Determination

What does it really take these days? It feels like there’s a constant barrage of people trying to sell you on how to make it big. Seriously, everyone is a guru these days and I’m feeling a bit overwhelmed from it all. That on top of my ever-growing to-do list (hydra). I’m actually here writing this to avoid some other task (the specifics are not relevant to this post). I would rather write slop than do anything of value, but even pigs eat slop, so even that is value.

So, from all I see, what is one consistent theme? Determination — no one truly knows how to succeed in this digital age. It is simply showing up, and by doing this, one is becoming. This is the beautiful part of the hike where it’s steep, wooded, and the peak is obscured by the tops of trees. Not even the horizon is visible, the trail forks, yet still I must press on. I know that if I keep following this trail (one I am hiking for the first time) I will eventually reach something even more beautiful, more profound. A squirrel might be spotted in the trees, or even drop a load in front of me (true story btw). There is even beauty as the sweat is rolling off the brow and you feel a slightly more than subtle burning in your calfs. The beauty lies in that the trail leads onto something worth all of it.

Is what is at the end of the trail really better than the journey? Well the view can certainly be jaw dropping. The endorphins your body will produce will make you feel — for lack of better words — on top of the world! Oh but the little messages along the trail one may receive only support the journey. It’s a feeling of connection, surrounded by the buzzing of life, leaves bristling in the wind, as they whisper all the drama away. Words of inspiration along the way “Not everyone walks this trail” “what you’re experiencing is relatable to everyone who walked before you.” All that is certain is the trail in the present moment — unchanging, for at least this go around.

All this connection. Where does it all go? Back to my desk. Back here in this brief moment. Another trail, steep in its own, separate way. A slightly more than subtle burning in the brain, in the heart, in the wrists as I type away, as I form chord shapes. Listening to all the subtleties in the air. Coming from within and without. Coming from directly above the center of the top of my skull.

Yes — I acknowledge the slop now. No propositions, no expectations, just the trail ahead — taking each step one by one. I don’t give in to the whispers to stop. Messages of all kinds. How will you receive them to get to your goals? What will you do after you finally achieve it? I ask myself all the time, yet I’m still here on the trail — determined

The Road Is Long…

… and The Muse is knocking. No for real — they are ever present voices. Give to them your whole self, “surrender to my heart.” Compelling in the sense of the heart and what it symbolizes. An organ which disperses vitality for the rest of the body to function. In order for the brain to even think, it must rely on the heart — oh how easy it is to forget when locked in the past or future.

It is locking in season and this post is simply to reflect on my emotions tied to it. I was mid-titration at work — listening to a conversation between Joe Rogan and Mike Maxwell. Joe is laying out what it is that the audience is to do with their life. He says you must choose between waking up excited for what you do, or working because it is the safe and secure path.

I find myself in a very secure position. My job is practically as secure as they come. It comes with many dangers which I find myself in a mind prison about on a consistent basis. But the money allows me to live on to see another day of independent life, and fund this blog, as well as my creativity. I feel free once I overcome this barrier, and lock in creatively. I feel trapped when I simply work so that I may live to see another day. Then I am somewhere in between when the realization is that my work is what allows me to feel free in the first place.

Let’s get back to locking in. I have to be honest, I have fallen back and am coming to a realization that I am doing too much. I am scattered as a beam of light through a prism. All the power is there, unfocused energy just needed to be captured by a different method. My method of choice shall be a box of mirrors with a hole on the side — a laser beam of focus if you will.

I have 16 days until my deadline to release my sample pack. I have 35 presets locked and loaded, ready to ship. I can easily get the remaining 15 this weekend. Look forward to a teaser in the near future. I couldn’t be more excited to launch this. My very first product to sell! Anyways, that’s all for this post.

As always, thanks for reading! Now go lock in on your own project!

Deadlines…

I’m gonna be honest with you now, I haven’t been as active as I wish I could be. Now I can sit and give excuses but I don’t think you really care to read that. Coming away from it, I have learned some things about myself. I learned the importance of getting a full nights rest, and waking up promptly. I swear every morning I kick myself for hitting that snooze button, and it only gets harder to find the energy to stand up and seize the day. Most importantly, I learned the importance of a deadline…

If you’re like me, an undiagnosed and unmedicated individual with ADHD, you struggle keeping your thoughts all on the same thing for extended periods of time. Your brain might bounce from a project to a phone notification. From there you might get thirsty and want to get up for a drink of water. As you are on your water side quest, you notice your counter top is messy and you feel inspired to clean it, oh and there are also boxes on the floor from Amazon so you might as well break those down too. Then the floor has crumbs and dirt in it so you need to vacuum, but then the vacuum is full and you empty it into a full trash can and you need to take that out too and then … what happened to your project?

