The Enneagram: Day 39, It's a beauty!

So I've been working on the physical side of producing the CD. Since a CD booklet prints 3 sheets stapled together, I can't print page 1, 2, and 3 one after the other. After trying to mathematically calculate which page prints where, Luke gave me the idea of cutting out sheets of paper, folding them together, and using them as a reference. Duh. Why couldn't I think of that?

Today I got a very important aspect of production solved. The CD sticker. I picked up one of those CD sticker kits at Staples and worked on learning to use it. The kit came with a CD, some sticker sheets, and a tool called the CD stomper which is used to align the sticker onto the CD.

CD SMASH!!!!

The program was a bit difficult. I uploaded a lovely picture of the Enneagram, but it cut off the numbers at the edges, and it wouldn't let me adjust the size of the background to include the numbers. I tried adjusting it in Preview, but Preview wasn't helpful. Man, I really wish Macs had paint. In the end, I went onto my free trial of Adobe Photoshop Elements and extending the white background. The new image fit the CD template perfectly.

It continued to print quite well onto the CD sticker.

And after I used the stomper, I got a CD.

Oh man. It's so beautiful. And it's only a little bit distorted, which I might be able to make a quick fix for. That checks another thing off the list. Now to get the booklet printed and the rest of the CD recorded. I bought "Presentation Paper", which will hopefully be tougher than regular printer paper. It looks like I'll be spending my Sunday in production mode.

Self Produced Albums

On Friday I'm seeing the band Tune-Yards. How wonderful is it that after working on recording my own album, I'm going to see a musician who recorded her first album with a hand recorder and Audacity?

One thing I've discovered in life is that when your interest grows in a subject, the world curves to your interest. The other day, Luke told me I should release my album onto Bandcamp.com and attempt to sell it. I was unsure, because I didn't think it was quite good enough and I'm still quite insecure about my music (strangely enough, because of the singing aspect). Also, I feel that as a musician I'M not good enough. I mean, I've never listened to a Bob Dylan song before in my life. I know nothing.

Putting my music on a website doesn't mean people will buy it. But it does mean that it's there, it's official, I did something, and maybe some people will like it.

Merrill Garbus (the lead singer of Tune-Yards) is one of my idols. Why? There's a bunch of reasons. What caught my attention about her at first is the fact that in her music, she sounds like a guy. In fact, I thought she was a guy at first. When I saw the name "Merrill", I thought maybe it could be one of those unisex names. Even when the info I read about her clearly said she was a girl, I still didn't believe it. So I looked up a video of her live. When I saw a girl singing like that I just thought "Oh my god, she is so cool."

And the more I found out, the more I liked. Previously she was a vocal teacher in Kenya, she wrote a musical, and she works with children in a non-profit organization for music education. She's not super skinny and idealistic like most female musicians. She doesn't give a shit. She's Merrill Garbus.

Probably my favorite song from her self recorded album is "Sunlight". The drum beat is great, and her voice, oh man.

I guess it means I ought to work on my own self-produced album. Before I put anything up on the web, I want to fix rhythm issues, see if the levels are ok, and change the songs I don't really like. I don't know if I'll do that before summer starts, because I want to put quality into it. I've done the first step of working on writing many songs in a short period of time. Now it's time to settle down and focus.

The Enneagram: Day 36, I Hate This Song

You know, you're not going to like everything you do. And today I recorded my Type 5 song. It's sounds like crap. But whatever.

At this point, I've recorded all my songs that need drums, and one song that doesn't need drums. I have 2 songs left to record. At this rate I might be done before the end of the week. Question is, should I go and try to make the recordings better afterwards, or should I just leave it be and take a well deserved break? Most of the recordings I don't want to go back to. There may be some issues, but fixing those issues would take lots of time which I don't have patience for at this moment. Especially for Type 5. I'm done with that.

But hey, what is there to complain about when I finish my project early? I guess I'll just figure out how I'm going to do my booklet, and then maybe I'll do some drawing, or teach myself sign language. Oh, and I also need to figure out how I'm going to present during STAC Live.

I'm wondering if I should do a live performance. I do need to work on live stage presence. At the same time though, I love my Type 9 song, and it's basically my first recording, so I want to present that with a picture slideshow or something. I just need to decide which one I'm doing, because I don't think I can do both (nor would I want to). Decisions decisions.

The Enneagram Day 35

Today, I discovered that playing drums while listening to a metronome with headphones is a great way to keep the tempo. In hindsight, I probably should've done this earlier, but ah well.

The more I use Garageband the more learn. Did you know that you can set the drums as a "groove track" and then have the program automatically edit all of your music parts to fit it? Oh my god it does wonders.

Today I recorded 2 of my big arrangement pieces. I basically have a system now. First drums, then guitar, then bass, then vocals, then whatever else. It's been working pretty effectively. I spent about an hour recording the first song, and the other one I'm still in the middle of, but I enjoy it more so I'm putting more effort into it.

