It’s been 3 months of playing keyboard, I believe? I’ve lost track of time, but figured it’s about time for another update!
Mainly, I realize I need to start just arranging things to get better at piano. Like, doing warm ups and stuff is fine, but when I was just doing warm ups it wasn’t really interesting to me: I got bored, not in a way that made me want to stop playing by any means, but in a way more like “I want to keep playing, but can’t figure out what to play”. After getting my computer back, and being able to record music though, I have a lot more fun playing sections for arrangements! It makes me think more of how to add movement, and dynamics. Like, as an example, there was one song I was working on that I just recorded a very simple chord progression for, but when I went to record vocals over it, it just sounded so bland and uninteresting to me. So, I went to re-record the track, only with more dynamic playing (aka, playing with both hands, instead of just playing with my left) and the difference was night and day. I wanted to share it here today, but I’ll be releasing the track as a whole later in March so…you’ll just hear it then 😉
On that note, I’ve been working on so many things. Like I literally have about six project waiting in the wings, and need to record vocals for them. It annoys me a bit with my mind set sometimes, because I listen to some of my arrangements with like, just an acoustic sound and my brain goes I need more stuff in here for it to sound interesting ugh” so I constantly have to keep on telling myself that it’s perfectly ok to just use a piano, or a piano, strings, and minor percussion. I have to realize that doing that folksy acoustic stuff is a specific style, and not only that, but it’s a style that I really enjoy doing. It’s a style that I see other cover artists do also, so why feel like it’s not enough doing the style I truly enjoy doing? And that thought got me thinking last night: I have a lot of original tracks that I never released because they were all a cappella, so why not you know, actually release them this year as an EP? I think I’m actually going to go through with it this year! I set a goal to release original music to sell every year but have always chickened out. But this year, now that I’m doing bolder things, like launching my patreon and recording myself on camera, why not go all the way and release my music as well? Worst case scenario is people won’t buy it, but just having it sit on my laptop where no one can hear it is a lot worse of a fate for it, in my opinion. How will people hear it if it’s not out there to be heard? I have album art already made for it last year, so I think I’m going to commission an acquaintance of mine to master the tracks for me, and possibly mix another that I’ve had the raws for years also just sitting on my computer. I guess 2017 is just my year to take risks, because I’ve usually stopped myself in the past but this year I’m like no do it do it!
This piano update just turned into an overall music update XD I guess all I can say is this: Here’s hoping I get everything done I want to get done this March! I’m going to set a goal to start uploading two videos every month instead of my one, so fingers crossed I’ll be able to do that and get a consistent upload schedule!
Crystal Chats 