It's been one hell of a year.

I'm writing up this post before I've even begun work on the song for Week 52 (6 hours remaining).  I had the week off from work for the holidays, so I mostly spent this last week chilling and thinking about what I wanted the last song to be. I kind of hyped it up in my mind, it would be cool if it were the best song I wrote all year but I doubt that's what's going to happen. This final song feels like it’s the hardest to write for that reason. Whatever it ends up being, so be it, it's a means to an end at this point.

I personally didn't think that I'd make it this far, that I'd give up or something along the way, but yeah. After 52 weeks I feel like I've learned a lot. The most important thing being that I can accomplish pretty crazy feats as long as I put my mind to it. I've also learned my flaws and my strengths when it comes to composition and music production. As of a few weeks ago I've already been planning for the future, what I want to do in 2021. Even what I want to do beyond that. I'm not sure if I'll ever fully commit myself to WeeklyBeats again like I did this year but I'm sure I'll still come back to submit songs in the future years. At this point I want to focus on producing my first album, of which I'll be releasing it under the moniker "Ambiguous Dust". I've never been one for coming up with catchy names, I doubt that rolls off the tongue but it speaks to me more than any other name I've tried on before.

Now I'm trying to find the thread through all the music I write so that I can pull it all together into some kind of common theme. Then I really need to step up my game on mixing. And then deciding on album art and hiring an artist (I think I want something illustrated, I don't know). Give it a name. Release it. Figure out how to promote it. Hopefully all that results in me being proud and happy of the work I've released, or maybe I'll just be disappointed. Don't know, dealing with mental fatigue just thinking about it. I also need to put together a portfolio of music and make myself known to indie game developers, maybe I could compose music for someone, I'd love that.

Congratulations to all who completed the challenge. For those who didn't, I still think it's cool that you've participated. A lot of you are fantastic musicians and I genuinely feel inspired by your work. I'd love to keep in touch with you guys go forward, either through this community or outside of it.

Epilogue:
(lol)

As for what else my future holds outside of music, I think this year I'm going to go to a coding bootcamp and learn programming. I think it’s the kind of work that suits me and I don't know, it pays well. I'm not looking to rake in tons of cash and hoard it, I just want the comfort of being able to save for stuff important to me and my family. I'd be cool to travel to other countries someday, right now it'd break the bank.

Also, fuck social media. I'm done with it. I've been addicted to it for a while. I think because I'm introverted and pretty isolated so I always got this satisfying high from seeing a notification, and then those news feed algorithms just play on the part of your brain that wants to mindlessly scroll through the page for the next hit of dopamine. It's depressed me a lot. I wrote a song about it this year but I thought if I said it was about that it would have been lame so I didn't mention it. If you're reading this now and you're curious which song, it was "Some Great Distance".

I deleted twitter because it’s a cesspool of vitriol but I'm keeping my Facebook account, with the caveat that I've unfollowed everyone (still friends though) so that my news feed is essentially disabled, making it pointless to visit on a daily basis. The bullshit thing about Facebook is that everyone uses it, so it's still a great tool for connecting with others. A friend of mine got a ton of notable musicians to collaborate on an album of his simply because he reached out to them through social media. So I can never really get rid of it completely.

So I figure a good place to divert that attention to would be reading. I've never been much of a reader but I still have a bookshelf full of books that always sounded interesting to me. So I'm going to start reading those. I'm also going to get my new house in order, I moved in back in May and it still hasn’t really been organized. I want to build a new desk, one with a sliding tray for a midi controller and the like. I'm also working on a new album with my band Meta, if you want to check out or last release you can find  us on spotify or here's a link to the album on youtube. I wasn't on that album, it was made before I met the guys, but I'm looking forward to being on the next one. Also, here's the aforementioned friend's album that he recently released if you're into experimental avant-prog.

And thank you all for the support and encouragement along the way. For a year that was pretty awful in most regards, you guys provided some much needed positivity in my life. I hope everyone remains in good health and I hope the years to come are good to you all.

    - Nate

Tags: ambient, ballad, week 52 2020, View by:ViridianLoom