What if the pace of technological advancement is overshadowing the true potential of existing analog technologies? Join Tristra as she speaks with the inventive minds behind Eternal Research; a startup “dedicated to creating new instruments that unlock the hidden music in everyday things.”
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Episode Transcript
Machine transcribed
:00:00 - Tristra
You're listening to Music Tectonics the Colossal Future. Hi everybody, welcome to Music Tectonics, the podcast that goes beneath the surface of music and tech. I'm Trista Neuer-Jager, chief Strategy Officer at Rock Paper Scissors, the PR firm. That's all about music innovation.
If you know me at all, you know I'm always intrigued by new music tech ideas that buck the trend and poke a big hole in our assumptions and cliches. One of those ideas is that the future might just be analog. If you look at Gen Z and younger and their love of things like cassette players, or if you look at vinyl's ongoing mystique, you might say, sure, analog's not dead, but is it really the future? Then you got to think about quantum computers, to jump from nostalgia to a bit of future shock here and you really start to wonder what analog technologies could do for and to music. So there are lots of other analog possibilities out there and that are emerging, especially in the realm of music making, and that's why I got a little bit obsessed when I heard what our guests today talk about and what they do. So I'm bringing them on for our episode today, which is part of our Colossal Future series. They're both from a new startup called Eternal Research and they are exploring the world of analog music creation in stunning new ways.
So meet Alexandra Fiera and Bryn Nieboer. Did I get that right, bryn? Pretty close, yeah.
0:01:43 - Brynn
Nieboer.
0:01:44 - Tristra
Nieboer. Okay, great Thanks for joining me today, alexandra Bryn. Pretty close, yeah, knee-bore, Knee-bore. Okay, great Thanks for joining me today, alexandra and Bryn.
0:01:48 - Alexandra
Hi, hi, nice to be here, thank you.
0:01:52 - Tristra
Awesome. So, Alexandra, I'd love to start hearing a little bit more from you. Can you tell us how you got started creating instruments? I remember you saying once in a previous conversation that you were a musician without an instrument. How did you make an instrument that was right for you?
0:02:10 - Alexandra
Well, a lot of it began from not beginning because I wanted desperately as a child to like learn piano, to learn a string instrument, to do any of that stuff and it just was not really in the cards for me and my family and everyone in it. It was kind of one of those things that was just dangled beyond me and I could never actually get lessons or the support I needed to actually learn it. So it was kind of something that was always out there and my experience with music was always from the listener side and it was always something that came to the radio and I I felt like I experienced it in such a deep, sensational way that it was something that from a very young age like haunted me and made me interested in it and how it was even made.
It was like a magic, very magical thing. And I think when it came to making the music, you know, it sort of begins where you just see people performing it and you're like, oh, I want to perform music. And you know, I think there was a time when I felt like, oh, I wanted to perform music. But when I actually started learning all the instruments that I could, I realized that I was never completely at home with them. I was always like wanting to learn a different instrument and learn a million different types of instruments and not necessarily found I didn't necessarily find any one instrument to be my instrument. And that was sort of maybe the ideological genesis of this, where I I realized that, you know, there's not an instrument that is, you know, kind of a resonant part of who I am, and it began as a question for over a decade, before I even thought that I could even make an instrument.
0:04:02 - Tristra
How did you get to that moment where you were ready to dive in and try to craft an instrument where you feel at home?
0:04:12 - Alexandra
Um, I think it was. Um, it was kind of in an experiment that Bryn and I were doing. Um, I had just turned 30 and we were just, you know, messing around on guitars and making sounds and I was recording it on tape. And I remember I was always interested in like slowing down tape because it was like I had a little tape recorder when I was a kid and that was the only thing you could really do with it.
