New album from Owen Kleon: TECH

Owen Kleon’s TECH

Monday, April 29, 2024

What kind of album would you get if you gave an 11-year-old Logic Pro and played him a steady diet of Kraftwerk and Daft Punk? The answer is TECH, the latest album from my son Owen Kleon.

I’ve read and conducted so many interviews with older, established artists. I’ve always wondered what it would be like to do an interview with an artist who is just starting out! So I asked Owen if I could interview him about it over iMessage. He said okay.

What was the first song you recorded for Tech?

“Typing.”

When did you know that this was going to be a concept album? How did you land on the idea of Tech?

At first I was just making songs about random stuff, but a little bit into recording it I noticed that all of the songs were about technology, so I just decided to make it a theme album.

Were you listening to any music during the recording of Tech that inspired you?

I was mostly inspired by Kraftwerk and Daft Punk.

How does a song begin for you? Do you start with a melody or a rhythm or lyrics? Where do you get your ideas for a song?

I like to just play around on the keyboard until I come up with a melody that sounds good, then I record that and add other stuff to it. Then I come up with a topic I want the song to be about and record lyrics on that topic.

You got Logic Pro for Christmas a few months before beginning this album — how did you learn Logic Pro so quickly? Previously, you’d recorded in GarageBand — did Logic Pro help expand the possibilities of what you were able to do on this album?

Logic Pro is pretty similar to GarageBand so I didn’t have to learn very much, but when I was confused I would just look up a YouTube tutorial on how to do something. Logic Pro did have more possibilities, mainly more sounds and a vocoder.

I almost think of the vocals on this album as another instrument, the way they blend in with the mix. How did you come up with the vocal sound?

So on Logic Pro there are some vocoder presets, and I play the vocals with each of those presets. When I find one that I like, I make the melody for the vocoder and add some EQ or a compressor if it makes it sound better.

One of the things I like about Tech is that there are songs about “cutting edge” technology, like “AI Buddy,” but there are also songs about older technology, like “Cards” or “Photos.” Do you ever make music with older technology, like acoustic instruments? Is there a difference between writing on something like the piano or in Logic Pro?

I don’t really make songs with older technology, however I do compose some of my songs on the piano. Yes, there is a difference between writing on the piano or Logic Pro, because usually when I record my songs I create the notes manually instead of playing them on the keyboard while recording. However, I do make exceptions sometimes—like on that line in “Television” or the entire melody of “Revolution.”

Tell me more about creating the notes manually — so you don’t play them on the keyboard? What does that look like in Logic Pro?

So I can open up a region and hold command to open up a pencil icon, where I can click to add notes. I can also drag the notes’ ends to change the length of them. Here’s a screenshot from “AI Buddy” demonstrating this:

That’s remarkable. Can you read normal musical notation?

I can read a bit of it, not very well though.

Have you taken music lessons or are you self-taught?

I’m self-taught. I took piano lessons one time long ago, for a week or two I think, but I don’t remember learning a lot from it.

For years I’ve said you should take piano lessons, but you’re obviously doing just fine on your own. What would you say to adults like me who think their kids need to take lessons before they make music?

Expose them to music a lot and play music with them, eventually they will learn. If they aren’t really making progress, maybe give them a bit of lessons. Honestly, I don’t really know.

You also compose music for video games. Is there a difference in your creative process when you’re composing for games versus writing songs?

I’d call them “unfinished attempts at making video games due to procrastination,” lol, all jokes aside, when I make that kind of music it’s kind of easier cause I don’t have to come up with lyrics, and I can make the song shorter because it would be looping [in the game].

You love to code and you love to make music. Do you see any similarities between the two?

Creativity and doing stuff with your hands.

If you didn’t have to go to school or do anything your parents told you to do, what would your perfect day look like?

I don’t know, I don’t really have a definition of a “perfect day.”

Fair enough. Alright, you finished up this album, which is excellent. What’s next for you? Are you going to do another album?

Definitely! Not sure if it’ll be an album or an EP though. It probably won’t be a theme album because it was hard coming up with song ideas for Tech.

Thanks for doing this. You okay with me sharing this on my blog?

Sure!

* * *

You can listen to Tech in its entirety on Soundcloud.

