DrScythe - announcing PROJECT 100! 100 songs within 10 years (91 songs and 9 1/2 years left)

Project 100

Video version:

Right after I’ve released the 7^th and 8^th song I realized that two of those eight songs weren’t part of the initial ‘more than 30 songs’. That means I am close to forty songs in the catalogue and as a matter of fact there are still many more ideas and parts lying around. This revelation spawned an idea: to record one hundred songs. I am the first to admit that I had no idea where the DrScythe project was headed. Just go on making songs and videos? Form a band at some point to play live but change the whole approach accordingly? Both options lacked something to me. I know that I am quite disciplined so just going on releasing songs wouldn’t be much of a problem no matter if there’s a lot of fans or not. But with no goal to achieve it felt a little random. And forming a band might not even work so my brain came up with a finish line:

100 original songs in 10 years!

Excluding:

-       Covers/Traditionals

-       Acoustic versions of own songs

-       the recently introduced Vaccines

-       Collaborations with more than ~20 sec guest part

Some may think that 100 songs over the course of 10 years aren’t that many others may be impressed by the sheer number. I myself simply instantly loved the idea of looking back one day and having released one hundred tracks.

Technically there’s a little discrepancy between the 100 songs and ten years when releasing monthly. It’s either the 123^rd song in November 2025 or the 100^th in December 2023. But one central element of project management is headroom and I think it’s fair to leave some space and just say: completing 100 songs within 10 years is big enough for one artist alone. If I can pull it off in seven so be it. I don’t want to force a certain date for the ‘big finale’ so if it turns out to be April 2024 it’ll be April 2024.

So let me explain the exclusions. The ‘Vaccines’ are obviously just for fun and do not count as a full song (especially as they’re limited to 1:59min). Although I am giving away the surprise now I want to say that I want to do acoustic versions of some of my songs and some traditional folk songs in the future on a random basis which are not even included in ‘monthly release’ (thus the ‘random’ tag) under the label ‘DrScythe raw’ or something like that. This would also include covers of copyrighted newer material if I’ll ever decide to do those.

As for collaborations it will depend on if they’re ever going to happen. I guess that the number of my future subscribers will be the central figure here for others to be interested in a collab. If there’ll be collabs I will allow the song to be a part of the 100 only if the guest part is around 20 seconds total. Anything way beyond that will get a different label. What I’d see as a possibility is to reissue a previously released song with a guest musician and simply do not count it again. But that’s to be figured out later…

Fun facts:

I’ll keep some statistics. All the instruments used are on their 1^st set of strings since I began the project (and no, I don’t need to change them, I don’t use regular nickel- or stainless steel roundwounds) but sooner or later that’ll change. I am on the 5^th pack of coffee. I use too many different picks to keep track of those accurately.

Aaaand let’s finish on a song; number 9 of 100!

DrScythe Recording Blog - Part III: Plans and projectmanagement

As the planned release of my latest song was heavily delayed I wanted to write something about plans. And as a “Bachelor of Science E-Government” I even can add some professional stuff about project management.

Songs, albums etc. as projects

When people refer to something as a project they often want to emphasize that it’s a one-time event or not as important as the main-thing (like a ‘side-project’ of a band member or refurbishing their garden shed). There are several definitions for what a project is and it depends on what you are doing which one applies. Check out Wikipedia on this one: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project

Temporary, permanent, reoccurring – if you want to you can call anything a project and treat it like one. But the more objects, people and tasks are involved the easier it will be to actually finish something if you plan it properly. No matter what and how you’re going to do it: listing all the said things will already improve your workflow as you’ll try to organize everything a little bit automatically. After you’ve done that you can just go on with your regular procedure but not forget something this time. Or you can sort the tasks chronologically and use a waterfall model https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waterfall_model for this project. It also helps to connect the required resources with the tasks to make sure that the equipment or person is available.

For more modern approaches you could learn everything about SCRUM (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scrum_%28software_development%29) and apply it to whatever you’re doing…

Back to recording: in contrast to many business projects the waterfall model is still usable for your (home) studio. You record track after track, instrument after instrument, then mix, then master, done. Even the “checkup loops” can be planned on fixed points. The most critical point is to plan backwards and with a lot of “headroom”. So from your deadline to the starting point and add about 30% of the time needed. For critical elements add 50-60% or if there is enough time double it.

For most bands the drums would be the most critical element as the other members need those for their recording sessions. So the finished task ‘drum recordings’ is a requirement for the other recording sessions etc.

