Eager to get back to work

Blog

Mar 16 2010

With all the latest distractions, I am almost overwhelmed with a sense of disassociation. I had a mere two weeks back at home to “do” anything and I was unable to get work done on the site and/or any of my other ACG projects I had planned out (somewhat) before setting out on another awesome distraction in Texas. Aside from the many things I do have planned for the site, I have come to a conclusion about the older albums: I will be drastically reducing the prices. Of course, digital downloads and hard copies of the albums will still cost something, due to site maintenance and materials, but it will be much cheaper. I had a lot of time to reconsider the direction of my work and my older material, originally intended as an off-beat lineup of personal projects, is not where I am now or where I plan to be int he next 5 years with my art.

With that said, where do I plan on being? While it’s hard to really say where any of us will wind up in our creative drive in a few years, I am sure that the older albums are long passed time to be slowly retired. Not that I am not proud of them, but they do not cover or demonstrate my artistic desires anymore (most songs were written in 2007 and early 2008). Plans came and went on each of them, late releases, set backs, costs for mastering, etc. and none of them truly shine in any respect. Aphotic Transmissions will not get the same treatment and my obsessive need to keep the wandering listener up to date on album release dates and information has all but ceased. My little suites/mansions/houses, as I like to call my albums, are my own side projects and have little to nothing to do with the business I run, or the material I create for customers. With that in mind, the albums and the maintenance of all the info, demos, and other site focused space on the listener page and blog takes up too much of my time.

Plans are in the works to truly bring some of the site’s focus into a more web 2.0 state. While I commend my designer for his work, my business has changed and my yearly evaluations of my site traffic seem to always leave me scratching my head in wonder. It’s not unexpected…things change as fast as my counter-parts in the composing world do. As far as my little suites/mansions/houses are concerned, there will be many exciting new projects to work on, none of which will be for sale. Listeners who want the music need only inquire or put your word out there. However, I will not focus my time,as I have been, on shooting out release after release only to see no sales, have less site real estate, and a more narrowed view in the mind of my potential customers. These albums are not demos for my commercial work; The new material will be.

I know that sounds strange: “why not just start everything out like that in the beginning Travis?” Well, I get the same thing out of writing music as a painter does when he/she paints something, and I have always liked to share that with people. It was never my intention, even though I ended up falling into it, to even closely advertise these songs as demos. Once I have the watch page up and running, you can see what kind of material I actually write for clients, not myself. I will never cease writing for the hell of it – who would? However, I guess what I am trying to say is: these albums are not the end all be all of my musical ability. Half of them are so abstract and off-center, that they would rarely catch an ear that likes or “feels” them.

Anyway, I will have time in May – for a while – to work on the store and getting the site restructured to something more direct and easy to understand. Most of my email inquiries and job commissions come with questions and/or requests that either can be answered on the site or lay outside my scope. This tells me that the service pages and my listener page are not acting effectively to convey the information. This is what incites me to start the changes. Thanks to excellent feedback from above said commission inquiries, emails, and general feedback, I will finally refine the site to be more info focused and less head scratching. Not that I don’t like responding to emails, on the contrary, I am a very people focused composer but the site still needs to be self sufficient. I rely on the internet and the information on the site to advertise my business “successfully” 24/7.

If the site starts acting funky in May and/or June, you know it is me making a lot of changes. I am against taking it down, but if the changes require me to reconfigure basic services such as streaming audio or getting quotes then of course it will be taken down for a while to make the changes. Most of these changes, however, require minor layout and information alterations; Nothing systemic should be affected. However, with my experience in the past, something that seems unaffected usually ends up being affected.