Hey guys. So what I wanted to talk about today is a project I'm working on and I'm working on making strings, but I'm not going to specifically talk about the content of what I'm doing. You know the physics behind core dimensions and wrap material and you know all of that stuff that implies and results in different tensions and playability. What I'm going through as a personal experience is a project mindset. I decided when Upton Bass was going to start making strings, I wanted to start with a good quality, straight down the middle set of steel strings, think Spira cores, think super flexibles those are Tomasik's versions and then you start going into kind of the world of metal core but with some synthetic, into Abba, perazzis and Perpetuals and things like that, and my goal as I started was to do exactly that. I'm going to make a good quality set of steel strings. As you'll experience with you know playing and maybe you're working on your Mozart or you're working on your, you know learning jazz charts or working through changes I'm experiencing that frustration where I'm working on the G string and I'm playing with different gauges, I'm hitting some roadblocks, road bumps, blocks and now I've hit a brick wall where I have to stop and I have to transition, and what I mean by that is like that experience of utter frustration when you're focused in on your goal and you're working on this thing and everything outside of your control just makes you stop. So I've had to take the steel set and put them aside. There's built learning there, which that's kind of the realization. There's learning and experience which I'm bringing over to the synthetic core set. But I can't do anything more on the steel set until a few more materials that I've ordered show up, and these are very custom, very expensive, complicated materials which I don't even know if the three or four different things that are going to show up are going to solve the problem that I have. But I literally am hitting the pause button. I have to take that whole book, the characters and the experience. I'm not in chapter one, I'm in chapter two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, and I'm like I'm getting there and I'm like, yes, what, pause? Eight, nine, 10. And I'm like I'm getting there and I'm like, yes, what, ha pause. So I've literally taken that whole book and closed it and set it aside and now I'm starting on another book.

Yes, there are commonalities that I'm working with over here. But that transition for me is is my challenge, it's my personal challenge and I share this with people because I know I've heard musicians and anyone that's doing any significant project deal with the same thing. I don't care if you're building a house from scratch, you're restoring a car, a bass, you're playing the bass, you're painting a painting or whatever you're doing. You're a videographer like Mattias behind the camera and you're working on the Build Bass series and then you're jumping over and helping me do a video like this for a podcast. That transition is hard, I think, as humans humans we love to like sink our teeth into the thing and stay there and get it done.

Obviously, different personality styles work. Some people work randomized Um, we could say that's an ADD thing. Whatever you want Great to bounce here, great to bounce here, or the hyper-focus of ADD and you just want to get this thing done and you go to bed at night and you're thinking about those steel strings. Hi, that's me and I feel that resistance, like that stick, like it's like I'm trying to pull off of that direction. I was going, I was riding my bike and now you want me to go walk in the woods. Huh, what, I'm confused. So I'm experiencing that right now and I'm going easy on myself saying, hey, move over into these other things that you didn't want to do just yet, absolutely fully intended to do this. I was talking with one of my friends who's a great bass player and he was like, yeah, man, it happens all the time Like you're so down the line of going after this thing and you'll actually let the other things maybe fall aside. So that's me right now. That's what I'm experiencing.

I'm curious how other people experience this sensation when they're working on things and how you get yourself unstuck. As much as this is about how I'm feeling, it's also kind of a question to other people how do you get yourself unstuck? How do you transition and bring that same energy and excitement you had into the thing you were sure you needed to do? And now you're over here working on a synthetic string. You could easily say, hey, gary, you're still working on bass strings. Man, whatever, knock it off. And that's what I'm saying to myself You're still working on bass strings. You're working on learning. You know the implications of different materials and methods and things that you're doing in your making process. You're still in that same category, but my mind fights it a little bit and I'm curious if you guys experience the same thing.

So, if this is on Instagram, please comment. If you hear this on Spotify, send me an email. Send us an email at sales, at uptonbasecom, youtube, whatever it is, just let us know. Like I guess I'm asking you, can you help me feel better about this? No, you know, I'm not necessarily saying that, but I just wanted to see if others related and how they feel about this transition space in projecting and what are some of the ways that you can let go of that desire of direction that you had to be doing a thing and work into the next thing. I know for me, my internal speak as I say that I know there's something I'll learn over here which will then compound and then I'll get to reapply to the thing that I cared about. So so much.