Adjustments

One flaw of this method is its lack of flexibility. If you need to insert a task or change the duration of one then the entire plan has to be changed. So if the drummer can’t do the recordings for whatever reasons and there is no one to replace him – bad luck.

Or if you’re a one-man-project doing everything yourself but your grandpa dies and you got a lot of other stuff to do you find yourself jettisoning the entire plan. I initially planned to release two songs this month and now I am happy that I can finish one. And I am way more flexible than a regular band. For example I do not depend on a drum recording – I can record all the instruments using a really dull basic drum track. But that didn’t help this time. I invested several hours of work in both tracks but due to the lack of time I had to drop one song for now and finish the other one within the short period of time. So I had to redo the plan to maximize the time and it is just on spot. If I had to visit more family members on Easter I wouldn’t have been able to finish everything.

So the next time I try something more ambitious I am going to plan it with even more headroom. There are only few reoccurring tasks in recording and mixing so there’s no help to find in the modern tools of project management – except for the knowledge of projects being doomed if not planned and executed with the most possible carefulness.

This is this month’s result:

So long

DrScythe

PS: tables are great for planning, especially if you use automatic coloring.

0, red, not even begun

1, dark orange, rough idea, not ready to record

2, yellow, ready to record

3, green, recorded

4, grey, bounced with FX

5, blue, do not touch again

DrScythe Thoughts III – The importance of being earnest

If you enjoy my music and want to annoy some friends I now just got the thing for you: a channel trailer!

Sorry for this entry being a little confusing and loose - my grandfather died when I was just past the half of the text and I said to myself: well finish it and...wasn't a good idea it seems.

Today’s blog is about the elemental balance between fun and seriousness. Personally I’d say there are three overall categories:

Pure fun; no real ambitions at all, just playing an instrument (and drink lots of e.g. beer), extremely rare gigs, might even be difficult to play with fellow musicians, being skilled takes a lot more talent due to lack of time spent with practicing  

Hobby but with results (gigs/records): probably largest group, enthusiastic beginner to seasoned semipro, balancing between work, life and hobby is a problem, might even make some money

Pro: keeping the fun might be difficult until you reach the highest spheres, technically two subgroups: studied musicians and those who had their very own combination of luck/skill/time/connections/etc. to become a pro

I recently realized that the balance between having fun and getting some results can be a problem especially if it’s not your fault that whatever you’re trying to produce isn’t finished by a certain date. At the moment I am almost anxious before I record vocals as my neighbors tend to…well…ruin the takes. Hammering, drilling, screaming, REALLY LOUD CONVERSATIONS right in front of the door, vacuuming…staying motivated to wait for 10 minutes of silence and having fun in exact that moment isn’t quite what you want when following your passion. But you still want to finish your work and begin thinking about why you’re doing this.

That’s when I noticed that I am taking my hobby way more seriously than ever before – and also had more fun than ever before. In my case it’s almost like a dream come true to finally hear some of those songs finished and even receiving positive feedback.  And there are some songs left that are even more important to me.

This doesn’t mean that everybody should take making music more seriously. But maybe think about it once in a while. Especially when I thought about the musicians I met on the way I noticed that some were way too earnest about it and some seemed to have no motivation beyond playing their instrument. As long as you’re a band of hobbyists I highly doubt it’s useful to demand perfect instrumental skills or plan every gig for three years in advance and calculate possible fans. On the other hand you can’t expect your band mates to tolerate you failing to play a song you all agreed on over and over again be it an original or a cover. So if you want to get somewhere you’ve got to put some work into it.

Which means you need to do stuff that isn’t quite fun to have more fun later or find the fun in work. Of course if it is your passion it won’t always feel like work to you but others might see it as work and at some point you’ll run into something you can’t avoid to make progress that isn’t fun even to you. This might be quite early on your way (I realized that I won’t ever find motivation to practice enough to shred after half a year) or later. What’s always on the line then is where you’re going from there. Find your motivation to go through with it? Look for something else to improve? Look for a way around it? Or give up altogether and never move on again?

With some parts of the process of writing, recording and mixing my songs becoming some sort of routine I have to say that it’s really exciting to focus on the creative parts. Not only while writing it but also during the mixing phase. Deciding whether it should sound more compact or sort of spacey, dry or full of effects…per track and overall. On the first two songs I was definitely way more focused on balancing everything out which I now find quite easy as some tricks already found their ways into my memory.

So…I hope I was able to explain what I wanted to say…if not, please comment, then I’ll try to descramble my brain a little…so long

DrScythe

PS: Should I start a vlog instead of a blog?...