First Transmission/About

So it has come to this...

Introduction

I’m starting to understand why you don’t see many artists writing extensively about their own music. First, it is difficult to write effectively about subjective matters using active language. Secondly, writing is difficult. Writing effectively about one’s own art is especially difficult and explanations can diminish the magic and ethereal quality of art. So, up front—I ask for your forgiveness. 

In this whatever it is I will attempt to write about my own music and creative practice. I believe that artistic meaning primarily exists in the interpretation of the viewer and that the intent of the artist is secondary. However, I have things to say about what I am doing as a musician and some of it might require an explanation—and honestly, nobody’s asking for an interview.

This effort is to release music in conjunction with writing. I’ll use this to discuss songs released under the moniker “Miter” from my recent release Shelled and for a series of singles that I will release over the course of 2023.

As this point, I am confident that I will continue this project through the year of the Rabbit. I have a few completed tracks and a number of unfinished experiments and sketches that could turn into something with a little effort. The more difficult part will be the writing, but I hope to keep the verbiage concise as well as incisive, clear, persuasive and mildly amusing. My goal is to release one track or post per month.

In an ideal world, I would be able to create, produce, describe and release tracks in near “real time” on this platform. Maybe this is a compelling reason to read or share this publication. A newsletter is an interesting model for music distribution. For example, if a popular artist did this (which I’m sure they will at some point if they haven’t already) fans would be interested in getting a consistent and timely output of their favorite singer’s recordings prior to a more public release. Being a popular artist myself, this should work well. I’ll attempt to release tracks here in advance and then distribute via Spotify, etc.

Thanks to the wonders of technology, the entire musical production chain from idea generation to song writing to recording to mastering to distribution can all be done by one sad person sitting in their basement (like me). Substack could be a way for folks (like you) to create something, release it, and share a dialogue and community around it. My greatest hope would be to build that dialogue and community.

Why Miter? 

There is an astounding amount of duality in the world. For example, power and corruption should be diametric terms but only exist together.  Cohesive beliefs and groupthink are a ways for us to share commonality but they end up excluding the beliefs of other groups. These types of incongruencies speak to the duality of our world as we perceive it. The frequent occurrence of paradoxes and the codependency of the antithetical are the types of ideas that I want to explore. The music I am making under the moniker “Miter” attempts to explore these ideas among others.

The word miter has at least two definitions: 

1. A hat worn by Catholic bishops. 

2. The joining of two pieces of wood at a 90 degree angle. 

I’m trying to stay away from cringe-y philosophy (too late) or religious diatribes (still ok) in this writing, so I’ll steer clear of definition #1 for now. I do like the meaning and metaphors that can be taken from combining two things at a perfect angle.

Phonetically, mite-r could mean a type of insect, a dust mite, something insignificant. Also, the words “mite” and “might” sound exactly the same while being antonyms. The term “Mites” is used for youth hockey players aged 7-8—not to be confused with “Mini-Mites” who are players aged 5-6 years. As a youth hockey player myself, I was a mite. And a mini-mite. With these phonetical expansions, the name Miter has a wonderful number of meanings that are tangential and paradoxical. I don’t have a preference regarding the meaning of the word Miter but it is important to me that there are multiple meanings.  It’s the duality between the blurry and the focused that is part of what I want to explore, and electronic music is a good vehicle for doing so. 

Regardless of this intellectualization, at the heart of this music is a middle-aged man playing with synthesizers and guitars and computers for his own amusements. There’s particular appeal in exploring sound, transforming waveforms, manipulating envelopes, and saturating frequencies to find something that sounds appealing to my own ear. Playing analog synthesizers is similar to playing electric guitars, basses, etc. The raw energy gets pushed through circuits and that signal is electric,  ephemeral,  and exhilarating. When playing analog synths or electric guitars through tube amplifiers there is a similar warmth which I think (with no evidence) comes from the output of the noise being so near to the input of raw electricity. In a digital chain, the signal gets processed more and more and becomes less live—until it becomes processed so extensively as to parrot whatever amplified sound to which we were initially attracted. Is there a difference between the simulation and the actual? Probably not to the person receiving the signal with no prior knowledge of what is real and what isn’t.

The ability to press and slide rather than to ratchet is important to my creative process and I prefer the sound of analog to digital but I am not at all opposed to using digital tools and do so extensively. I’m still learning much about making electronic music and part of that has been a growing familiarity with software. Ableton Live was a revelation for me to be able to compose vertically rather than horizontally and the amount of tools available in the digital realm are not to be missed. In this writing, I will attempt to talk about the artistic process along with my technical fumbling. This won’t be a “how-to” but a reflection on my own technical processes. So, oh yeah, I’m gonna talk about gear. 

Conclusion

I very much appreciate anyone that takes a listen or engages in some way. I do hope that I’ll continue making noise in some form as a creative practice until I transform into pure light and induce this cruel world into a peaceful panacea. Or, more probably, transform into dust. 

Below you’ll find links to the album Shelled and a new single for 2023: Bird Lore. Bird Lore is a love song for my wife, Robin. I’ll hope to unpack and write about most of the songs on Shelled, Bird Lore, and the 11 other singles I will release over the next year. My real goal is to communicate frequently enough to generate views, drive traffic and make BIG $. If that doesn’t happen, my goal will be to 100% dismantle the system. Here’s to being human. 

Much Love.