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Creative Acoustician

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Contrast keeps you sane

Contrast keeps you sane

While talking to a colleague last week, I went on a rant regarding cognitive work. I sometimes have a strong urge to work with something where I can just turn on the autopilot and cruise for a while. But it seems like that day never comes to me. I am a specialist consultant, and I find my work very difficult most of the time. And every time a palette drops, and I finally figure out how to solve a specific problem, you might think that life should get a little easier. But no… the only thing that happens is that the difficulty setting increases even more. It feels like mental tractor pulling.

Engineering, HabitsRikard ÖqvistMay 3, 2024work, job, engineering, health, musicComment

Similarities between a loving wife and a synthesizer

Similarities between a loving wife and a synthesizer

A wise old mate of mine once said that one of the most important things you learn when you get older, is the ability to “snap back to normal” when you get upset, angry, anxious, or whatever other negative feelings that wash over you. I can totally relate. When I was younger, I could get stuck in a negative thought loop for days. And that is very pointless. Currently at 41 years of age, I have improved significantly in this regard. It is much rarer that I get stuck in the same way. There might be two reasons for this. 1) My “snap-back ability” has improved and 2) Maybe I don’t get nearly as angry nowadays? If you decrease the amplitude, you won’t have to cover as much distance to get back to normal. Could it perhaps be that most of it comes back to reason 2)? In that case, it would certainly feel as if 1) comes with the package.

Music, FamilyRikard ÖqvistJanuary 25, 2024marriage, love, emotions, audio, synthesizer, musicComment

Physical meetings will never be replaced

Physical meetings will never be replaced

Have you ever had that feeling in a Teams meeting where you interrupt each other by starting a new sentence “simultaneously”? And then you realize your interruption, so you go quiet, wait a little and start again because it seems as if the other person is giving you the que to go ahead, only to interrupt each other again. This almost never happens when you are talking to someone in the same room. I think the crucial difference here is latency. Over Teams, you introduce a handful of precious milliseconds, and they can make a world of difference. This is analogous to playing music in a band. To play in time, “tight”, the latency must be very low. This is also the reason why it is almost impossible to play music together online.

Acoustics, EngineeringRikard ÖqvistNovember 28, 2023communication, internet, latency, music, conversationComment

Extreme learning

Extreme learning

One of the drawbacks with acquiring a PhD is that you “lose” around five years of work experience, because you are busy studying. It’s the same with all forms of education a.k.a. sacrificing the present for the future. I felt this very strongly during my first years as an acoustician. My friends who went straight to a private sector employment had several years head start on me, so by the time I was finally ready to start working for real, I was far behind, and I was frustrated by the feeling that colleagues assumed that my experience would be great and not comparable to a fresh recruit. Of course, when you have a good education/toolkit in your mind, it is only a matter of time before you catch up and take the lead, and in my case, I reckon it took around ten years in total (including PhD studies). During my insane quest to learn the drums, I realized something similar the other day with regards to music.

Education, MusicRikard ÖqvistNovember 20, 2023drums, music, learning, habits, education, school, focusComment

Lifesaving habits

Lifesaving habits

It’s been a couple of weeks now with late work-nights. A temporary reduction in sleep hours is usually no problem, but it is annoyingly easy to get stuck in a loop where you are active later in the evening or night, which both makes it harder to fall asleep and reduces the quality of the hours you get. Consequentially, it will be increasingly harder to get up in the morning and/or you will lose focus during the day, which will reduce productivity. And then you will need to work even longer hours to compensate, which only adds yet more gravel in the delicate machinery. It is a dark spiral. How do you break it?

Diary, HabitsRikard ÖqvistOctober 30, 2023health, habits, stress, dogs, musicComment

Pod detox

Pod detox

Earlier today, while repainting our garage, my wife came up with the expression “Pod detox”. We have been painting for days on end now, often more than 10 hours per day. Neither of us have listened to any music, audiobooks or podcasts during these days. Usually, I listen constantly to conversations or audiobooks, so it has been a new (old) experience for me to only listen to silence. It is just like it was before, only that I had forgotten how to do it.

DiaryRikard ÖqvistJuly 31, 2023podcast, music, audiobook, silence, focus, diyComment

Dreams never lie

Dreams never lie

On the night between the 1st and 2nd of June, I dreamt that I could play the drums exceptionally well. It felt as if a very important lock snapped into place. I have kept a daily dream journal since around 2017, so by now I have a pretty good idea of what happens when I sleep. With this dream journal, I have seen strong correlations between dream and reality in that important milestones are often presented in a dream. It is as if my subconscious mind has figured something important out. The feeling is like learning to ride a bike. Certain things you learn are life-altering. Once you have figured out how to ride a bike, you cannot un-learn it. I am soon in my fourth year of daily drum practice. And after this dream, I have played better than ever before, with a big margin. Coincidence?

