Sunday Post

This week I decided enough is enough, it’s time to knuckle down, sit up straight, pull that finger out and wash it in hot soapy water. Cos things have gotten a little slack and stale around here, and so have I. 

I’ve set myself some goals. A little contrived maybe I know, but I’m coming to learn that in my current state of mind I’m more inclined to stare at my guitar instead of play it and chew a pencil instead of running it around a piece of A4. So something had to change, cos not being creative feels so very numbing.

At the beginning of the month I started my "daily doodling" which is slowly helping me and my pencil establish a better, more rounded relationship. And starting tomorrow I’m hoping to rekindle with music in a similar fashion, with ‘Music Monthly’ - a new experimental track using various found sounds, samples, stabs, beats, licks and homemade instruments every first Monday of the month.

Hang on, what about all that stuff to do with chance?...

It’s coming, but I’ve decided not to rush it, so I’ll be working on it regularly and methodically in the background until the new year is upon us. It’s around that time I see the first examples being ready to share. But with that said, I do plan to write a weekly ‘Sunday Post’, much like this one, sharing a little about the week I’ve had and what I've been working on. So I imagine that more light will be shed on my fumbles with chance then.

On top of monthly music and chance based creativity, I’ve also been busy smartening up my ‘Make It Ugly’ cat paintings and a small number of my doodled portraits ready to put up for sale on society6. The upload date is set for Saturday (and continuing most Saturday’s thereafter), but I’ll be sure to do a special post once something’s been added to my shop.

So to recap: new music coming tomorrow, with the first stock going into the ‘Wou-Wou & The Wormling’ society6 store Saturday, and updates of my chance experiments (along with everything else) every Sunday... lets see how long I can keep this up ‘ey!

Happy thoughts, 

- The Wormling

Progress

Progress is slow, painfully so, but that’s okay, I didn’t set out to bolt through these experiments at lighting speed, nor was I naive enough to think that there’d be no challenge involved in their execution. So I plod along, doing what I can, when I can, which for the last few weeks hasn’t equated to much. But July’s commitments are behind me now, and my full focus can float back over to chance once again.

I'm now over halfway through the "chance phase" of these experiments, I can say with great hopeful glee, that chancy music, lino-prints, poems, short stories, collages (etc. etc.), are soon to be crafted and fettled.

Till then, I'll do my best to keep this underused space a bit more occupied.


- The Wormling

Q&A

I'm guessing you're here for the experimental Q&A? Well, take a seat and make yourself comfortable.

All I need you to do is answer the twenty questions below with as much panache as you can possibly muster. Once you've done that, you're done! Your answers will be kept safe until Wednesday 9th July, when the actual experiment will take place (the full details of which I'm keeping under my hat for now).

The more creative your answers are, the better the experiment will work. So don’t hold anything back; let your inner poet out. This is your excuse (like you need one) to be as vulgar, exuberant or as silly as you like. Even telling the truth doesn’t matter. There are no right or wrong answers, only your own interpretation of what they should be. And no one will be directly linked to their answers, so you really can say whatever you like.

Right then, ready? Lets begin.

Question Set A.) - (Using no more than a sentence for each) 

What do each one of these words represent to you?

Love:

Money:

Nature:

Sex:

Meat:

Home:

Friends:

Technology:

Nostalgia:

Question Set B.) - (Using no more than a sentence for each) 

Now for memories. You don’t have to be detailed, a vague description’ll do just fine...

Your First:

Your Happiest:

Your Saddest:

Your Proudest:

Your Most Vivid:

Your Dimmest:

Your Darkest:

Your Most Rose-Tinted:

Your Most Recent (that isn’t answering this question):

Question Set C.) - (In any order) 

List

Which three words do you find the most putrid?: 

Which three words make you giddy?:

So if you wish to take part, please send your answers to: ‘wouwouandthewormling@gmail.com’ or private message me via the ‘Wou-Wou..’ facebook page, before Monday 7th July.

Happy thoughts and many thanks,

- The Wormling

The Furry Gamble - Part Two

In order for these ramblings to make any sense, you'll probably have to go to the first 'Furry Gamble' post here. But if you've already read that... 

