10 Tracks 10 Weeks Week 10 – Moov
20th September 2010
About a month before I decided to embark on this project, I talked to Mrs. Monday about writing a track a week until I’d finished enough music for an album.
It was meant to be a way of breaking a bad case of writer’s block. But I recall thinking that it would be highly unlikely I’d do it without some external pressure. And so the germ of the 10 tracks 10 weeks idea was born. By announcing to all and sundry that I’d be writing and releasing a track a week for 10 weeks I had the motivation to follow it through.
I’m 100% sure that without both the wonderful feedback from you (thank you), and not wanting to fail spectacularly in public I would have given up, probably at around week 4. But now I’ve discovered how much better it is to finish something and to “ship” even if you’re not sure about it than going round the houses trying to find that elusive “perfect part”. Because you’ll never find the perfect part, and anyway if it was perfect it wouldn’t be any good.
I’m also amazed at just how much I can get done when I put my mind to it. Especially as for the majority of this project I was also busy with writing a blog post every week as part of the Music Success in Nine Weeks blog challenge. There were as many times when I felt like I could finish 2 or 3 tunes in a week as points when I worried that I’d fail.
In fact for the last couple of weeks it’s been harder to write about the music than write the music itself. Last week, I didn’t write a blog post at all. Probably because I was starting to write music with my heart rather than my head, and had less to say about it. At that point it didn’t feel right to pull it apart and over-analyze because the music was starting to speak for itself. It is what it is. Do be do.
So I couldn’t be happier that I did this, it’s changed my musical life for the better. I also have a host of things to blog about in the coming weeks which I never got around to or didn’t feel like writing while I was in “composing mode”.
How I feel about the end product as a whole is another matter. It’ll take some time for me to digest the 10 tracks and decide exactly what to do next. Maybe together they’re good enough to be called an album, maybe not. We’ll see (or hear). But I do know that one of my aims, to discover a unified Mike Monday style, I’ve manifestly failed to find. That is, unless you count “totally all over the shop” as a style. But I’ve come much further in a much short space of time and have a better idea of where I’m going than when I started. And more importantly I’ve finished I lot of music that I love.
But there are many avenues which I didn’t explore in the last 10 weeks. For instance I want to record and use more live performance in my tracks as it’s such a huge part of my musical makeup, and unfortunately the pressure of completing a track a week made it difficult for me to that.
So my plan is to repeat the project early next year. I got so much from the process that I desperately want to do it again, I’ve much unfinished musical business to complete. I was just getting going!
Looking back at how I’d started to think about writing and producing music before 10 tracks 10 weeks, I’d become too precious and scared. But now I’m not scared. Just really excited.
I hope you’ve enjoyed coming on this journey with me. I truly appreciate all the amazing support you’ve given me over the last 10 weeks. But as you can probably tell that this is just the beginning. If you’ve enjoyed it please consider clicking the donate button. Unfortunately Bandcamp have just started charging me for all free downloads and your donations will help me to continue offering at least some of my music for free.
Of course it’s no problem if you’d rather not. But at least please Tweet, Like or if you’re terribly old-fashioned just tell someone about it.