You either speed it up or slow it down was a kid and that was the only thing you could really do with it. You either speed it up or slow it down. And so from that I was like, oh, I'll take this short bit of 17 seconds of recording and slow it down. And you know the 17 seconds, if you slow it down by twice it becomes 34. And if you slow what you have there down again by a certain percentage, and you have a minute in something. And I just kept doing that until I got to about 40 minutes and what was left over was just these like big harmonic shifts in very, very slow time and I was like, oh my gosh, like this is crazy, but there's like a musicality to this that was like really interesting to me and I, I, I didn't believe that I actually could make that. I was like you know I was. It was like a very phenomenal thing for me and you know I didn't.
I actually at that time was very naive. I had no, I really didn't know that like there was this whole experimental world of music and the way that I come to understand it, I was just kind of like you know, experimenting with this, because I felt like I didn't know what else to do, and and then Bryn, kind of you know, helped me see that oh, there's actually people been doing this and you should like learn about them.
And then it that that kind of made me realize that, um, this like one-off experience I had was actually part of a bigger narrative of people just making experimental music to like find a resonance within their unique souls.
0:06:11 - Tristra
I love it. Brynn, can you tell us a bit about your background and how you and Alexandra have collaborated in this creation process?
0:06:20 - Brynn
Sure, in terms of, well, you know, I grew up playing music. I grew up sort of playing piano and guitar, I guess. Unlike Alexandra, I feel like I've always just been like playing whatever. I started playing guitar when I was 11. I was playing piano before that and I guess I was always a music person. I went to art school for film actually, but even then was spending a lot of my off time writing music. I was in bands in college, I was playing a lot of guitar, but, uh, I also was introduced to performance art in art school.
Um, and uh, experimental music um started falling in love with, you know, philip glass and steve reich, and and um julius eastman. Um, and then meeting people who introduced me to William Baczynski and became friends with other drone and ambient musicians, and, and so it started because I went to an art school. I think I haven't really super thought about this very critically, but I think a big part of the way I started thinking about music was as just another type of performance or sensory activation. Right, like painting and music aren't very different. Um, and when, when I met Alex, uh, she was doing like more like guitar based work, but very clearly like was trying to sculpt it into something else. And so we talked a lot about that and and she had access to um, certain like.
I think when I met you, alex, you had like drum machines. I remember you had an Elisa's drum machine. Um, you had a lot of pedals and you were experimenting with like you're like, how do I make this longer? I remember I remember you're like, well, what's a delay that goes even longer than this? I love it. And so you know, I had like some experience with you know, modifying musical equipment just as a hobby. And then when Alex was, you know, starting to do this stuff, she was just mentioning like I was like, oh, do you know about Frippertronics? Do you know about William Buznski, this integration loop scene, about the stars of the lid, you know all these sort of more, not so melodic, but like sound artists, you know what I mean.
And I think that kind of just like gave way to us having a lot of fun experimenting with what kind of sounds we could make, not just in a like oh, let's just do what these people are doing, but like how far can we take it on like a, on a conceptual level? Um, and she was like, well, how do you do this? And I was like I think you could just do this. I don't know I and it was. She was just very encouraging of me to.
You know, I was very interested in in modifying and making circuitry and electronics as a hobby and she was very encouraging of me to like do it with her and be like we should do this, um, and so it was a lot of fun and I was like um had already sort of been veering off of the path of just being an artist, had already sort of been veering off of the path of just being an artist, and I was sort of like more interested in um in engineering and creating and inventing as well, and she was like very much in that lane. So, um, that's kind of how we just came to start thinking about like well, if we're making these sounds like, how do we make them more accessible? You know what I mean. Like we would often have to rig up very delicate, very you know half-acid types of things to get interesting sounds. That would have to be taken apart. And so we were sort of, I think, fascinated with how do we make this something repeatable and performative?
0:10:44 - Tristra
Yeah, I love it. We're going to take a really quick break here and then we're going to come right back and dig more into what this duo came up with. Be right back.
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0:11:59 - Tristra
Okay, we're back with Alexandra and Bryn of Eternal Research and I want to ask kind of a big question which you can answer with so you know your specific experience. But why look at analog methods, in particular for sound generation? I mean, it sounds like everyone was making stuff with you know, plenty of knowledge, sort of digital tools etc. But why did you turn to these analog methods?
