whosearmyblog-blog

[whosearmyblog-blog]

Projects, Productivity and P-Changing Attitudes (look, I wanted all three to begin with p)

OK, so It’s been nine days. More than a week. That officially means it’s time to kiss any sense of schedule or regularity to these posts. Gather up all your journals/planners and throw them out the window and/or into the ocean because we’re operating on free time now. Also I’ve decided I’m going to try making a few shorter posts. Not like one sentence or anything but not everything has got to be 700 words (still not over that). Yes, I know it kind of goes against what I just said about regular posts, as surely if they are shorter there will be more and thus they will be more frequent. You may retrieve your journals/planners from outside/the sea if you wish (and it’s safe to do so). But, like, no more promises or goals or whatever.

Also I decided against that lyric idea. Again, it feels too early and too pretentious, and something tells me it will continue to feel like at least one (if not both) of those things indefinitely. 

But! This isn’t a post about posts! I said I’m not doing that! Instead, I thought a good, maybe short (no, not really- me from the future) post idea would be to briefly bemoan my lack of a creative process or motivation.

But, like, in brief (oh, you optimist- future me again).

I have several ideas for projects which are each at different stages of development. Actually no, some are at the same stage. Most are at the same stage. The “oh, yeah, I’m in the process of writing it” stage. My first project is like at least 80% done in terms of writing? Like I have several songs I am happy with and ready to record (although I have yet to actually record yet which I can only make excuses about for so long). There’s one I’m still finalising writing-wise, and I might look into adding one or two more depending upon if I can fully develop the ideas relating to them and how the pacing works. But that one is going to be absolute minimum the four songs I’ve finished for it plus a fifth that’s almost done. 

I also have two ideas for concept albums which I’ll release at a later date. For both of them I have started writing songs, because I had ideas for them and just worked on those. I can’t really commit to just one project- not out of a lack of commitment, but more because in the rare case I get an idea I don’t hate the next day I just want to work on it before I turn against it. That has happened to a couple of songs, which I may revisit and rework at some point but, like, probably not. I can’t say that these will be my second and third projects out, as one in particular (which I’ll go into detail on at a later date) I really want to do justice. I want to do everything I write justice production-wise, but like that one in particular- if I only ever got to make one album, I’d drop everything else and make that one as close to perfect as someone as far from perfect as me could get it.

Then there are a few ideas that range from very loosely conceptual to directly storytelling-ish, but I’ve not started writing on them yet. I want to say I’ll hold off on a couple, but like- I won’t. If I have an idea I’m gonna at least try it. I do need to work on my productivity music-wise. Like, either get off my ass and start recording or make writing a more regular thing and keep demos recorded and in a place where I won’t/can’t ignore or forget them. Get into a place where I can record and put stuff out.

Oh also- picking a name for the first project. It’s hard. I keep coming up with titles I quite like but they’re so long and just unsearchable. Like, as much as I like the title, I don’t think I’m going to call this first project “Who needs friends when you have [FIELD INTENTIONALLY LEFT BLANK]?” because it’s a mouthful and even if you try to shorten it when referring to it, “Field intentionally left blank” is still a mouthful. I had the idea a couple of days ago to call it something along the lines of “False Apathy”, mainly because a greater number of days ago I had the idea to call it something like “I’m only pretending to be apathetic” or, god forbid, “I’m just going to keep pretending like I’m managing so as to not be a problem” (man, that last one just sounds so goddamn edgy even though I did not intend it as such and part of me still quite likes it). 

Anyway, I don’t have a nice conclusion for this post, or really a conclusion at all except to say I’m either out of stuff to write on this for now or out of the effort to continue when I’ve made my points- were they points even? They’re probably just ramblings but fuck it, this isn’t an essay so they’re allowed to be ramblings if that is what they are.

Yeah, still no neat ending. Oh well. See you when I see you (or I guess write you when I have an idea of something to actually write you).

[whosearmyblog-blog]

A belated follow-up (something something sophomore slump)

Well, I did tell you that posts would be infrequent, and definitely not daily, didn’t I? To be fair, I had initially thought I would post every, say, three days or so, but it’s been like six and even now I don’t really know what to put in this post. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve had ideas for posts, but none of them seem right for a second post. I don’t know why, but it would just feel off to me going straight from the equivalent of the expository monologue you get at the beginning of a poorly written story to suddenly a long post about if songwriting can either ethically or effectively be used as therapy when you write so much about your own failings in such a negative way. Also, to be fair to myself, this week has been busy for me. Not really in terms of workload of any official kind, but in terms of *other shit* that, again, would feel weird being stuffed into what is only my second post. Plus, again, I keep either having ideas that seem to big and out-of-place for a blog that has just started or just like lyric fragments and ideas that are so small and detached from anything that they’d look weird and out of place next to that big, intimidating, meandering post asking questions that don’t actually matter.

(I still can’t believe it took me 700 words to say I’m an aspiring musician starting a blog tracking my ideas.There, me, it takes 10. It’s not that hard.)

