For the last ten years or so, I have been writing and playing music. I have shared many of these songs with close friends and family by sending mp3s over email, passing out the occasional burned CD, and performing whenever an opportunity arose. (You may look to the right of this page and see where I posted a link to a song last Fall and many of you listened to it. Thanks, by the way).
In the last couple of years, two things have happened with the music I write. First, the role of song writing in my life has grown. Writing and playing music increasingly helps me think, relax, emote, and simply be myself. I process life experiences by writing songs about them, and I have found this to be healthy for me. As a result, I have been writing and recording more music than in the past.
Secondly, in the last few years it has grown more difficult to share the music I write with friends using my traditional means. It is no longer feasible to fill inboxes with large mp3 files that people may or may not want to listen to; it is no longer easy to pass out burned CDs to friends I see only once a year or less; and opportunities to perform for friends scattered from Washington DC to Mississippi and around the country are few and far between.
More songs, less sharing. What to do?
I have never taken an aggressive approach to promoting my music. I never wanted to follow the passionate, self-driven rock star route: drop out of school, put thousands of dollars into studio time and begin touring the country promoting a CD that may or may not be all that great. That just never felt quite right to me. Maybe I'm not a risk taker, but I never wanted to sink so much time, money and energy into music that I would be forced into heavily promoting for the sake of justifying my up-front investments. Nor did I want my friends and family to ever feel like they had to buy my music in order to keep me afloat or make me feel good. I just like to write songs as I live my life and make those songs the best that I can.
That does not mean that I do not want other people to hear my music. I may not want to pursue a career as a rock star, but that does not mean that I don't get tickled to death when someone else likes a song I write or someone manages to feel the same delights or sorrows I feel when I write those songs. It is immensely satisfying when someone enjoys my music, and I want very much the opportunity to share my music with people who might like it.
So I have been thinking a lot lately about ways to distribute and share my music with friends, family, and anyone else interested, without making music the end-all-be-all of my existence. After a lot of pondering, I arrived at the same general conclusion already reached by millions of more saavy and forward-thinking creative entrepreneurs before me: why not use the internet?
Long story short, I want you to be able to hear my music, and I think I am going to begin using this blog as a way to share it with you. I haven't figured out all the logistics of that yet. It will probably involve some sort of free downloads and optional donation system similar to what Radiohead did recently, only with less hullabaloo.
This is what I'm thinking about the songs that I write. What do you think?
