Progress

Stuff’s going on as usual. Here’s some of it.

Album

Progress on Transitions is progressing. I’ve more or less finished the first and last songs on the album, and now I’m starting on filling in the bits in the middle.

You know how on most of my albums I can’t stick to a single genre and I’m just like, doing a bunch of experiments with different sounds?

This time around I’m doing something a bit different: I am doing songs in a bunch of different genres, but they’re all using the same instrumentation. I’ve given myself the following limitations:

  • Up to three vocal parts
  • Guitar
  • Piano
  • String quartet
  • Drums

And nothing else. Well, okay, reverb, of course. And sometimes I cheat a little on the strings to get some extra swells.

Not all of the songs will use all of those things (for example, I’m intending to use drums sparingly, and the song I’m halfway done recording will have no vocals or guitar, and the strings will be a trio), but I’m still going to do stuff in a wide variety of genres and try to just like, really push the envelope with what’s possible with this limited sonic palette.

And so far I’m really happy with how it’s turning out!

Every single one of these songs is also a reimagining of prior Song Fight! music. And it tells a story, sort of?

So anyway I’m super excited about this upcoming album, even if I still don’t know what fucking genre to list it as.

As a reminder, I am occasionally posting progress updates on my Patreon (with individual song previews going to $3+ members) and all patrons will get a free copy of the album when it’s done. So this is a good time to subscribe to that.

Music website

Gah I still want to work on revamping my band website to be self-hosted rather than just redirecting to Bandcamp. I have a pretty clear vision for how it should be put together but I don’t feel like actually writing any HTML right now. Present blogging excepted, of course.

The nature of work

I am so very overwhelmed with the idea of doing performances on VRChat and online in general. There’s a lot to do and it seems like it’s going to be a full-time job on top of the full-time job of being a composer and recording artist.

I had a good chat with Kookie about this stuff today (check out her music, by the way, she’s great) and right now I feel like I should start small with just like, I dunno, continuing to sing in the small private gatherings I attend and maybe doing intimate shows of my own now and then, and maybe performing for Twitch sometimes too. I don’t really want to dive head-first into performing at A Venue and having An Audience.

I enjoy performing but that’s not what I want as a full-time job, and most of what I want out of performing is to get more visibility on my songwriting specifically so that I can get hired to make music for others. Which is a ridiculously hard thing to break into, just because of all of the network effects and visibility involved. A big part of what I’ve been trying to do is just to get a lot of exposure by making a lot of soundtrack stuff for peoples' games and videos, but so far that hasn’t borne much demand for my skills.

Whenever I try to get advice on this, people are just like, oh, you should make videos for YouTube and TikTok to showcase your music! Which is, uh, a lot of work on top of the huge amount of work I’m already doing (and barely treading water on), and also is a whole-ass additional career that I’d have to take on for the sake of doing something other than that career. Plus, now I have to figure out how to get exposure on those platforms so that I can get exposure for the thing I’m trying to do in the first place? That feels like the worst kind of yak shaving.

People love my music when they hear it, but getting it listened to in the first place is super tough. How do I escape this gravity well, without having to burn myself out on yet another thing that I love so much?

There’s got to be a better way.

Long COVID

And on that note, I’m still having the following long COVID issues:

  • Fatigue
  • Brain fog
  • Lack of concentration
  • Vertigo/dizziness
  • Anxiety
  • This goddamn persistent cough

I’m also finding it more difficult to play piano than usual although I think that might just be me being out of practice.