Everyday of recording fills me with new wonders. I put a guitar solo in my Type 1 song which sounds so perfect, and the riffs are coming together quite nicely (although not totally in time). Tomorrow is my last day this weekend to record because I'm seeing Foster the People on Tuesday. My goal is to at least finish all the songs with the drum set. Not much else to say. 8 days left.

The Enneagram: Day 34, CD booklets and other things

For the CD booklet

In the morning, I decided to start working on the booklet for my CD. Better to get a head start, to find out how much work making a booklet would actually be.

After doing some test prints, I discovered that a normal plastic CD case can hold a sheet of paper 4.83 x 4.75 inches in length. A two page sheet (to be folded) is 9.66 x 4.75 inches. After more mathematical equations, figuring out the margins, learning how to use Publisher, I finally got something decent.

After this though, I ran into the issue that regular desktop printers do not print solid colors well. My beautiful album intro was infested with lines!

Eghadd!

So, I experimented with lighter colors. Some came out better than others

Only a vague appearance of lines

Ahhhh!

After lighting most of the backgrounds I began putting lyrics. Here's what one of the pages looks like.

And it fits quite snuggly.

Now in addition to the issues of ink lines, I think I also need to get slightly sturdier paper, because the regular printer paper is practically bending in my hands, and inking both sides of it would probably push it off the edge.

That whole photography idea I had isn't going to happen, due to technical difficulties. Not like I actually had time to do it anyway, but at least I know I wasn't missing out on anything.

I'm trying to decide how many CDs to produce. Each booklet will need 3 sheets of paper which yield 4 faces each. If I make 50 CDs I have to cut 150 pieces of paper, unless I find my mom's cutting board, which would mean that maybe I could lower that number to cutting 70 or 50 pieces of paper. It's not gonna be an easy task.

However I decided to stop working on this project after a while so I wouldn't loose too much recording time.

Recording

Here's my fallback for my recordings. There will be wrong notes. There will be off rhythms. It won't be perfect. But it's going to be done.

Today I recorded Type 3, 4, and 9 with full parts. Type 4 was easy, because it's only me and my accordion. Type 3 was slightly more difficult, because it had guitar, bass, and me slamming the desk as drums. However, Type 9 was the most difficult, because I had to record the drums straight, sync everything up to the drums, and keep all the instruments together while there's an acceleration at the end. Oh, and I'm doing each and every track by itself.

First, I recorded the drums. Upon that I put guitar, then bass, then a few keyboard things. As each piece joined together, the song became more and more full. When I put the vocals on top, I was basically fully accompanying myself. It was awfully strange. But it was amazing. I had my own band. Which was myself.

Although the beat isn't exact and sometimes I played a wrong note in a chord, I'm actually very satisfied with how the recording came out. I was expecting there to be a lot of empty white noise, lightness, and a feeling that there's some part missing. But there wasn't. The whole thing sounded whole, and if I didn't screw the drums up so much, it could've sounded like a real recording. At least, I think so ;)

At this point, I want to record at least Type 2, 5, and 6 while I still have a drum set. I'd rather do all of them, but the Type 9 recording took me about 3 1/2 hours, so I don't want to overshoot myself. Problem is, Type 2 and 5 are the two songs I haven't finished writing yet. So I have to work fast.

The Enneagram: Day 33, Wow

I finally set up all the equipment in my basement in a 360. Standing in the middle of the space, it felt magical.

From the outside

The 360

Wow. Everything is really coming together. I almost don't know what to say.

Tomorrow I'm going to start recording. I don't know how long it's going to take, but all songs will be done. I can assure you that.

It's funny. I never thought that I was ever going to be writing my own music in a million years. I only started getting into rock music last year. I've always felt like a fish out of water; never one to have that cool, calm, and collectiveness. Never one to take initiative. Afraid to be alone. Not quite good enough.

But now I'm making my own CD of 9 songs in a matter of about 40 days. I'm performing at STAC Live and I'm going to hand out my own copies of my music. People are going to listen to me.

All there is to way is wow.

The Enneagram: Day 31

I'm happy (or maybe sad) to say that this was the first time I used all 3 STAC periods to effectively write songs.

My self-consciousness is slowly fading. Now I can hold a guitar, write songs, and feel legitimate. Today, I revised the lyrics for my other songs so that they're fully complete. At this point I have 6 songs totally written. Then, I started writing the last 2 songs I had.

After working for some time on my Type 2 song, I said to myself, let's go for the Type 5. I literally just played a random set of notes. Those notes became my bass progression. I had no inhibitions when writing my song. Lyrics flowed easily. Truth be told, a lot of them don't make sense. I think I'm starting to go for a Beck kind of vibe. He writes a lot of songs where the verses are pure word play without any purpose. My song started with riding on a camel's back and delved into phrases about feudalism.

So far, I think this might be my favorite song.

