Well…six
months already. Eight songs done. I intended to stay motivated. I knew that my
self-discipline is quite strong after more than two years of pushing myself
through bodyweight exercises that became more and more difficult. But I also
thought that I would struggle after the first two or three songs. Instead of
struggling I sped up to release the 3rd one just to allow myself to
enter the D’Angelico endorsement contest. And that resulted in a third place
and two fantastic guitars being lent to me. What a boost!
So
month after month I kept my focus on finishing recording and mixing on time
although my overall mood isn’t too good: looking for a job, no money – the
usual sorrows. But what else should I do? Can’t apply for jobs all day long,
there’s not even enough offerings for that. So making music is quite a thing to
avoid wasting time (or: use it purposefully).
Eight
songs that roughly outline where the whole DrScythe-music is headed with more
to come that brings new nuances and colors to the project. The first song just hit 500 views. That’s not
a large number compared to other YouTubers, that’s not even a large number
compared to some other musicians in the region. To me it’s incredibly cool. I
don’t have hundreds of friends who watch the videos. It’s not even a dozen of
people I know personally who watch the videos. So 500 is quite a milestone for
me. Obviously I’ll celebrate the 1000th one when it happens.
Before
I give you a small status update I want to tell the story of ‘Home’, the 7th
song and ‘Mind Pirates’ the 8th. Let’s begin with the latter one.
The main melody goes back to 2005 or 2006. It just lay around for a while and
then, during the Meinthat-era, I played around with it and the idea of using a
violin. Then the band split up and the idea was buried until I began sorting
out the songs for the DrScythe project. I instantly thought: ‘how could I ever
abandon this?’ So it made the list. And I recorded it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j1VrKJn66Uw
My
fiancée has been asking me for years if I will ever write a song for her. I
always said no, partly because I didn’t want to disappoint her, partly because
I feared I wouldn’t be able to pull it off. When I finally came up with the
idea for ‘Home’ I tested the ‘riff’ out of context and she liked it. So I began
writing the rest and here we are. To cover up the recordings I pretended to
work mostly on ‘Mind Pirates’ so that she wouldn’t notice the progress until
it’s almost done. And it was successful. She suspected nothing (at least she
said so), was quite surprised and loves it. Mission accomplished.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qgbOwBKYBUM
So
what’s the next mission? Keep on releasing one song per month! Try to gain more
fans by doing so. Improving my mixing skills, improving my videos. Releasing
the first 14 tracks as album. And then, depending on what’s going on in my life
and how much the number of fans grows, begin looking for musicians to perform
live. But for now it’s more like trying to promote my stuff as much as possible
without being annoying. What seems to be impossible...
On
the one hand it’s a great experience to receive a lot of positive feedback and even
get a manufacturer of fantastic guitars interested in you especially because
every release is accompanied by the typical artist’s mixture of feeling: doubting
oneself and exposing your soul. On the other hand is the stagnation of response
to that. Only few new followers/subscribers, only the initial larger amount of
views which quickly dies off to the slow increase over time. Don’t get me wrong
here: I am incredibly thankful for what I achieved so far and I will keep
releasing songs. But it’s a little weird to be encouraged to go on and nothing
happens. I know that consistency is key on YouTube, but I fear for my computer
breaking every time I boot it up – and that would be the end for the whole
project for a while. No spare parts, no money, nothing. So my job situation is
becoming a larger problem every week and drawing away my attention every time I
make music – because I fear to be stopped by defective devices…
Well…that’s
it for this week. Happy with the project, happily in love, anxious about the
usual topic: money/job. Just like everybody else…
Small
extension to the first FAQ
Downloads
I
will definitely enable free downloads for the album. Until then I don’t want to
spread the ‘not-on-spot’-versions as downloads out of context.
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