0:12:27 - Alexandra
Well, I think, because I just firmly believe that the beginning and end of all experience, is an analog experience, and if you don't understand, that and appreciate that, then what is digital? To me, it seems like just a language that's really important to understand, because you could code the most complicated thing in the world, but if you don't understand the analog experience, you won't understand how it'll be felt or the emotions that will go into it, and so I don't really see analog and digital being at opposition.
Anyway, they're really like two different legs of the same beast and I think that whenever we kind of say something should be just one or the other, then we kind of get into a trap.
I mean, there's always a greater power in a manifold operation of things than just being so hard-lined about the way a thing should be. And I just have a lot of experience in film photography and I was also like very slow to adopt digital things. Um, I was really against it in a way that now seems pretty crazy. But I was like you know, I grew up in Pennsylvania, kind of in the country, and I was like you know, technology's bad. I literally like I was like really anti-technology.
I wrote on a typewriter. I was like really into the most basic things and it was because I just cherished the feelings it gave me. It like, really in the end it wasn't about the technology, it was that the experience of feeling those things was so important to me that I didn't want it to be changed or corrupted, and that's what it was really about, and so I had to like solve this conundrum in me before I could really make an instrument, because you know you do have to deal with digital things if you want to like get things done with the precision you need and the ways you want to do it.
So you know, I really had to kind of let down my guard and you know, accept the digital side of the world in order to really show the potentials of the analog. It was it's kind of part and parcel.
0:14:52 - Tristra
I'd love, I'd love to dig in a little bit more into what analog gives us. So it sounds like there's you have a strong set of feelings or intuitions about, you know, analogs, you know kind of contribution to our sonic worlds or our creative process. And so I'm curious, if we can talk, if you were talking to someone who is a technologist or a music maker, what would you point them towards? What should we be looking for when we are thinking about analog processes?
0:15:34 - Alexandra
Sorry. The underlying theory that has kind of guided me in this is this theory I've been developing about the pace of technological advance is always greater than the utilization of any one technology, and what that means is that, you know, there's always going to be a new technology before the full potential of any one technology is realized, and so, because of that, an old technology old in quotes can still provide insights and expressions that the new one might not be able to achieve, simply because it's a new thing.
So it's you know sometimes a thing, having existed for a while, allows us, to you know, really explore the deeper potentials of it, you know. So that's it's kind of an aspect that has guided me in that.
0:16:35 - Tristra
That makes sense. Where do you see this field of potential Like as you're, as you're sort of pushing things forward and Bryn feel free to chime in, if you'd like where you see this field of potential like as you're, as you're sort of pushing things forward and and Bryn, feel free to chime in, if you'd like where you know? Where do we have still to explore? What's the sort of uncharted territory that you two are mapping with eternal research?
0:16:51 - Brynn
well, I think it's kind of difficult sometimes to talk like I'm never quite clear on the electrical side. You know, it's like analog and digital means kind of different things than it means colloquially, like I think I think generally people who aren't engineers think of analog as like a string being plucked and digital as a circuit board making noise and, and I think that that's, you know, that's something true. But I mean there's also analog electricity, analog signals and then digital signals, you know, and I think those are sort of different aspects of those things In terms of the physicality that, like Colloquially, analog things bring. Like I don't think. I don't think that I feel like what happened Was there was a digital or, you know, electronic Introduction In, you know, the 60s, 70s, but really the 80s and 90s when people, when, like you know, general consumers, were able to get their hands on these types of things, um, like we're in a very new era for electronic music, um, and electronic instruments, um, and I think what Alex is trying, what I always take from when Alex talks about this is that people kind of skip to conclusions about okay, well, we have drum machines now, so the people who made the very first thing that came to their head, that's what drum machines are, and now we can move on and there's nothing to think about.
