Albums Within an Album

It’s not unusual for a blog to run a series of posts on a particular subject in order to create something interesting for readers to follow. I’m always thinking about how I can improve or at least inject something fresh into the Weekly Songcast and lately it has taken a bit of a back seat role behind several things I am juggling in my life (which happen to all be very exciting and fulfilling, so I’m not complaining).

So I’m going to see if I can adopt the approach of putting posts (in my case songs) into series, creating a flow of albums within what I am now referring to as an "Eternal Album" or "Perpetual Album" (I haven’t decided which sounds better yet).

I managed to bring a few new variables into my songwriting this year, so now it’s time to look at doing the same thing with regard to presenting them and producing them as finished works. The "Albums" posted here will be like demo recordings for potential albums with the added bonus of gathering some feedback to the songs themselves.

So continue to enjoy please!

Rob

What Happened to the Great Resurrection?

In fact I may use that as a song title! (that is my new catchphrase!). 2010 began with the resurrection of the Weekly Songcast, but it seemed to go the way of a typical New-Year’s Resolution in that it’s new lease of life didn’t last long. This was a little disappointing for me. Even though it didn’t have that many visitors/listeners I always loved the Weekly Songcast. It was something that meant a great deal to me and it still does, so the fact that it ran out of steam is a shame.

But, actually no, it’s not a shame because I am now aware of why the momentum stopped and I’m f***ing excited about it if I may put it so eloquently! I’m loosening up. I’m starting, ever so gradually to worry less and less about whether I get criticised or whether what I’m doing is any good or not and lately I have been feeling great about my songwriting.

This doesn’t mean that it is any better according to anyone else of course, but it means that I am opening the door to creating better music and I’m doing it in a rather primitive way.

Making it up as I Go Along!

I have written a little about improvisation already and I intend to write more about it and develop a method of it in my songwriting, which reminds me that I still owe Tom Slatter a podcast episode on Improvisation. Tom I haven’t forgotten, honestly – I’m having difficulty knowing what to put in it, which I think you’ll find pretty ironic… Don’t you think?

I’m not committing to stating when yet, but I am going to try out a pretty ambitious project involving putting out improvised material and doing my best to make it sound good, rather than just a load of made up rubbish! However I can’t make any promises as to the latter!

So the WSC stalled because it had done all it could do in the format it had taken. What I have planned for it now, assuming I can keep it all together is something that I hope will be more interesting than before and maybe even worth talking about… a little bit!

Thanks for coming all this way with me and the WSC. I hope you stick around to see what happens next.

I Gotta Consolidate

In fact I may even use that as a song title! 2010 began with the resurrection of the Weekly Songcast, but I feel it’s current format and aimless direction is restricting me creatively and it’s also one more thing to get done when I could incorporate the same kind of thing into my main musical blog.

After completing my third FAWM Songwriting Challenge I feel that I have grown as much as I can, simply putting out songs by myself. I’m really pleased with my progress and my results over the last couple of years, but there is something I haven’t done enough of and I finally realize why I haven’t.

That thing is collaboration. The FAWM community does a lot of collaboration and on the few occasions I have participated it has been very rewarding, but I usually shy away from doing much of it and I couldn’t figure out why I wasn’t into sharing the creative process more. Well I think I have the answer:

This website!
Yes really. Not that it’s doing me wrong of course, but I realize how much emphasis I have put on the importance of writing songs all by myself, probably to make for all those years I didn’t do it. I guess it’s what I have created as an identity for myself and everybody has issues when it comes to breaking down any kind of identity that we have created for ourselves.

To be honest I think it’s an ego thing, but it’s definitely stopping me from being more connected with many people who share the same interests as myself.

The truth is that to be a great songwriter, a great anything in fact, you have to share. I already have written well over one hundred songs since I started and I want to record many of them properly, so I can proudly say to myself that I am a songwriter, now I want to be the best songwriter it’s possible for me to be.

So I’m taking away the cause of this dilemma of "Do I keep this great idea for myself as a song or do I allow someone else to play a part?".

So, what liberated me in the beginning has really outgrown it’s purpose and is now holding me back. I’m really happy with this realization. There’s no woe about stopping the weekly songs because I’ll still be posting them over at the musical home of Boy at Heart and what’s great about that is I’ll be able to post the collaborations too and I’ll be able to post them weekly, daily, monthly or whenever I want to.

