How to Blend

When you make a music mix, and you really care about the sequence flowing well, there are two skills that help tremendously. They both depend on recognizing that a song you like is not at its best here (regardless of how you feel about it, how much you admire it, how well you might think it works in theory); you know it's dragging the gestalt down, putting a snare in the fabric. So when you see that snare, you either 1) let go of the song entirely, because it isn't suiting the mix, or about equivalently you toss it on the backburner for another time, or 2) you find a great transition song that helps lead the previous song into this one, so that this one shines at its best.

I'm better at the 2nd. It's easier for me to find good transitions than it is for me to let go of things entirely.

Sometimes this means that song A not quite leading well into song B becomes like 10 or 20 songs in between A and B, as I try to get B to sound really good after something.

As for the core skill of recognizing whether a song actually fits, I break it down...

First, I play the previous song in its entirety. Ideally, actually, I play the 2 or 3 previous songs in their entirety, back to back, with no interruptions. And I pay close attention and feel as much as possible. (Um. Cannabis can really help. Just saying. And using a service with advertising can really get in the way. Paying for Spotify makes it 50x easier for me to come up with good sequences. It doesn't seem intuitive that a small thing would help that much, but for me it does.) At this stage, I am usually hyperfocusing on the music above all else. (Lyrics and video are distant second and third concerns. Music is music, and I'm very music-centric. Hey, I love music. I don't listen to music for lyrics or pictures. Those can be nice, even great, but lyrics aren't music and pictures aren't music.)

Second, I listen to the song in question carefully and assess whether I actually WANT to listen to all of it, and beyond just THAT, whether I think it sounds at its BEST. If I want to skip the song right now, it's in the wrong place. (Going back and forth comparing positions, hearing the same songs over and over and over and over, adds a real layer of challenge. Am I sick of this song because I've started playing it 20 times today, and listened all the way through maybe 7 times, or do I want to skip to the next track because this one is not in the best position to shine? I have to err on the side of assuming the latter. That's part of the secret. If I've heard a song 20 times today and NOW, in THIS position, it sounds awesome and I want to listen all the way through again, I've hit the nail on the head. Bingazzimo!)

Third, I assess beginnings and endings. How do the first few seconds land after the previous song? If it's jarring, that might be ok (strong contrasts sometimes work), but it might also suck. Anything jarring is important to pay close attention to. If the song sounds great in its entirety and the lead-in from the previous song is just *chef's kiss*, then I will be very reluctant to let go of this pairing. Two songs that, back to back, sound like one piece of glorious music - that's what this is all about - that's what I'm looking for all the time, so when I find it, I boost it.

Fourth, I pay attention to the story arc of the sequence. What impression do the lyrics give? What tale is being told? How are the lyrics in this song affected by the lyrics in the songs before it? How will it affect the lyrics in the songs after it? Most of the weighing I've described in previous paragraphs is purely musical (though lyrics will work their way in at the edges of consciousness). At this stage, I put the music aside for a moment and pay full attention to the story. Am I embarrassed to let this story arc see the light of day? And if I'm embarrassed, is that ok? Is it expressive and interesting? These are my main concerns now.

Fifth, I make sure that the audio availability and quality and the visuals and the video's theme are all working for me. I'll find the link with the best quality of sound and image, and if applicable, the video I enjoy the most and find the most fitting here in the sequence. Sometimes a great song has to be dropped because there's no YouTube link, or the quality is just not up to par, or (very occasionally) the video is just too off-putting. For the latter, sometimes it's enough to move the track to later in the sequence (given that I'll usually have finished and shared most of the sequence up to this point already, later is still an option, but earlier isn't).

That's basically my process. I keep at it until I'm really happy with a stretch of songs... or, sometimes, until I'm happy enough and kind of fed up and just ready to move on.

I try to keep in mind the idea that every song should be something I'm overjoyed to share... the kind of thing you keep playing over and over, and you're just desperate to find someone else who enjoys or would enjoy it, because you want to share your sonic passion. So my ideal is that every song I include is that level of "amazingly, irrepressibly good." An earworm. An anthem. An era.