Habits, PhilosophyRikard ÖqvistJune 5, 2023dreams, sleep, health, music, journalComment

Why did I stop listening to music?

Why did I stop listening to music?

I remember driving in the early noughties. The first thing I did after I got my driver’s license was to install a nice car stereo and a 12” subwoofer in the trunk. I always listened to music. I could figure out excuses to go for a drive just so that I could listen to more music. And I listened to music constantly when I was not driving too. Nowadays my music consumption isn’t even close, and it has to a large degree been replaced by audiobooks and podcasts. Why is this?

Diary, Philosophy, Computer, MusicRikard ÖqvistFebruary 21, 2023music, culture, movies, gaming, pc, audiobook, podcastComment

There is no work-life balance

There is no work-life balance

About ten years ago, I was the lead guitar player in a successful metal band called Meadows End. Playing on that level, including international tours, was something I had dreamt about since I was a little kid. A couple of thousand hours of hard work later I finally achieved my goal. The joy was unfortunately cut short. After only two albums, my life hit a fork in the road. I was writing my PhD thesis at the same time and had been under heavy stress for a long time. After many long conversations with my wife, and mental gymnastics on how to make it work even though it meant placing three suitcases (career, family and the band) in a baggage compartment that had room for two, I finally realized that I had to let go of one of them. That was the hardest decision of my life.

Engineering, Diary, Acoustics, ParentingRikard ÖqvistJanuary 24, 2023family, career, goals, teaching, music, bim, civil engineeringComment

2nd hand Christmas presents and shared passion

2nd hand Christmas presents and shared passion

This year I finished the Christmas presents with a couple of weeks of margin for the first time ever. The most important thing is to find some wonderful experiences for my boys. I managed to grab a couple of 2nd hand bargains on Tradera (Swedish Ebay). My older son loves Legos and vehicles and before long I found a super nice and large fire truck which I grabbed for 200 SEK (new price close to 2000 SEK) and a small jet plane for half the price of a lunch. The only thing that is missing is the sealed boxes. He’ll get cardboard boxes and plastic bags with Legos instead, and I don’t think he will care at all. I wonder what the Lego group is thinking about my 2nd hand purchases. Reusing instead of new is wise of course, but I also wonder if they consider it a lost sale?

DiaryRikard ÖqvistDecember 20, 2022christmas, lego, music, 2nd handComment

Rainbow barf boosts productivity

Rainbow barf boosts productivity

When I go on stage as a performing musician, my mind activates another setting. I get much more focused and find it a lot easier to enter the “flow” state. And when practicing at home, I often find my thoughts drifting away to irrelevant things. I’m probably not alone in this behavior and it’s also not surprising. There’s no “skin in the game” when practicing. There is no cost of messing up. But when you’re on stage, you will make a fool out of yourself if you don’t deliver. Hardcore, no extra lives when you mess up. I have found a very simple way to trick my mind that I am performing at a concert even when I am practicing at home.

Habits, MusicRikard ÖqvistNovember 29, 2022RGB, music, drums, studio, DIYComment

Work as hard as you can on one thing and see what happens

Work as hard as you can on one thing and see what happens

Yesterday me and my wife listened to Dr Jordan Peterson’s lecture in Stockholm, with the same topic as the title of this blog post. As a person who is extremely high in openness, I find this especially interesting. People with this personality trait, creative people, can often have a problem that they keep shifting from one thing to the next without ever finishing anything. I can recognize myself in this to a certain degree. But I also know that I am not too extreme in this regard either. Raphael, a friend of mine might very well be the most creative person I have met. And he told me something that is probably only is visible to someone in the 99,9th percentile in creativity (i.e. way higher than me, even if I should be in the 99th percentile…). “Rikard, you are an artist, but you are also very practical.”

Education, Acoustics, EngineeringRikard ÖqvistJune 6, 2022teaching, focus, career, art, music, universityComment

A beginner’s mind with an advanced toolkit

A beginner’s mind with an advanced toolkit

Yesterday I listened to a Podcast with Bret Weinstein (DarkHorse) on the topic of how to think like a Nobel Prize winner. The key takeaway is the same title is this blog post. The message resonated very strongly with me because I have used a similar approach for the past decade in various endeavors. The beginner sees a lot of options but has very few tools to use. The expert on the other hand, tends to see few solutions to a given problem, and has many different tools to solve them. To take the best of both worlds would indeed be a lot of options and many ways to approach the problem.

