"I LONG FOR THE GREAT RELEASE THAT DEATH WILL BRING"
- Bruno Powroznik
The day is December 31st, 2021. I see a post on the BBS: "It's time for Jamuary 2022!" This music challenge seems interesting and like a cool way to participate in the community. 1 new song every day for the whole month of January, no matter the length or genre. It'll be a commitment for sure, but how hard could it be?
31 days later, I'm bruised, battered, torn, and other synonyms for beat up. How did this happen? Well, let's start from the beginning...
DAYS 1-7: THE ERA OF GOOD FEELINGS
For reasons I don't quite understand myself, I used FamiTracker exclusively for the first week of the challenge. I'm not sure what spurred me specifically to do this, but I had some kind of untapped spring of ideas for NES music that I exploited during these first few days, and whenever I tried to open Ableton, I just decided to use FamiTracker instead.
As a result, though, I think my chops with FamiTracker improved somewhat because of the repeated practice, and I made a nice variety of catchy chiptunes. At this point in the challenge, I still had plenty of energy and time to do a song every day, which when combined with the ease of use of FamiTracker, made for a pretty breezy experience. As you may infer, though, that was about to change.
DAYS 8-12: SHUTTING DOWN
On day 8, I finally decided to start using Ableton again so I didn't forget how to use it entirely. On days 8 and 9 I used some Genesis sounds, which was cool sounding enough, but I wasn't super stoked about either of them because I didn't have a lot of energy/time when making them. (This becomes a pattern very quickly.)
Days 10 and 11 actually produced songs I was actually proud of, and I figured the slump I was in for the previous 2 days had just been a fluke, but on day 12 I made No Streetlight: something produced on low time and low energy. I actually found it fun to make something so different, but it marked a turning point in my overall process when making songs for the challenge.
DAYS 13-23: THE SLUMP
Day 13 was probably my low point in terms of time management. However, it was an important learning moment for me. I learned that once it passes about 9:30 PM, I pass into a state known as "Brain Mush Hours", where I'm still technically functioning, but any and all music I make sounds like a jumble of incoherent noises. I also learned that even if what I make during that time is not objectively terrible, I still won't like it very much.
Day 14's song was the last song for a while that I actually felt was up to scratch. The rest of them tended to be made on low time, and while not bad, weren't exactly anything exceptional imo.
(Important reminder that I feel is important to interject here: This is also entirely subjective from my pov. If you like any of the songs that I don't really enjoy then by all means keep enjoying them. It's very hard to view and appreciate my work from an outside perspective when I'm so closely tied to the feelings associated with the creation of the music.)
DAYS 24-31: #WINNING
For some reason, something really clicked at around day 24 for me. I don't know if the objective quality of the songs went up, but I think realizing the previously mentioned issues really helped me manage my time better and make tunes that I really enjoyed listening to, event though they're a bit simplistic and scuffed at times.
Not really much else about this period of the challenge. I'm just glad that I was able to end the challenge off on a high note.
FINAL THOUGHTS
Do I regret doing this challenge? No, I don't. Do I want to do it again? Right now I would say no, but next year I might say yes again because I'm stupid. Also, to be fair to the challenge, I'm exaggerating how bad it was. It was fun, just really tiring, especially since some days I just wasn't feeling it, but had to deal with it anyways.
This challenge also finally cemented in my brain that I have actually improved as a composer over the months. Towards the end of the year, I was kind of getting into a rut where it felt like I wasn't improving, and I was doubting all of my progress up to that point. I was in the process of experimenting with new stuff to remedy that feeling anyways, but this challenge helped with that a lot by forcing me to extract every ounce of creative juice I had.
So, in conclusion, TL;DR music funny. Thanks to Droid for making me and many others aware of this challenge. It was a warm feeling to know that others were sharing my suffering at the same time as I was.
Also sorry if this is rambly. I just kind of wrote down the first things that came to my head, and probably didn't say everything that I wanted to say. At least I slept on this after writing it at 10 pm so I could proofread it a bit lol
ps. Thanks for over 30 fans! That's a lotta people!