28th Year-of-life Resolutions

January 17, 2011 in Uncategorized | No comments

I don’t make New Year’s resolutions in the traditional manner, but instead I wait until my birthday (Jan 16th) to make them. Why? I don’t know… I’ve always done it this way, if I wanted any success. Maybe it’s because the additional two-week thinking period allows me to avoid any spur-of-the-moment decisions that I’d otherwise make at a New Years party or something.

I didn’t publicly post my resolutions — at least, not anywhere I can find them — last year, and the first step of completing anything is to publicly claim it. And that’s what I’m doing right now.

My 28-year-old resolutions are:

For at least the next year, unless a project screams at me that I NEED to write music for it, I won’t be writing music “professionally.” I’ll finish the projects I’m already on, and a few things (like the Global Game Jam in 2 weeks) will require me to do all-things-audio, but I need to figure a few things out before I can compose for a living. The stress-to-payout ratio simply isn’t in my favor, right now.
Instead, I will be focusing on sound design. This seems like the direction my audio-life is going, right now.
I will finish my demo reel. This is the major thing holding my sound design career back, and as such, it needs to be the first thing I take care of.
While on my composing-hiatus, I will write and record an album. I feel like a major hangup in my composition is not knowing what I want to sound like, but I do know that I’m done taking jobs where I’m told asked to sound like someone else… a bit of guidance is great, and I appreciate that, but at the end of the day, I want to be asked to write music that sounds like me, not some one else. So, to do that, I will be writing an album… depending on where that goes, you may or may not hear more about it. I may go all out and take it to a studio, or I may do nothing more than release it as a free download — it’s sole purpose is allowing me to find my voice again.
Finally, if it’s financially possible, I will return to school by Fall Semester. The other major holdup, I feel, is simply lack of education — I know more about music theory than most of my every-day friends, but it’s still a pittance compared to someone who is composing for a living. I find myself falling back into the same old melodies and patterns, and that’s no good. Also, I feel I need to point out that I said “financially possible.” This means no loans — I AM NOT going to pay for something that I’m not 100% sure will give me equal return via loans. Grants are fine, but I feel I’ll be paying for most of my education out of pocket. In the long run, this will be better for me and my family.

And that, my friends, is that.