It’s almost two weeks since I last wrote anything. A lot’s happened since then. Biden dropped out of the election, Harris seems to be the Dems’ nominee and Trump’s claim that he’s a changed man after his assassination attempt proved to be a load of bollocks. His running mate is just as extreme and seems to be willing to say anything to get ahead.
Turning to Music
But I don’t want to talk about that. I actually want to write about my music. I’m pretty bored of my day job, though it does pay the bills. But in between that and being a husband and dad, I want to fit in developing my music. I’m trying to develop as a musician and a composer for various media, be that film, tv, games or just library music. It’s pretty tricky juggling all this. I’m hoping to take a masters in it later this year, but the election (and ensuing inevitable craziness/busyness at work) is probably going to mean that it would be better to postpone it until the next start date in January.
Intentions
Anyway, I’m hoping that this blog will document my attempts at doing this. Why I’m writing it, who knows? It’s helpful to me and if it helps someone out there trying to be creative whilst holding down a full time job and family duties, then that’s great also.
Getting Going
One thing which is hard is to motivate and get momentum going for projects. The other day I joined a group called CueTube and wrote a piece for their monthly cue writing challenge. I think it came out pretty good. Nothing earth shattering, but I think it sounds convincing and professional as a soundtrack. It’s probably pretty conventional but that’s what I’m going for at the moment; honing my skills at being able to do the basics and then hope my own voice emerges as time goes on. You can listen to it here.
Masters
The masters course is with Thinkspace Education based in England. It’s a lot of money (11k quid), but I know that if I follow it through I’ll get a lot out of it, both in know-how and the confidence to actually tell people I’m a composer and charge people for my services.
Imposter Syndrome
Like a lot of people, I have plenty of imposter syndrome, especially in music. When you look on YouTube or social media there are so many other people better at it than me that it seems overwhelming and difficult to know where to begin. I’m not musically trained. I started playing the guitar at 14(ish) and got to what I thought was a reasonable level i.e. could play some songs, some lead licks but then never got any further. For ages I just thought I’d reached the level I was destined to achieve and was never going to get better. The truth was simple. I didn’t practice. I couldn’t afford lessons or even dvd/video lesson packs that they had in the 90s. There was no YouTube. After three years in a demoralizing band in London, I stopped playing almost altogether. I didn’t pick up the guitar at all for at least a year. Instead I concentrated on my moderately successful career in TV news.
Starting Again
I was 42 years old when I picked up the guitar again and was pleasantly surprised to discover that if I practiced I actually – gradually – got a little bit better. It seems so obvious, but I genuinely thought that at that age, it would be nigh on impossible to improve on a musical instrument. Also, I realized there was a wealth of knowledge on the internet, YouTube in particular. I got stuck in and really started enjoying learning not just more pentatonic shapes, but also scales and music theory. Two years ago when my second boy was born I thought I’d try the piano. I wanted to try something that I could just play in the house, in between all the newborn dad stuff. Again, I was surprised at how (relatively) quickly I was picking it up. I also finally saw the value of learning to read music, which doesn’t really suit the guitar but does the piano. It was only after learning my way around a piano that I thought composing could be something I could try my hand at.
Finding My Path
Since picking up the guitar again, I’d become interested in home recording my own songs and the production process. I’d always been interested in how string parts could work on songs and tried to arrange some here and there. I guess that’s what led me down the composing path… trying to improve my string parts. It’s pretty amazing how technology has brought these things to within the average person’s grasp. I’m not much of a performer, so composing and music production seems a more natural path for me. I’ve done a few composition, soundtrack-style pieces and gotten some good feedback which has given me encouragement that I could do it.
Show Your Work
I read a book recently called Show Your Work by xxxx I’m going to start posting more of my stuff on YouTube and SoundCloud so that you can listen along to my journey if you want. I’m going to try to regularly compose pieces. At least one a week and try to build that habit and my skills. Next time, I’ll tell you what gear I have and my set up. I’ve spent probably more than I needed to to get going, so maybe others can learn from my mistakes.