Habitus

I grew up obsessed with the songs Believe (Cher, 1998) and Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This) (Eurythmics, 1983), but that was a product of listening to them on the radio. My family were not incredibly interested in music outside of a passive listening sense, or at a function, so I found my own way to it. Eventually I fell in love with genres like nu metal and delved even further into the world of club music, which was funny for a shy and introverted kid like I was, but I never gave up listening to the likes of Britney Spears, or even Frank Sinatra from my dad’s influence.

The older I get the more I realise how these early interests and obsessions have shaped my music making. In the sociological and psychological sense, “habitus is the learned set of preferences or dispositions by which a person orients to the social world.” (Edgerton & Roberts, 2014), its suggests that our environment impacts our way of navigating our lives, basing on things we picked up along the way. To apply this to a music sense, it defines in our core sonic interests, thematic interests, and everything else related to interacting with music.

Flow

Flow states are essentially a form of meditation. People like musicians, athletes, writers, artists, and more can achieve the flow state through several methods. The state allows for peak focus and attention, as well as performance and wellbeing. A state where you are fully engaged and absorbed into what you are doing it does not require conscious thought and effort – “flow” (Csikszentmihalyi, M., 2017). For me this tends to happen when I put myself in a comfortable place, have a good amount of imagery at least in my head, have plenty inspiration, and I am enjoying the process that I am doing.

Entering a flow state when writing lyrics is especially useful for me as I often find it the hardest part of writing music, as I second guess myself more than at any other point in the writing, but I mostly find myself entering flow states after engaging with a piece of media I find inspirational. I can also get intensely invested in sound palettes in a DAW, or drawing up drum MIDI in a DAW.

Field

Field and Habitus are closely related, with the latter focusing more on the unconscious habits we form as we navigate the former. Fields can be formed of the social connections we make with eachother, such as in our family, education, or even where we stay, “a field delimits a structure in which habitus operates” (Navarro, Z., 2016). For musicians, this can take the form of a music scene, our proximity to music education, the types of genres our friends like, and so forth.

I was lucky that I had friends in high school that wanted to play music, and therefore got to explore actively playing in my first band as a teen. My family were also very supportive of my interest, even though they themselves had no connection to the act of playing music at all, nor knew where to really begin with it. As I aged into my late teens, early twenties, I was in some ways fortunate to also be able to go to Glasgow, where there was a thriving music scene with many venues and live music. This allowed me to meet new people, other musicians, and allow me to expand my music tastes and understanding significantly. However, due to my insecurities at the time, I lost a large part of myself to the radius of creativity I was in, and subsequently only really became comfortable with who I was as a performer, musician, artist, and person later on after the rose-tinted glasses came off. For this project I am showing who I am now as a product of myself when I was younger, and who I am now.

Authenticity

“[Authenticity] refers to the perceived genuineness, sincerity, and originality of the musical expression, reflecting the artist's ability to convey genuine emotions and

experiences.” (Rauf, A. et al, 2020). Authenticity is part of my core belief as an artist, as I would not want to make or do anything that I was not giving 100% of myself to. It speaks to the feelings I am putting into my music, the themes, the way I dress, my visual art, my conduct, my interests – my whole being as a musician, performer, and visual artist. For some, they may take their identity on and off like a coat at the door because it does not truly represent who they are, it is just a means to an end for them in marketing. For me, I have to put a piece of myself in everything I do, it has to be a means in and of itself. Some genres, like country music, claim to require authenticity to be accepted in the canon, due to the history of the genre and the themes. Whereas you may find less authenticity within pop music, as it focuses on trends in the moment. This is a subjective line of reasoning, however.

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In the case of this project, I am writing something I have wanted to do but not felt comfortable enough to show people. Something that is healing to my inner weird child and teen selves, kinder to my earlier twenties than when I was living them, and something I want to share as I approach 30. It might not make sense to people on the outside, but I feel it very, very deeply within myself and I would not have it any other way.

Constraints

Constraints can be both beneficial and a hinderance. Having too much freedom through lack of constraints can: make the choices feel too endless, deadlines too distant, and nothing ever gets done due to a lack of motivation; but less constraints can also mean you have plenty options to try new things and can potentially focus in on the process of making. Too many constraints can cause the opposite problem: not having the tools you need to complete a project the way you want, stress overtaking creativity, not enough time for your ideas, not having varied enough inspiration or tools; on the other hand, it can breed more creative ideas as solutions to the limitations than if they were not there in the first place and keep a project focused.

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In my case, creative constraints come in the form of my mode of working and the sound I want to evoke. I normally work with physical instruments then put them into Ableton, but I’m doing the reverse for this project, and have a writing partner rather than working on my own. Additionally, I want to make something that is evocative of the 90s / 00s, whereas my normal modus operandi is to pepper that influence through newer sounds and methods of song construction. Trying new things will be incredibly liberating for me as I get to both challenge myself with developing my DAW skills, and explore my influences in a bigger way than when I work as part of a duo. There is also the possibility that I ask others to session for me when I lack the sounds I need.

Aesthetics

For me, aesthetics are one of the most important key concepts as they can make or break the feeling of a project. Levinson (1998) discusses the meaning of aesthetics in music as a philosophical concept, as music aesthetics deal more than with just the sonic production of music, but also aspects such as emotions, actions, or why we even make music. Without aesthetics, projects often lack direction or intentionality, and as a highly visual person, I need to think about how a project looks and can be received as much as how it sounds. An intrinsic bond.

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Aesthetics for this project are somewhat influenced by my synaesthesia, which “…is a fancy name for when you experience one of your senses through another” (WebMD, 2022), and in my case, one aspect of this is seeing colours when I hear music. Each release with my band has been around a colour that I feel represents the songs, as it did when I was writing them. This project feels primarily teal, black, and silver to me when I think of the sound palette, and so that has influenced the way in which I have chosen to present it. Outside of this, I find myself drawn to gothic aesthetics as a goth myself, and present myself accordingly in dress, as well as the artwork. For this project I wanted it to be a little more mysterious and not totally show my face like I do with GRAVELLE, as the experience of the music would change with my face plastered everywhere. Aspects of horror also play a huge role in the presentation and meaning of my art.