Clarity
Upon reading and re-reading the comments from the last post I have been doing some careful thinking about what I want from my other website. Thank you so much for the advice.
Ideally I would like to phase out this one and somehow fuse it with the other. I would like it to be a site about my music, primarily, but also I would like it to be a diary about my life as someone who is trying to be a musician, but who struggles with self-esteem. As someone working to make ends meet whilst simultaneously remaining motivated to follow her dream sometimes seems all too much to bear. I would like to be as honest there as I am here. I don't find that a daunting prospect, because I have been being honest on the Internet for over a year now, using my own name and face, and I don't really mind so much. In fact I quite love it.
I would like everything to be in one place, but I don't want to diminish what I so enjoy doing here. I am way to narcissistic to stop sharing (that can perhaps be a tagline for my website).
I want to record my struggles. I would call it 'Portrait of the Artist as a Young Woman', except that I'm not sure I could cope with the Joycean legacy of that title. People would no doubt be expecting obscure, Modernist prose and excessively long passages about Catholic upbringings and The Fury And Wrath Of Hell, and I'm not sure I could quite deliver.
(I'm not a Joyce fan. The hours at university spent wringing my hair and tearing out my hands over that bugger and his chums nearly killed me, I tell you.)
I would like to record my life and my attempts, failures and successes. Like I do here, but in a musical context. Sort of a 'this is what I'm trying to do, and this is how I'm trying to do it' thing. Make sense, at all?
I am getting a digital camera for my birthday (slightly belatedly) when my parents get back from Texas, so I would post pictures of gigs, mine and other people's, and write about them as reviews, perhaps. Also have a gallery, and video clips (which I have, I just need to upload them), and of course more songs and my OWN songs, which are coming along rather nicely thankyouverymuch.
I want to write about a techno-phobe's endeavours with the GarageBand software, experimenting with using my cello on my tracks, listening to incredible jazz singers I haven't heard before (see: Mina Agossi) (Google her, she's amazing) and saying how they inspire me.
I also don't want to stop writing about how I feel day to day, how sometimes it feels like exactly the right thing to be doing, to be holding out and taking my time and doing it my bloody way, and how sometimes I just think oh, fuck this. I have no money, no brain space, no idea what the hell I'm doing.
I want to write about going out and making ill-advised decisions about resonation and the subsequent ingestion of many, many twirly crisps.
All of it, basically, but just in one place.
Does that sound crazy? Because to me it doesn't. I just need help with it all. It sounds so oddly within my grasp that I think I might need a cup of tea and perhaps a twirly crisp or two.
7 Comments:
Sounds perfect - very you!
As long as we are able to get out regular fix of Lèonie I am sure we will be happy - with added musical bits woo hoo!
I am completely useless with technical things so my only input can be words of encouragement - like yay - woo hoo - BRILLIANT etc
5:13 pm
Doesn't sound crazy at all, and I think it's the right thing to do. The webside of things is actually pretty easy.
If you want any geek help, I'm more than willing to help.
6:01 pm
Sounds like a cool plan to me!
Looking forward to seeing photos of stuff, register at Flickr.com and you can post all your photos up for us to seee!
9:44 pm
When you find help dear girl.. do ask them if they'd mind helping me. I want a snazzy little header w/ a cute little cartoon pic.. I want lots of things, but alas, am lacking in the smartie-web-design dept.. maybe we could share friends?
10:49 pm
Hi Leonie,
Thanks for saying happy birthday to me on your blog!
Doing an all in one very honest self-indulgent, sorry I mean self-...er expressionful (!!) website sounds excellent, and a good way to be wholly yourself as an artist as well as a blogger!
Love you a lot xx
3:40 pm
I have to say I have just been listening to your recording for the first time and you realy do have an incredible voice. I am so impressed.
As for the web thing... well - I was thinking about it and my view is that the problem is that this is a whole new medium for what it can do for you and what you can do to it.
In the past things were clearly defined and distinctive in terms of media to either promotion or distribution or biography or even psychography.
I guess what you are suggesting is a mix of all of them.
I have seen a few band's promo websites that have a blog attached to it but it I've never seen it work well.
To pull it off you would be doing the art plus the art of describing the art plus the art of telling a story of how you felt as you were doing it. And using it as a tool for self-promotion.
It sounds like a formidable task to me.
But reading through your posts you certainly have a great talent for intelligent and witty writing. So maybe someone like you could pull it off.
On the other hand it may be hard to not be pulled in too many directions.
Hmm... all this sounded a bit negative. I guess there is only one way to find out if it will work.
It is a good idea.
12:17 am
I agree with ant - I think your personal blog should be different to your musician blog. And I'd be cautious about making the music blog overly personal.
Having said that, you write well so I think people would definitely keep coming back to your music blog.
Just what I think...
2:44 pm
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