End of Year Round Up.

Well, the good news is, I thought I started this blog in January 2014, so my lack of progress, was really a wasted year and quite depressing.   Then looking at the blog, I see I started it in June.   So that made me feel better.

I started with great intentions and dreams and got sidetracked by the day job, The Hair Thieves EP6 and EP7, the world cup, the Xbox and me temporarily killing my music PC whilst trying to upgrade it.

I'm glad to report the PC is now fine and back up and running, so no excuses for 2015.


I have been through some of my backlog of abandoned and rejected tunes and done rough mixes of everything so far.  I think I probably have ten songs (in various states of completion) I could work on, with about 25 minutes of music so far (the shortest idea is about a minute. The longest about 5.  Only one has complete music and lyrics).

So I am going to set some targets with dates. as per week one of the Ariel Hyatt book that is now somewhere on my Kindle at about page 8.  I haven't given this any thought, I'm just going to type five things and see how it goes, whilst trying to make them achievable.

So the immediate plan.
1) Finish and preview new song March 2015.  (This will probably be called Persephone).
2) Do Fawm 2015
I did Fawm 2014 and managed five new songs.

Fawm is an annual attempt to write 14 songs in 28 days.

Of the five songs I wrote in 2014, one made it onto the Hair Thieves EP6.  Another of which is about Bacon.  Another of which I stole for an instrumental project. Least said about that last two the better

Oh go on then.  Here is a song about bacon!



And here is the instrumental.



So we shall see what next February brings to the mix.

3) Launch website March 2015.
4) Start practicing guitar / singing with aim to start playing open mics in Spring 2015.
5) Release EP (or possibly album) September 2015.   (ideally an album. Must be finished by 6th March 2016....)

bonus task
6) Finish '80s musical journey blogpost Jan 2015
7) Finish '90s musical journey blogpost Feb 2015
8) Finish '00s musical journey blogpost March 2015
9) Finish this decades musical journey April 2015.


So that is a rough plan, that I now need to stick to!  (I will finish this and update my task management system appropriately)

At the top of the page is a video of me messing about with a synth.  It is by no way an indication of where I am going with this project.  I just stumbled across it on my phone today and have no recollection of actually recording it.

Hope you all had a wonderful 2014 and hope you get a better 2015.   I'm off to practice my guitar....  

Welcome!

Welcome to my new blog.

For those that don't know me, I am a hobbyist musician, a photographer, a writer and a software engineer.

I am in a band called The Hair Thieves, who record an eclectic mix of EPs. This is mostly indie pop rock songs with a smattering of ambient soundtracks, rock, punk and jazz twinges.

Within this blog I aim to document the writing, recording and marketing of my first solo CD.

As of today.  May 17th 2014,  this exists only as a series of song parts, nothing has been finalised, I have no list of tunes nor completed lyrics to work on.

All I have is some ideas, that are either in weird tunings, weird timings (or both) or have been rejected as songs for The Hair Thieves.

So this might end up a album, or an EP or an EP and an album.   I don't know yet.

The Hair Thieves is still my primary focus, so working on the new EPs for that will take precedence over any solo material I write, so I am envisaging that a solo album may take a year or two to complete.

 So this blog aims to be informative on

• My writing progress
• Tools I use to write music
• The progress of demos
• The recording process
• Tools I use to record.
• Occasional dodgy cover versions
• How to market a band.  Starting from scratch.
• Online courses I have partaken in.
• Reviews of useful blogs for musicians.
• My take on posts from other musicians.

From the marketing point of view, I aim to base the steps on Music Success In Nine Weeks by Ariel Hyatt.

Obviously, since I am starting from scratch and have other priorities,  I aim to do this in nine months not nine weeks.

This will be supplemented by various books from Bob Baker like, Guerrilla Music Marketing Handbook (in which my name is mentioned!) as well as other blogs and books.




So there it is a start, or at least a line in the sand.  To be honest it is a little bit scary!

I am to blog every couple of weeks.    Starting the week June 1st.   Wish me luck!