Saturday, May 6, 2017
Illusions of Completion hr592
My work for the new song is drawing to a close and it’s in the mastering
process now. I usually make the master track and leave it for a few
days before the final check. The interval is essential for me because it
gets me out of the zone, calms me down and gives me ears to listen
objectively. Since this particular new song of mine required difficult
mastering, I had trouble with finding the solution. It took much longer
than I had expected to make the master track. I finally got to make one
and tried to forget all about it for a few days. After the interval, I
got so tense and excited that couldn’t sleep the night before the final
check. What made me sleepless was the thought that on the very next day,
I would finally end this painfully prolonged mastering and could see
the song completed. I knew I needed a good night’s sleep for a good
physical condition to make good judgement, but that pressure for all
good kept me awake all the more. I listened to the master track the next
day carefully and objectively, and found one slight flaw. I was
disappointed that it wasn’t the day. I had to correct it and hold the
completion over. I repeated the process of mastering, taking an
interval, having difficulty sleeping, and making the final check. Then
on the day I believed this would be the day of completion, I noticed one
minor kink. I redid the process all over again. At the moment, I’m in
this loop and can’t get out of it. I’m literally stuck in the mud of
mastering. I make it a custom to open champagne when a song is
completed, which doesn’t happen often because I’m a slow worker.
Completing a song is so infrequent that I celebrate with Moet Chandon.
It’s my favorite but too expensive for me to drink except for New Year’s
Eve. This time, I put it in the fridge months ago when I thought this
song was completed at any moment. And it’s been there unopened for
months, as I’m deeply caught in the mastering mire. Every time I open
the fridge, I see Moet chilled so long and almost frozen up, blaming my
prolonged work. I keep declaring to my partner that today is the last
day for this song, and retracting it at the end of the day. He doesn’t
say anything but I feel his disappointment and anxiousness. As I’ve
taken back my words of the completion so many times, I fear that he
might see me as a useless liar who is just lingering slow work. I can
take as much time as I like in theory since the deadline doesn’t exist
for the song. Even so, I’ve already spent five years working just on
this song and it’s too long for a slow worker like me. That notion puts a
lot of pressure on me to complete fast. It seems to me as if both
Moet’s and my partner’s patience is running out. Workdays have dragged
on and on, and it has begun to eat me mentally. These days, when I
finish my day’s work and tell my partner that the song hasn’t been
completed again, I sense that he throws me a cold glance implying, “I
thought so.” The other night, I had a dream in which I cried for joy
because the song’s mastering went perfectly and it sounded flawless. The
other day, when I failed to finish the song for umpteenth time, I was
so irritated that I took it out on my partner and had a nasty
dinnertime. In this anguish, winter ended and spring has come. I’ve been
correcting small parts that I’m not satisfied with, which hinders
completion. The thing is, those parts are too small to be called flaws
or even kinks. I’m certain nobody would notice when he or she listens to
it. Then what am I doing? What am I chasing? I may have lost a
definition for completion. What is completion, after all? I’ve asked
basic questions to myself and the answer is the same. I just want what
I’m entirely satisfied with. If I called anything other than that
completion, it would be a lie. I would actually become a useless liar
and be done for. I would rather be bogged down in this mud of searching
for my perfection than that. So I go on, starting another loop yet
again, while I keep crying completion to my partner, to myself, and to
Moet Chandon…
Labels:
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Moet Chandon,
mud,
Music,
patience,
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