And then it takes people and smaller companies to go back to drum machines and be like, well, what else can we do, what else do we need or what does this technology imply? Because our current system isn't that interested in plumbing the depths of ideas. More so, just how many can we sell? So I think, in terms of analog as a concept, colloquially, the way that electronic instrumentation and, uh, instrumentation, um, affected the performance of music, I don't think has really been that explored at all.
Um, I think that, like you know, kraftwerk, we're like we're just going to stand here and play our synths.
You know craft work, we're like we're just going to stand here and play our synths, you know, and then that's sort of been it for a long time Like DJs are just standing up there pumping their fists to you know, ableton programming and like that's all fine and I love all of those. You know lots of musicians who play electronic music that way. But the idea of performers playing instruments that are influenced by current or even modern technology, I don't know if, like, anyone really has been interested or very few major um movements have actually been interested in doing that. It's still in the realm of I feel like that kind of thing is still in the realm of noise musicians and performance artists, and I think the demon box is is a attempt to bring that type of sensibility to someone who isn't already inundated in the research that we've we've been doing for the past 10 years so let's just explain the demon box for a second oh sorry, introduce us no, no, it's great we get.
0:20:54 - Tristra
I love how the demon box likes to sneak in. It's a sly, it's a sly instrument. So tell us a bit about the demon box. It's your first instrument that you're releasing, uh, commercially, um like, introduce us to this, this interesting new friend well, I think I'll take this go for it yeah go for it.
0:21:14 - Alexandra
Yeah, the dm box is kind of the culmination of all of our experiments over many years and by experiments I mean, know, we would basically take all the equipment we have and see how we could set it up in a room to make some sonic effect. You know, how can we put all of our delay pedals together, what can we use as inputs? And we would just set up entire rooms with this and you know, just experiment and see what the output would be. And you know, we kind of just felt like the results were so great. But the thing is, the setup was so laborious.
I mean some of these experiments, I feel like I would set them up and I'd leave them there for months because there were just so many wires going so many places, so many different signal chains and I was like this is amazing, the outputs are getting. And I made. I was like this is, this is amazing, the outputs are getting. And I made almost I made albums from some of this stuff and but at the same time it's like this is kind of like so inaccessible and just the amount of equipment it takes and it was. It just felt like a thing that was so magical. But we were like you know, we want to do music and we want to be around music and we maybe what if we tried to make a company that like took this experience and put it into a device that would allow people to experience that same magicalness and potentials?
um, in a smaller setting that even had more potential because now it's smaller. So it's it's a machine that is, you know, very much, senses the electromagnetic world, but then it also deals with the metallic resonances, and it's a machine that doesn't really have an axis. It's not about left and right, it's about just like perceiving and for me too, it's also just been this meditation on design.
you know, really, really seeing all the biases that affect music output and and all of the the bias and prejudices that limit music, and then we basically tried to design into this a way to subvert those biases, the bias of stereo left and right, the bias of numbers um, two and two and four, and you know all these even numbers instead of threes and nines and elevens.
So um Instead of threes and nines and elevens, so it was kind of just this big design project that is by and large a musical instrument, but it's also a theoretical instrument and a philosophical instrument that is meant to kind of cause people to approach music from a different number system and a different idea of what music even is number system and a different idea of what music even is.
0:24:12 - Tristra
So I love that. I'm really curious and I think this might be interesting for our listeners to talk about the process of like finding these biases right. Because they're because the biases are, we're often blind to them right. We just sort of see just like the drum machine you were mentioning or Kraftwerk sort of like performance attitude. We're so used to it that we think that is what is right and we cannot perhaps imagine our way around it. I'm wondering how you went about, especially Bryn. You grew up playing music and being surrounded by instruments. How do you go about breaking down the sort of more rigid vision of what an instrument has to be and looking for new ways to to play around with it?
