As a commitment to myself to just create and do things as it is, I challenged myself to make a ‘fun’ album for this year. This 2020 year, where everything I never imagined happens is happening (in a bad way, what else is there)
A quick reminder to a quote that I really love and resonates with me really deep, sculpted to the deepest wall of my heart.
“You are not required to save the world with your creativity. Your art not only doesn’t have to be original, in other words; it also doesn’t have to be important.“ - Elizabeth Gilbert
And as I reduced my passive consumption towards medium like twitter and Instagram and all that time-and-brain-sucking activity, I increase my intentional leisure activity. Following the tips from ‘Digital minimalism’ book that I read while doing my ‘no twitter challenge’, I made my version of a seasonal leisure plan. Basically a plan about things I want to do to fill up my time so that it is not filled up with negative activities. And creating things is basically what my plans are.
As my friend preached back in high school speech exam, ‘the time that is not filled with a positive activity, will be filled with negative activity’ which means if we don’t purposely use our time to do something positive (be it something we like, or useful, or purposely fun), it is automatically filled with negative ones (think about when you’re bored and just reach your phone to scrolling mindlessly on twitter, fun maybe but it becomes a negative activity in this context).
Back to my seasonal leisure plan. One of the plans is to make a song album by the end of the year and dedicate my time on the weekend to work on it. But, I’m a bit on the impatient side for a person. So it finished earlier than I expected (why did I think I will be patient enough to work on an album for months, perfection is not what we aim in this house). I scheduled it to be finished by the end of 2020 and celebrate the end of the year—well...
And so here it is the fun album. I called it BYE2020 (a big hint to whatever out there). Maybe because I named it that way, it made me want to finish it quickly, because, who else wants 2020 to be over soon? (With a tiny little small micro-level hope that 2021 will be better, —or slightly better if that makes any difference)
Oh, and don’t expect anything, remember the quote above.
Sakii · BYE2020
I will explain a bit about the tracks.
The album starts with an intro, I called it Intro - Disconcert. Basically, it is a uhm yea, what the beginning of 2020 looked like. I was a bit early on being super aware and risk-averse towards this C****-1*. So it was just a huge cause of uncomfortable feelings in my life. I want to convey the feelings in this intro. (Okay I’m talking as if I poured a total deep thought into this, I didn’t lol, but basically it is the ambient for the beginning of 2020)
And then the second track is ‘The thinking cloud’. I talked gibberish in an assumed alien language, tried to express the thinking that happened in my head during the first part of the year (basically a chaos). And then I wrote some monologue on top of it, about thinking (if you care, see the lyrics on the track’s description in SoundCloud), but I put it very subtly. The thinking cloud was a topic that my senior back in college talked about, we were talking about where did the thinking activity happening, when the brain is basically a physical—material things, while thoughts are—uhm abstract. This senior basically proposed the idea of this cloud above our head that handles all the thoughts, uhm I have more explanation but the big idea is basically this. I didn’t know this senior that well, I met him on an art exhibition from another senior,—I don’t even remember his name and face right now, but kinda remember his outfit— but the thinking cloud concept just there with me the whole time.
And then comes the third track, ‘What more to watch?’ Talking about the obvious most common activity people do when they are bored in this quarantine thingy. Open youtube and mindlessly watching (or could purposely choose a theme to watch). I’ve been in all many kinds of side of youtube, and you can see it in this track.
The fourth track is called ‘One’. I was hooked to the rhythm? Just a simple bass. But I was so determined to do something with it. So I just played it, and then saying something, that turns out to be ‘one’. It fits nicely, with just one main instrument. And also to fit everything in the album, I have to say something about it that is related to 2020, uhm so yeah I did a lot of thinking in the mid part of the year, about the moments or chances that wouldn’t go back.
The fifth track is called ‘Cooking master’. Because I basically cook almost every day during this time. And I’m just a self-declared cooking master. Give me garlic, onion, and oyster sauce, I can cook everything. (And I can eat everything pretty well, never so picky about taste, so there you go)
The next track..is ‘Beli 3’ the only song in this album that is written in Bahasa Indonesia (we had English and alien language, remember?). I incorporated the real sound of pempek seller’s sound sign that always go around my neighborhood every afternoon, the sound of glass bottles knocked by spoon in somewhat harmonious hits. That sound is really beautiful compared to my noisy neighbor that basically screaming everything when they talk (and honking their car at 7am to keep their child entertained) —imagine working from home with this kind of neighbor around, yep a constant headache and anger (plus I got to know every family affair they were having or work affair—because they just talk really loudly, basically screaming. Even my other neighbor that has 4 active children in their house sounds really peaceful if compared)——enough ranting about my neighbor. Ok so this track talks about pempek, the delicious dish that I love with all my heart, but I haven’t eaten for..forever now (my sister bought some but I didn’t eat it because I was on diet. All hail diet) and even though the pempek seller come around every day, I haven’t been able to buy because I’m just that strict in this quarantine thingy—not to mention after I reached some time of not-going-out-at-all-not-even-out-of-the-house-gate, I became kinda obsessed with it. I kinda want to set a useless record of staying home the longest (I win in my family, I’m eyeing for a win in my town, then maybe in my country, if not the whole world). I’m in my sixth month on September 2nd of staying home (totally never go out at all), and I’m sure there are some people out there do it longer maybe by a few days? Idk, but anyway I’m obsessed with this record god help me (and now I know how much I dislike getting dressed for going out)——you see how much it mentally affects me by seeing this paragraph? Or maybe not if you also look into my older posts, it’s more chaotic.
And the last track!! Outro - Rise. It is a nano micro tiny little hope that after all of this pass, it will be better. And things are going better little by little, it will rise. Kind of a good way to end an album called BYE2020.
Well, the album is there, I embed it if you want to hear. I present this album for me and my attempt to create whatever I like and spending my time with intentional leisure activities.
—-oh wait I guess the timing is good anyway, it’s been 6 months (From March 2nd) since I quarantined, and yea well this is an album to celebrate the 6 Monthiversary! Okay, that’s it. What a meaningful album, wow wow
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