This is why I implement deadlines and timers. When I sit down to perform any creative task, it is a deeply sacred and spiritual moment in time. I must treat it as such, as a ritual, if it please m’lord. Silence all notifications and leave my phone in the other room. It is now time to set the timer and dedicate all the allotted time to my project. Allow nothing to interfere with this time.

Doing this has had a profound impact on my creative ability. I find myself enjoying the process more deeply, and I don’t feel burnt out because I have limited my world to one thing. I no longer am a beam of light cast into a dozen prisms, rather a box of mirrors with a pin sized hole. I am laser focused on the single task at hand.

…

If you read through this thank you! I write these to inspire other artists who are like me! I also want to let you know about my free sample pack you can get here on my site by simply providing me your email. You can provide me a burner email too because I know how having a thousand different email subscriptions can be quite burdensome. I also want to let you know I am finally releasing my Starship Odyssey: Vol. 1 on August 31st of this year (2025)! It will be packed with highly detailed synth presets for Serum 2, and .wav files for all you samplers! I am aiming to provide 50 presets, along with arp patterns, midi clips, and FX chains! Inside the .zip file I will include a video tutorial on where to drag and drop each file type so that you can use them for yourself. I’m so geared up for the release, stay tuned!

Starting New

I am showing up again because it is my belief that this action is the only right action. When I sit down to write a blog, I am rarely certain of what it is going to be about. I admit, the majority of the words that come out here are simply slop! To me that is the case, but it may not be the case to those who read! There is power in these words that I tell myself, for I would not be releasing any of the words otherwise!

I come here to spread a message and it is this. You can always start new from nothing! A blank page is only as daunting as writing the very first paragraph — for a paragraph, a sentence; for a sentence, a word; for a word, a letter. All are simply built on one another such as laying a brick for a house. The project only gets less daunting as you lay it brick by brick. Before you know it, you have before you a project which is nearly built! This here is usually my favorite part of being creative! It is strange, I am not rewarded as much by the final result of a project as I am the project at 95%. Strange I know, but this is where I tend to slow down. It is as if the finish line is in sight, but I slow down because I feel rewarded from the journey getting from zero to here! Then there is a feeling of dread which shortly follows, for the project is coming to an end. I know that it will once again be necessary for me to stare at a blank page, canvas, project template, foundation, or other beginning.

How does one such as me overcome such feelings? I start new. I compare this to starting a workout, or taking a cold shower! It is never a process which I enjoy, but there is a skill in performing it, oddly enough. The more that I become comfortable with it, the better I am equipped to do it again the next time. When I complete a project, I am sure that I save my template, my presets, my tools, for the very next project! Even the fanciest keyboard will never make the next blank page any easier to start! But I have started from so many blank pages that it is simply a fact of life to me at this point. I lose the feelings of attachment to projects unfinished! I find that it is okay to leave a project behind in the drafts for a later date, for I know that there was spiritual energy there, and it may come back to me. I have been able to revisit projects with a different set of conditions and it has led me to finish them! Leaving a project half written can sometimes provide me with the energy necessary to snowball into the very next one!

This current post is actually not even the first iteration of what I initially sat down to write. Something guided me here and I don’t wish to know what. I don’t wish to understand the purpose for I know that is a rabbit-hole for another day. I will go on to have different experiences tomorrow and I will pay attention to the patterns around me. Pay attention to the patterns, and let them speak to you, and eventually through you. Allow yourself to make mistakes for you can always start new.

FreeFlow

Happy Friday to you all!

I am thankful that I have this ability to be here and create this blog. I cannot control the place that these words are drawn from. It’s here that the magic forms naturally.

You see, I like to be in control because it makes me feel safe. When I am not in control, I am vulnerable. What would be interesting with a controlled environment anyway? Deep down, isn’t it the surprise — the what if I put this here, or add this effect there — that we as humans are arisen by the most?

Sketch of the day. Pouring of the heart for growth of flowers.