0:24:52 - Brynn
well, that's, that's all, alex. I mean, like when we, you know, when we first, when we first started working together, I feel like, uh, I was like alex would just say stuff to me that was so baffling I'm she's just like really questioning of anything that feels comfortable or assumed in a way, like I feel like it's hard because, you know, I grew up with a little bit of like X-Files question, everything you know, kind of like dirt on my you know chip on my shoulder, but not in a, not in a necessarily antagonistic or rebellious way, just in a purely curious way. And I think that's what's so interesting about Alex's mind is like she was just like, yeah, everyone always assumes things should be even, and I'd be like what? Like yeah, I guess.
0:25:49 - Tristra
It's a good point. It's a good point. I've always thought about that too.
0:25:51 - Brynn
Like, even with, like DAWs or drum machines, it's like the, you know, it's all four, like the four beat is so wedged in there and it's like you can very superstitious, supernatural, religious thinking almost, and it's like nothing has to be any one way. And I think alex I don't want to say naturally, but you know, her mind kind of came to these conclusions of just like honestly investigating everything and just being like, well, would it be cooler if we had three, or would it be more interesting or feel more like sensually satisfying, you know like, just like trying out anything and everything, even if it feels weird at first. Um, artistically just is kind of her whole vibe.
0:26:44 - Alexandra
So it took me a I will, I will be honest years to just be like, okay, let's try it, you know, and, and I feel like you know, sometimes it really pays off yeah, I mean, I definitely, um, I appreciate Brynn's patience and I kind of can't help myself, and part of it is that, I think, because I didn't learn music in the traditional ways, I would just say things in a very matter-of-fact way. That would just seem, like you know, very naive, but I mean, I really intently meant it. I'm like you know, why does everyone want everything to be divided by two? Like what's the real point of that? And they're like well, I mean, why 88 keys on a keyboard? Why stereo left and right? Who devised this number system?
And I had to do a lot of learning to get there where I actually, you know, I listened to a lot of music. I loved film music when I was growing up and I think film music allowed me to like see the relationship to visuals. And I was surprised when people were like film music's like not as important or interesting as just the biggest, most popular music around. I was like what are you talking about? This music is the most amazing experience. I was like what are you talking about? This music is the most amazing experience.
And so I was kind of in this weird place where I had these intense emotions around things but like no one else seemed to feel that way and you know I it kind of led me along a path where I really got into like listening to like just the most eclectic mix of things, where I would listen to, you know, john Williams scores, but then I would listen to, um, like Delta blues, and then I would listen to, uh, uh, you know Moroccan guitarists, and then I would listen to Gamelan music and I'd be like I would never come to it being like one of these is better than the other, one of them is more developed.
It was really just listening to it, the way you listen to the ocean or listening to the sound of a cave. You know, it's like, like it was when I really balanced myself, and it's like all of these sounds are phenomena and they are important and I want to listen to them. And then I was able to see that you know all these different number systems happening. You know there's not I'm not just going to impose- a value system.
I'm just going to listen really deeply and um, and then just learn from that listening. And then I, when I first moved to new york city, I volunteered at the world music institute and I was exposed to a lot of live music and they had this whole like wall of like record or like cds from around the world and I would buy them. Yeah, it was a candy store and then that was one side, but I never wanted my musical experience to be fetishistic, in a sense, from a Western perspective, and I think I only balanced it out when I started taking anthropology classes. I think I only balanced it out when I, like, started taking anthropology classes and you know, learning that you know the progression of anthropology now is really about like the politics of even viewing another culture and what that does and how. You know that was really important for me to understand that. You know where I come from, what I'm looking at, what that means, and then that was just one whole aspect of the learning.
Um, and then you know I also have this really deep love of quantum physics and you know the physical world and when I combine them I realized that you know we are, it's like we are the music makers, we are the dreamers of dreams. We're also the makers of all of the, the number systems, and we're the ones that choose them. And if we can choose one, why can't we choose the other? And if it sounds bad? You know, in jazz you know it's like if it sounds bad, just keep playing it until it sounds great. If it's the wrong note, just keep going until you find the music.
