Feeling motivated to polish or just relax for March?
-
@siebass Mar 2022
I've been feeling wholly unmotivated to return to the FAWM output and fix the things that I know need fixing this year. FAWM always feels like this frenetic energy rush/push and then the songs are out and kind of fixed in this, "you get what you get" feeling for me. I KIND OF want to polish up what I've got, but I also KIND OF just want to let the songs and my mind rest, and move on to new stuff.
How are y'all feeling in the glow of March? You polishing up? Moving to new stuff? Relaxing (mostly I've been doing this plus listening)? -
@splittybooms Mar 2022
Man, I couldn't have expressed this any better. The only part that differs for me is that I don't even feel like moving on to new stuff. No desire to open my DAW. My Yamaha is sitting here being used as a shelf for a cereal bowl I'm too lazy to wash. Otherwise, though - 100% feeling like you.
I'm curious - do you ever feel any sense of intimidation from your FAWM input? Like...you're intimidated by them, as if afraid that you might make them worse or lose the magic that they originally had??
For me, there's all the unmotivation you speak of, the 'you get what you get'ness, as well...but there's also this anxiety/intimidation. You or anybody else relate?
The last thing to add for me personally is an absolute feeling of exhaustion any time I even THINK about going back to these songs...so much so that I get completely tired before I even touch the computer. Like...physically and mentally exhausted.
Maybe I need to...I dunno...go somewhere and...yeah i dunno lol
I do have people who wanna make stuff during the "off season" with me, so hopefully that will do something for me.
Blarg. -
@headfirstonly Mar 2022
I've been creating music pretty much continuously since 50/90 got under way back in 2020. In that time I've released thirteen albums on Bandcamp. Much of the music was written offline, i.e. not as part of either FAWM or 50/90. I've been *busy*. Rebuilding my home studio in Oct/Nov 2020 played a big part in keeping me going, because now I *finally* have things set up in a way that works for me and just walking in to this room was enough to get my creative motors fired up.
But on March 1st I realised that I'm absolutely done for the time being. I could feel the spectre of burnout beginning to stir and I'm with you on that feeling of "blarg" if I fire up my DAW. I need to take time to recharge and think about where I go next, musically speaking. I will revisit the material I wrote during FAWM (a lot of it definitely needs it) before I release any of it. But I'm not in the right frame of mind to do that just yet.
Instead, I've very much switched to what I call my "absorbing" mode. I'm listening to music by other people. I've got a stack of CDs nearly a foot tall next to the main sound system downstairs that I need to give focused, deep listens to. That's something I couldn't do while I was writing so much. Now, it'll be my main way of passing the time for a few weeks. Once all that new music has gone in and marinaded for a while, I'll have a better idea of what my response to it will be. Right now, I don't have a clue.
And that's exciting. -
@nadine Mar 2022
Thanks for starting this topic @siebass. After so many people talking about releasing their album right after FAWM or mixing everything in March (or at least before 50/90), I feel so much pressure not really knowing why. My favourite artists release an album every 2-4 years, so why should I hurry?!
I won FAWM. I overcommited. I am very proud of the songs I wrote and the collabs were just awesome. I am happy that I met old and new friends, wrote more than 200 mails and 1000 comments. I only start my DAW if my collabs need chord sheets and backings (so they can start in their own pace), but I won't produce. When my ears rested, I will work on my FAWM 2021 (!!!) album first cause I hate unfinished work.
As I said in another topic: I love music so much that it's 1 months of songwriting and 11 months of production. There is absolutely no reason to record, mix and produce everything in a hurry. Yes, you can clean your plate and start new things - but why? I prefer having 5-10 good songs in a year. That's enough. -
@celineellis Mar 2022
I see fawm as a month to push my boundaries and out of my comfort zone. I write consistently through the year so am always going back to songs and working on them before taking them out on gigs and then ultimately into the studio. But I know what you mean - fawm is always such a high energy month I always feel despondant when it’s over. It’s not easy to move to the next phase after such a rush of write, demo, feedback, repeat.
-
@whispermouse Mar 2022
I've got 4 songs from FAWM 2022 (plus maybe one from FAWM 2021) that I think would make a reasonable EP if I polished them up and re-recorded them.
At the end of February, I was totally excited to dive right into this project in March. Now that the excitement has faded a bit, I'm feeling a lot less motivated. I liked the sound I was getting out of my 4-track cassette machine, but thinking about trying to get something good enough to release publicly using tape just sounds exhausting. I could of course use my DAW, but that just opens the door to feeling like I have to tweak everything into perfection because it's possible.