I was inspired by a passage from Man and His Symbols — it is stated by Aniela Jaffé that we become fascinated by what moves our unconscious. If I knew the path a stone would take before I dropped it, there would be no point in dropping the stone. Knowing the outcome is boring and doesn’t produce anything of value, for it is already known. We would all be a bunch of captain obvious’s and no one likes a captain obvious.

I assume you came here to this blog as a creative person. For you, I say to allow your creations to form from a place of uncertainty. Drop all predictions, expectations, or doubts from your mind. In the beginning, you can test everything, and fail a lot, for you can always restart without consequences.

Well that’s all I really got for this post! My only hope is that this found the right people to inspire.

Until next week, happy experimenting!

Tranferability

If I were to write a letter to my younger self, I would tell him to begin documenting everything. I would tell him to start today. It has probably been of positive benefit for past generations, but I would argue this digital era is the most essential. Obviously it could be argued for any era while living in that time. You don’t know you’re living in a critical period of history until it passes and you can look back. Okay now what in the hell does this have to do with transferability?

Let’s bring it back to Eden. The documentation of your Self, the inner companion, daimon, ba-soul, Mista’Peo, “genius” — all names for the entire psyche — serve you greatly. I have personally seen a great surge in power come from writing down and documenting my journey every day in a journal, notes app, or even this blog! Oddly enough, I feel this same power when I am discovering a new synth for the first time, or in attempt to recreate one from in a song I like. When I record myself talking to a camera or into a microphone, I feel more and more in tune with who I am. Paradoxically, I become less certain who I am, and more certain that I am never a single state, so it makes sense why I would feel this uncertainty.

Scream from the mountain top your message, even if no one is listening. Be the thorn, the squeaky wheel, the buzzing of a flies wings. Be that which cannot be ignored for an audience to form. When you release a message in any form to the internet, let your followers know! You want to create a network? Reach out to individuals who are successful in the network you are currently building! Be not afraid of shame or rude words, for your own psyche has likely told you worse.

Record, edit, release, repeat. How much sh*t will you bury on your hard drive until you finally accept it for what it is? Document all that you do and post it. Let everyone know about it! I promise you this will transfer into any path you choose in life. Choosing not to act is still a choice. All you have to lose is one of infinite credits into life’s slot machine. Get out there now, document it with your thumbs, your voice, a pen, or camera! Just do it and let the next steps fall before you.

consistency

Baby steps…

Growing up I played for a high school hockey team. We were the Lone Wolves — a great pack of lonely wolves if you can imagine. I was struggling with fundamental skills of the sport — particularly stick handling and shooting the puck. I wasn’t completely useless, as I could skate fast, maneuver well, and win face-offs. So I had potential, and I just needed to act on it, but how?

My coach took notice, and he asked me one day “Peyton, how would one eat an elephant?” Totally clueless at where this was going, I simply responded with “how?” drumroll please *boom kakakakaka BOOM kakakakakaka ka ka Ka KA.* “One bite at a time.” Now if I could go back and shake the younger version of me, probably even beat the little entitled turd senseless until he heeded those words, I would! Those words were so valuable at the time, they still are with me to this very day!

You see, the elephant is the big kahuna, your dream, your ambition! You simply cannot take it all on in a single sitting, not a single day, not even a week. It is so daunting to see the elephant in front of you. There is no way that I am going to be able to eat THAT! But maybe, just maybe I can, so long as I eat just one bite at a time, ye even one bite a day! I might be able to eat the whole elephant. Back then it was about practicing monotonous things, stick handling and shooting the puck. The elephant was scoring goals, and outmaneuvering defenders with the puck in play. The small bites was the 30 minutes a day of monotonous stick handling and shooting practice at home. ADHD young monkey brain Peyton did none of these things, as he favored snacking while playing video games and binge watching content during all his free time.

Fast forward almost 10 years and here I am, a blogger, entrepreneur, music producer, content creator, and chemist. Alphabet soup and f——— all!

What am I really? I am a creative person, and I have big dreams and ambitions. I am heeding the wise words of my coach from high school now, and I am simply being present for the things I care about. I won’t become a multimillionaire success overnight, but I can start today by achieving daily goals broken down from big ones. Write a whole song, but start with an 8 bar loop. Patch 50 synths, but start with one. Record 100 one-shots and 100 loops, but start with one. Release an EP, but start by releasing one song.