Make it pretty:



I have to admit, I was hoping for make it ugly when it came to this one. I could hear it: detuned guitars and feedback all the way to buggery... But that didn't happen, I got make it pretty instead.

Oof, how was I going to do something interesting with this chord progression, and make it pretty?

I spent hours fiddling around with my delay pedal, hoping there'd be some magic setting that would make the I-V-vi-IV progression twinkly and new, but it was to no avail, it still sounded bland.

Another few hours and a computer malfunction later, I had reached some sort of compromise.  By reversing the chord progression I had this roomy backdrop to work with. It wasn't pretty per-say, but added an eeriness that sounded sort of beautiful, to me at least. And after that was down, I just noodled around with it for a bit, adding things, taking them away. So on and so forth.

Overall, I wouldn't say it turned out that pretty, but it's been a fun challenge, and I learnt a few lessons on the way... most importantly: save, save, save.

Make it ugly:

This had to be easy. Do an ugly portrait of my cats. My inability to paint has that one covered already. It wasn't 'til I sat down and gave it some "proper thought" that I realised that I had absolutely no ideas. Zilch. Nowt... 

Then after a ruminate:

"Oh hang on, I'll just draw my face on my cats bodies. Yeah, that sounds ugly enough. I could have it so I'm licking my arsehole! Hohoho..."

 

 

...Erm, no. 

I have this knack of going with the first, daft idea I have. Take the easy way out for a cheap laugh that never comes. So I pulled myself together and went back to the drawing board, and these are what came out.

These monochrome fighting felines where partly inspired by Georg Baselitz's simple but energetic silhouettes, and 'Two Fighting Insects' by Tadek Beutlich, which we're lucky enough to have in our dining room. The ugly experience of my own brawling moggys also acted as inspiration I'm sure.

Y'know, they're messy, they're inaccurate, some of the cats look like dogs, some like blobs, but the more I live with them the more I enjoy them being stuck on the wall. And it's because of 'The Furry Gamble' that they exist.

All-in-all, 'The Furry Gamble' works! However it still gives me a lot of creative freedom. What if that was diminished, or even removed all together? What if I had no control over the outcome?

Hmmm...

- The Wormling

The Furry Gamble - Part One

Over the coming months I plan to elaborate on a number of experiments that play with the idea of chance (or aleatoricism, if you like) and its role in the creative process. Usually when starting a creative endeavour, be it doing a doodle, writing a story, or putting together a piece of music, I'd begin with a fixed idea on how something is going to be, or a concept in which to work up from, rarely is something left to chance. But what if these decisions were already decided by the throw of a dice or a pick out of a hat?

My first experiment draws from Brian Eno and Peter Schmidt's Oblique Strategies - a set of cards with artistic directions, that encourage lateral thinking towards creative dilemmas - and The Wasp Factory from the novel of the same name by Iain Banks - a crude future telling device, in which a wasp is placed and forced to choose one of twelve trapdoors. Behind each trapdoor there's a deadly end for the wasp (fire, spider, being pissed on, etc.) and the way it dies has significant meaning to the Factory's maker, Frank.

Before you start, I don't intend to wizz on any wasps, but the thought of a creature making choices for me, well that could work couldn't it?

So without further ado here are the felines that are going to aid me in my first test, and the undisputed stars of this post: Bootsy Mann (Left) & Mousey Brown (Right)...

Yes they've got surnames, what of it?

Anyway, by merging the theme of the Oblique Strategies and running with the idea of my cats giving me creative direction, I came up with The Furry Gamble: A creative problem solving exercise which puts creative direction in the hands, or should I say, paws, of animals. The process involves placing a handful of treat enclosed envelopes, each with its own creative direction, in front of a co-operative critter and waiting to see which envelope it chooses.

The directions I picked for my first test are: make it ugly, make it pretty, make it simple, and make it complex. Why? Because they feel both broad enough to work with and specific enough to be constrained by.

