waterfalls and gender identity update

this is a song about identity, jealousness, and the seasons. more specifically, it's a personal account of how it felt realizing i was a transgender woman. enjoy.

music video: waterfalls

it's nice to be free.

like paper airplanes in the wind.

the stars shine in the sky. it's beautiful.

love
–clover caruso


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how many hours of work went in to each aspect for creating waterfalls?

it's really hard to say because i did not do exact time tracking on the project, i said on discord:

didnt track time for mv but it was produced alongside a full time software engineering career. from september ish to mid december, nearly all the time i had available outside work was spent on it, excluding time around friends. i did have a few weekends where i didnt leave my apartment at all (not even for grocieries or meals) and just grinded on the project. i had a lot of times where i felt like i couldnt work at all.

writing and producing the audio was on and off work from april 2023 to november 2024. not consistently. i spent most of 2024 practing singing not really getting where i want to be but better than before

during 2024 i was working on other songs, and i filmed many recording sessions. usually an hour long, most of these ended in me giving up. it's quite sad looking back at me being so lost

file/journal/2024-09-20_recording_session.mp4

i might have a hypothesis about what you mean by 'rightness'...but can you give me a short audio of one of your takes that sounds right to you (and one that does not)?

i, unfortunately, do not have any samples of a "right" sound. but you can look for "wrong" sounds by looking through my entire discography, which i am working on reuploading as we speak.

actually, i have two: the song at the end of iphone 15 review and the second chorus of waterfalls.

C# B# C# B# C# A, B C# C# B B A, G#, F#?

this looks close to the waterfalls melody but it's out of key. but no i'm no longer jealous of the seasons because i am now flying high above the sky.

The internet just seems to feel darker and darker and darker to me. I’m glad you’re keeping your circle smaller and safer right now. I’m always thinking I should use the microphone of the internet to share the light, but I can’t really do much and I also don’t think I’m strong enough not to let the darkness kill what little light I ever have to offer anyway. I mostly left the internet for a couple years and it went well— and now this year I have tried being back on it for a few months, but I can already feel my Fire burning out.

you gotta do it for yourself. i was talking to someone yesterday about this. the internet is so huge that it's like... waah. and it's all so spikey. you gotta, and it's hard, but you gotta build it up from nothing into what you want. it's best to work off-grid, and then bring what you have to the internet when you're ready. if you start anywhere else, the fire is destined to burn out since it's not rooted in your own desire. when it is, it's easier to keep going.

the worst part is this approach is super lonely, so i make myself sane by having very meaningful friendships offline. the specific thing i like most there is the irl music video showings. i did one in november for waterfalls, and might get to do one next week or so for in the summer. that is, if the project is actually finished by then.

also, take small steps. and a billion of those steps. it's very easy to look at people and get jealous of whatever. i know that feeling too well, but it's interesting slowly moving into the place where people do it to me.

regarding your future songs, what do you want to keep the same (from in the summer/waterfalls) and what do you want to change?

billion things but here is one of each

same: playing with all the instruments available, placing real world characters in 3d worlds

different: i want more varied structure regarding lyrics, having certain video scenes be ultra ultra minimal.