Yeah, I love it I was. It was very like naive and innocent and it was very, you know, I think in that sense that my naivete was like a weird saving grace because it allowed me to operate in this way, that I wasn't, you know, afraid of doing certain things because I felt like I would be like fall out of favor with anyone or anything, because I had like, no, no street cred or no anything.
I was just like, like a, you know, a person who just loved to think about things. So, yeah, I mean, oh, oh, I was just gonna say Bryn, I'm so sorry.
0:31:20 - Tristra
I was gonna say Alexandra, I love that you brought up ethnography. I feel like it's a kind of a missing piece and a lot of thinking about music technology, because if you go down those paths where you're looking at how other people from other cultures listen to music, you start to be able to see your own biases better, right, like it's a really great aid in reimagining your own musical world. What were you going to say, bryn?
0:31:46 - Brynn
Oh no, I was just that, that's I was going to continue along that path is like I think like Alex, you you said you you referred to it as like a naivete, and I think that that you know the there is a benefit in naivete when you have an honest and open interest in finding out the answers or educating yourself, and I think that's the thing is that, like you, you mentioned like why does a piano have 88 keys? Uh, and that's like might seem like a silly question and like a lot of musicians might just be like, well, because there's there's like a mathematical reason or whatever, but like the, the actual answer is so much more interesting and confusing.
Like, if you read about the evolution from the Harpiscord and Cristofori, that's how we get here. It's like, okay, well, they didn't actually have a reason. Or it's like a manufacturing reason, or it's based on math. That doesn't necessarily help us right now, or, you know, you can change all of these things right for lots of different reasons, and I think that that is like that's the type of quote unquote naivete that is actually really useful and interesting.
0:32:59 - Tristra
I think I love it. It's the beginner's mind of music tech.
0:33:02 - Brynn
Yeah.
0:33:04 - Tristra
Hold on one second, everybody. We'll be right back. We're going to talk more about how to translate interesting ideas into new instruments. Be right back.
0:33:15 - Speaker 5
The Music Tectonics team has been hard at work, programming an amazing lineup of speakers for our 2024 edition. I've had the opportunity to talk with some of our thought leaders, and here's what they're excited about. Joe To of Sony Ventures is looking at the big picture, to quote him, innovative and immersive experiences. By leveraging these diverse media forms, we are fostering a dynamic and interactive ecosystem where creativity and interaction thrive in unprecedented ways. Other hot topics speakers are excited to dive into include AI comes to market, super fans and fandom, late stage streaming gamers as music fans. And that's just the tip of the iceberg. Head over to musictectonicscom slash speakers to check out our amazing lineup of thought leaders, updated regularly. Now back to the show.
0:34:28 - Tristra
Okay, we're back with Alexandra and Bryn of Eternal Research and I kind of want to close the episode a little bit with some fun speculative, like you know, goofing around. That's also kind of practical in that I'm curious how you two would recommend people approach, say, turning an idea or a concept or a big question, like you've asked Alexandra, into a new kind of form factor for instruments. And one thing that's already always kind of bugged me about both digital and, you know, physical instruments nowadays is they all kind of are descended from you know, acoustic instruments in a lot of ways, like they do have the 88 keys or they look like a console that someone built back in the 1950s in a studio, but it's just on a screen right. So I'm curious, how would you recommend people go about translating a philosophical concept or a discovery or even just a question into an instrument that can innovate and change the way we relate to making and listening to music?
0:35:35 - Alexandra
I mean, if I could begin with that I cause I I think it's a really surprising part of the process that I'm is that, you know, when I was growing up, I had two family members who were, who were blind, and I remember the experience of them like talking to me. They would hold my hand and they'd talk to me and you know, I remember their voices, I mean, even though they passed away decades ago, and it was like. You know, I, looking back, like I don't know if I like know other people's voices as well as theirs, but they were like holding my hand as they were talking and I think that connection with the voice there too, like made the experience that much more of a thing. And so, you know, it is really important to like acknowledge the personal side of things, that it will be people using this. And then you know, um, when we devise this like, I wanted to make an instrument that would be inclusive of people of all like of experiences, people who are visually impaired, even people who are quote unquote, you know deaf, who have the inability to hear frequencies.
