be trying

40 minutes in

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and on cue: it's really not working

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ok thats not true, it's "working" it's just kind of ... boring to me a bit and i can feel really easily frustrated with that

it's the feeling i mentioned earlier of "if a billion things aren't immediately happening then, if i don't convey everything immediately, it's bad"

i removed the dangan ronpa samples, i've stripped this down to a very simple song and added a beat (though the dangan ronpa samples really influenced the melody so it's still kind of there in "spirit" weirdly enough... i think that's cool? it's cool to me to have this sort of... "presence" left over in the song even though the sample is absent)

it's not technically bad but i wish it wasn't such a struggle to make something i feel attached to
i could probably make a beach theme if i sat down and just listened to beach themes, like i could include instruments and whatever that sounds like what is generally accepted as a "beach" sound

but i really would like to be able to make something sound like a beach to ME without so much distress

little steps, i suppose

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i'm liking it better because i'm fucking around with percussion and it feels less "empty"

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added some instruments that sound kind of wistful and i'm feeling better about it further, though, like last compost, i don't know if this really sounds "beach" like

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20 minutes left... i like it though it feels kind of bittersweet

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8 minutes left
it's pretty, i think?

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done

thinking over it, i wonder if this could work as a theme for a character i'm making who is kind of... empty but also sad
he's hard to describe

currently, i'm drawing art for the track (not limited to 1-2 hours)

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i really like how the art came out

i'm sad by how "low" i get while working on music, because if i try to hold onto the idea that i WILL make something i like, i do tend to make something i think is nice overall

i get self-conscious over how negative i get! i don't want to be negative, i don't want to bring others down (hence me putting things behind a readmore) but simultaneously, i think its important for me to keep track of how i'm feeling, since a big part of how i got so tangled with art and music is ignoring my own feelings

i think it will help me over time... anyway, yep here it is