Music Is Too Important To Be Left To Professionals

Collecting Digital Dust vs. Lowering The Bar:  New Scott Cooley Album May Become Available Sooner Than Expected

The beauty of today’s music business is that you can pay a monthly subscription fee for a streaming service and get all music by all artists – including “amateurs” like me who have no pressure except that which we place upon ourselves, and as a result, there’s a ton of interesting, important music out there to be discovered.

Success in music can be defined as being counted among some people’s favorite artists, regardless of any potential for mainstream popularity that artist has.  It can easily justify an artist’s existence, and the need for their music to remain available.

Your favorite artists have released albums that are worse than others, and songs that are worse than others.  Sometimes your favorites are the ones few people would agree with, and you’re glad they exist.

Your favorite band sucks.  That’s a funny t-shirt.  People get defensive.  You like what you like, and you don’t care what others think.  They may not appear on anyone else’s fave lists, they may not be the best singers, instrumentalists, or songwriters.  You discovered them somehow, and it’s cool to find things you like about their deep album cuts and lesser-known songs.

Record companies used to decide which artists people got to listen to, and now it’s a bit more democratic.  You get access to more choices now, and you have the freedom to choose what to listen to regardless of their influence.

In defense of independent musicians everywhere, isn’t it awesome they have a low barrier to entry into the business?  They have platforms for people to find their music, even their mediocre stuff, and it doesn’t have to be popular to stay there, and it doesn’t have to be expensive for it to stay there.

Sometimes I feel like an endangered species.  I notice signs that artists like me will be increasingly marginalized in the future.  Makes me want to get my music out to people now while I still can, warts and all!

Welcome to my post in which I think and type my way through to possibly convincing myself to release an album earlier than I usually do, and with more songs on it than usual, even though those songs won’t be up to my usual quality level (not that the level was very high to begin with).

I have a bunch of songs written and recorded that aren’t that great, but they are not so bad that I would not want anyone to hear them.  So, I’m thinking about releasing them all on one big album, choosing a track order, making an album cover, paying a few bucks to distribute it, etc.

I’m not under any illusion that lots of people want to hear all of the music I make, and yet there are so many songs I’ve written and recorded that no one has ever heard.  They just “collect digital dust,” as they say, and exist as wave files in folders on my computer hard drive.  

Even for a lot of the songs I have already released, hardly anyone has ever heard them, so it’s not as if I have anything to lose.  It’s not like I’m in danger of wrecking a stellar reputation.  The streaming counts are publicly visible, so there’s no hiding from the lack of popularity.  Some songs have been available for a couple decades and only have a couple streams each on some platforms.  

This cold harsh reality could be a reflection of a lot of things that are totally my fault, but it is of course not uncommon at all.  Other artists in a similar boat toiled for way longer than me and spent way more money than me to have the same result.  

Fortunately, I’ve never paid for anything – studio time, session musicians, producers, engineers, co-writers, lessons, rehearsal space, etc.  I have always used a cheap audio interface and a cheap microphone on a cheap computer I would have anyway, with a few cheap instruments I would have anyway.  

For most of my songs, I probably average about a half hour to write them, and about an hour and a half to record them, so approximately 2 hrs. per song.  That’s my labor in my free time.  Then when I have a dozen or so, I pay to distribute them, which when I started was around 5 bucks per album, and is now around 10 bucks per album.  

Depending on how you add it all up, maybe I’ve come close to breaking even on the overall investment in the hobby.  I have never paid to get press, and have never paid for any promotion, advertising, or marketing of any kind.  I just announce releases on social media, my web site, and this blog, and that’s about it.

If you’re a returning regular reader of this blog, you know that I consider myself lucky to have gotten on a roll with a songwriting/recording hobby right when they started allowing anyone to be able to pay a few bucks to release their music on the iTunes Store for downloads and Amazon for CDs.  Rapidly, this expanded to other MP3 sites and music streaming apps like Spotify.  

