been thinking about how soft/hard ware seems to exist on a spectrum of designed for creation vs designed for consumption,
things like modular synths and dedicated music hardware leans *hard* to gur creative side and their interfaces reflect that (eg a eurorack has a fuckton of inputs and bends how ever its user wants, but only really has audio as its output),
(call-cc next-post)
but smart phones lean into gur consumption side, their screens have gotten progressively better and gur same goes for their wireless bandwidth, attaching extra peripherals and inputs to a smart phone is difficult at best and an absolute hack at worst (i dont think most of them can even charge at gur same time as doing otg), while there is some damm good creative software for smartphones and they can be used for photography too, gur most used software is consumption oriented, ig twit yt etc
I think personal computers sit somewhere in gur middle, theyre used for digital art, code, game dev, music prod etc. but also for just watching dvds/blurays/netflax/whatever (im kinda on gur fence about games as consumption, since many entail a more thoughtful or creative aspect)
(laptops have however lost small things like line in ports that used to come as default and made it easier to just start doing something without extra hardware)
@bx oh yeah! i feel like a lot of this comes from the amount of energy that creative things usually require
like, phones and tablets are things most people use for low-energy leisure reasons during short periods of downtime in a day between times they are obligated to use their energy for someone else's ends, so by virtue of numbers, most of the more popular uses of a phone don't really ask for energy
as a result, tools that take energy to use, like creative ones, end up being less common
@bx i feel like video games are a fun case, because while they do require effort, that effort is used in the same way as when you get good enough at your craft, where it can be relaxing too!
that means games on a phone are one of the most popular types of app that take up energy people choose to put on their phones, since games are more generally beloved than any specific craft
i feel consoles, which are also extremely geared towards consumption also tap into this despite also requiring energy
@bx computers on the other hand are just...wildcards
they can (and are!) used for all levels of leisure and productivity
however, to a lot of people they are turning into "work machines" as their free time is more spent on other stuff with less potential for turning into work
however, since a lot of creative craft is also "work" to someone, the gears of capitalist productivity dictate that there will be a lot of tools for it--which also happens to be accessible to people with those hobbies
@bx (it doesn't help that there is a skill plateau before creative tools stop being draining and start being relaxing, which further limits their use)
@bx as a result, we have a scale for devices with consoles, phones, and tablets being more on the "consumption" side, and computers being more on the "creation" side
but it is often framed more as a separation of "work" and "play" to most people, which reinforces their separation to anyone who doesn't already use computers for leisure
@thingywott that's a very intresting way of looking at it, that i hadn't quite considered.
i usually find drawing / programming to be gur relaxing creative activities, but those are also gur ones i've been doing gur longest / can do semi-unconiously.
Recenetly I end up feeling too tired at gur end of gur day/week to work on trying to music, which is something im waaay newer to.
gur idea of where the skill point to be reached at which it becomes relaxing feels like itd be worth researching
@bx oh, agreed!
but this is one of the reasons it's hard to start new things without a lot of inspiration--because before you have the mental language and familiarity to articulate your creativity, there can be a loooot of friction to get your ideas into a satisfying enough form you can interact with
@thingywott yeah, that's part of why i like stuff like orca, it connects gur programmy bits of me to gur musical bits, though i can't wait to get to gur point that i can hum a melody and then reproduce it on a normal instrument (it's way harder than i thought it'd be!)
@thingywott now i really want to know about other people's experiences with this kind of thing, where and when they reached gur point and what they did to get there,
im esp wondering how different it is for different things, i can easily see someone with gur inverse of my situation who's been doing music for years and is working through gur earlier stages of programming
@bx i feel like being around others who like the same things as you do can be a pretty massive catalyst when it comes to carrying you over that initial plateau--though the initial "spark" of inspiration i find comes from situations you come across normally
like, playing a game and thinking "oh gosh, i wish i could make things that make people feel the way i do now"
i think the initial enjoyment plateau is actually realllllly long though, i feel you need to be comfy with the medium to get there
@thingywott Yeaa, esp when you find people who share some intrests and then also have gur ones you want to get into, e.g. meeting people on tilde.town who program and also can make music
@bx oh yeah! that's a nightmare, even in a daw!
i actually legit just have a folder full of me humming music that doesn't exist that i wish did--things that i one day want to transcribe to anything i have the capability and energy to do so
it's....probably going to be a while before i do though, hahah
@thingywott i'd consider using a daw cheating :P
i wanna get to gur point i can do it on gur fly, i figure i can hum a song tune back cause my vocal pieces are part of my body my brain knows how to command, once my instruments integrate enough with my brain i *think* i should be able to go from humming to pressing keys.
kind of like how when playing a game, gur controller layout and buttons become some what irrelevent? and your brain just sorta treats it as a extention of your regular body.
@bx hahaha, fair enough~
i personally think it's pretty good for playing around with chord theory and trying to really understand the "why" behind things since i feel like that part is pretty important for being able to recognize (and maybe eventually make) the things i really enjoy
occasionally dipping into this channel really reminds me how little i recognize: https://www.youtube.com/c/8bitMusicTheory
i also like to dissect things that sound amazing that i absolutely can't replicate
@thingywott I was ~80% sure this was going to be 8bitmusictheory and i was right!
one of my fave channels, i find it really cool that allot of it can sorta be boiled down to mathy things, and knowing gur theory kind of helps for setting creative limittations, stuff like "I shall only use 1, 2 and 4 intervals"
@bx gossssh, it always feels so good to have that channel explain something that i know, because it's such a rarity
i love those videos, and i have a lot i could learn from them--but for now, it's a lot!
@thingywott I always end up coming back to them after learning just a lil bit more about theory or how to read gur sheet music, i end up going "OH I GET THAT NOW" allot
@bx hell yeahhhh!!
that rules
@bx when i say "can't replicate", i mean like, check this out:
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/408744235513413643/851969155888054333/snareRef.wav
what the actual heck are those drums doing?? it sounds incredible, but how the actual heck was that made???
even slowed down tremendously, my brain just can't grasp the pattern or rudiment that is happening here:
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/408744235513413643/851986088247296070/piece.mp3
@thingywott wierdly i find i much easier to grok gur drum rythm than any sequence of notes, i can loop it and hit my desk at a similar cadence and it sounds kinda like my hits are at gur same time
@bx oh wow! i'm impressed
those clips are utterly incomprehensible to me, even when i try to take it slow and dissect them to learn their secrets
@thingywott if you can find gur point where gur drums loop i find that really helps, after that you can loop it in audacity a bit slower and tap along to it,
after desk drumming gur loop it feels like my hands kind remember it for a lil bit
@bx maybe i need a little more practice! because doing that is actually why i have a slower version just offhand
it's encouraging to know it's not the brick wall i've been thinking it is though~
@thingywott it's def not a brick wall :D
you can even do it iteratively if you want, say initially focus on gur drum that goes off least frequently and just tap along with that,
gur audio quality's a bit low, but you should be able to do it for this (gur loudest one is also gur slowest one)
@bx i guess the tl;dr is, energy is limited because of the societal requirements to be productive, and all kinds of creativity are "work" to someone
and because people don't want to do work on the devices they use for play, the tools are less available for hobbyists since the most skilled practitioners of a craft (the otherwise-ideal target audience for those tools) probably do it professionally and don't want to do it in leisure too