What was The 365 Project?

 

In Brief

The 365 Project was an intended year-long massive music and songwriting undertaking of disproportionate measure. It began January 4, 2010 and lasted until somewhere around July or August of that same year when I received a call from an independent film maker to compose and musically supervise a motion picture called Unicorn City (pieces from the soundtrack both used and discarded can be found here).  I had good intentions to start again to finish it, but, alas, life began its complicated way, and I committed and then didn’t several times. Below you can read the original mission statement and description posts. Many wonderful things came out of the 365 – both collaboratively, constructively, and in hundreds of other ways.

The Goal

365 Days. 365 Songs.  Inspired by musician Brian Speaker who has recently completed his own song-a-day-for-a-year project, Spiral Notebook, I will be writing, recording, and posting a song a day until the year 2011.  The only rule is that I must post one song that I have written or arranged myself every day until 2011.  They can be of any genre or length, and I will attempt to make the songs downloadable as I go.  The goal is to create, create, create and overcome Hesitation, my mortal enemy.  At the end of the year, I will create a CD of the top 10-15.  Start date is Monday, January 4, 2010.

Preamble

Since announcing this new project, I’ve gotten some mixed responses.  Most have been very supportive, a few have been, “Are you crazy?!  What happens when you go on tour or get sick?!”  To those latter people, I will say to you: I have no idea.  But, I’m heading into this process with an open mind.  Now, I realize that, realistically, I may not be able to post a song every single day (given internet access, recording conditions or a huge monsoon), however, I will make an effort to at least post an update every day.  In any case, I’m incredibly excited with what the project has already done for me: a realization that I can create anything.  With so many days and opportunities to create something new, how can I possibly hesitate or over-edit?  And I suppose that’s what I want to teach myself: there are no limits and sometimes you just have to let things be what they’re going to be.  And those out there listening and reading, thank you for participating in this experience with me.  So, here we go…