In practice, I let too many less-giddying songs into the mix. Or I let songs into the mix that I have once upon a time felt so intensely about, but not really recently; I know that I can feel that way about them, so I assume others can; I figure if I get the song to fit nicely, it could be someone's favorite song of the week, even though it isn't mine anymore. Those compromises may not be good, or maybe they're ok or good but not great. So I try to avoid them, but I will accept some of them to keep things moving, to get great songs to transition into each other. So there's an aspect of using songs I'm less currently passionate about as filler, but I'm aware of that possibility and try not to include any filler at all.

When I'm having trouble finding the next song in the sequence - nothing seems to fit after it that well - often what it takes is just plain discovering a new song I'm in love with. The next time I hear something I'm desperate to share, I find there's a good chance it will fit perfectly, or at least very well, after the problem song I've been trying to figure out how to follow up. It's almost as if the problem of "What song goes next?" takes up residence in my head, and I go about my life for a few days or weeks until something captivates me. Even if I wasn't thinking about the problem or that song, I think sometimes I'm really captivated by a song because it's sort of the next evolution in the story I'm telling.

I don't know how other people make mixes. But that's how I do.

Oh, maybe there's one other thing to mention. I love to mix genres. That's kind of built into my musical assessment. If I can put a piece of classical music (obscure or famous, doesn't matter) next to, say, a repetitive piece of electronic game music (obscure or famous, doesn't matter) and get it to work fantastically, then I'm overjoyed. The bigger the contrasts or leaps, the better, often. But what takes priority is that the mix actually works. So often I will follow up a song with a similar-enough song to continue some sort of mood and groove. But that is only - strictly only - when I want that mood or groove to continue. As soon as I'm the least bit tired of the mood or the groove, I'll change it - and as drastically as I feel like. I feel no obligation to suit an audience's expectations, and, actually, given the choice, I'd prefer to upend them delightfully.

A concept structures sensation. We tend to see concepts as abstract or virtual or constructed and in a way they're all of these, but they're also self-organizing patterns in brain activity and in the similar flows throughout the universe.

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Ripples bubbles swirls and matrices

Sometimes I think we underestimate how actually "natural" our raw experience is. It's easier to think of brain activity like an operating system. But we grew in place like plants. Our thoughts and feelings are more akin to plant fragrances.

I'm sure I've offended a bunch of my friends. Hasn't everyone? People still seem to be pretty nice to me in general. Sometimes I wonder if everyone's like, "Ooooh, that Harlem is so crazy. You have to tread carefully. Be nice." But overall I think that isn't true. It's more like people tell me things are ok when I'm nervous or worn out or angry or all three. But usually they don't seem to know or care which I'm feeling, and I don't make it their business. So everyone thinks I'm chill (usually), because I am (usually - hey I have a high tolerance), unless I'm venting about something systematically wrong or feeling like my life is over and life was never good. You have to push to see my anger, or I have to trust you so much that I'll tell you what frustrates me.

I learned a lot about Trump supporters well before his political career, simply from my mother. Trump supporters have delusions - sometimes it's within the normal range of delusionality, and it just happens that those particular delusions support a faction. But other times the delusions are more extensive and pervasive. My mother, a recently reformed Trump supporter, is delusional in multiple ways.

I... am not, partly because I learned from her - the very hard way - how delusions work, the ways they cannot be corrected (even though you think that should really work), and how to make sure you are not being delusional yourself.

If you want to help a delusional person see better, do not - do NOT, really truly DO NOT - attack them. They will not gain a single thing from that except that you do not like them or have their best interests in mind. Attack them and they will trust you 0% and discard or discredit everything you say. That's a lot of how delusions work. You even have to be super careful sometimes when you think you're being innocent. Even simple, mild, friendly contradictions can trigger delusional people.

And - I should say again - basically everyone has delusions. But some of us know how to hunt them down.

The Republican Party today is a political party made up of people who are more susceptible to delusions than others. This does not mean that the Democratic Party has no trouble of its own with delusions.

But I think one thing we can all learn is that politics and delusions are closely connected. Many of the things we feel most strongly about are based on intangibles, hearsay, the preferences and rhetoric and assumptions of our peer group, and so on. We feel strongly - we feel so valiant about feeling strongly - to make up for the fact we don't actually fucking know.

This is one of the absolute core dynamics in, and problems with, politics. We get super worked up about stuff we don't actually know. Not in every single case; some people out there do know some things for sure. But if you see someone worked up, chances are they don't actually know. They are making many, many, many assumptions. Maybe they're partly right, and they're taking the evidence of partial rightness as a blank check to spew a lot of other stuff that just sounds right to them at the time.