These digital music aggregator distribution services started popping up that allowed independent music acts to upload their songs and get them distributed to all of the online music stores and streaming platforms worldwide.  It essentially allowed amateurs to go public and commercial and feel like pros without needing to be signed to a record label.  

When you are completely self-taught, feeling like a pro can be a good thing.  Just as I was starting to write decent songs and experiment with some cheap home recording equipment, it became possible and I took advantage of the opportunity.  The timing of the changes in the music business and technology were ideal for a solo artist like me, because getting any interest in my music with verifiable stats was exciting and gave me confidence.

Creative quality is subjective, but CD/download sales figures that transitioned to streaming counts, along with online presence interest, became indicators of fan engagement.  Since I’m not an attention seeker by nature, I haven’t been proactive about getting my name out there, but I did create a website, blog, and social media profiles that I use to market myself occasionally.

I don’t do anything at all to try to get more followers, likes, shares, subscribes, streams, playlist adds, or email list signups.  I like knowing that whatever amount of any of those I do get is totally organic, without any manipulation by me or anyone else.

A lot of people do what I do now.  They write and record songs and release them to Amazon Music, Apple Music, iTunes, Spotify, YouTube Music, etc., and maybe recoup the digital distribution fee eventually.  For most of us, we never really know for sure how good the songs are.  All I know is that some are a little better than others.  

The right thing to do is to wait until you have enough of those to release an album.  All the other songs that were worse than the others are still fairly good though, at least in your own mind.  You never know what other people will like, and you sort of don’t care one way or another, if you think about it the way I do.

The problem if you’ve released albums before like I have, then write and record more, is that you think way too much about these types of little decisions.  You toil over what to include, what to leave out, what order to put them in.  None of it really matters, but I guess because I spend way too much time thinking about it, maybe I do care a little.  

Anyone who creates things for fun usually finds it fun to share those creations with others in some way or another.  We all want to do well with any pursuit.  In my case, I distribute to music streaming services so people can find and listen to them, and I’m always excited to see that some do.

You always hope there are some people out there in the world who like what you created.  It can’t be helped.  I am content with my life, and if I didn’t have a songwriting/recording hobby, I’d still be content.  Sometimes when I check out the streaming stats and see that some of my songs don’t get streamed hardly at all, it’s disappointing.  

Then I quickly cheer myself up by noting the stats of my most-streamed songs and realize I’m not as terrible as I sometimes think of myself as being.  When you’re realistic about your limitations, and know your style isn’t anywhere close to the mainstream, you don’t worry about whether your hobby is a waste of time.

You wouldn’t mind some popularity, of course, but you’re not out to write hits necessarily.  You just do what you do because you like doing it.  It’s unusual to do something where there’s not a concrete way to know how to do well.  Trying harder doesn’t usually help.  It’s not like most activities in which hard work is rewarded with success.  In fact, sometimes it turns out that the songs people like the best are the ones that required the least amount of effort.

I have a bunch of finished songs no one has ever heard.  I wrote them and recorded them, and they’ve just been in a folder on my computer.  They are not that great, but not that bad either.  Who knows?  I’m sometimes surprised about people’s favorites, and find it hard to believe others didn’t get more streams, but none in the currently available batch seem to be standout hits in any way.  I’m not the best judge.  The window of opportunity to publicly release my music in the same places where you can stream the GOATS of music seems to be closing, and I’m not getting any younger.

If you’re a self-releasing indie solo artist like me, you can just release them any time you want.  It’s a good situation to find yourself in.  If I was signed to a label, I’d need to weed out a bunch of them.  In fact, many were previously weeded out from consideration for past album releases.  I haven’t written a really “good-for-me” song in a long time.  It happens.  You just continue on with the hobby, and eventually a few good ones materialize again.

