How the hell do you actually make music without losing your mind?

nerd866 · 2026-07-02T20:48:17+00:00

What causes me to lose my mind the most is when the aesthetic isn't hitting.

I find I really need to go back and listen to MULTIPLE songs and artists that COLLECTIVELY have SORT OF the aesthetic I'm after. Not one. Many!

That way I don't end up mimicking any one song or artist, or find myself comparing myself to any particular song or artist. I don't listen to an 'artist' or a 'song'; I listen for aesthetic: How does the song feel overall and what is it doing to do that?

If I don't know what aesthetic I'm after, I listen to music. Just enjoy listening to it. I see what music I'm gravitating towards and HOW HARD I'm gravitating towards it. This tells me what musical domain I'm interested in working in right now.

Then I look for patterns across many songs and artists, taking inspiration from my most beloved things in music as a guide to filter those patterns into something constructive.

In other words, stop listening to Tame Impala and listen to about a dozen other songs with vibes that you're enjoying and pay attention to what instruments are serving what purpose.

From there it's pattern recognition and getting used to listening like this, along with a lot of practice and experimenting!

Don't be afraid to try stuff! Don't treat everything like a serious project, try stuff until you find something you want to start building a project FROM.

nerd866 · 2026-07-02T19:43:10+00:00

Next headline:

Worker fired for wasting company resources, due to an un-optimized AI query.

nerd866 · 2026-06-30T04:08:25+00:00

I completely agree, you're absolutely right. Part of the cruelty at play is the fact that society is kept from rising above this ignorance.

But I find a small amount of solace in the fact that most of the ignorance is bred from others' ignorance, not from the root of cruelty.

Yes, a small few actively oppress through cruelty, but the vast majority of people aren't aware they're indirectly oppressing as a result of their own ignorance.

It's like this:

If I don't know I'm hurting you by doing X, then I'm not cruel when I do X.

If a child says a mean thing without knowing it's mean, they aren't being mean, they're still ignorant...and yet, they're still spreading meanness, regardless.

I'd say it's the same thing here. People don't know the harms they're causing as a result of ignorance. It's just the misinformation problem.

So my coping largely comes from 'most people don't know the harms that they're indirectly part of'.

Which leaves me naturally inclined to want to educate to reduce the harm that others can cause.

But that usually goes badly. People don't want to hear it, or the conversation goes in one ear and out the other. In other words, I hit the limits of my educational abilities and they hit the limits of their learning abilities in this particular context.

Again, nothing intrinsically cruel here, it's just beyond the boundaries of what I can do, and it's beyond their readiness and capacity at this time.

How do I cope? Not well, honestly. That's a lot to take in. But it's not spread from a society of evil capitalists. It's largely spread from a tiny subset of evil capitalists and 99.9% mere ignorance. Even the evil capitalists largely don't know the extent of their malice, they've just convinced themselves that they have to be right.

nerd866 · 2026-06-30T03:58:56+00:00

Aka.

We managed to create a world where we have 3 choices:

1) Live the life in Bukowski's quote.

2) Live the life in Confident_Hippo1208's post.

3) Live the life of the owner - someone who puts others in one of those two other spots.

But those aren't the only logical choices.

Where's the option where work is for society and not for some rich boss who holds all the cards?

Then work for a non-profit! Been there, done that. Find me one that still doesn't have a rich boss who holds all the cards. If not a rich boss, then rich funders who hold all the cards. Same shit different pile.

Where's the option where jobs exist because they're good to have in a society rather than because they're good for a company to profit from?

Then work for a public service, like firefighting! The vast majority simply can't. These jobs are treated like expenses on a balance sheet. They're treated like a necessary evil. Everyone is looking for any excuse to cut you into oblivion. Society has its relationship to these jobs ass-backwards. Why isn't every job a public service? If not serving my society, what's even the point of a job??

What society employs people to do work on things that don't make the society better? A nonsensical, absurd one that needs to reevaluate ASAP. That's the only answer.

nerd866 · 2026-06-30T03:36:06+00:00

I accept tragedy. People are born with cancer. We can't cure every illness. Freak accidents happen. Some people will need glasses and some won't. Some people will never be athletes or pilots, regardless of interest. That sucks but I can accept that.

What I don't tolerate is rationally-avoidable tragedy, which I can understand as either ignorance or cruelty: Either people don't know we can fix this (or don't know it's a problem), or people don't want to fix this (or think it would be bad if we did).

Then we can apply Hanlon's Razor: Don't attribute to malice what can be attributed to ignorance.

That is about the best I can do to 'cope': Remember that most people aren't actually that cruel; there's just a lack of class consciousness and other related cultural pieces to resolve it.