For the end of the STAC period, I watched Luke work with Scott. One important thing he was telling him was that he had a great verse but it wasn't going anywhere and it was repetitive. I wonder if my songs are like that. I mean, I can't do much about it now, but it's something to consider for the future. I try to vary up my verses. In my songwriting book it talked about musical themes within verses, like AABA form. It really made me think about how I form my melodic lines.

And one last thing. I've been playing around with the bass in my house, and one problem I'm having is that the strings make a metal rubbing sound against the frets, even when I'm not picking very hard. I'm not sure if it has to do with the bass itself or how I adjust the treble, middle and base, or the back wire of the amp, with makes no sense to me whatsoever. Time for me to google how a bass works.

The Enneagram: Day 30

30 days. Wowie.

Today I spent a good amount of my STAC period at rehearsal for Captain Canada. I'm incredibly excited for it. The songs are amusing and the script is hilarious. I'm going to be playing drums, which may be a bit of a challenge for me considering that all I've ever learned is a basic beat. I think I'll figure it out on the way though. That's what I usually do.

I started writing another song today, for Type 2. It has a riff from the very first song I learned how to play on the tambura. I'm playing it with a swing feel, so it kind of sounds like Balkan meets Bollywood. The chorus is just regular chords though. I don't want to make my music too weird, or else it'll cease to be catchy. That's one thing I learned when working on a song with Luke yesterday. He kept everything simple, and it ended up sounding better and flowing more. That's one thing I want to work on with the 2 songs I have left.

One big issue I have is drums. At the moment, the only real drum I have in my house is a small drum I got at an Indian reservation in Florida. I used it on my Type 7 song, and it worked quite well. However, that's not going to work for most of my songs, especially the rock ballads. In a perfect world, I would have a drum set and a doumbek in my basement. However, it is not a perfect world, and I must find a way to get my hands on some drums.

At the moment, my plan is to scavenge my room for spare cash so I can buy a doumbek. I think I have about half the amount I need in coins, and that 50 dollar bill I got for Christmas should be lying around somewhere. I need to figure out if I want a synthetic doumbek or a natural one with fish hide. The synthetic doumbek is easier to buy (you can get them in most music stores) and it's unaffected by humidity, but it doesn't have that natural, authentic kind of sound. The natural doumbek does have that sound, but it only sounds good in certain environments. Also, it's harder to get. I could try plan C, which is borrowing a doumbek. Unfortunately though, it's not so easy to find people who own a doumbek in the Long Island area.

Another issue is a drum set. I could either forget the doumbek and try to get myself a drum set, or I could record drums during STAC with the drum set in the STAC room. Maybe, I could even go to someone's house and record there.

Right now I'm just trying to keep my stress level from getting too high. If I keep steady, I should finish this Type 2 song, write the Type 5 song (the last one!), and revise what I've got for recording on Saturday and Sunday. At the moment, I'm just trying to take things a step at a time.

The Enneagram Day 29

After spending the entire day freaking out about how I wasn't going to write a song and I wasn't going to finish my album or my project, I went home, and I wrote not one, but TWO songs. TWO songs.

Once I clean up what I have, I've got SEVEN songs. I'm almost done!

I want to try to get the next 2 songs done by sunday, if possible. That way, I have plenty of time to record.  My final goal is to make copies of the CDs with booklets inside and hand them out. I'm going to need decent time recording my songs to a produceable level, and then physically creating them. My goal is in sight. I think I can do this. 

The Enneagram: Day 27, It's Not Getting Better

Since I knew I've been spending a lot of time putting off songwriting, I set today to go to the basement, sit down and write. No running away. No doing something else. No being afraid.

What did I get? Nothing of course.

When I write, I feel I sound like a whiny teenager. There's something I'm not doing right. There's something I'm not getting, something I need help with. But what? What is that thing?

Part of me tells me I'm just complaining and I'm giving up because it's getting hard. It says that I just have to grow up and do stuff on my own. This is probably true. I went back downstairs to brainstorm 3 times before I sat down to write this because of that voice in my head.

I don't want to complain. The reason I keep complaining, the reason I keep writing these blogposts, is because I'm just trying to figure out that thing. I'm trying to make sense of my brain, but it doesn't want me to.

It feels like if I want to be upset, I can only express myself in a mature kind of way. It has to be through well written poetry, or songs. But you know, sometimes I can't make my sadness worth anything. I can't push my emotions through some grinder and mold them into something beautiful. It's just pain.

I love everything about music except for actually make it. Problem is, I'm stubborn, and I want to have power. I don't want to just do what other people are doing. I want to make my own stuff. And I want to do everything.

So what can I do at this point?

I need some sort of help with writing. I'm been teaching myself stuff for a while now, but I can't teach myself this. I need projects to do. I need training. I need to know what's good and what's bad, what I'm doing right or wrong.

I got a book with songwriting/writing exercises, I think I'll start trying that. That would be a good start. And I can share my writing with my community, even the scraps.