I typically wait two years between album releases.  I also typically put 13 songs on an album.  I have no idea why I’ve established this pattern.  I’m tempted to release another album early – only one year since my last – and with more songs than usual.  The problem is there just aren’t any really good-for-me songs yet.  Can I release a long album with all mediocre songs?  Sure, why not?  I could do that.

Then when I think about it more, I realize that for most of the artists and bands I’m a fan of, when I peruse their back catalog discography, they all only have about 2-3 songs I like on most of their albums.  Some artists I’m a fan of only have one good song per album, but I like them anyway.  I make a playlist of those, and I have my own personal favorite mix tape of what I think are their best songs.

So, as an artist myself, I can safely say I’m no different.  There are maybe on average two good songs on each of my albums, some more, some less.  A couple of my albums don’t really have any outstanding songs at all.  A couple other albums have a higher quality with several good songs on each.  Good for me, that is.  Of course, I thought they were the best available at the time of release, and now I’m not crazy about some I previously thought were good.

Got an unreleased material stockpile?  Some say put it out, don’t hold back.  What to do with all that music no one has heard yet?  Your release approach options are limitless, and anything is better than nothing.  Or so I have read (obscure Spinal Tap reference alert).  You can go for it and maybe get accused of gaming the system somehow.  

A huge triple album, three albums spread out, a half-dozen EPs spread out even further, more than one release per year, a couple singles per month for a whole year, etc.  Bruce Springsteen just released 7 whole previously-unreleased albums from his vault with a marketing gimmick that they had been “lost”.  Albums are better for artists like me who don’t promote anything because all my songs are deep cuts anyway, and I usually have some cohesive vision, narrative, or theme that ties them all together and gives listeners a more immersive experience.

Waiting makes it easier to group songs together that complement each other.  If you release songs too quickly, fans might feel like you’re hitting them with too much at once.  Rushing puts you at risk of the perception of watering down the back catalog.  A part of every creator is excited upon completion of a work to share it with others.  Sometimes it’s better to live with the creation for a while, give yourself some time to change your mind.  

If you wait, you might get hit by a bus before anyone gets to hear those songs.  When not signed to a label that would certainly posthumously milk the back catalog for all it’s worth, all my unreleased songs would just stay on the computer indefinitely until it breaks and is thrown away.  On the other hand, releasing more songs more often can water down that back catalog.  Mine isn’t worth much, but the bottom line is you have a bunch of songs that aren’t bad, and you wouldn’t mind if people got to hear them.  The few die-hard fans I have would love the increased output, regardless of overall quality.

I’m not out for popularity, but releasing more songs, more frequently is a thing one can do.  In the old days, you’d never hear an artist like me in the first place, but now you can get more Scott Cooley, more often, if I make that choice.  I just may be able to make that happen, since I do in fact have some recorded songs I’m just sitting on, instead of waiting another year.  You always want to weed some out, of course.  I have a personal system for self-rating my own songs, and there are always some I know are not going to make the cut, but I could lower my standards a bit.

It's a good problem to have if you’re a recording artist.  Weed out for quality, they say.  You don’t want to let the fanbase down, but if you wait too long for better songs to show up, you’ll risk losing some fans.  My digital aggregator distributor who sends my songs to the digital service providers advise “In general for an album, you should aim for a maximum of 80 minutes total.”  So, if you divide that by an average of 4 minutes per song, that would be 20 songs to max it out.

There are more solo artists than bands now.  Another trend is that those solo artists are releasing music more often than they used to.  Yet another is that they are releasing albums with more songs on them than they used to.  All of this is done to keep the fans interested and satiated.  It’s about not losing momentum.

You might be wondering if or when I might release more music again.  I’ve been wondering the same thing.  Fortunately, there seems to be a slowly-increasing interest in this type of information.  More people have been discovering me lately, and from what I can tell, my body of work is catching on, and getting recommended more often, I guess.  I know personally when I’m a fan of an artist, I do like it when they release new stuff more frequently, and I don’t mind really long albums at all.  I like them.  But then again, as an artist myself, I’m prone to long albums already (and long blog posts for that matter).