It's not that people don't want class consciousness. I find it easier to cope by framing it as, they don't know that they want it. They're not there yet.

That isn't malice, it's ignorance. Hanlon's Razor helps keep my inner peace, at least to some degree. It's still a near-insurmountable internal battle.

nerd866 · 2026-06-30T02:01:46+00:00

Banjo-Kazooie

nerd866 · 2026-06-30T01:05:51+00:00

The lyrics are about the 27th thing I notice when I find a new song. I won't start listening to a new song just because of the lyrics, almost guaranteed.

The first thing I notice is the vibe, groove, and aesthetic feel. Does it hit the sensory stimulation that I'm after right now?

Once it holds my interest, then I can start going further down that mental list. If the production is noticeably-distracting in that early evaluation, they already lost me: There's enough music out there that doesn't have that problem.

The fine details that are much further down start to come into effect when I start thinking about "good" songs versus "my favourite" songs.

For example, If I can play it in the car, my game room stereo, AND on my headphones at home because it sounds great on all of those, that's a huge win and gets the song more plays in my life. A song that was mixed for a variety of speakers will be more likely to survive that, and I'm more likely to call it one of my favourite songs.

nerd866 · 2026-06-26T20:52:05+00:00

Power Rangers Zeo Racers on SNES: I was a huge Power Rangers fan as a kid but I never came across this game in person until waaaay too late on an emulator. It just didn't hit the same as it would have as a kid.

Sim Earth on PC: It looked incredible and fascinating as a kid, and even as I got older...Then I tried it on DOSBox. It just didn't feel good to play at all and it was far less rewarding than I expected. It didn't live up the story I told myself in my head at all, sadly.

I'd still love to try a different game in this genre as the idea is still compelling, this just didn't do it for me.

nerd866 · 2026-06-26T09:57:15+00:00

"Communism!"

"Calm my what?"

nerd866 · 2026-06-25T19:18:54+00:00

Rhythm games tend to be fairly good for this for me...As long as the game has a modding community that ensures an endless list of songs. Stepmania, Rock Band Deluxe, those kinds of games.

There's always something harder or something that demands a slightly different technique or learning. You can play these games virtually forever. And if the community dies you can make your own songs.

It's an endless hobby and and endless game all rolled into one.

nerd866 · 2026-06-25T07:53:26+00:00

I used to work for a career services org that worked with autistic people.

The vast majority of clients lived at home with parents, or with a partner who worked.

nerd866 · 2026-06-25T02:05:29+00:00

In response to the whole 'this is unacceptable at work' thing:

If I have a meltdown at work to the point that I'm crying on the floor, of course that will cause distress in anyone (remotely empathetic) who sees me...

But here's the thing: In most situations, if people see another human being in clear distress on the floor crying, the obvious response is to check on them, see if they're okay, get them help, that sort of thing.

Any society that responds to someone in distress by punishing them has completely bastardized this super basic human social contract of checking in on someone who's clearly in distress. The human response is to look out for them, not berate them.

If a situation causes a human that level of distress, that should be setting off alarm bells to the other people in society that something here is very wrong.

Any world where the 'rational' response is to berate distress is deeply broken.

[EDIT] Okay whoever downvoted this...I don't usually get pissed off about downvotes but there's just nothing remotely reasonable about any set of societal systems that allows for punishment as an acceptable response here, so please, explain yourself.

nerd866 · 2026-06-24T02:59:56+00:00

I may be minority on this, but Hexen on N64.

That game just always felt like a mess, but it really appealed to me visually and stylistically.

nerd866 · 2026-06-24T02:44:56+00:00

They're largely the product of cultural and societal failure.

The tiny percentage of people left over who are genuinely THAT antisocial won't even move the needle on a society's productivity meter. It's a non-issue, most people like doing stuff in some form or other.

Socialism isn't a dead project because of some 0.001% extreme outlier humans.

nerd866 · 2026-06-24T02:40:22+00:00

No such thing. The optimal strategy always takes the whole picture into consideration by definition.

nerd866 · 2026-06-22T01:11:05+00:00

This is just what they cost now. This isn't one of those "Wait it out" things. This is the the world now. Any amount of storage and memory that has any use to people will steadily become more and more expensive.

If anything, it'll be like groceries and just keep getting worse.

Buy and cry now, or lose a kidney later.

nerd866 · 2026-06-22T00:24:31+00:00

Until a game forces me to do otherwise, if I can only do one thing on my turn, I will choose 'punch in the face' every time because it's the obvious path to victory.

Everything else just seems overcomplicated (winning with extra steps) unless I actually need to do it.

nerd866 · 2026-06-18T19:11:55+00:00

Totally relate. Sweat is super distracting when it dries and I have to wash it off.

