Where has all the music gone?

One goal for 2016: learn the fife and the Irish penny whistle

This blog has been quiet lately. I haven't sung solo in years, and I haven't composed music in almost 6 months. Here's why.

(more after the jump)

I'm sitting on my couch, scarfing down my third piece of banana bread today. I can't help that I make excellent banana bread, or that no one else wanted to eat it. Someone has to make the sacrifice of snarfing it down, right?

I've been thinking a lot lately about my (lack of) involvement in music as of late, and today I think I'm ready to talk about it. Bear with me as I gaze into the depths - hopefully I won't come up empty.

New projects

For those who don't know, I recently started becoming more active in the crafting community. My main gig over the past year and a half has been as the blog editor (and now multimedia content producer/editor) over on the LoveKnitting and LoveCrochet blogs. It's a great job, and I feel really lucky to be able to spend the majority of my time in a creative facet.

As I continue to branch off of that experience, I recently launched my own craft blog - GamerCrafting. It's about accessible patterns, inspiring photography, and most of all, fun. Feel free to visit the blog and like the page on Facebook, if that's your kind of thing.

Amidst all of that, I've been extremely time poor lately. Even on my "days off," I'm still working in some way. It's busy, and it's hard, but it's also worth it (I hope).

Time poor

On the subject of being time poor, I also write for other places than just my 9-5 gig. I write for Polonious Sheet Music twice a month and have for three years now - time flies when you're writing about what you love. I write the Sounds from the Screen feature for Classical Diary once a month plus concert reviews, and occasionally for I Care if You Listen. Sometimes you'll still see me prowling around Persephone Magazine. Even with all of these amazing outlets, I'm always on the lookout for more places to write! Still, writing elsewhere means less time to write here, and I'm not always the greatest with crossposting (sorry).

Disillusioned 

I've grown weary of the music community in the past few years. By the time I graduated from university I was burned out, and I felt discouraged and depressed. Still, I pushed on - and found that the music community, especially the classical music community, can be very isolated.

I see lots of self promotion, and not much solidarity. There are notable exclusions, namely MusoChat on Twitter, Dan Thorpe down under, and the glorious Meghan Ihnen just to name a few. For awhile I made it a point to promote new music on this blog, until I realized that I was only getting a thank you about 10% of the time, with an even smaller percentage of sharing the post on their social channels. It's baffling to me that people wouldn't recognize that as being positive and genuine - they ignored it instead.

I'm tired of pay-to-sing programs, and it's the only way to break into the classical voice industry. I went to school for 4 years and worked my ass off, only to be offered programs where I can pay the low price of £2500 to sing in an opera for a week.

I'm sick to death of calls for scores that ask for a submission fee. In what other profession outside the arts are you expected to work for free on the chance that you might get chosen to receive a small stipend? Publishers are paying less and less while asking for more and more, and self publishing requires time reserves that I just don't have. I admire anyone who can make it work - so far, for me, it hasn't.

TL;DR (too long, don't read)

I know, I know this all sounds very negative. It sounds bitter, jaded, and cynical. It sounds like one more failed musician in a sea of university graduates who gave up and started working for The Man instead. I assure you that I haven't lost sight of my goals, and I haven't given up. Instead, the goal posts have shifted a little bit to the left, to make more sense in a changing world that interacts differently with media than when I was growing up. Time, technology, and talent permitting, I plan to set up a YouTube channel later this year for singing fun: covers and originals. I'm also working on learning the delicate art of electronic composition - but my tech isn't quite up to speed yet.

I'll get there eventually.

We all will, in our own ways.