I realised this week that I’ve got a lot of projects or experiments all running at once. This is nice because I’m keeping busy. But also runs the risk of me not paying attention to what’s happening. I thought I’d do a little review of the state of play with a bit of evaluation. I might close some open loops or not depending…
Website
Started 31 July 2022. I enjoy having somewhere of my own that I can publish to and point people at. I don’t feel done with music until I publish so it satisfies a basic need I have.
Income Generation: 0 Audience Interaction: 1 Enjoyment: 5
Podcast
Started 6 September 2022. Has driven me to play and record music where I’m in control, have to be inventive and present so enjoyable from that perspective. I also enjoy listening back to the podcasts themselves which is either narcissistic or a sign that the music is going how I want. Easy to publish and somewhat ephemeral, it matches what I’m about.
Income Generation: 0 Audience Interaction: 2 Enjoyment: 4
Streaming
Started May 2022. After the initial first publication, the enjoyment factor went downhill. So the enjoyment of doing it when I hadn’t before was high, but repeating it doesn’t give me any buzz. When the cost was lowered it turned into a production line – driving potentially bad behaviours. I do like being able to share with people though and it makes it easy to listen in the car (there are other ways I could do that though).
Income Generation: 2 Audience Interaction: 3 Enjoyment: 2
Started with the podcast, because the advice is to have social media accounts to tell people about them. I also wondered if I would get feedback or suggestions to drive the improvisation. Twitter seems much worse than when I was last there. No-one is making suggestions and very little feedback and I’m getting very little out of interacting there myself.
Income Generation: 0 Audience Interaction: 1 Enjoyment: 0
I’ve been on Instagram this time round for a few years. It started as a free way to publish short form improvisation along with video. I enjoyed doing that for a while, but the format is restrictive. I do like not having to verbalise – music and picture is expected and enough. I do like keeping up to date with a few people as well.
Income Generation: 0 Audience Interaction: 2 Enjoyment: 2 (has dropped since I set up the website)
YouTube
Another free publishing platform, happy to have things automate to publish there. I use it more to get gear reviews and watch dog videos. I don’t have a strong connection to it at all but it was good for housing some video work for a larger screen.
Income Generation: 0 Audience Interaction: 1 Enjoyment: 1
New ambient music
Started during lockdown and is probably responsible for what little mental health I’ve retained. Expression without talking, being in the moment, spontaneous creation, this is me. It feels like home, even if I’m not sure ambient is the right description, it will do. I will always keep doing this whether I always feel the need to publish is an interesting question.
Income Generation: 2 Audience Interaction: 4 Enjoyment: 5
New non-ambient music
Started because of the ambient music – I occasionally flip to wanting to make more structured material. We’re basically talking about Connector. Pleased with the result, but the process is slow and annoying without other musicians. I will probably feel the need to do this now and again but won’t spend as much time and effort on it as last time. I might put more into finding other people to play with – I have been playing with a band which nearly gives me a similar feeling to doing ambient music.
Income Generation: 1 Audience Interaction: 3 Enjoyment: 3/4
Old music
Prompted by a couple of comments about music I’d done 20 plus years ago. I do like having the archive because I’d got to a point where I didn’t keep any of my old stuff, hearing it again was a mixed feeling, editing it down to something I liked was tedious. I’ve basically moved on and other than learning the lesson of keeping material in case I want to have a listen I didn’t get much value from it.
Income Generation: 1 Audience Interaction: 2 Enjoyment: 2
Book/USB
Made for Mum who wanted to see and hear what I have been doing, this was reasonably fun to do but I was surprised how much I liked having a physical product that I’d created.
Income Generation: -1 Audience Interaction: 1 Enjoyment 3
Bandcamp
Went back on Bandcamp November 22 after reading lots of posts on Mastodon. I can see it is a better platform for artists than streaming. But it doesn’t do much for me and the website fulfils all the same functions. In theory a better chance of discovery but in practice for me basically the same.
Income Generation: 0 Audience Interaction: 0 Enjoyment: 0
Mastodon
Went on Mastodon as people were talking about it as Twitter gets worse. It reminds me of being online 20 years ago. I like the philosophy and I like interacting with people there to an extent. Unsurprisingly it very word based which I don’t have a preference for. Worth exploring the fediverse in general though. I wonder if we’ll get a micropodcast platform at some point? Really though, it doesn’t add much once you have a website up and running unless you like online conversation.
Income Generation: 0 Audience Interaction: 4 Enjoyment 4 (but falling slowly)