I’ll try to keep the paragraphs a little shorter for you on this post, since another trend and reason for the aforementioned trends I’ve read about recently is that supposedly everyone in the world now can’t handle long reads anymore, and they can’t help it that their attention spans keep getting shorter.  I find it hard to believe.

I’m inclined to consider those trends as advice to go for it with more music, more often since my audience has been slowly growing, especially lately.  They say you need to drop hints to build a buzz, so this might contain some.  If the quality dips a little, so be it.  I don’t want my fans to forget about me while I’m on a roll, because if they haven’t already, they will eventually.

I’m glad my standards are not so high that they’ve prevented me from releasing any of music at all.  Some people toil (there’s that word again) for years perfecting a few songs before they put them out.  I decided long ago to just dive in, not worry too much about quality control, and live with my decisions.  The regrets have been few.  Other people don’t care as much as you think, so you shouldn’t either – that’s what I need to keep in mind.

It’s probably not a bad idea to get feedback from live audiences and get the opinions of music experts first, but I don’t play live, and bad critiques can devastate your confidence and stifle your spirit, so I find it’s better to avoid reviews of any kind.  You’re better off not knowing.  Going public with your hobby requires bravery.

It’s tempting to worry about what other people think, or at least wonder, but the reality is that no one thinks anything.  Nobody notices, nobody wonders what ever happened to you.  It’s comforting to remind yourself that no one talks about you behind your back, no one cares what you’ve been up to or how successful you’ve become in anything.  Yes, I’m brave to think people will find and enjoy my music.  

When people I’ve known have found out that I’m one of those people who writes and records and releases music, they might also hear I’m not popular or awesome or famous.  I don’t really care.  I just like doing what I do.  I don’t over-think it (except in posts like this), don’t over-edit, don’t over-produce.  I prefer to keep it fresh, move on to new songs instead of perfecting existing ones.  I want to write a great song someday, but I want it to happen naturally as if by accident.

I guess that I’m here to tease that I’m considering release approach options due to having some new (and previously-unreleased older) songs recorded – more than enough for an album already, despite the expectation that the next one won’t arrive until 2026 at earliest, taking into account my typical “thirteen-new-originals-every-two-years-in-even-numbered-years-on-my-birthday” schedule.

There’s nothing wrong with having morbid curiosity about something or someone.  You know how to delete your browser history, right?  No one has to know that you like to read random therapeutic ramblings in the online personal journal of someone who is not a professional author.  (Technically, I am a professional writer, but more on that later.)  

This is, after all, THE authoritative source of newsworthy information about Scott Cooley music.  Some of you like some of what I’ve already released, and are therefore naturally interested in knowing when there might be more.  Just as with my music, I dabble in various styles of blogging, and the last ultra-long post was probably a chore due to the length.  I appreciate knowing people read what I write (about myself).

Were you the type who snuck into a sibling’s room when they were gone to read their diary when you were growing up?  It’s not uncommon.  Whatever the motivation to read this blog, it’s probably not much different than the motivation to listen to the songs of an unpopular amateur singer-songwriter like me in the first place.  What you listen to in your free time is your business, and you probably have a set of headphones for when other people are around.

I’m not ruling out that you are proud to tell anyone anytime that you like the music Scott Cooley creates, and further, that you like reading the web log of his thoughts about being someone who creates music.  There are much worse things to spend your time doing.  

Enjoy it while you can, especially the music, because it probably won’t be around forever.  The labels and streaming services seemingly can’t wait to justify an excuse to take my songs down, as they keep trying to establish new reasons to weed out those who are not popular enough.

Long after I’m dead, maybe this blog will still be here though.  I’m sure there’s a process survivors can follow to request the takedown of dead relative’s blog, as with social media profiles, but some choose to leave them up.  It’s weird to think about.  

