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Where I'm at in 2023
2 years ago
Hello, FA. We don't talk as often as we used to, but I haven't forgotten you.
February Album Writing Month (FAWM), the online songwriting exercise I take part in each year, just wrapped up, and I'm kind of riding high on my accomplishments. Did I write an album? Hell, no. I didn't come anywhere close to the total of 14 songs that participants are challenged to complete. But I know my work pace, and for me, speedwriting doesn't yield the kind of results that I'm looking for. I don't want to write as many songs as I can, I want to write songs that I still want to listen to when I'm done with them. And in that regard, my 3-song FAWM was a resounding success. I wrote one song that makes me cry, one song that makes me laugh, and one song that I think sounds too cool to have come from me lol. And I got a lot of good feedback from other songwriters. What more can I ask for?
A while back, I made a decision to stop posting most of my music on FA. My songs used to get a modest but decent amount of attention, and that was OK. Then they started to get almost no attention, and that wasn't great, but it was OK. And I kind of figured that that was where it was going to end up. And then, last February, I posted a new song called "Dinosaurs". I was absolutely in love with this song. It was unlike anything else I'd done before, and I felt that it was a big step forward for me. My comments from fellow songwriters on FAWM included phrases like "Super arrangement", "This is amazing!", and "The build in the song is beautifully done". But when I posted it to FA, a comment that it received here referred to the arrangement as "repetitive" and "annoying" (this from someone who claimed to be a musician, but who didn't want to post any of their music on FA... probably because of people like themself). The worst part was that it was the first comment the song received... the only review that the next visitors to the song would read. I ended up getting a couple of nice comments from friends and acquaintances later, but at that time, that was it-- "repetitive", and "annoying".
Anyway, which do you think stuck in my head more-- the many positive comments I'd gotten from other proven songwriters on FAWM, or the one negative one that I got from some yahoo on FA? Good guess lol. I don't want to be this way. I don't want to be so thin-skinned, to the point that posting my work on FA, or anywhere, is a risk to my mental well-being. But I don't know how to not care about it. Some people can let criticism roll off their backs. That's not one of my strengths. The funny thing is that that old music that I used to post here, the stuff that people responded positively to, was largely weird no-fi stuff with barely a shred of musical merit that I recorded in my bedroom with a hand-held tape recorder when I was a teenager. Then I started to become more serious about writing music, and people were like, "Meh". And now, there's not a doubt in my mind that I could put up a bunch of electronic instrumental drivel that meant absolutely nothing to me, and it would go over far better than the stuff that I've put my heart and soul into.
I'm excited about the new music I've made. I want to share it with people. I'm thinking about lifting my FA embargo, but there's this little voice in my head that's saying, Don't do it. You'll regret it. But you know... that little voice hasn't always done right by me. It's stopped me from saying 'yes' to a lot of things that I probably should have said 'yes' to.
So... I think I'm gonna give it another try. How it'll go, I have no idea. What I do know is that I don't ever expect to be 'popular' on FA again (if I ever was in the first place). If things go well, it'll only be mildly well, which means that the potential risk here is probably significantly higher than the potential reward. But, whatever. If things go south, I'll just... take my ball and go home again lol.
February Album Writing Month (FAWM), the online songwriting exercise I take part in each year, just wrapped up, and I'm kind of riding high on my accomplishments. Did I write an album? Hell, no. I didn't come anywhere close to the total of 14 songs that participants are challenged to complete. But I know my work pace, and for me, speedwriting doesn't yield the kind of results that I'm looking for. I don't want to write as many songs as I can, I want to write songs that I still want to listen to when I'm done with them. And in that regard, my 3-song FAWM was a resounding success. I wrote one song that makes me cry, one song that makes me laugh, and one song that I think sounds too cool to have come from me lol. And I got a lot of good feedback from other songwriters. What more can I ask for?
A while back, I made a decision to stop posting most of my music on FA. My songs used to get a modest but decent amount of attention, and that was OK. Then they started to get almost no attention, and that wasn't great, but it was OK. And I kind of figured that that was where it was going to end up. And then, last February, I posted a new song called "Dinosaurs". I was absolutely in love with this song. It was unlike anything else I'd done before, and I felt that it was a big step forward for me. My comments from fellow songwriters on FAWM included phrases like "Super arrangement", "This is amazing!", and "The build in the song is beautifully done". But when I posted it to FA, a comment that it received here referred to the arrangement as "repetitive" and "annoying" (this from someone who claimed to be a musician, but who didn't want to post any of their music on FA... probably because of people like themself). The worst part was that it was the first comment the song received... the only review that the next visitors to the song would read. I ended up getting a couple of nice comments from friends and acquaintances later, but at that time, that was it-- "repetitive", and "annoying".
Anyway, which do you think stuck in my head more-- the many positive comments I'd gotten from other proven songwriters on FAWM, or the one negative one that I got from some yahoo on FA? Good guess lol. I don't want to be this way. I don't want to be so thin-skinned, to the point that posting my work on FA, or anywhere, is a risk to my mental well-being. But I don't know how to not care about it. Some people can let criticism roll off their backs. That's not one of my strengths. The funny thing is that that old music that I used to post here, the stuff that people responded positively to, was largely weird no-fi stuff with barely a shred of musical merit that I recorded in my bedroom with a hand-held tape recorder when I was a teenager. Then I started to become more serious about writing music, and people were like, "Meh". And now, there's not a doubt in my mind that I could put up a bunch of electronic instrumental drivel that meant absolutely nothing to me, and it would go over far better than the stuff that I've put my heart and soul into.
I'm excited about the new music I've made. I want to share it with people. I'm thinking about lifting my FA embargo, but there's this little voice in my head that's saying, Don't do it. You'll regret it. But you know... that little voice hasn't always done right by me. It's stopped me from saying 'yes' to a lot of things that I probably should have said 'yes' to.
So... I think I'm gonna give it another try. How it'll go, I have no idea. What I do know is that I don't ever expect to be 'popular' on FA again (if I ever was in the first place). If things go well, it'll only be mildly well, which means that the potential risk here is probably significantly higher than the potential reward. But, whatever. If things go south, I'll just... take my ball and go home again lol.
That's great, Kiffa! I'm glad you found better support for your music than FA (this place isn't really well-suited for anyone who isn't a graphic artist). Of course, I'll be glad to see your tunes here, and I'll certainly try to support your music as far as I can (being one of those people who has a tendency not to comment with any sort of real substance).
