Me: That’s alright, just publish it and leave it for Finish February.
Friend: That’s not a thing, is it?
Me: Yup!
70-20-10.
Those numbers stuck in my mind for the whole of Jamuary 2021 and it was with those numbers in mind that I was able to publish a song each and every day in January 2021.
That’s 31 days of song writing and 31 tracks with a total run time of about 74 minutes. I know for a fact that not all of them are good and you could even argue that some of them aren’t even songs, sure, I won’t disagree. But you need to give credit to the fact that there is a wide range of song styles there and, in my defense, many of them I had never tried before. There was a bit of a learning curve for a good portion of the month, and that’s why I’m kind of happy to take a break for now.
But one month… I can’t help but marvel a little bit at it. The guy who started the whole idea, Jonathan Mann, decided to keep going writing a song every day and hasn’t stopped since. He’s going on ten years strong of writing a song every day. I’m not sure I could do that as I already feel as if I need a breather. Besides, with all of the tracks published over the last month, February has become known as “Finish February” for those who want to revisit and touch up anything before making a final release.
Now, this does make me wonder, why touch up when you could make a new track? And that certainly could happen. Sometimes it is easier to just scrap what you were working on, take note of what worked and what didn’t, and then start anew with a fresh slate.
But here’s the full track list for Jamuary 2021:
I can’t help but be a little bit proud of that achievement. There were some moments when I thought I wasn’t going to make it. I was lucky that I had very little other work to do this past month so I’m not sure if I’d be able to do this same challenge in the future if I was working full time or had other commitments. But, I can say, now the foundation has been laid and the knowledge and experience is there to build upon in the future.
So what now?
There are a couple of things I’d like to do:
First, there are some of the tracks or challenges that I’d like to revisit and either touch up or re-do entirely. They include the “Use a Sample”, “5/4”, “Two Chords – Water”, and “Never Repeats – Endless Jamming”. Those are the ones that I can tell right away need a bit more work.
Next, I will release the full album as a one for download, most likely on Bandcamp. The site has been set up but now I have to create the designs and other little things. Whether I include all of the tracks or just some, I’m not sure. I’m more inclined to include the whole track list mainly because it is a rather diverse range of music.
Third, I want to have a “listening party” of sorts, or, rather, I’ll make an extended podcast while going through each of the tracks.
Fourth, if possible, I’d like to assemble all of these blog posts into an ebook that people can download easily.
So that’s what some of Finish February will be about.
However, due to the Jamuary challenge, I’ve been neglecting a few other projects that I’d like to get done, in particular, studying Chinese. Since China is moving into the Spring Festival holiday season, there won’t be much work and nothing will be open so I should have quite a bit of time to get this all done. I figure if I spent the same amount of time each night that I did thinking, writing, composing, and publishing, then I should have another productive month.
But that’s Jamuary 2021. Already I’m compiling a list for next year’s challenge. In the meantime, I’ve also compiled a list of challenges in other areas that I’d like to complete in the next few months. A movie month, anyone? And I don’t mean watching them…