Education, PhilosophyRikard ÖqvistNovember 9, 2021mentorship, growth, Nobel prize, musicComment

Rome wasn’t built in one day

Rome wasn’t built in one day

The year 2020 and 2021 have resulted in some interesting alternatives for live music. With most concerts cancelled, some artists went online instead and started to livestream. I personally find this approach very interesting for several reasons. The ability to play live to anyone in the world is the primary factor. And the possibility to experience it even after the concert is over is another. It opens a whole new forum for musicians to interact with their followers. However, I do suspect there is a huge technical barrier for many musicians. Personally, I love to figure out how things work and bang my head on a problem until I find a “perfect” solution. Learning how to livestream drums AND play the drums at the same time might perhaps be my most ambitious and rewarding project yet. Because there is no end in sight of technical problems to be solved!

MusicRikard ÖqvistSeptember 20, 2021livestreaming, music, drums, edrums, videoComment

Time to rediscover the world

Time to rediscover the world

When you become a parent, you will discover the world again through your child. You cannot understand how fascinating and amazing it is when the wind rattles the leaves in a tree. But your two-year old sees it instantly and his mind is blown. And you stop and think for a second: “Yes, that is quite amazing actually. I had forgot about that when I became an adult”.

Parenting, Music, PhilosophyRikard ÖqvistJuly 26, 2021parenting, podcasts, books, humanities, reading, listening, musicComment

When the tables are turned for a recording engineer

When the tables are turned for a recording engineer

Yesterday I spent a day in a recording studio for the first time – As a client. I have been working in studio environments probably for thousands of hours and have recorded hundreds of songs. But I have always been the one in control of the recording process. A sound engineer recording himself as a musician is a completely different thing than a sound engineer being recorded as a musician, by another sound engineer. By entering the role of a client for just one day, I learned some lessons that aren’t apparent from the perspective of the sound engineer. This is an invaluable experience which can be applied in any domain, not just music.

Acoustics, Music, EngineeringRikard ÖqvistJanuary 23, 2021studio, recording, music, guitar, growth, acoustics, musician

Divine intervention

Divine intervention

A long time ago I was introduced to Stanley Jordan’s rendition of Elanor Rigby. When he plays the part at around 1:00 into the song my jaw dropped. He used the guitar in a new way that I had never seen before, and it sounded beautiful! I believe he called the playing style “touching”. It is basically two-handed tapping where your left hand plays the chords, and the right hand takes care of the melodies. I instantly started to read up on the method and practicing on my electric guitar. It soon dawned on me that the guitar would need some adjustments and optimization to play the touch style. Some examples are alternate tunings, extremely low string height and deadening the strings on the first fret with a piece of cloth so that they stop ringing as soon as you lift your fingers. However, that would have rendered the guitar unusable for normal playing. Touch style is very difficult even on a properly setup guitar, and if you try to play it on a regular guitar it becomes even harder. Frustrated, I started looking for a smarter way to do it, and that is when I learned about the Chapman Stick.

MusicRikard ÖqvistJanuary 9, 2021music, chapman stick, tapping, touching, guitar, bass, drums, piano, vision, dream Comment

Practice mind control with livestreaming

Practice mind control with livestreaming

The last week, I have been experimenting with livestreaming instead of vlogging. I have played various musical instruments on FB live. When I play music on a livestream, I have noticed that my mind runs the same program as when I am playing a concert in front of an audience. Time stops. I am so hyper-focused that I am not aware of my surroundings anymore. The best example is when I did a livestream and decided to play Bleed in the original tempo (230 bpm). Bleed is arguably one of the most difficult songs there is. I have been practicing the song for over a year on drums and now guitar, so I knew it well, but I have never been able to play it in the proper speed, only slower. I started the livestream and just played. And I got through the whole song with only minor mistakes. I was NOT expecting that! But because I did it as a livestream, I activated the “live concert program” in my mind which gave me access to untapped potential. I can still hardly grasp that I managed to pull that off.

Philosophy, HabitsRikard ÖqvistNovember 21, 2020mind control, mindset, focus, growth, productivity, trance, hypnosis, livestreaming, musicComment

Consistency matters

Consistency matters

The most important aspect of going anywhere in life to keep showing up. This is true for yourself, for your family, your business, your society, your country and all of humankind. I learned this a couple of years ago when we had a band at my old workplace. We put a backline with drums, PA, guitar and bass amps in an unused room in the basement and started to play 15-30 minutes every day instead of taking coffee breaks.

HabitsRikard ÖqvistDecember 13, 2019musicComment

The best idea I have ever had

The best idea I have ever had

Earlier this year, I met a new friend with an interesting background. He was an architect and guitar luthier. And now he had decided to become an acoustician. This might sound like a strange combination, but it turns out interdisciplinary knowledge might be precisely what we need to crack the code on how to build the optimal wooden building with regards to sound insulation.

AcousticsRikard ÖqvistDecember 6, 2019music, woodComment