Hmm feeling a bit frustrated at the moment.
Quitting the cigarettes is probably what's causing it. I can get a handle on it and it begins to lose it's grip, once I realise that's where the source of stress is coming from, but I've had a couple of TENSE moments the last few days.
So Day 11 into Song A Day For A Year. I woke up today at 2pm. D'oh. My sleeping cycle has been out of whack for a couple of weeks now, staying up to around 5am every night. It's probably because I don't have a "normal" job, with "normal" hours. Hopefully one is in the bag, I start training 24th January.
Yesterday's SADFAY song was done and dusted by 9pm, which was a first. Usually I start around dinner time (as will be the case today) and around 10:30pm I start really stressing out to get it finished. Finishing earlier last night and being able to go out afterwards was great!
So I'm in my bedroom, house is fucking freezing as usual, so I've got my heater on all the time. I'm doing the same routine: getting up, switching the heater on and off every 30 minutes or so, getting back into bed, getting ready to settle into creating a new song, at some point food.
It sounds like a pretty easy life, but it's getting a bit "Cabin Fever-ish". ... Too many hours on my own, in the same room, not getting enough vitamin D.
Why does it feel like such a chore today?
It's a validation thing I guess. I am thinking about "fans" and followers a lot. I'm spending a reasonable amount of time emailing and friending and spamming people online. But why is it so hard to get started on the song today in particular?
As you can see from this blog update, I am in procrastination mode (you are currently reading the second draft / edit of this entry).
With the last few days of SADFAY I've been busy with the song writing and that been enough, but I guess every now and then I think, "Why am I doing this?" Sitting here, alone in my bedroom, feeling cut off from the world, later I might venture as far as the Tescos up the street to buy dinner and that'll be the height of my interaction with reality. What is this really doing for me?
Well of course the answer is: The music!
I'm just being a whingey little spoilt brat actually. That's all it is: My work : reward, ratio has always been skewed. I've just always been that way, expecting a big return for the least amount of input and I lose interest quickly if I don't keep getting validation and support.
I think spending all this time on my own is making me more anxious about that stuff though: It's making me more needy and more desperate for validation. It's all a bit ugly really.
I still think some "structure" to my days (in the form of a job or some sort of exercise) would be healthy. Waking up at 2pm (then faffing about on line until 6pm) is not good.
As for being needy: It's not that I want people to say "oh you're so amazing", because I know I am. *SMUG GRIN... Seriously though, I do have some faith in my abilities, so it's not just being told "oh wow, you're so clever" although that is, of course, very nice.
This music-malarky, well it's my life. Does that need to imply it's like being condemned to a life of being a loner in my studio all day by myself, being secluded from all the exciting, colourful things happening in the world? Of course serious artists very often are "loners" a lot of the time. That's OK to an extent, but I believe music is supposed to be shared and celebrated with other people. I like that music brings people together. I like that enjoying art is a social activity, whether that be music, film, painting etc.
Perhaps I have delusions of grandeur, for how I want SADFAY to pan out? Maybe expecting everyone to take an interest in it is naive. I think people are so afraid to enter into a discussion about music, because they worry that it will get personal and feelings will be hurt. It's a shame that this will stifle any debate, discussion or criticism of music at all though.
However, maybe Song A Day For A Year would be much better as a private exercise. Instead of trying to gain attention for it on line, which is more of a distraction, the project should be for me and my own development as an artist.
I've already thought about issues of copyright. How should I present this work? Should I keep giving it all away for free? But I value these pieces of music. I've invested a lot of time and effort into them. One solution is to give people sample clips and maybe the odd teaser track and let them buy a collection of the songs, every so many days. (probably every month). Essentially this will create 12 albums that people could buy. That is the side of things that I could use some help with: Marketing. Promotion. Management. It'd be so awesome to have 1 or 2 people who could say "We think what you're doing is definitely worthy, so we're going to offer our services and work towards taking this work to more people" ... For a fee / percentage of course...
I need to get out and get involved in whatever sort of community exists for us muso-types here. I know there are people out there who feel the same way. Maybe I should form some sort of Musicians Anonymous?