Before you take on the elephant, cut it up into bite sized pieces.

The enemy within

Commonly referred to as the inner critic, artists often comment on an internal dialogue which suppresses their ideas. “That part was a little weird,” “Is that really the best that you can come up with?” “Come on, no one is gonna like that, it’s way too surface level.” These are all examples of internal dialogue I have experienced as a creative person. It drives me to pursue perfection, one small tweak here, and one there, then “Fuck! I messed the whole thing up and need to start over.”

It doesn’t serve me. That is the bottom line on all creation, even this post here. That inner critic is a version of yourself, and you should get to know them and why they are thinking their way. Write this entity a letter. I know that this sounds crazy and pointless. Why not simply “think” to the inner critic? Why keep records of anything, or journal, or post on a blog? Why do we do anything at all?

This right here is what it feels like to spiral downward into a depression. Get here and the inner critic has one. You never posted that thought, finished that song or video. All that information just sitting on your hard drive for what? You see this inner critic is what is keeping you afraid, afraid of what others will think of you. Write them, understand your enemy, dissect and analyze just what it is about them that is preventing you. Maybe it goes back to a time you were a kid and you made a joke that flopped, you were rejected by a love interest, or were humiliated in a job interview.

I learned my inner critic was protecting me from rejection and humiliation. I learned this by writing to him (yes he is a he in my situation because he is me and I am him), and letting him be the guidance of my pen. A classic call and response (it’s no wonder these melodies are soothing to the human ear), a deconstruction of my thought patterns in physical space. To my critic, I say: “If what I want is to express myself artistically, I must risk the disapproval of some. Maybe I will bomb a time or two, or a hundred, but that is the price I am willing to pay to be that change in the world I want to see. I create for my art is my courage, not their approval.”

That’s really it. By understanding this part of myself, I have become better at silencing it and controlling it. It’s like a wild dog in need of some training. It doesn’t occur overnight, but rather small steps, more letters, and consistently posting and releasing in spite of the critic working to slow you down. Recognizing the inner critic is the most important step in silencing them, and sharing your creations with the world.

-P

what is your mission?

Something I have been asking myself a lot as of late. I have a broad mission in mind and have great aspirations to provide more than sound. I am wont to expand this business into a full fledged media company which produces big projects utilizing both light and sound waves. However, setting off to chart the universe on my own just isn’t practical.

How do I address this issue? I shall start by making relations here on Earth, grounded in reality. Still a broad statement — how do I refine this even more? I get specific. Specifically I keep putting together loops. This is daunting as other producers, like Moonboy and Rob Late have already established themselves in this space. My competitive mind just won’t allow me to be sidelined. Put me in coach!

I will not sit idle by in this space. I write this to anyone who sees the daunting path ahead, and encourage you that it is not as it seems. It is the part of the journey where all the action takes place, for there is no story of interest without the conflict. This right here is just a slice of the sphere of what is yet to come. My time is now to act in the face of uncertainty.

-P

You can endure…

The beginning. It doesn’t make sense. It takes a certain focus to make it through this pathway. There is a great power which serves in the creation of all things. It all fundamentally involves the manipulation of any combination of physical waves. Pressure waves are responsible for detecting sound, as light waves to, well, light.

Why, that is the entirety of the human experience if you really think about it. So, why does that lead to one weird hairy ape to writing a blog in the year 2025? Glad you asked! That is one of many questions I ask myself.

Any strategy can lead to progress so long as you have intention. That is delusion. One doesn't stand at the edge of the pacific and expect to float to the atlantic. Though one’s delusional belief that they are going to get to the atlantic, then perhaps they will build a boat. You see, this is where the inner critic will come in and tell you “why are you building that boat?” “It’s never going to work.” “You don’t know anything about boats or sailing, so give it up kid.”

You might build the boat anyway, and it might fail. You may sink and be forced to swim back to shore. If you have the grit, you will get back to the drawing board and design another boat. At this point you will have exhausted a lot of resources, so you would be wise to examine what went wrong. You can keep iterating alone, or you can iterate with other shipwrights who may be inspired by your process!

Then enough people will get together and build rockets that launch metal to orbit. All from that drive to build with intention. My intention? I am determined to make the best synths used by the top producers in the world. My first iteration didn’t make it a km. Time to swim back, draw up the next iteration, and sail again . . .

Until next time,

P