Like a snail on a cactus

Saturday, April 27, 2024

I usually can’t write the Tuesday newsletter until I know the image it’s going to start with, but I often start Friday’s newsletter without any idea what’s going to go at the top. Eventually, a theme emerges, or I come across something that will work, like this image of a snail on a cactus in my neighborhood.

“I’m moving like a snail on a cactus” has become one of my “How you doing?” responses.

Others:

“I am riding in the bike lane on trash day.”

“I am feeling like a cheeseburger with no cheese.” (My son Owen made that one up.)

“I got squirrels in my owl box.”

It often seems to me that life is now just about the slow accumulation of these phrases until I die.

Anyways, you can read the newsletter here.

No such thing as waste

Tuesday, April 23, 2024

Today’s newsletter is about understanding perfectionism, and how I misunderstood perfectionism for the longest time, so I wasn’t able to detect it in myself.

But the letter really began with this image:

I built this collage around a drawing that my son wadded up in frustration before running out of the studio in tears. In the past, this is what I thought perfectionism was: an inability to deal with the disconnect between what a drawing looked like in your head and how it came out of your hand. I thought perfectionism was a problem for the uptight, for big babies who can’t just loosen up and let ‘er rip.

You can read the rest of the newsletter here.

Something I wasn’t able to weave into the newsletter — because it’s not really about perfectionism, it just got me thinking about it — was this instagram post by Lynda Barry about “drawing with four year olds and being there to see how they figure something out”:

I often find drawings begun and then abandoned… Something is not quite right and they need to start over. Then comes the issue of wasting paper. And of finishing what they started. But what if we were…talking about a kind learning to play the trumpet, trying to play a certain note by repeating it… Getting the hang of it, making it natural. Would we say they are easing notes? It took 12 index cards to come to this image. The kid who drew it said “He bites the people” when they finished.

…I would have been told to stop wasting paper and I may have said the same thing to this kid if I wasn’t really paying attention to how this drawing came about. It reminds me of an archer— there is no wasting of arrows when you’re learning to shoot.

Lynda really got me to internalize this idea with my kids — there was no such thing as wasting paper or markers. We encouraged them to use up as many materials as they had.

As I mentioned in another letter, there were days that Jules filled so many pages that we’d sweep them up at the end of the day with a broom:

One of the things I’ve been playing with in my head is: What if we treated ourselves with the tenderness (and yes, the discipline) that we show our children?

For years, I wanted to write a book about how much I learned from watching my kids work, but what I’m starting to realize is that what I’ve really learned is how to set up the conditions for creativity to happen. If you can do it for a four-year-old, maybe you can do it for yourself…

And one of the great lessons is: Believe that there is no such thing as waste. Creative work is the residue of time “wasted.” Of materials “wasted.”

At the same time, the whole reason I made the collage is so I could “save” that drawing from the wastebasket! And Lynda, too, in that post, is saving those drawings, repurposing the “waste” into something worth saving…

So maybe one has to make without regard to waste, without fear, and save and share what you can’t stand to see wasted…

How to have fun thinking with a paper dictionary

Thursday, April 18, 2024

People often ask questions like, “Why do you have that paper dictionary in your office when you can just look things up online?”

Reader, let me tell you!

Walt Goggins makes me think of the word “ornery” — so I looked that word up. (As John McPhee tells us, it’s important to look up words even when you think you already know the definition.)

Ornery: “Mean-spirited, disagreeable, and contrary in disposition; cantankerous.”

Well, yeah, but not quite.

“See Synonyms at CONTRARY.”

Okay, let’s go.

The entry for “Contrary” is several paragraphs long. My eyes glaze, not over, but above — to the entry for “contrarian.”

That’s a word that usually has a negative connotation, right? “Oh, he’s just being contrarian.”

But let’s read the definition, anyways.

“con-trar-i-an n. an investor who makes decisions that contradict prevailing wisdom, as in buying securities that are unpopular at the time.”

Contrarian as investor?

Oh, I like this idea.

I don’t want to oppose the status quo just to oppose it — I was to invest in what I think is undervalued at the moment. (Like paper dictionaries.)

Now, I’m thinking about word that “prevailing.” That’s an interesting word. Let’s look that up.

Cool, cool, what I thought, but OOOH look a picture of a PRETZEL:

I mean, I know what a pretzel is, I don’t need to read that definition, do I? Oh, yes I do, because if I didn’t, I wouldn’t know the connection between a pretzel and prayer: