Adding a store in the probable future

Friday afternoon a coworker at the architecture/construction firm I used to work for asked me about some consulting work on getting a shopping cart to work with his roommate’s website. The name of said website has, as Wil Wheaton is known to say, gone to the land of wind and ghosts. However, like this site it ran off WordPress. This has me thinking.

Once I get the massage CD pressed correctly I’ll start the process of marketing. Luckily I’ve already got some leads, but I’ll also want to provide a means for people to purchase directly from me. So a shopping cart/store would be in order. Now whether I’d want to limit it to direct purchases only or offer consignments for retailers is something I’ve yet to consider, so I’ll also need to do that.

Now, however, I need to figure out how I’m going to pay bills…

Good with the ugly

One of the interesting things about an artist’s life–or at least this artist’s life–is the fickleness of happiness. Really, it’s a transient thing. I can go from abject depression to ebullient joy in a heartbeat, usually from just choosing one vs. the other. Emotions in general are transient.

That said, sometimes a particular emotion, say sadness, has more sway than others. This is known in common parlance as depression. I have moods like that often. It seems to go in cycles. I’ll have a good week–or at least not spectacularly bad–followed by a do-I-even-want-to-get-up-and-do-anything week. Not that it’s inherently a problem to experience these things. It makes for great artistic fodder, at least when there’s art to be created or inspired creation to feed the energy it creates.

It’s my hope that I’ll have more opportunity to create, or at least receive compensation for same. Once the massage album is released (which should be any day now–I’ve yet to hear from the duplication folks re: the misprints), that will provide some impetus. In a sense that’s one reason for it’s creation: I needed a spark. Having product, and particularly people who want that product, means everything. No longer would I need to dig in my soul for a reason.

Calm Seas, Clear Skies coming on Monday

Good news has now arrived. Calm Seas, Clear Skies should be arriving from the replicators sometime on Monday.

After that is the fun part: marketing. Oy.

EDIT: There’s an issue with the CDs themselves which will delay the release somewhat. ETA is unknown at this point. Oh well, such is live I suppose…

Late-night thinking

Wanting to do a lot of things in life is tough. Prioritizing things can be difficult. But I know what I want to do, but I also know what will enable me to do what I want. Unfortunately, right now those are two separate things.

Music is a part of my life, and will continue to be for the foreseeable future. But right now it’s not enabling me to take care of business, i.e. not paying the bills. I know, in my heart, that it will do that in the future, but I don’t know when that transition will happen. And that not knowing is annoying at best, heart-breaking at worst.

Things will get better, I know. It’s not helped from the stress of moving to a new place. I want things to get fixed, but I know it’ll take time.

RAZ Episode 2

The Real Adventures of Zetaman Episode 2 will be released sometime tomorrow. The producer and I are still hashing out some score issues, i.e. I haven’t delivered yet. This may turn into a very long night.

Hopefully not, though. I’m fairly pleased with things overall.

Once things are done, I’ll post here a commentary on the episode. Why? It sounds like something that 1) might interest people, and 2) would be fun. It’d just be a matter of queueing up the episode, score & all, and recording a new track. Shouldn’t take too long, I don’t think.

Massage CD: Easy Part Complete

I’ve finished the main composing part of this album. Now comes the more difficult parts: editing & art production.

Some notes:

1) This is definitely in two “parts”, so the listener can mix & match at their whim.
2) Within those two halves, the tracks will flow from one to the other.
3) As I’ve said before, this album isn’t so much “composed” as “felt.” Each segment is essentially my exploration of the expressive possibilities given from the chosen tone. 90% of the album is one sound at a time. That said, it is certainly polyphonic, i.e. more than one note being used at a time.
4) ETA of availability depends upon how long the artwork & editing take. Not known at this time.

How do you visualize the impossible?

I’ve transferred the original audio files from my first two “albums” to my working computer. Man, it’s been a while since I listened to any of these tracks.

I plan on re-releasing them as CDs soon. I’ll probably go the Lulu.com route as there’s less outlay on my end, and I can just upload the finished audio & art when it’s done.

Tesseract is going to be a bear to create artwork for. I’d initially had some weird, square-shaped object that is really hard to describe here in words. It worked, for what it was. I think I’ll use this image for the new cover. I’ve got an idea for how I’ll title the thing, now I just need to play with it and see if it’ll actually work.

If anybody needs a kickstart…

…Kickstart.com is the place to go.

Sounds very interesting. I just may use it for future (or possibly current) projects.

Progress

I’ve reached the halfway mark, i.e. about 23′ in.

It’s interesting how for this project I need to not compose in my “usual” style, yet there are moments where my voice just has to be heard. Those of you reading this who know of my choral works, either from singing them or hearing them, will understand when you hear it what I mean.

Much as any artist’s “voice” will speak, no matter the form, I guess my voice will be heard regardless of how many filters I put on between myself and the listener.

To click or not to click

One of the first questions I need to answer when I’m writing something, especially when it comes to writing to picture, is the target tempo. Most of the time I’ll set up my sequencer’s metronome to sound while I’m recording–that way I’m somewhat close to the beats and/or beat divisions I need to hit. With this album, it’s much more circumspect. The intent of the album it not to be a certain tempo or to hit a certain beat; in fact, I’d almost say the intent is to become timeless. Hence, I’ve decided to write the entire thing without engaging a metronome.

This is a more difficult method of composing, in a way. I don’t have the comfort of being able to “fix” timing issues by having my sequencer align everything to a tempo grid. No, I’ll have to do it by hand. Yet part of me thinks I won’t “fix” anything at all because the tempo was felt at the time. I’ve grown to trust my instincts on a lot of things, and this is certainly one of them.

It’s a different beast. Kinda like trapeze without a net.