Update on the Year’s Goals…

Since my 43rd birthday I made the goals of writing and producing a song each month as a demo and a cartoon a week. So far I’ve kept it up for the last 9 or so months. Here are the latest creations:

And from my cartoon blog:

Den & Amble: Xi and Trump Poem

Cheers…

A touch of colour…

Been a bit gobsmacked by the Brexit (Britain leaving the EU) – a lot of economic uncertainty projected in the papers.  Being of Scottish descent, I agree with most of Scotland, that is they should’ve stayed in Europe -keep barriers down. But history moves on…

So I’ve started to incorporate a bit of colour into my cartoons. I think it’s an improvement, but will see. Here’s the first

And I’m half way through my latest song. I don’t think it’s my best, but it’s fun getting back into the swing of songwriting and arranging. And this is a song, as opposed to an instrumental, which I’ve mostly been doing lately. I only have a few more days in the month, so I’ll probably be a few days late.  It’s called ‘The Stars Align’.

Back in the swing of things…

And I’ve started blogging on Munhwa Experience now with my cartoons… It’s a nice to start a new resolution by hitting goals (my goals as stated in previous post).

But working on the song isn’t so easy… I’m waking up 40 minutes earlier trying to get some guitar practice in, because I’m just not functional after work, whereas I’m fresher and more creative in the morning. I won’t finish the song by the end of June, but it should be done by early July, and then I’ll do another song in July. That’s the plan.

And the screenplay – I’m waking up another 40 minutes earlier again to get some time for that. That means the old 5am rise and shine. It’s a revision of a previous screenplay I submitted to BLCKLST which reviews and rates screenplays. After reading the faults and criticisms (as well as praise) from the reviewer, I’ve endeavoured to do a major rewrite addressing the main issues, and they are fundamental issues. Will it be a great screenplay? Hard to say, but it’s a learning process. All about the learning…

Struggling Muso Reloaded…

So I had a crisis over the weekend that spurred me to make some decisions on goals. And I admit that it’s a little crazy to have these goals and make this decision -but if there’s a strong enough influence then I say the decision seems fine to me.

So what are my goals? Well, I have a few creative interests -none of which have lead to significant success as such yet, but conversely all of them have potential for opportunities as well as the simple satisfaction I gain in the achievements of my creative endeavours. And the goals are:

<> Music – one demo a month (under the name Donak RV)

<> Cartoons – one cartoon a week (as Munhwa Experience)

<> One screenplay a year (under my own name)

And my progress as well as other musings will be monitored via this blog with a post at least once a week. Yes, I’m bonkers, I should focus on one thing. But I’ve tried that in the past without reaping the desired results, so now I follow my muse.

And what was it that spurred my crisis? Well, I turned 43 three, accompanied by the usual symptoms of a mid-life crisis. I guess my strategy is to keep busy.

Different Kinds of Green

 Off Topic

 

 

I’ve started yet another blog called ‘Different Kinds of Green‘ on such topics as Coal Seam Gas in New South Wales as well as my interest in Taiwanese politics having lived there. It’s mainly a personal scrapbook…

Working on demo for April…

Nothing extraordinary -another Garageband demo.

 

Meanwhile, one of my favourite bands at the moment is called Little Dragon -a European elctropop outfit. Here’s a taste:

 

A bassist gag…

Demo of Psalm 37 to music

I finally got my latest demo –Psalm 37 -uploaded yesterday on Soundcloud. There it is.

FoatingMe: A Sydney band in Brisbane…

FloatingMe, who have members made up of Karnivool, Scary Mother and COG and have recently released their debut album are playing in Brisbane at Big Sound.  I do confess to knowing one of the members vaguely, but they’re one of my favourite bands in Sydney, and I feel they have a new, distinct sound and approach. I’ve seen them in Sydney already, but I’ve been mentioning some up and coming bands I’ve started to get into from Brisbane, but I couldn’t find them on this advert.  I was, however,  excited to see FloatingMe.

And now for something completely different: a crappy cartoon about my frustration with DVDs -especially ones borrowed from libraries and DVD rental stores. I figured, being a muso who used to like using the Sony MD player to record our jamming and gigs,  that in an ideal world the next generation of DVDs would be like MDs -smaller with a plastic coating that prevented them from GETTING SCRATCHED!

Changes and more about Twitter…

I’m going to make a few changes with my whole web presence because some blogs are doing better than others in regards to view and hits etc… Also, soon I’ll have to get back into either full-time employment or full-time study, so I’ll be making a few ‘cut-backs’ on the frequency of publishing articles and cartoons. I might reduce my ‘Munhwa Experience’  posts to 2-3 comics a week.

I’ll also change the focus of this blog slightly. I’m going to focus mainly on my interest as a ‘struggling muso’ in the changes to the music biz, the impact and trends of social networking and blogging especially for musicians, and my experiences in making music and songwriting in the social networking context. 

That’s not much of a change really, but I’m not going to use it to directly promote my You.tube songs, for instance. I’ll keep links, but it’s not going to a place to hear my songs -I’ll keep Myspace and Youtube for that. I’ll be doing less music later on anyway when I’m busier.

I figured every blog and online profile needs to have it’s own specific purpose, so people who are interested in a specific topic will have reason to follow it. What’s the point of having a blog that one minute talks about Canadian fish farms and the next minute discusses the Japanese elections.

And, finally, on to Twitter. Just found an interesting article from ‘Music Think Tank’ about Twitter…

(Links:

http://www.musicthinktank.com/blog/how-i-use-twitter.html

http://munhwaexperience.wordpress.com/

)