An extra little service I’ll be able to provide in doing so will be to help promote some excellent musicians and songwriters that I have come into contact with around the world. Even better for me is the fact that they cover many different genres of music, so I will be able to learn from them too.

This is just speculative right now. FAWM is nearly over and my mind is a bit blank right now, but I’m looking at doing this outside of FAWM too. My dream now is to connect with other musical alchemists and establish a really cool, creative relationship with those who I seem to particularly click with, so as to create some music that is bigger than the sum of its parts.

It’s time to let go of the "Lone Ranger" style that I seem to have created for the Boy at Heart and become more connected. I’m also up for working with other types of creators like: animators, film makers, writers and who knows what else.

In the future this could see me making some in-person collaborations too which would be cool. I’m building a new studio this year, so I want to make sure I’ve got plenty to do in it!

Thanks to all those who have contributed their time and comments to the Weekly Songcast. It was a great ride and it served a great purpose. This is just the closing of a chapter, not the end of the story.

More Music for 2010

It is getting closer: The time for making empty promises to yourself (New Year’s Resolutions – sorry for the cynicism), drinking too much and asking yourself the question, again – Where did the last year go?

It is also the time of year (well this once anyway) for the Weekly songcast to rise from it’s ashes and take flight again. Yes I have banged on about it already, but after deciding to take down the countdown page, which was messing up the rest of this site due to some boring technical details, which I don’t really understand I’m putting this post up now as the precursor to the relaunch, just so you know!

So mark it in your diaries if you haven’t already. December 30th at 18:30 GMT there the program will resume! I don’t know how it will develop over the course of the next year. Hopefully into something good , but for now it’s business as usual, as it was between December 2007 and August 2009.

To be honest, this website is as much for my benefit as it is anyone else’s. If I know I have a deadline then it gives me more impetus to fulfill my obligation to myself: To continue and to improve my songwriting. It keeps me writing. Who knows, it may even help me develop a knack for telling stories, which is something I would love to do.

Comment, add, follow, listen, download and Enjoy!

If you have read The Story page and the Manifesto in the homepage box then you will know how this project came about and a little about who The Boy @ Heart is, so if you have read that much already and you are still here reading this then, thank you, but also you may be interested in how I aim to be as unique as I can be with my musical output.

Apart from being a bit of a self-growth junkie I am also into having a mission rather than just writing songs and releasing them without really knowing why. This may alienate some people from getting my music, but that’s OK because I’m not trying to appeal to the entire World. I’ll be open about my philosophies, insight, inspiration for what I write and just stuff I like, who I am, that sort of thing.

What I hope people find intriguing here is that these songs are laid bare and almost without exception they are all recorded live as I write them, so what you get to hear is the song as it is born, almost as I do when I hear it for the first time, before it is refined and polished. I do believe that many artists wouldn’t dream of presenting their music in this way, but I want to authentically express myself through my music and this just seems like the most natural way for me to stay true to my philosophy of expressing the music first and foremost rather than giving the songs a make-over before showing them off. My image is myself, as you would find me on any given day in any given place.

I will apply my own production techniques to what I have written; improving, modifying and adapting the lyrical ideas if necessary and recording them in my studio, releasing them as albums and giving some of them away, but these versions will always serve to remind me and anyone else who listens that the heart of my music is exposed without anything to hide behind or be shielded by. Some people, no doubt may prefer the songs this way.

That is how I aim to be myself. Every week between Friday and Sunday a new song will appear and be available to download for free. I will also make these same songs available for sale for those who feel compelled to support the cause and any other interesting ideas I come up with to make the experience at The Weekly Songcast richer I will include here.

As things progress I would love to this to grow to a point where it is viable for me to travel to wherever there is a demand to play live. That is a big ambition of mine; to be able to travel overseas for a few weeks at a time, playing a handful of gigs to people generous enough to want to support me, picking up new supporters as I go and returning home for a while to get back to creating more inspiring material and I know that I could do this without having to put up with being really famous.

I can’t think of a better job!

Lastly, I am still digging deep in my imagination for an idea for a business that serves independent musicians & artists so well that it enables anyone who has the talent and a true desire to make a living doing it. We have to make this world a better place. We can only do that if we all encourage, support and guide each other to find what we love to do and to do it. If we are doing this then we need not spend any time thinking about things that we do not want in our lives. I can do that in the field of music because I love it and I love those who love music, so I will as best I can.