Most people have really short attention spans, shorter than in years past, and they are likely to get even shorter in the future.  Less people read, and if they do, they prefer the short character limits of social media over novels.  Length-wise, the posts herein are somewhere in between.

Yet, I’m able to access some stats that a surprising number of people out there in the world actually seem to have both the required patience and desire to read my ultra-long posts.  I assume they are interested in reading about some old guy writing about pretending to be a songwriter and recording artist, while almost actually (and arguably) becoming one.

In the future though, what kind of person would be interested in the struggles and very small wins of someone who wrote songs on an acoustic guitar, recorded them in his house, and then released them online for worldwide streaming for a couple of decades, starting in the early 2000s?

There would have to be some curiosity about what life was like for such a person during these times in addition to the recorded material.  I suppose for posterity’s sake, I should include more about my reaction to major news events or something along those lines.  From what I can tell, my audience is intelligent and tolerant – of both long blog reads and long albums – with much longer attention spans than average.  Congratulate yourselves.

Historically speaking, it has been unique that what I’ve done was even possible.  Big changes occurred in the music and tech industries during my peak creative years.  People in earlier generations were not able to buy affordable home recording equipment, nor were they able to just release their recordings so that anyone in the world could find them and listen to them.

When I hear about some dead musician supposedly having a ton of recorded music that they never released that I’ll never get to hear, assuming I’ve discovered and become a fan of what they did release, I kind of wish I could hear it.  I know estates and lawyers likely prevent it, which is too bad.

On the other hand, sometimes there’s a seemingly endless amount of exploitative repackaging and remastering and re-releasing by labels that seems excessively greedy and definitely overkill.  Sometimes posthumous releases are disappointing, and you understand the decisions why certain songs were not released in the first place.

Other times, you hear it and think they were really on to something, and that if they hadn’t died, they would’ve gone off in a new direction that would’ve been even better, etc.  You can put out your best available now, have subsequent albums decline in quality.  You can save the best for last and die without it being released.

Increasingly, the current trend is that artists are coming out with albums that have way more songs on them than what would fit on two sides of an actual vinyl record.  I guess they do it because they can, the digital streaming technology doesn’t have the physical limits, and the consumer demand doesn’t really matter.

Arguably, it is a way to make more money by gaming the system, but I’m not sure how that works exactly.  I don’t have the issue of needing to make money from my music.  Well, I need to, but I should say, I don’t expect to.  If you’re not popular enough these days, they give you the space for your songs, but don’t pay you at all for them.  If I count in any way, I exist as a solo artist, theoretically in the public eye, only because they allow this.

Pre-internet, no one could just type whatever they wanted about any topic (or just about themselves) and publish it so anyone could potentially find it and read it.  So, if I were born a few decades earlier, I wouldn’t be a blogger or a prolific solo artist.  

I know I’m not super talented or skilled in what I do, but I do it anyway because I can.  Lately, I’m thinking I could be even more prolific, likely at the expense of quality, and hardly anyone would notice or care, so why not?

12 studio albums in 20 years is significant to me, a milestone of sorts.  One every two years is what I decided to shoot for.  Mine always have at least 13 songs.  If they each had 7 or something, I'd have released way more albums, but it's just what works for me.

This also puts me over the 150 released original songs mark.  154 is now the number of songs I've written (that I've made public).  Arguably, I could've done more weeding out along the way.  The volume isn’t really something to be proud of, I guess.  If they all suck, who cares?  You know what I mean.  The quantity matters not.

How often you release music says something about you as an artist.  The main obvious thing is how much free time you have available for a creative hobby.  I’m a part-timer at most when it comes to writing songs and recording music.  I’ve always worked a full-time job, and have had a career working primarily as a Technical Writer for almost 30 years.

Back in the 60s, bands like the Beatles would release 2 new albums per year.  If you don't have day jobs and that's all you do, and you have George Martin and others doing a lot of the work for you, why not?  

