Lots of Irons in the Fire
Jed Simon, a guitar player in one of my favorite bands, was talking about how he writes songs as they come to him and then, after the fact, he shoehorns them into all kinds of different projects that he's working on.
That's a great idea. It's similar in concept to picking an outlet. Once you've determined how you're going to unleash yourself onto the world, create logical groupings within that outlet. Cluster what you create, and send the different groupings to different audiences.
If I were to sit down and commit to writing one song per week for an entire year, I'd have 52 songs at the end of the year. Given my lack of attention span, they wouldn't all fit together. Some would be loud and heavy, and others would be soft acoustic guitar ballads with the flute spattered all over them. One would have the rhythm of a samba, and another one would be a waltz with loops of bumblebees on it. (I'm making this stuff up, hypothetically.)
Of all this dross, there would probably be one album of decent material on there. Twelve songs that are worth sharing with people. And in the world of fifteen years ago, I could take the 40 songs that are left over and use the better tracks as B-sides on singles that would cost $13.99 each as imports from the UK that die-hard fans would buy. Back when people actually cared about what he was doing, this is exactly what Billy Corgan did with The Smashing Pumpkins (pre-Adore.)
That reveals another problem with making art: you have to generate a lot of noise to get the signal. If you're lucky enough to be overflowing with natural talent, maybe the ratio would be lower. For the rest of us, persistence and volume are the key.
That's a great idea. It's similar in concept to picking an outlet. Once you've determined how you're going to unleash yourself onto the world, create logical groupings within that outlet. Cluster what you create, and send the different groupings to different audiences.
If I were to sit down and commit to writing one song per week for an entire year, I'd have 52 songs at the end of the year. Given my lack of attention span, they wouldn't all fit together. Some would be loud and heavy, and others would be soft acoustic guitar ballads with the flute spattered all over them. One would have the rhythm of a samba, and another one would be a waltz with loops of bumblebees on it. (I'm making this stuff up, hypothetically.)
Of all this dross, there would probably be one album of decent material on there. Twelve songs that are worth sharing with people. And in the world of fifteen years ago, I could take the 40 songs that are left over and use the better tracks as B-sides on singles that would cost $13.99 each as imports from the UK that die-hard fans would buy. Back when people actually cared about what he was doing, this is exactly what Billy Corgan did with The Smashing Pumpkins (pre-Adore.)
That reveals another problem with making art: you have to generate a lot of noise to get the signal. If you're lucky enough to be overflowing with natural talent, maybe the ratio would be lower. For the rest of us, persistence and volume are the key.