You know, I think I could see Matthias nodding his head. It's like, hey, go do this video thing or this picture for the website, or this comment on the blog, and, and you know, maybe he's, he wants to be over here, but he does a process and a thing that then he goes back to this and he's like, oh, you know, I learned how to do that better over there, and now it applies to this thing. So I'm expecting to see all that for myself and feel that for myself and I'm I'm kind of just going easy on myself to to feel that resistance, be okay with it, acknowledge it's there. I think the worst thing I could do is say that's, that's not there, and then maybe I'll just go work on a bass downstairs, when right now I should be fiddling on the strings and then doing my bass stuff. So what's funny?

This same thing is exactly what happened back in the early 2000s when I was figuring out at that time, without Google, without YouTube, with all the resources that you guys have now that are just taken for granted, how am I going to make the sides and the back of a base not this base, but how am I going to make the sides and the back of a base out of plywood? How do you press plywood? Where do you get the veneers from? Which thickness veneers do you use? Which direction do the grains need to be, what kind of glue do you use, how long does that last, etc. Etc. Etc. Now, a process that's been done thousands of times, and even in that process I want to do the plywood thing I want to do.

Oh, I've got to figure out how to mechanize the neck so that they're quicker. I need to figure out how to you know source really really high quality top material. How do we carve the tops? How do we pre-carve the tops? How much can we machine versus how much do we do by hand? You can see where this goes right. What are we doing with varnish? What are the angles of the neck block? Why is the neck block designed the way it is? Oh, let me hop on. Wait, there isn't Google and YouTube?

Like I already said, we're taking things apart and you're jumping all over and over and it is easy to say, well, hey, man, at the end of the day you're just making basses. But you know, why is the scroll the way it is and why are the tuners the way they are? And trying to find that space where you can allow yourself to artistically create, scientifically create and not judge yourself too quickly. The judge needs to leave the room for a while. That's a whole process right there by itself. And then you bounce over into oh man, why are we using spirit varnish with an oil ground, and so on and so forth and my brain's like but I'm over here, I'm still over here. So obviously I've got the guys downstairs and I've used them with all these projects.

But right now I'm like, hey, jack, if I've got a set of strings that I need to check out, what I think information on, I'm just going to be bugging you all the time here, throw this on a base. If I needed a little technical assistance for, take this thing apart and clean it and do whatever on the winding machines, I call Chris right. So I'm bouncing back and forth with my resources to keep me focused, hopefully, in the art and science part of what I'm doing, and utilizing the right people so that the kind of the repetitive tasks that would otherwise wear you out while you're projecting can be done by, hopefully, somebody else. Does that make sense? That's how I use my resources, one of the ways I help myself from wearing out with all the other craziness that's going on in my brain.

So this whole video is to like I think marketing and all this stuff is really cool and you sit back and you look at a company and there's a guy and he makes a thing and wow, how cool is that? And it's like man, we're all dealing with this real stuff, this dark stuff, that's light stuff, this creativity stuff. You know I need to sit here and be like, hey, I got to do these bass strings and I'm not doing the ones that I want. Meanwhile, make sure these bases continue to flow fabulously. That we're so lucky to do and we love all you guys for supporting us doing that. So the balls are in the air, right, we've got to keep them all moving. These ones sometimes are mechanical. These are some artistic ones over here. Can I bring them in here? And how do I shift?

And again go back to my main point transition. There's my day-to-day. There's me talking to you about you need a bass for jazz and so on and so forth, and that's the day-to-day. That's what we do, it's what we love to do. And then I'm coming over into here and creating a new system and new data and new opinions to create a set of bass strings.

So are we overthinking it or is that what we're all doing when we're working on our day job? Our family, our car has a problem, there's a family thing that we need to take care of. Boom, boom, boom. We're bouncing around and learning how to recruit these different pieces of ourselves. I think is really interesting. So I wanted to share that and talk to you guys. Let me know your thoughts and if you're having this feeling, know that I'm here with you and I think it's all about development and challenge, uncomfortability, but all of that, we know, results in the next thing right? That's the exciting part. So here's to discovering a new process, a new angle, a new tool, a new method and a new way of thinking. Thanks, guys.