When you’re someone who has a lot of other interests, like earning money from a regular job to pay the bills, and you’re also married, there’s only so much available space in your life for a hobby.  My main one happens to be song writing and recording.

Factor in vacations and travel, hiking, going out to dinner, concerts, parties, family get togethers, reading, watching movies, listening to music, other forms of entertainment, etc.  I’ve also been a dog owner for years, I’ve been an avid skier, a tennis player, and someone who occasionally likes to go sailing.

Increasingly as I get older, and especially since Covid, my outside activities have been winding down, becoming less frequent.  The financial constraints are real, but I’d like to think I’ve become a little wiser, planning for a future that will hopefully include a retirement.

Most people don’t like their jobs that much, and I count myself among them.  I’ve worked as a technical communications professional for most of my adult life now, and I’ve often found myself saying that I hate it, despite it paying fairly well.  I’m really good at it if I do say so myself, but there’s nothing about it I enjoy, except the lower-middle class income.  The one good thing I guess is that it’s so boring that it makes me crave creativity, thus the blogging and song writing.

When you work full time, you have a few hours in the evenings, and weekends.  Then you have to consider that I’m a totally self-contained solo artist who does not ever farm anything out.  I blog about my hobby in the form of very long reads (like this will probably be), so that takes a certain amount of time too.

It’s a lot when you’re totally independent and DIY.  Time is one thing, but my energy levels have been winding down as I’ve gotten older too.  It happens.  Quite often, I find myself just being happy reading instead of picking up a guitar and hoping ideas come to me for songs.

Then I also maintain my web site that I created for myself and my hobby.  I do a few social media posts per year as well.  All in support of engaging with you, my fans, while in the mode of my alter ego of pretending to be a solo artist, faking it ‘till I make it, as they say.

I talk about "they" a lot.  They are the music business establishment insiders and self-proclaimed experts who share advice online.  I occasionally read some of it.  One thing they say is an important trend, that perhaps I should try to get onboard with, is that artists should release music more frequently these days.

Why?  I wondered, and they said it's due to "today's fast-paced streaming culture where attention spans are short and listeners expect new content regularly."

I've thought about the one-song-at-a-time strategy.  As a huge fan of solo artist Ultimate Rick Jones, for example, I subscribe because every couple months, he releases a new single.  It's satisfying, so I understand the benefits completely.

I'm not what you'd call a singles artist to begin with, and I have an established tradition of one full-length album every two years.  I bought a few 45s back in the day, but I really like albums.  I grew up with them.  I have a bunch of CDs too, but now I’ve moved on to paying for YouTube Music with every song ever available, which is really great for music fans.

I know every artist should have an EP, a double album, a live album, a compilation album, etc., and a bunch of singles in their catalog, but I like to stick with what works for me.

I suppose I could decrease the time between album releases.  The risk is of course less weeding out for quality control.  Realistically, I'm not known for high quality to begin with, so this shouldn't be an issue.

The only other issue is not being able to keep up the pace, creating an expectation I can't live up to.  I've somewhat promised one album every two years, and I've kept it for twenty.

They say there are a bunch of other benefits:

• keeps you in the public eye

• engages your audience more consistently

• maximizes streaming revenue

• builds momentum through a larger catalog

• increases visibility

• keeps you on listener's radar

• fosters a stronger fan connection

• appeases the algorithms for a wider audience

• allows for more experimentation

I need to do what works best for me.  Although I've never really "broken" as an artist, I am at the same time a fairly "established" artist, which makes the right approach challenging to determine.  They say nowadays you should start as a singles artist, and later on become an albums artist, not sure why exactly, but maybe it makes some sense.  I’m already an albums artist, so it would be weird to switch to becoming a singles artist.

There are a lot of previously weeded out songs that didn't make the cut on my albums that I could make available, but they didn't make the cut for reasons that made sense at the time.

