Diana Chow

That’s a hard one to answer! I choose two: my Yamaha HS7 monitors because I use them constantly while producing, mixing, or mastering music, or just listening to music recreationally. I almost always have music playing, and I love how they sound and look. To me, they also mark the transition I made to focusing on music production. Also my Fender 50’s Vintera P-bass because I lucked out with a deal on Craigslist for it and it’s a gorgeous instrument with a lovely, warm vintage tone. It’s my first bass guitar, and to me symbolizes getting through the pandemic lockdown with creativity and fun, as that’s when I picked it up and started learning to play.

I get into a receptive, playful, and exploratory mindset. Sounds around me in everyday life can inspire me, or I’ll fiddle with different sounds and instruments (digital or analog) until I find something that resonates and that I want to build upon. I also attend a monthly workshop called Hyperflow in LA (it’s fully remote and over Zoom now) that inspires me a lot with different creative prompts for making new songs.

I schedule everything into my calendar! I’m a free spirit who lives and dies by my calendar, ha! Every Monday morning I slot in work and life activities for the week and at the week’s end I check in at a high level to see what that balance actually looked like. I’ll admit the past month or so has been especially busy and I’m still in the process of learning what the right balance is for me. I feel fortunate to have so many things I want to do and work on and I’m learning to prioritize, say no to things, and spread stuff out more. I believe perfect balance isn’t possible and certainly not all of the time, so I continue learning to manage the ebbs and flows of it with how I’m doing and feeling.