The Enneagram: Day 26, Looking for Words

Every single night this week I haven't been able to sleep. I'm just lying in bed with this empty feeling that I need to express, but I can't put into words. I'm frustrated. With what?

I don't feel like I'm connecting to my Enneagram project.

I saw Jei's blogpost on how he plans to make the documentary about him and his family, so honest. And what am I doing? Making songs based of my mental conceptions of what I believe a certain person to be. There's a distance, not only between me and the music, but between me and my understanding of others.

When I don't know how I feel or when I can't sleep, I usually try to write poetry. I opened the notebook on my bedstand and looked through some of the pages. As I reread my past writings, I amazed myself. Although many of the poems were strict to rhythm and somewhat trite, they used such rich vocabulary, and such great rhymes. It's the kind of things where slight revision could make them great.

One of them I found was called "Ode to a Past Friend"

It's funny to look and think

How at one time we used to be linked

By friendship

I suppose as we grow old

Our bond goes cold 

And withers

At one time you were like the rest

Awkward, insecure

Strange but lovable demure

I suppose as the quiet one

It makes you the one to deserve a better friend

I tried my best 

But it was the end

You changed your hair

You changed your name

You changed your face

You changed your game

And as that makeup gives you veil

Your insides become more stale

Until you become black and hollow

As you glare with shadowed eyes

I catch of glimpse of blue

And cold

I guess is goes

As we grow old

Those faithful eyes of gold

For what was probably 12 AM at night, I'd say that ain't such a bad poem. I found another one which was a lot shorter, but said quite a lot.

Each day I live inside a box

I try to scream

No one talks

I try to find a sure escape

I bang the box

It calls me lame

I try to make a little hold

So I can see

Or maybe more

But all that I can do is breathe

It's much too tough

I'll never leave

I always feel so much more connected to myself when I write straight than when I write with music. It's so easy to hide when you play music. As long as the words you say sound good, it doesn't matter as much what they are or what they mean. I could read a paragraph from a textbook in rhythm and it'd probably work.

In poetry and other writing though, it's different. It's just you. The only place to hide is behind rhyme and rhythm, and you have to provide the words. It's like fitting pieces to a puzzle to get the exact phrase the way you want it to.

I try to incorporate this kind of stuff into my songwriting, but it's so difficult. It's either too blatant or too obscure. Certain words don't sound good when sung. In addition to making a story I also have to worry about the music being at least vaguely interesting.

Not to mention that at this moment, I don't even know what I'm so upset about. It's probably just hormones. Being a teenager is so difficult. You're filled with emotional feelings you don't know how to understand and sexual feelings you're not allowed to express. You've gained enough knowledge about the world to realize how such a miserable place it is, but not enough knowledge to know how to cope with it. You feel empty all the time, but you don't know how to fill the hole.

I guess I'm supposed to find songs to write from this empty hole in my heart. But as I feel empty in myself, all I get from my songs is nothing. 

The Enneagram: Day 25

For Type 7 (aka myself), I imagined making a recording with lots of random sounds.

Today, I made a recording with lots of random sounds. Does it sound good? Well, the drums are totally off-beat, but other than that I think my experiment was a success.


Type 7 (Ver 1) by Ellen Cooper

I'm not sure if the intro fits, but I love it so much I almost don't want to take it away (Ellen, don't be too attached!). I plan on rerecording this, at least for the drums.

This took me about 3 straight hours of recording. I think I'm going to take a nap now.

The Enneagram: Day 24

I figured out exactly what I want to do for my CD booklet. Whether I can do it, time will tell, but I know I want to.

My idea is to have a regular profile view picture of a person on one page. On the adjacent page, it's the same person, but the image is changed based on the kind of mental projections each Enneagram type puts onto a person.

For example, through the lens of a Type 6, a normal person may look like a horrible monster.

This is my example for Type 1. Since the perfectionist is always searching for flaws in others, I imagine them analyzing everyone they meet, perhaps looking like this.

I do not think that Julian has strange glasses, or hair, or mouth. In fact, when I tried to edit this picture with insults, I couldn't do it. I think I'll have to make the Type 1 myself, because I only feel ok being heavily critical of myself.

Anyway, I've got ideas for each type. Not sure if they're set in stone yet.

Type 1: Analyzing of flaws

Type 2: Analyzing positive features OR a hand from the side holding a present

Type 3: Analyzing of characteristics to adapt to (not so sure on this one)

Type 4: The only one without a basic photo, one will be bright and the other one will be dark (black/white)

Type 5: A clear glass is placed in front of the person's face

Type 6: The person puts on a monster mask OR Anika does some really scary makeup

Type 7: The person is covered all over with hands reaching out from the edges of the picture

Type 8: The person has a bulls eye on their forehead, or maybe their heart (or maybe something else)

Type 9: No projection. The 9 sees all points of view (does that work?)

The Enneagram: Day 23

So I wrote a whole blog post and it just got deleted because I accidentally clicked the tiny red button trying to click to a new tab. ARGH! This will be abridged, because I'm not writing everything I said again.