Maybe in another few weeks I'll find my motivation, but for now, I think I'm going to work on the songs themselves, maybe play them at some open mics or see if any of my bands want them, and spend time listening to my favorite records. -
@dzdandcunfsd Mar 2022
I'm going to try and hold myself accountable to go back and "finish" stuff from the last 2-3 years this spring/early summer. I hadn't even listened to hardly any of it until the last week(ish). There's over 300 things just from FAWM & 50/90 the last two years, but so much of it is just snippets of ideas and a lot of very similar stuff, so it shouldn't be as daunting of a task as it first seemed, and why I kept putting it off. It will all boil down to two different albums split stylistically, or so I tell myself now.
To answer the question though... I'll mostly just be relaxing through the rest of March and just catching up on some listening.
LIke @headfirstonly not only the stuff of my own I've yet to listen to. I've got a stack of albums from the last few years I haven't heard yet and a ton of stuff here from others I still want to get to before the months end. -
@wolfkier Mar 2022
pfooy! polishing?... get the Sam Hill out of here with that polishing revising anal retentive manic obsesive claptrap itty bitty nitty guff....
edit: bottomless rabbit hole.
edit 2: fool's errand
edit 3 (re-edited) fastidious fussing -
@miga Mar 2022
I was a FAWMling in 2021. After it ended I didn't write anything until late May. And I only wrote 9 songs! Probably hit some depression in there too, but this year I knew to expect a bit of a slump and I gave myself a week or two off. Now I'm starting to want to work on stuff again, especially when I have unpleasant work that I HAVE TO do. ugh. songwriting looks like fun again then. It has also been fun to do some listening and commenting after FAWM this year.
Starting in 2020 I read a really good book about getting unblocked as an artist (The Artist's Way) (OK OK I never really finished it. I'm getting close though!)...the ebb and flow of creativity seems pretty normal as a result. I try to take the time to fill my soul with beautiful things again so there's something new to give, I guess. -
@fonte Mar 2022
In the past I have tried to do a bit of polishing but I think this year I am just going to leave it all as is and move on. Partly for me it just means I capture the month as is plus completely agree with @wolfkier beware of the bottomless pit of editing where no one else will hear the difference between your original FAWM version and ‘mix 94’. I think there is a story somewhere about how Quincy Jones walked into the studio during mixing of a Michael Jackson song and they were on mix 90 something and he said hmm, let’s go with mix 2. Fresh ears...
-
@coolparadiso Mar 2022
I used to feel a compelling need to create everyday and post Fawm looked like Fawm which looked like pre Fawm. If it wasn't new it was re mixing re doing, putting out an album etc etc. the last few months have been different, i enjoy songwriting but i am not as compelled as i used to feel! I don't have “block” when i try to write but i also don't feel as driven as i was! I will do a collab album from Fawm but its not going to be a big production. I do have some significant life events occurring over the next few months so am by my standards going to be pretty laid back between now and 50/90 and will only write if the muse is insistent! It is entirely possible however that with my head in such a good space creativity may peak!
-
@sunnymae Mar 2022
I'm doing a lot of listening to my volumes of work in and out of FAWM, organizing remixes, sending tracks off to my engineer whose skills put the icing on my cakes.
I'm also in discovery mode right here on FAWM finding folks I've NEVER heard who are wonderful, so catching up and downloading into my FAWM FAVES 2022 folder! -
@kiffa Mar 2022
I usually go into creative hibernation in the off-season, but this is the first year in a long time (possibly since joining FAWM 14 years ago) that I feel like I really have a good shot at carrying the excitement of February forward, polishing up my FAWM songs and creating new ones. This year was a particularly positive experience for me, and I want to keep the momentum going. This enthusiasm will probably taper off as the FAWMer interaction and the SoundCloud visitors do, but I'm looking to keep the creativity going once the site goes offline (I'm holding off until then in order to do as much listening to other people's songs as I can). I didn't finish an album's worth of songs in February, but I wasn't expecting to. The hope is that by the time FAWM rolls around next year, maybe I'll have one.
-
@chipwithrow Mar 2022
Those of you who polish always impress me! I'm almost always in the moving-on camp. (And even my "polishing" is mainly just adjusting levels so all songs on an album are a similar volume. Re-record anything? Almost never.)
I would need to have a really good reason to polish, and then I'd have to figure out a way to promote it, and I'm inclined to do neither. (Get back on social media and ask people to listen to my music? No, thanks!)
