DAY 4 : Emotional Distance & Stolen

I have something to confess to you today...

Scroll down to listen to Emotional Distance and Stolen.

"I attempt to remove my emotional attachment in order to impart my emotions into the music"

 - Ryan Sullivan

"Emotional Distance"

Emotional Distance is the albums title track and is yet another reference to the need for me to detach or distance myself from my musical projects emotionally in order to reach completion and achieve success.


My definition of success in a musical project is to create a functional piece of music that has both entertainment and emotional value and has the ability to convey the intended emotion.

So in essence, I attempt to remove my emotional attachment in order to impart my emotions into the music which is contradictory but it works for me.

The methods I use to distance myself from a project begin with simple intent and extend to efficiencies like task management and timing intervals to limiting various aspects such as instrument selection, the amount of times I listen to a song and the amount of times I can work on a song before it either needs to be deemed complete or shelved for an indefinite amount of time.


These rules can be difficult to adhere to but they ensure success and keep me on track.

We're almost at the end of the journey, see you tomorrow for the last day.


Synthesizer presets are a bone of contention in the electronic music community and so it's out of some feeling of guilt that I initially named this song 'Stolen'.

The lead melody is a preset from a digital synth which I modified, recorded and then sliced up and edited before applying effects processing. All of that editing and manipulation was still not enough to rid me of my guilt and so upon further reflection I came to think of the many electronic music hits by global legends that have unashamedly used presets without even so much as altering them in the slightest.

Songs like these go right back from the birth of electronic music up until this day and so I slowly began to forgive myself. Then, I thought of various genres of music that use guitar, piano, violin or any other acoustic instrument. All of these instruments, when unplugged at least, come with only one preset sound and there is no debate about multiple artists using the piano being any less artistic for it.


So with that realization, I can unapologetically say that I used a preset and 'Stolen' will serve as a reminder to me to not let my tools dictate my feelings toward my artwork.

All songs written & produced by Ryan Sullivan.

Mixed & mastered at