Today I started out taking random pictures for my CD booklet. I got this really cool one of Scott and I feel like I could use it for something or other.

I decided for my Type 7 song I want it to be pure instrumental, sort of based off Soul Sacrifice by Santana. I hope to include a bunch of random instruments in a semi-comprehendible cacophony of noise.

For this song I wanted to include a clip from this Balkan song in which the singers use a very unusual vocal technique. A few singers sing pitches half-steps apart from each other, and it causes a bend in the sound waves that creates "beats", or a strange break in the noise.

The track had drums on part of it though, and I wanted to see if there was any way I could take them off. I started fooling around with Garageband and I realized, heck I know nothing about audio recording. So many of the terms confuse me like hell. But I'm going to try to define them. If anyone can help explain what I don't get, then that'd be great.

Noise Gate: A device that controls the volume of tracks, only allowing in sounds that are higher than the threshold

Threshold: The level in which the gate (sound in this case I suppose) will open

Release: The time for the gate to go from open to closed

Attack: How long it takes for the gate to go from closed to open, fade-in

Reverb: An echoey effect, like the way sound is reflected in a concert hall

Echo: Much more echoey than reverb, like shouting a word in a cave, an entire phrase is repeated back

Phaser: Sends a sound through different wavelengths

Flanger: Plays two identical copies of a sound, one only miliseconds after the other

Gain: How loud a signal is amplified by an amplifier (?)

Compressor: From what I've seen, really similar to a Noise gate

Equalizer: Shapes frequencies of sound

Overdrive: A distortion effect

Hopefully soon, all of these random sound adjustments will make sense to me. But I don't think I'm gonna remove that drum track. It's ok, because there's one part where the singers sing in a cappella. But that doesn't make up for the fact that I'm lacking basic audio recording knowledge.

A Bit of My Instrument Collection

This I'm putting up here to help out Alex and John for their musical project, but if anyone else wants to browse than feel free. I've included pictures and sound samples (which are at the bottom of the page), for your wonderful enjoyment.

The Collection

Kazoo

Don't know if this would be useful, but all you have to do is hum into it.

 Castanet Machine

It's like playing the castanets, with none of the grueling training.

Spoon Thing (?)

Yeah, not sure what this is

A Drum

I got this at a Native American reservation in Florida!

Rattle

My mom bought this at the Met. Not very useful, but it's really pretty!

Thunder Tube

Sounds like thunder and lightning.

Wooden Frog

Sounds kind of like a frog. I guess. Got this at a New York City street fair.

Guiro (?)

I think that's what it's called, but don't quote me on it

Bigger Guiro

For a deeper sound I suppose.

Tambourine

This one's actually quite nice

Shell Rattle

Or maybe it's nut shells? Who knows.

Rain Rattle (?)

It kind of sounds like rain.

A Small Drum

Yeah.

Mini Congos

For transportability.

Shekeres

The beads and shells give it different sound textures

Double Ended Drum (?)

For double the fun!

 Bell Stick

In case you need to imitate a dog's leash.

?????

Think this could go for the Met?

Hand Cymbals

Sorry, I could only find one.

Asian Jaw Harps

 Generic Jaw Harp

More Asian Jaw Harps

The one on the left is a Kouxian. It has 4 pitches and it sounds like a synthesizer.

The one on the right is a Dan Moi. It's Vietnamese.

How some of these sound

Percussion Samples by Ellen Cooper

I didn't get a sound sample of all of the instruments, but hopefully I got a bunch of the main ones.

Most of these are probably useless, but if anyone has any interest in a particular instrument then let me know!

The Enneagram: Day 22

Today, Jessica and I were sitting outside the STAC room, not doing much of anything. We were both pretty stuck. So I proposed an idea. "Why don't I write your script and you write my songs?" Swiftly, I took her laptop and she took my notebook and we began anew.

The interesting thing about Jessica's script was how similar it was to my life. Basically, it's about two kids and their mother who argue constantly. I don't want to give much away, because I don't know if Jessica is keeping this a surprise, but I'll say a few things.

One of the characters in the script is this girl Laurel, who enjoys using her intellectual sophistication to prove her superiority and to make her mother and brother feel awful. When I was reading it, I thought "Oh my god, this so like me." I'm not saying that Laurel is particularly a mirror image of me, but somehow I felt this connection to her like she was another face of myself.

Because this script was so similar to myself, I just continued it onward, based on my imagination. I invented situations in my head based on how my family argues plus the worst case scenario I could imagine. Man, it's so much easier when I don't have to think about poetic phrasing.

I hope that Jessica thought my additions were useful, because some of the stuff she gave me was brilliant.

I asked Jessica to try her best to write about Type 1 on the Enneagram, and she came up with this great little phrase.