My Bandcamp albums are there so I have something to play during the yoga and fitness classes I teach.
But those of you with production/polishing/promoting acumen? I must admit I'm a bit envious. -
@kirjis Mar 2022
I can't even think of touching any instruments after FAWM ends, and usually won't listen to the songs until maybe April, but yesterday I had a listening party going through this and last year's songs. Still feels a bit early, I need more time to be even a little bit objective and willing to chop off the crud. Anyway, now I have the first listening notes and that's a start for the polishing process. I will release something this year.
-
@nadine Mar 2022
@chipwithrow Guess it depends on your personal focus. I'm 33% composer, 33% arranger, 33% producer and 1% performer. So 66% of my fun work happens after FAWM. This is where I turn my lousy performed drafts of good written songs into semi-professional recordings with better performers. My own performance is not on a level where my production skills help.
If I were mostly composer and performer, I wouldn't care about polishing. I envy people who can fill a room with their vocals and guitar only. If I had that skill and some knowledge about recording - why should I dive deep into mixing?
I hate promotion... but I am dependent of it. Otherwise you ask yourself why you spent 30 days on a song where only two people listen. I am happy that FAWMers listen to each other songs during FAWM. This makes my songwriter heart happy... but not my producer heart.
There is no right or wrong. Do what makes you happy. And I am happy with polishing and getting REAL deep into technical bits. -
@zecoop Mar 2022
Right on @nadine - it is impossible for anyone else to be able to give you advice on what you should be doing with your songs. No one else will hear mix 94? That’s cool… I’m mixing because I enjoy it and like to see what sonic options I gave. I don’t venture to think many people listen to my music anyway, so whatever I do is for my own satisfaction.
That all said, I rarely re-record anything after FAWM. Most of the time, I get performances that capture what I wanted for the songs. I do remix and remaster everything to get it all ready for my bandcamp album. That album just gets everything I did in February, arranged in an order that makes sense and sounds good to me. It is eclectic. It is full of different styles. That’s the way I like it, for what it is. I may someday pull together cohesive themed albums of specific collaborators. But for now, I like to have time capsule albums, which is actually not that far removed from @chipwithrow or @wolfkier - I just like tweaking mute than they do. If I had a different purpose for my music, it would be more like @nadine with re-recording etc. The beauty is that everyone is right. -
-
@gm7 Mar 2022
Well, I had 3 or 4 songs roughed out during FAWM that didn't come to fruition.
But I have no energy to go back at these song..also I have never polished up songs after FAWM or 5090 for that matter. These are created in the window of Feb. and once March comes it's over. I do plan to redo a few tracks for a song or 2 for a collab'er who need to finalize the song. In addition, I don't release albums so there is no need to polish a dozen or so tracks to a higher production level.
During March I rest and listen to others peoples music...and chill! -
@chinacat Mar 2022
I told people back in February that once the month was up I'd go back and remix my tunes then post them on Soundcloud for public consumption. Haven't even started yet, needed a little break. However, I did finally set up a mixing template in Logic yesterday and am getting ready to follow through on that promise, goal is by the end of March to have the songs posted for others to listen to.
-
@jwhanberry Mar 2022
For once I followed my plan and achieved my goals for FAWM. One of those goals was to become at least semi-competent with Reaper after 20 years of Cakewalk/Sonar. I did that. In addition I progressed in my transition to electronic music at least on a basic level. All my songs were written in skirmishes so there was no time for mixing or serious production.
Now that it's March I am taking time to work on the production/mixing stage of some skirmish tracks. Taking the time I need to better learn how to do it. So I'm a polisher for sure as I have been to some degree in the past. I plan to have something for Bandcamp real soon now. -
@mikeskliar Mar 2022
this is a great thread ,and I wish everyone the best with whatever 'further steps' or not they take on their projects. For me, I find the whole process of choosing 'which are the best song I wrote for the month' is a very helpful process. It forces me to figure out what 'works' for what reasons (even if I can't articulate it in words all the time) and trying to make a cohesive flow of the 'best 14 or so' of the 'usually 20-30 or so songs I've written' is an enjoyable process most of the time. I took some more time in recording the initial demos for at least some of them this time round, too, so that I'd be able to hit the ground running and assemble and polish an album for bandcamp asap. That album's now been posted for about a week, and if anyone wants to check it out (free download!) its here at https://mikeskliar.bandcamp.com/album/interesting-times
