This is the second year I've done this (last was 2012) - main thing I'm getting this time is that I'm prototyping stuff that I'll use later on - systems of performance, composition, and so on. And often I whip it up at the last minute as an excuse to just do SOMETHING.

Paul - great stuff, and you're welcome.

that's my favorite part, is when I surprise myself doing something new that I had only thought about. hell, I'm doing things I didn't even think about before, each week you have to do something new! one thing that is weird is that I'm starting to forget some of the songs I did then I go back and hear them and it's like new again. certainly makes you more efficient at a lot of production aspects as well as just pure creativity!

I'm sure many people have a ton of reasons for signing up to weekly beats.  its a hell of a lot of music in a short span of time when all considered.

so anyway its past the 1/2 way mark and i haven't had this much fun in a long time when it comes to writing music.  in fact i think it's helped in many ways.

so here's some of what I've currently got out of the process

- stop procrastinating.  sit down and finish the song. 
- writing lyrics.. urgghh was how i used to feel.  now i can sit down and write and record the lyrics in an hour and be quite happy with them
- production line - i can sit down and put together a lot of different parts and get them down in a relatively short time span. 
- who knew i could kinda do guitar solos!  I'm chuffed with this one.  i can add lots of guitars and they all seem to work together
-  quickly analyse parts that really need to be removed.modifed/etc.  this one is within reason as you've got make decisions on the fly
- work on production and mixing.  i used to really struggle to get vocals to glue in the mix and I'm getting a lot better at it
- actually not argue and fight with the microphone when singing.. generally happy for a vocal track/melody written and recorded in an hr or so.

best bit is i've had an idea to put together a concept album for a number of years based on a book.  been procrastinating on it and this has got me off my arse and many of the weekly beats tracks from about 1/2 way through a what i'd consider demos for this album to be recorded properly next year.

things i really want to work on is doing more synth/electronic stuff to mesh into the music.  its my weak point.

so.. what about everyone else??

oh.. and much respect for vin for getting me onto this site!! I'm a music writing machine mother fucker churning them out a week at a time!