It's not my fault

If you can't listen

I'm a riot

And if I christen

You a liar

And I, a saint

I won't let you taint

My holy friar

Heck Jessica, maybe you ought to take a shot as some poetry. And maybe I should as well, for practice.

Basically, I spent today playing around with what I got. Making slow progress. I'll get somewhere. Eventually.

The Enneagram: Edge of the Cliff

I want to give up. I really, really, really want to give up.

This whole week my enthusiasm for this project has been flushed down the toilet. Why? I have no clue. Everyday I come home and I dread trying to do more songwriting. I procrastinate. I read books about the Enneagram instead of writing my songs. I set up my recording studio instead of writing my songs.

Maybe I feel like I've gotten stuck. The songs I'm working on aren't moving forward, and any new songs I try to make are boring. I have only 2 songs written, and only one of them I like. I'm definitely not finishing 9 songs. I don't even know if I'm going to get 4 songs at this rate.

This whole Enneagram thing is driving me crazy. What am I doing? I've run down some strange road where I'm believing in some sort of strange, supernatural psychological theory that I don't even understand. I feel trapped by some sort of personality classification, like I'm in a box. Whenever I have my own individual feelings, I'm just like everyone else. Even our own personalities are graded and analyzed, just like our education, just like our abilities, just like everything else.

I feel judgmental. In my songs, I'm only grazing the surface of each personality type. I'm trying to summarize an entire genre of person in a 3 minute song. That's crazy! There's so much more to a person than what can be said in 3 minutes. I don't know what I'm doing. And why do people keep on asking me what their personality type is? I don't know your type. I don't have the magic wand to your self-discovery.

I don't want to give up. I always give up. Never have I ever learned a song on any instrument that I could say I perfected. I can say I play many instruments, but I can't say I play them well.

Maybe I should just be an instrumentalist. It's all technical, and if I sound bad, it's the composers fault. It's not as emotionally tolling.

I feel sad. Deeply sad, and pathetic. And worthless. And confused.

The Enneagram: Day 17

Today was not the most productive day of my life I can easily say.

In STAC I sat around the hallways trying to write songs, but I can never get enough privacy. Everywhere I go I feel like people are breathing down my neck. I still don't feel at all comfortable singing around people, and having them be around me constantly while I'm trying to experiment doesn't help. Maybe I'll try to use my STAC periods for research predominantly, because what I'm doing now is not bringing me to anything productive. Or maybe I'll starting working on the photography side to my project. Or do both, because I have a camera and no knowledge of photography.

At any rate, STAC Live in is 4 weeks and my goal is to try to get a full album, make CDs with my cover and booklet, and then give it out to everyone. That sets my deadline for June 6th. It's May 9th. Oh my god.

So far, I have one song done, one song done except for arranging parts, 2 songs in the process, one in scratch, and 4 that I haven't even started yet. I may have 4 weeks left, but I think it's time I really start re-evaluating my strategies in writing songs efficiently.

I think I'm going down a good path with my Type 4 song. Basically what I did is I stole the melody from a Balkan accordion song as a musical interlude and I'm basing my chords and melody off the tune. Lyrics are still a bit of an issue for me, but doing this makes the music job basically done.

What I'm to do with the verses is talk about particular body parts and explain how they're wonderfully unlovable. But a lot of my lyrics are ending up corny.

These hands

Hold them tight

Let it go

Why would you ver decide to keep

These eyes

The tears that they cry

Faded to dust

Nothing or what

For the time of all time

I suppose the next part of the verse has to do with the response to others?

I never receive well affection
But still I'll always try

To look for a consummate life

Till the day that I die

By the way, a message to all songwriters, poets, and other writers. 

The thesaurus is your best friend.

As much as I use rhymezone.com, I'd have to say my thesaurus is much more vital to my writing than my rhyming dictionary. My head thinks of poetic phrases one of two ways. The first is to magically come up with something strange and poetic on the first try. This gets me a good chorus, but doesn't help me much on the verse. The second way I think of poetic phrases is my stating them bluntly. Here's an example.

I want a perfect life

Two problems here. Perfect is a weird word to pronounce and doesn't flow well in songs and it's too cliché.

I'll always try

To look for a consummate life

Till the day that I die

Perhaps consummate is a strange word to use in this context. I'll probably change it later. You have to agree though, it's much more interesting than perfect. 

So I guess my plan for the rest of the week is school research followed by fun time in the basement. Why don't I set a goal for myself? I'll have song 4 and 8 done for Sunday. If I can do that, then I only have five songs to finish writing in 4 weeks. If I have an idea I can usually write pretty fast, so I think it will be possible to have at least the bare minimum for a full album.

The Enneagram: Day 16

Today I decided to return to one of my songs that I hadn't worked on for a while, my Type 6 song. I began it more than a week ago, but I guess I didn't like it all that much because I basically abandoned it.