Don't we all do this? I might be doing this myself right now. Hm. But the thing is, I do have a process. It's something I've worked very hard to develop and hone.

It depends on getting willing to doubt yourself and others and feel uncomfortable but not defensive (in other words, be vulnerable) and look for the real, solid, factual common ground and go from there, cautiously. If you're preoccupied with anyone's confidence or how you look, that's getting in the way. Put solid facts front and center, doubt them anyway, and build out from the least dubious ones, remembering that you're kinda guessing but in an educated way. It sounds shifty, but it's the best process. Seek information, facts, expertise. Don't be egotistical about it. Don't assume you know better than anyone else. Don't go down twenty rabbit holes and think what you've pieced together must be right because you're special for the twenty rabbit holes. The world is made of facts. Start with facts, but vet them. Use your imagination. Play. Discuss. Keep returning to facts. Don't dismiss things out of hand. Pay attention to inconvenient arguments that annoy you. Those are often gold, even when they aren't ultimately sound arguments. The fact you're annoyed and don't have a great answer and you want to get dismissive is a red flag. Don't be like that. Learn more, instead. Thank the argument that made you want to dismiss it because, if you're honest, you actually felt kind of bested for a second. Whether that point is right or wrong, it challenged you. Pay homage to that by learning more.

It's something I learned from talking to my mother: how not to be delusional.

And we are not taught this in school, apparently. Nor is it emphasized in politics.

It really should be, though, because politics is rife with inflamed feelings in search of evidence.

If we could, as a culture, as a species, as a globe, learn to hunt down each other's and our own delusions and bring them to light in the most helpful, compassionate way, many problems that seemed unsolvable before might begin to go away.

It's a hope. That's the best I've got right now.

I have a complex about confidence - what old-school psychologists used to call a complex. And I know this. It isn't a surprise to me or anyone.

It isn't that I entirely lack confidence, or don't know what it is, how to boost it, how to be reasonable about it. Actually, in some ways I'm very good with confidence. That's because I'm happy to question it, almost eager to. I'm quite comfortable with being knocked down and torn to shreds - insofar as anyone is, which is not that comfortable, of course. But it's a kind of discomfort - a willingness to go out of the comfort zone - that I do embrace, embrace so regularly it's almost all the time.

Willingness to go through unpleasant emotions and self-questioning is a kind of confidence, whether it looks confident or insecure to others.

At the same time, we shouldn't call everything good "confident" and everything bad "insecure." There's a sort of unfalsifiability in this whole confidence game we talk. Premise A: Confidence is good. Premise B: Insecurity is bad. Conclusion: If it's good, it's confident, and if it's bad it's insecure.[1]

So we get stuff like "Actually, really confident leaders are humble." Why? Because being humble is good, and everything that's good is confident. See the fucked up logic we all pass off as sensible? Or maybe I'm not portraying it in HD. I don't know. That's how these discussions often sound to me, though. People worship confidence to the moon. So you find someone who's too confident. What about him? Oh, no, that's not confident, that's actually insecure. OK. Then you find someone who isn't confident but who is actually pretty great. What about her? Oh, no, she isn't insecure, look how far out of her comfort zone she is! OK, sure, but she has imposter syndrome; isn't that insecure? Oh, no, imposter syndrome isn't insecure, imposter syndrome means that you're brilliant and can't see it. OK. But... isn't that actually not an accurate definition of imposter syndrome, and if you're brilliant and can't see it, isn't that a lack of confidence? Oh, no, not at all. I mean, look at anyone brilliant, and they've gotta be confident to get there.

And so it goes, round and round in circles, because the logic is, actually, fucking circular.

Do you see why I have a complex? Because I insist on questioning what people confidently say, even if I am the one confidently saying it. Why do I do that? Because it fucking works. Because it makes me smarter. It makes what I say more reliable - even if, at the same time, the questioning and insecurity and discomfort I endure and sometimes show others very clearly makes them lose respect for me and stop listening to me. (This drives me up the wall and contributes to my complex about confidence.)