As for the all important creative "dilemmas":

Dilemma a.) I plumped for the I-V-vi-IV chord progression, in a attempt to do something interesting with a common musical formula.

As my cats are helping me out, I figured for dilemma b.) I'd do a portrait of them. Which if I'm honest, doesn't sit easy as I personally find the idea of it a little too cute, and dare I say it, naff. But "Wou-Wou..." is about pushing myself into uneasy territory, so I guess it's the right thing to do.

And to prove chivalry isn't dead, the direction of dilemma a.) will be determined by Mouse, and dilemma b.) Bootsy. 

Right then, enough blather, it's experimentin' time...

That's that then. Do something pretty with the ol' I-V-vi-IV and do an ugly animal portrait... that shouldn't be too hard. 

Come back next week for the results, if you like.


- The Wormling

P.S. In case you enjoyed it, 'Sassafras' (the track on the vid) is now available as a free download from the 'Wou-Wou & The Wormling' SoundCloud page here, or if you're feeling lazy, at the bottom of this blog.

The Result

And so the dreaded first post. The blank page. The void. It wouldn't be an exaggeration to say that I've written this in my head a hundred times, and attempted to physically write it just as many. Still, nothing seems to suffice, and it's all to do with my obsession with "the result".

Y'know, for as long as I can remember I've had a constant stream of ideas whizzing about my head, but when it comes to committing to any of them, I crumble, all because the projection in my bonce rarely reaches my high expectations when it makes it into the physical world.

This happens to pretty much all of us in one way or another. We're all drawn in by the potential, the dream, the what ifs. But time after time it never lives up to the gravity to which we've given it. In the objective sense it's the kitchen gadget that was meant to save minutes chopping garlic that now collects dust in the cupboard brimming with the other timesaving gadgets; the convertible that you've never driven around the countryside in homage to those slick car ad's.

Yes, these are pretty cliche, but the creative process I go through isn't far detached. The grand ideas (regardless to how much effort goes into them) never reach their cognitive greatness. So the song that I think to be the best I've ever written, isn't; the illustration that I've been imagining is impossible to draw; and the concept for a new poem I have becomes messy, flawed and without emotion or rhyme.

So what to do, lower my expectations?... Not yet. 

Although I sometimes struggle with the above, I still don't see it as my enemy, just part of my make-up, my nature, something to be worked at. And through reflection I am learning to control these destructive tendencies by experimenting.

For example, when I moved from my cassette four-track to a DAW (digital audio workspace), recording my music was a largely arduous ordeal on my ego. I focused far to much on the sounds and images in my head, and on how something "should sound" or "should be" according to online sources and expert opinions. The result ended up being far too safe and conscious. Then I stumbled upon some of my old recordings, and although very crude, I felt they had more about them, more life. I quickly came to realise that because I was still learning to play the basics during those first recordings, everything I did was a constant experiment. After I'd had the time to digest this concept, my recordings slowly freed up in the name of experimentation.

All in all, I reached the conclusion that it's fine to have fixed creative ideas, the image in your head or whatever it may be, but it's more fun to be spontaneous and unruly. Fixed ideas come with the baggage of ego and expectation, but there's little room for them when you're just doing something for the hell of it. And even just leaving space for a mess about in your fixed idea will open up whatever it is your working on to happy mistakes and nuances that will better represent you.

Which leads me to what 'Wou-Wou & the Wormling' is about. From where I sit it's about me growing creatively through playing and experimenting with child-like abandon; about learning to love my faults and inabilities, and working with them as if they were a talent; about doing things upside down and back-to-front so to get to a state where I don't judge what comes out of me; about choosing the difficult path and not resting on my laurels. 

I cannot promise that if you come back in a week or so, you'll like or enjoy anything that I've done, nor that it will be of a certain "professional" quality, because where I stand, those things don't stand for much. 

That said, and depending on what I stumble across on this ongoing odyssey, there may be the certain creative exercises or methods that could be of use to you in times of block, or even just for plain old fun, to do for the sake of creating.

Truthfully though, s'all up in the air at the moment... and that's just where I plan to keep it.

Many thanks,


- The Wormling