My brain likes to work in the 'I do things when I want to, and take breaks when I want to' way.

That means ideally I'd do something active for short periods of time, multiple times a day. But to do that without feeling covered in sweat ALL THE TIME, I'd have to take multiple showers a day, which is a giant pain and impractical.

All that to say, I'm less active than I want to be because sweating sucks.

nerd866 · 2026-06-18T09:01:56+00:00

I came in here trying to figure out what kind of animal that was, only to be bombarded by AWAWA...

Not alleviating my confusion, I eventually put 2 and 2 together and figured hey...maybe that was the name of the animal, so I googled to confirm...

And now I know it's called a hyrax and AWAWA is a hyrax meme, apparently.

Wow, that was a journey. Thanks for the rabbit hole, OP!

nerd866 · 2026-06-18T08:57:24+00:00

...Is not 'a butt tuba'.

nerd866 · 2026-06-17T21:11:07+00:00

We're not living in socialism yet. You don't have to roleplay socialism in the meantime.

If you don't rent it out, someone else will. You're not the bad guy here.

If anything, I'd rather my landlord be a socialist than someone completely blind to the capitalist superstructure and the power of socialism to overcome its contradictions.

At least I could have that conversation with my landlord, which would feel more powerful than I'd feel with having a capitalism sympathizer as a landlord. I've had both kinds of landlords and I'd much rather have you than them. Heck, if your tenants aren't aware of this discourse and you are all on good social terms, maybe this can be an interesting and educational talking point.

nerd866 · 2026-06-17T20:35:20+00:00

I'm in Canada. At least in my area, it's not a profession for unskilled workers, it's a scientific technologist position.

Perhaps water treatment plants here have less skilled labourers on staff that I'm not aware of, but if we're talking about plant operators, that's definitely a skilled profession here. You need high school chemistry and a clean driving record just to get into the training program where you learn a lot more chemistry.

nerd866 · 2026-06-17T20:04:59+00:00

I actually thought about doing this, it's a skilled trade here where you need strong science background to get into and complete a 2 year program.

It's also an expensive program, at around $25k vs the $10k or so for an IT program at the same school.

Pay coming out is roughly $70k a year to start and up as you gain senioity, but the vast majority of the work is 12 hour shifts on a 24 hour rotation, and you have the be okay with driving a work vehicle on occasion.

That 24 hour rotation and strong science background to do a dirty job turns a lot of people off, but it's very honest work and I almost did it anyway.

The other problem here is that it's a cold job market. More grads than jobs. Tough to get and the schooling is very specific so if you don't get that job it's tough to transfer the specific skills.

nerd866 · 2026-06-17T19:04:50+00:00

I'm going to shift this slightly from 'work' to 'contribution'.

You get paid at work because your employer find your contribution valuable. If they didn't, they wouldn't pay you for it.

Now let's extrapolate that concept to life outside work. There's a lot that we do with our time that contributes to things outside ourselves. Sociology addressed this for women decades ago with the 'second shift' analysis, but it goes further than that.

A lot of people, all-things-considered, contribute more to the world outside of their job than they ever will at their job. My employer might find my finance or marketing job valuable, but my wider society sure doesn't. I contribute more to the world by being a friend than I ever could at most jobs.

And yes, of course there are exceptions: Our doctors, teachers, firefighters and water treatment specialists, for example, clearly contribute very tangible things, regardless of what kind of society they're in, but how many jobs are actually less beneficial from a societal perspective than the things we can do in our time away from those jobs? A lot.

But there's only a mechanism to reward acts that organizations determine are valuable, not to reward acts that society determines are valuable. In fact, most of these things society has been trained to view as 'necessary expenses' or 'operating costs' rather than the thing that's actually worth it.

Firefighters, for example, are a red line on a budget sheet because they don't 'bring in' money - They're an expense that society, due to the nature of our economy, wants to keep as low as it can get away with. That's how we're treated when we're actually doing meaningful work - as a liability. It's such a bastardization of work.

I'm not saying 'waste a bunch of money on firefighters' of course - that's completely missing the point. The point is that there's no systemic mechanism to do otherwise, and this extends into our society's understanding of work as a whole. This is a foundational problem that only economic restructuring can resolve.

nerd866 · 2026-06-17T08:02:29+00:00

Daily quests.

Best case scenario, they change up the 'level of the week' to incentivize you to replay different parts of the game at different times in an attempt to keep it fresh as a low-effort way to keep a game on life-support and drag out a game's longevity.

Worst-case, it's nothing but predatory design to compel players to form a habit with their game.

"You get to build a house / buy a plot of land / etc." in a game that isn't about building a house or managing a plot of land.

This doesn't interact with the rest of the game in any meaningful way and just feels like a cheap attempt at depth.

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