Every time I sit down at the synth and explore a space I'm not familiar with I feel uncomfortable. As much as I like creating unique sounds, I often find the process of listening to repetitive sounds that aren't yet pleasing to me to be incredibly grating. Especially when playing in more metallic palettes things can get...rough. When I know the sonic space well through the familiarity built by the repetitions of practice, I come in and out of these rough edges to create and then release tension. But to be able to play that way later, I have to sit in these tense space and learn the shapes of the rougher and sharper edges.
To be able to navigate and introduce tension intentionally into our work, we have to first learn to navigate the spaces of tension themselves. This can be...tense. That means we're probably right on track.