We take for granted this instrument. You know, a certain engineering and help can actually help people who can't hear, hear, and so you know it was. It was a thing where it's like, you know, it's like what do you want your contribution to be? And it's like do I just want to make an instrument that sits with other instruments and becomes a commodity, or do I want to make an instrument that will allow me to hear other voices in a really deep, deep way, like hear into the cave of other people's souls? And that's sort of really important question to ask. When you're making something like, why are you even doing this? And you can make a commercial thing, that's totally fine, we're making a commercial thing. But you know, just for my own ethos, I had to make something that was like peering into that cave and listening to it.
0:37:47 - Tristra
Amazing Bryn. How did you make the decisions? I know there's a lot of interesting decisions along the way, but do you have any insights into how you make the decisions of turning these kind of amazing, beautiful ideas into an instrument that people can play? No, it's hard.
0:38:10 - Brynn
I think it's really hard. I mean it's. I think one of the things you kind of have to let go of is being worried about making too many mistakes. Um, like, there's reasons that people I feel like, maybe, I feel like maybe if I was listening to this 10 years ago, I might be like, okay, well, how do you solve all of these incredibly difficult, difficult, like manufacturing problems and and engineering problems? And it's like, yeah, that's really tough and I think you know it's not. There is a reason why everything comes in a square form factor with a keyboard. It's because that's what's made and we, that's what people have on hand. And you know there's, there's, there's.
We live in a. You know we live in a global capitalist world and you know making decisions that are, you know, different ideas and informed by different ideas, can lead to decisions that are more expensive or more time consuming or may not work on first blush. Um, and you have to solve even more strange issues that you weren't expecting to run into. Um, so I think it's, I think, on a, on a very like technical level, it's it's just about you know, realizing that you are doing something for the first time and people are going to be weird to you about it, uh, and think you are doing something for the first time and people are going to be weird to you about it and think you're doing something wrong, because you are like doing something quote unquote wrong. And that can be tough. It can be hard to talk to somebody who is just in manufacturing and is like why would you do any of this? And it's like why are you questioning that? You know what I mean.
0:39:59 - Tristra
You know what I mean.
0:39:59 - Brynn
Just take my money and make my thing, but you know it's like it's interesting though, because people are, it feels, sort of low stakes compared to a lot of other things going on in the world. But, like, people do get uncomfortable when their assumptions are questioned. Um, and I think that's that's sort of the main thing to to try to get over in your own head when you're making something like this is just like don't get uncomfortable, just see where it leads you I love it.
0:40:32 - Tristra
Or maybe get uncomfortable and just stay uncomfortable.
0:40:35 - Brynn
And maybe that's okay too and it'll be cool later.
0:40:38 - Alexandra
Just always ask why am I even uncomfortable and also never like? If you can answer something within 10 or 20 seconds, then it's not really the right question you need to like create questions for yourself that might take you 10 years or a lifetime to answer. Those are the questions that are really important, yeah, thank you so much, both of you.
0:41:02 - Tristra
This has been a wonderful conversation and I'm kind of inspired. I kind of want to go make my own instrument now, do it all right, thank you awesome awesome.
that's so kind of you. Well, everyone, I hope you enjoyed hearing these thoughts about analog, about exploring new instruments, about breaking down our biases as we consider form factors and instruments and music making and all that good stuff. I want to close the episode with a quick listen to some of what the Demon Box so that's Eternal Research's first instrument can do, so we'll hear a little bit of the voice of the demon box as we say goodbye.
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The Music Tectonics podcast goes beneath the surface of the music industry to explore how technology is changing the way business gets done. Weekly episodes include interviews with music tech movers & shakers, deep dives into seismic shifts, and more.