That said, I'm always surprised that what I thought were some of my weakest songs have been among other people's favorites.  So, this is a factor to take into consideration for sure.

I keep thinking that if I can ever afford to be truly retired from a day job, I'll have more time for this hobby of mine.  On the other hand, it could be that having limited free time has been an advantage.

Since that's not likely to happen any time soon, and since I do have quite a bit of unreleased material, I may shift my thinking about this.

They say don't die with the music in you.  Don't die without letting people hear it all.  I've attempted to exhaust the backlog of songs before, but I keep writing more.  If I die tomorrow, at least I released as many as I did, though there are quite a few I wish I hadn’t.  There’s always that risk that you look back in retrospect decide you could’ve kept a few to yourself that other didn’t really ever need to hear.

There's always the risk of death, too, premature or otherwise.  Accidents happen.  Some posthumous releases are excellent.  Not sure if any surviving members of my family could figure out how to release my unreleased stuff.  Probably not.  It wouldn’t be lucrative in any way, that’s for sure.

Hence, I guess I can ramp it up a little.  Why not?  Put out the bad and the ugly, interspersed with some good.  I've sort of always done that anyway!  There are ebbs and flows in even the best artist’s careers, as we all know.  Except maybe the Beatles.

I'm sure there are solo artists and bands who ended on a good note, and their last album was their best-ever.  Most of the time though, their best album came earlier in their careers.  It's just the way it is, I suspect.

I am certainly impressed when I check out the discographies of artists I like and see that they were incredibly prolific.  Neil Young comes to mind as a guy who releases a new album every single year.  As a streaming fan, there are several on each album I impatiently skip, but possibly return to and learn to appreciate after subsequent listens.

So, this is all to say, I’m thinking about releasing music more often.  There’s a part of me that of course wants to keep waiting until I have better material first, but then there’s another part of me that wants to get it out there before I die.  You want people to hear your best.

If I were to select songs for a Best Of Scott Cooley album, there are maybe an average of two songs per album I’d choose, some more, some less, and with a dozen albums, it would have to be a double or a 2-disc box set or something.  

On the other hand, I could easily name a few songs from each album I’ve released that I could’ve left off in hindsight.  I’m sure that’s true for the famous popular artists too.  Surprisingly, however, people have occasionally told me they really like some of the songs that are on my personal cringe/regret list.

As 2025 rolls on, I’m thinking about my music-related plans.  I find myself in a situation where I have some unreleased material written and recorded, which presents the inevitable dilemma of deciding what to release and when and in what order.  No one can just keep out-doing themselves indefinitely, despite any self-imposed pressure, and of course we all want to end on a good note, but it’s easier said than done.

No one wants to be like Boston or Violent Femmes to name a couple whose debuts were awesome and then all subsequent follow-ups never measured up.  One needs to stay in the game.  Another motivating factor is to get the music out there before the music business powers that be close the gate on letting me in entirely.  There are indications this not out of the realm of possibility.

If I lead with my absolute best available first, there’s less risk the record corporation / streaming corporation powers will employ their “artist-centric” (translation:  not streamed enough) rationale to delete my stuff, but if I lead with the worst to eventually end with my best, they may just find a reason to speed up their not-popular-enough platform removal process.

What I haven’t yet just come out and said is that I might release a new album this year, and it might not be as great as my last one.  You’ve now been warned, but the good news is you have something to look forward to that you don’t have to wait until 2026 for.  I think I’ll go for it.  I’m gearing up.  

I may have blogged my way into deciding to release an album that has more songs on it than usual, with an overall song quality level that is below the bar I’ve set for myself, which admittedly isn’t all that high.  The only thing I have to lose is the $9.99 to release it.

As usual, I feel weird blogging about myself as if I’m some serious solo artist.  People can sort of pretend they are celebrities in this day and age online.  I want more streams, yes, but don’t want to be a famous person.  But I contemplate these things, via blogging, to you few readers I know I have, in order to make sense of my thoughts on matters like these, knowing full well that they are extremely inconsequential in the grand scheme of things.