Oh, actually:

There is one thing I wanted to address which was brought to my attention by someone I know (hi cal (please let me know if you want me to stop this before it becomes a running... I don’t want to say joke because it isn’t funny, but a running thing)). In my previous post, and even the current title of this blog, I say stuff like “nobody is reading this” a lot, or what was more directly mentioned to me when I previously said “This will never find an audience”. I want to stress that I was not and do not do this for any kind of guilt tripping. That would be shitty, and I’m kind of shitty, but not that kind of shitty. I more meant it in a “this is like the equivalent of a journal to me” kind of way, like although I am thinking about what I’m writing before I do write it, I’m not really editing or deleting stuff as I go along through a post. However, I can see how it could be construed as guilt tripping, especially that quoted bit. So I’m going to cut down on the “(nonexistent) you” stuff (even if I still feel like the sentiment behind it rings true) because I don’t want it to come across as though I’m trying to guilt anyone reading this into sharing it. I actually kind of like this not being shared- even though it’s out on the internet it still feels like my own little corner. I’m not going to go as far as to demand “NOBODY SHARE THIS EVER IT’S MY PRIVATE JOURNAL STOP IT” or anything. I may even go the opposite direction once I have both put out music and posts here relating to said music. Just know that I genuinely don’t mind there being no audience, or at least one I can see. It’s like performing a monologue to an empty theatre- it just means you can experiment and be a bit weirder with what you’re doing. It’s liberating to perform with no audience. Wow, I knew I wanted to address that but I thought it’d be way shorter- this actually became a decently long post. It’s also pretty much entirely unrelated to music, and I don’t want blog posts about blog posts to become a regular thing- I don’t mind meta stuff but not while this blog has a single digit number of posts for fucks sake. Maybe next time I’ll do a deep dive into one of my songs- not line for line but just explaining some stuff about it. It’s stuff I’ve told most people I know in person who have heard the song, but it’ll be cool having it out there in case someone outside my circle of friends hears it (again, that sounds guilt trip-ish but it’s not intended as such. I need to work on it). Trust me, I’m not going to go all “here’s the deep artistry of my lyrics.” It’ll be more like “hey, I reference a song here, this is why I reference this song in particular” or what will become a running theme of “hey fun fact the ‘you’ addressed in this song is actually me.”

But thanks for reading, whoever you are. Even if that isn’t my next post, hopefully I do the next one before a week passes.

[whosearmyblog-blog]

So, like, what  is this? What are you doing?

First things first, I know no one is reading this. OK, maybe I’m reading this in the future or the one person out of the two I’ve told about this who I know has a tumblr account (hi cal) is, but otherwise I’m shouting (well, typing) into a void. But I figured that a void to shout into would be nice.Maybe the best way to do a “first post” would be answer some hypothetical questions from a hypothetical (and non-existent) reader. And even if it isn’t, hey, it’s a form of structure at least. If I’m going to ramble to no one, why not do it in a semi-structured way.So...

Who?

If you (again, hypothetical, non-existent you) couldn’t tell from the subtitle to this blog, I’m a musician. Well, not really, but an aspiring musician. I think that’s the polite term for someone who tries to write songs in their spare time. My name isn’t really attached to this, but I’m also not all that concerned with anonymity. If I ever link to something I’ve recorded it’ll probably have my name on it somewhere and that’s just kind of going to come out at some point so I’m not that concerned. But for now I’m Whose Army. It’s a decent stage name, if a little hard to get on social media (hell, I didn’t even really get it here).

tl,dr: No one really. A nobody with an unrealistic idea of wanting to be a musician.

What?

So what is this? Well, it’s a blog. No shit. But what kind of blog? Probably an insufferable one. Basically, I need a journal of sorts. Except whenever I’ve tried keeping one, either physically or digitally but in a word document, I end up throwing it out or deleting it. So this is like an ultimatum to myself. There’s probably some way to delete posts and I know I don’t actually have an audience here but it’s easier to see this as a place where I can write down ideas or thoughts and then I can’t just erase them ten minutes later. Maybe it’ll just be lyric fragments or song ideas, maybe I’ll be really pretentious and “explain” my songs if I want to distract from my lack of progress in actually writing. I don’t know exactly what I’m going to do with this, or if I’m even going to use it regularly.  tl,dr: A journal of sorts that i won’t be able to just erase on a whim. Well, I can but I won’t. I think. Actually I probably will but let’s pretend I won’t for now.

When?

If you’re talking about when I’ll post updates, no idea. It won’t be daily or anything but I’ll try to make it a habit as long as I have something to say. If you mean when I’m going to release music, I’d like to set myself a loose deadline of releasing my first EP (or album or whatever it becomes) by or in summer 2019. I’ve written most if not all of it, but I’ve done no recording (which I just about know how to do) and no mixing (which I have zero clue whatsoever how to do, so be prepared for some shitty lofi stuff). tl,dr: The future, I guess.

Where? 

Here. I’ve yet to set up a bandcamp page, but I’ll likely post it here once I have anything to show for it. That will likely also be when (hypothetical and non-existent) you will get a name reveal (in italics because, again, I’m not really hiding my name, I just haven’t used it yet) as I probably won’t be able to grab Whose Army on any other platforms (and I may not even want to). tl,dr: Come on, this one was short. You can read it.

Why?

I don’t know, the aforementioned void thing? This is a lot like the What question, but it is different. It’ll be a nice place to track updates, remind myself to do work on music and occasionally (knowing me) write something really sad without realising it then regretting my decision to not delete shit. This will never find an audience and I’m pretty OK with that- it might actually be preferable, honestly. When I do put music out, even if it’s small, an audience would probably benefit me. But this? I’d be OK if nobody ever sees it.

Hey, just like the title! tl,dr: Why am I putting so much effort into formatting something no one will read? I doubt the one other person who knows about this will even read this far (hi again cal if you make it this far). I probably wouldn’t. This is a waste of time, isn’t it?