music is not by the book
One of the real bummers about music is there’s no good reading on it. There are biographies and stuff like that, but when you talk about making music, producing it, and the creative act, there really aren’t any good book references. There’s good stuff in books about writing and other philosophical things, but you kind of have to get there through the back door.
This occurred to me when I was reading Journey to Ixtlan by Carlos Castaneda. There’s a great quote right in the beginning of the book, like second chapter, where the hero of the book, Don Juan Matus, says:
“Little by little you must create a fog around yourself; you must erase everything around you until nothing could be taken for granted, until nothing is any longer for sure, or real. Your problem now is that you’re too real. Your endeavors are too real; your moods are too real. Don’t take things so for granted. You must begin to erase yourself.”
This is about as good a musical advice as I’ve ever read, but it’s not about music. This particular book is about how to really get to know mescaline. I think, anyway. I’m just starting it.
It was suggested by a video I saw by Robert Greene, and I trust that guy, and someone very close to me gave me one of Carlos’s books, so it’s about time I got the reading done.
Maybe it’s a good thing. Maybe you continue only farting around on your journey through every part of life as an artist, and in my case a musical one, and there’s never been any kind of roadmap. That’s probably because it doesn’t exist.
What the hell is an instruction book going to tell me anyway.