I replayed the song and I found I was still stuck. That means it's "let's listen to a random song on my iPod and see how well it correlates and see how I can copy it into my song" time! Since my song sounded kind of Indie Rock, I listened to I Bet That You'd Look Good on the Dancefloor by the Arctic Monkeys and started playing it. Then my mind floated to the Dream Sequence song in Fiddler on the Roof. Then, it kept floating around as I tried to see what songs I could make if I just banged random notes on the guitar.

I found if I play a C bar chord and lifted all my fingers, the chord I get is some sort of variation of G. I started switching off the C and sort of G chord really fast, and then sliding the C into E. After that, I did a strange thing. I put my guitar down, and I started to dance. I heard the 1 2 3 rhythm, and all of a sudden the rhythm I had just played because a Balkan dance. It blew my mind.

Now, I know exactly what to steal. I'm planning on making a song where you have the women (or in my case, woman) chanting and screaming followed my musical interlude.

When I figured this out, I was so excited, I couldn't help stomping my feet while taking a shower. Surprisingly enough, stomping the bottom of a shower bathroom makes a great, low drum sound. Maybe once I get my microphone in the mail I'll record myself stomping in the shower and make it the drum beat.

Don't laugh at me. Improvising is one of my greatest tools. Just ask the make-shift guitar slide I made out of an index card.

Or, the fact that I've been using the same guitar pick for so long it split down the middle. Because I only have 3 other ones left.

I don't really know what I'm saying here. It's almost eleven and my brain is tipsy. But guys, just don't be afraid to do something stupid to experiment. It might be genius.

The Enneagram: Day 15

In accordance to what Luke said to us in class, I think it's about time I put some more of my songs here.

I've finished my Type 9 song, and now I'm just figuring out how I want to record it (and the rest of my tunes for that matter). After searching the web and reading through complex articles that made no sense to my brain, it seemed like the Blue Snowball mic at $70 was the bang for your buck. In addition, I'm getting a mic stand and a pop cover. Hopefully, this will be much better than my current recording situation, which looks like this.

Note the Rockband microphone hanging on a music stand and the 1980s NES official Nintendo keyboard.
I like to use my resources.

At any rate, I recorded the Type 9 song to show you guys now, but this certainly isn't the final version. Type 9 (Ver. 1) by Ellen Cooper

I actually quite like this song. The chorus is so chant like, I enjoy singing it. I'm debating whether I should put my lyrics here. Maybe I'll go over them tomorrow.

Also, I'm not quite done with my Type 8 song, but I'm getting there, and here's how it looks at the moment.

Type 8 (Ver. 1) by Ellen Cooper

There are still a lot of lyrical issues on this one. My idea is to have the story of a kid whose parents are attacked by some robbers, invoking his violent tendencies. He uses his violent skill as a policeman. And in the end he beats his wife to death.

Tomorrow, I'll do a more detailed analyses of the songs. But here's where I'm at.

The Enneagram: Day 13 + 14

I finished my book on The Enneagram! Bring in the the dancing lobsters!

Ok in all seriousness, I'm very glad because now I can understand how the system works as a whole. Also, this technically means I know everyone's dark secrets. Not really, but I'd like to think so.

If there's any possibility of me doing a side salad with this project, I've thought of an idea. I would love to do a photography project where I make the booklet for my album. Maybe take a picture or two representing each personality type. My knowledge of photography is quite minimal though, so I don't know if that would be possible. But it would be fun. Oh man, thinking of the next project before I even finish the one I'm on. Symptoms of 7ishness.

In my brainstorming/artist stealing sessions, I came up with an intro for my album. I was listening to a song by the band Starfucker and at the end of it, the song faded out into a man talking about philosophy. Figuring this would convert well to my project, I went on a search for audio downloads. While on Helen Palmer's website (the writer of the book I was reading), I found a free download of her talking about the inner witness recognizing subconscious tendencies. It couldn't have been more perfect.

I cut the sound file down so it had shorter pauses, played a chord progression on the piano that I stole from music we're learning in Jazz Band, and added a Garage Band drum beat. Working like a true artist.

I've been thinking about simulated drum beats for a while. I don't have a drum set in my house, so my ability to accompany my recordings with percussion is very limited. At the same time though, I find those drum beats really corny. I'm stubborn, I want to do everything myself. If anyone has any ideas, then that'd be great!

Here's the intro to The Enneagram. For now at least.


Intro by Ellen Cooper

The Enneagram: Day 12, Why I can't give you your type, but how I figured mine out

Today, I feel like talking theoretically.

Recently, in the awakening of interesting in the Enneagram, many people have been asking me to identify their type, and I haven't been able to give them good answers. Why? I ask myself. Each type is very definitive, and I'm starting to understand each type like I can feel it under my skin.

A few days ago, I came up with a hypothesis. A person can only discover their type once they are put in a situation in which they feel strongly pressured. As in, the type is always there, but there's an event that triggers it, or at least makes you aware.

After reading more of the general information section of my book, I realized the amazing power of research. It gives you evidence to prove your points!