In my experience, disregarding confidence and usual attitudes about it has been a huge help in making me a more accurate thinker. Which... should be a reason for confidence, I suppose. And it is, sometimes. I am not against confidence. I am against being stupid about it. And unfortunately everyone is stupid about it, so it sounds as if I am against confidence, and resentful of people who have more of it than I do. And that is possible, but I really try for that not to be situation. I am not a very jealous or very resentful person at all. (And I make additional efforts.) If you are not harassing or harming me or others, we are good. Jealousy is not a problem; when I'm jealous of people, I admire them. I'm very much a live-and-let-live kinda guy, and I love that about myself and haven't the slightest intention ever of changing it.

And just that last statement you might call confident, because it seems good. But isn't it, maybe, overconfident? In which case it's insecure?

One day, I think that instead of the word "confident" we will have about 20 words meaning different things that we are currently all bundling under the one word. Then I will no longer have a complex about confidence, if I'm still around :)

[1] If you remember some basic logic from school, this argument is neither sound nor valid.

I don't like to take pictures of people, because they pose and I feel awkward and then nothing is natural or artistic.

If someone hands me a phone to snap their happy group, I don't mind; I'll take half a dozen, hoping one will be half-decent. So it isn't that I lose a sense of connection. I like that they're having fun and trusting me to capture the moment. It's that my style has never been about posing.

It's one reason I'm not photogenic. I prefer to pretend I'm not being photographed - and that means most photos come out unflattering, I guess.

The phoniness of holding a smile expressly for the camera - it makes me squirm, even when I enjoy it and hope the photo turns out well. I avoid photo ops.

And I avoid putting people in those photos by not trying to take them. Almost all my photos are of plants and streets and skies and waters and oddities.

Sometimes I get photos of people who don't know or don't care that I'm photographing. But I try not to be a voyeur. I feel strange about a photo showing a stranger enough they could be identified. So I'm not trying to take photos like that, either.

Humans are primates. Primates are social.

Primates have evolved a particular tendency to cheat. We look at others and how they're feeling, and we unconsciously guesstimate that this has to do with their value in the group.

This is quite literally imprecise, inaccurate, and unfair, yet like many biases, fallacies, and prejudices, it's a shortcut that can work some of the time. That it can sometimes work is used, when it's questioned, to justify all the times it doesn't. The usual term for this kind of response is "rationalization."

One adaptation to this unconscious, apparently evolved bias is to tell everyone that they should be confident. If they aren't confident, we say, then they will be mistreated. If they are confident, they will much more often get what they want in society and life.

And so most people adopt this confidence ethic and do what it takes to seem and feel confident. Even if they're reluctant at first, when they see how well it works, they're converts.

But it goes a step further. This isn't just helpful advice for getting by in an imperfect world. And the faults of the people who unfairly mistreat the unconfident aren't just brushed aside. No, it's worse.

See, because confidence is now an ethic, you are seen as shirking your psychosocial duties if you are not doing whatever it takes to seem and feel confident.

In other words, the rationalization for mistreating unconfident people just got worse. Now we're not only ignoring the unfairness of the primate cheat that looks to how a person feels to tell us their value in the world. We're also saying that if you don't respond to that unfairness by "working on yourself" until you are confident, then everything that happens to you as a result is your fault.

I'm not sure why this was obvious to me in 2nd grade when two or three of my classmates spent a while berating me for my lack of confidence as an explanation for why seemingly everyone in the class - including, frankly, them - seemed to dislike me.

It was obvious then, the cognitive mistake they and society were making.

And it's obvious now.

Why am I one of so few who can see this clearly, still?

Am I wrong, or are people rationalizing a bias en masse and blaming the wrong group for the problems it causes?

(Balancing refutation point: yes, research shows that insecurity can put up defense mechanisms and heighten biases. Meanwhile, limited confidence, or humility, or self-compassion reduces one's defensiveness and so increases the accuracy of certain kinds of perception, simply by helping with openness. And so there may, arguably, be a responsibility of some kind - adjusting, however, for mental health difficulties - to adopt this relatively objective frame of mind where possible. But it's an oversimplification to call modest confidence more objective across the board; every frame of mind will be good at some sorts of patterns. And in any case, to police others' mental states through social mores is dubious at best. We can give advice without judging those people who can't or won't follow it. The inside of everyone's mind should be as free as possible from external prohibition.)