(sorry the bad quality)

This text is basically saying that a very helpful way of identifying a person's type is how they react when they are put under pressure.

Now, I'm not saying this is the only way. The book continues this point by talking about how it's not just about the peculiarities. In a way though, this does prove my point.

Maybe I'm too excited about it, but this is basically the first time I've ever been able to prove a point with evidence I found on my own and that's a pretty big deal for me.

For all of you guys asking me what your type is, I don't know. There are two reasons for this. First, I don't know you well enough to understand how you act under pressure, or any other clues as to what your personality is. Second, YOU don't understand yourself well enough, and that's not something I can figure out for you unless you tell me very intimate details about yourself. However, if you can't figure your personality for yourself, I really doubt you'd be telling me intimate details about yourself anyhow.

So I can give you my suggestion, which could be right or wrong, depending on how much I know you, how much I know about The Enneagram (which in the scope of psychology really isn't that much), and how much I feel like being a smart ass at that moment. 

Basically, I'm saying that YOU guys have to start looking into yourselves and finding who you are and what you want from this life.

I think the reason I've been able to get so far on this project so quickly is because I've already figured much of this stuff out for myself. For the past year at least I've been asking myself the same questions. "What do you want to do?" "Why aren't you doing that right now?" "Why do you do things to yourself that make you unhappy?"

With careful thought, Opera magazine, and therapeutical assistance, I've figured out the answers to these questions. 

What do you want to do?

I really want to do music. It showcases my abilities, and I'm really good at it. Also, it constantly challenges me to move forward, and I love challenges. That's what peeves me about people who say "I want to be an artist because I want to do what I love" and "I couldn't stand working in a dead-end office job". Well that's fine and dandy, but what makes you so special?

I used to ask myself if I was worthy to have the privilege of working in the art field. Based on my abilities, my opportunities in the way of great teachers and brilliant parents, my strange personality that's probably weird enough of be considered interesting, my intelligence, and my thirst to strive towards the impossible, I think I'm the perfect recipe for an artist.

Why aren't you doing that right now?

This is something I mainly asked myself around New Years this year. Now that I was finally set on music, what was stopping me?

Well, many things were. First of all, I was pretty unorganized and lazy, and I never practiced nearly as much as I should. Even after a year of songwriting, I still couldn't present my songs. Also, I still had problems speaking with people. I'm the kind of person who will search a store for an hour before she asks where the pencils are. I love when people come and talk to me, but I don't like making the effort.

So you know what I did? As soon as I got home, I finished my homework off so I could practice. I practiced my music in a practical way so I could get more out of the time I put in. Recently, I've been using a checklist system and it has worked miracles. Recently, I was able to learn an entire piano piece to help accompany Megan for All-State in 2 weeks. That's something I never could've done if I didn't pull my act together.

For my fear of presenting, I just decided to gut up and do it. You guys saw me present my song a few weeks ago. I was so nervous I wanted to puke in a bucket. I thought we had to present today, and the thought made me so nervous I wanted to puke in a bucket. Thankfully for all of us though, I do not have a sensitive gag reflex, and the performance went well, with hopefully more successful ones to come.

In my everyday life, I've started trying to be more outgoing. Not that I'm shy, but I just didn't think I was making a good enough effort to connect with people. In social gatherings my mom brings me to, I try to talk to the adults. I've just been trying to talk to more adults in general. Recently, I was talking to Mr. McNeur about how I saw a bassoon trio in New York City who's members attended Bard (the school that he recommended for me). 3 minutes later, a teacher appears from Great Neck South, hands me a course selection guide, and starts telling me everything I ever needed to know about the college.

That my friends, is how you use community.

Of course in working to be open to new people, I've been working on making better relations with people I know, like you guys. I've been sharing my songs with Scott and Jei, which has been helpful. Even when a kid walked by me in the hallway and said my voice sucked, I barely even noticed (yeah, funny story). I'm still not quite comfortable making music in school yet, but at least I can share it!

Why do you do things to yourself that make you unhappy?

This question mainly refers to my habit of piling an insurmountable amount of tasks upon myself. There had to be some explanation as to why I kept stressing myself out by taking so many lessons while participating in time eating events like the school musical, staying up late to do extra things that make me exhausted the next day, eating fast food at 11:30 at night.

My therapist told me, "You know Ellen, maybe you enjoy doing all these things. Otherwise, why would you even bother?"

This didn't process in my head when I heard it during Hell Week, but in hindsight, he was totally right. I enjoyed piling various tasks on myself and accomplishing them. I liked the adventure of staying out late for crappy food. It made me feel like I was alive. The only thing I don't like is when it gets out of my control.

So, with the help of the handy dandy checklist, my tasks are in my control. I'm doing more things now than ever, and I feel amazing.

Truth be told, I still have tons of self discovery to do. Still, I've gotten myself in a very good place. I intend to do all of my crazy tasks. I intend to understand the theory of the Enneagram. And I intend to complete a 9 song album. 

No pressure, of course.