I listen back to this unreleased stockpile of songs I wrote and have recorded, and sometimes I think none of them are really release-worthy, but other times I think they’re not bad and wouldn’t be too embarrassing if other people heard them.  I built a tiny bit of momentum with my last album, 2024’s “Sunrise,” and I think I might be wise to keep it going, while able to, lest people forget about me. 

This blog is my preferred way to engage with you.  I guess I do it to keep you interested, to literally keep you posted.  I want you to know I’ve got a few “in the can” as they say, and I guess I’m in the process of deciding if you and the rest of the world should have them available to potentially find and listen to or not.  I do it to give you a hint that I may release more music in the future, more frequently, and hopefully thereby reduce the risk of losing you as fans.  None of us want to be forgotten, but most of us will be eventually.  That’s life, my friends.

An Informal Living Room Jam Among Friends

 What You’re Getting Yourself Into before listening to Scott Cooley

Before you hit play on any of my music, you should know what you’re getting yourself into.  If you haven’t heard any of my music before, you might be surprised.  It’s not like anything that’s popular right now.  It’s not perfect, and not all that professional-sounding.  Sometimes music that isn’t awesome by music teacher standards can be really appealing.

Historically, people have gotten into music that wasn’t polished to perfection.  Before recorded music, it was always experienced live.  You can picture friends and family on the front porch, picking banjos and blowing into jugs in rural America.  Cowboys playing Home on the Range on harmonica around the camp fire.  Those Old Weird America records by Harry Smith and field recordings by Alan Lomax are so cool, and I for one am glad someone made them.

Going way back to skiffle, for example, known for a blend of American folk and blues played on homemade instruments, back in the 50s, this genre had a big influence on early British invasion rock like The Beatles, which led to the Beatles-influenced “garage rock” in the 60s, there have been brief surges of popularity.

The Grateful Dead started as a “jug” band, playing all acoustic instruments, and blending a lot of different American styles of music.  They became pioneers in what is now called Americana in addition to what is now called jam-band music.  They were also arguably one of those garage bands influenced by the Beatles.

Before it sort of morphed into punk, garage rock was sort of like a combination of surf rock, fuzzbox electric guitar effects, played with an amateur quality, influenced by psychedelia, with a DIY approach, lyrics about lying girls, and a raw, naïve quality.  All but the electric fuzz apply to my sound, although I’ve rarely played in a garage.

I have called my music “acoustic garage rock” and it’s fairly accurate, though it’s not an officially defined genre anywhere.  As far as I know, I made it up.  I’ve been heavily influenced by Tenacious D, seriously, and although I’m not as good or as funny as them, I like the way they described their music as being “heavy acoustic” which some of mine might be as well.

To describe my music with genres that are somewhat more familiar, or that are more commonly understood maybe, I’d go with these:

• Slacker rock:  American indie rock and lo-fi music that is laid back and relaxed, and thus more "authentic" than sellouts of contemporary rock.  Misplayed notes, out-of-tune instruments, cool laziness, mellow swagger, made by generation X'ers.  All accurate when describing my music.

• Lo-fi:  Low fidelity production sound quality is a deliberate stylistic choice.  Imperfections recorded in bedroom studios are intentionally left in.  The DIY punk ethos is there, it's primitive, and has some cultural nostalgia.  Minimal production on cheap equipment, amateurish, raw and unsophisticated.  Again, all me.

• Indie folk:  Usually acoustic guitar-oriented.  Independent from being signed to a major label.  Creative freedom and control, resistance to popular mainstream culture, realistic, stripped-back, strays from sounding commercial, earnest and emotive lyrics.  A rock approach to contemporary folk, often by singer-songwriters, using acoustic instrumentation.  Yep, me.

• DIY:  Circumnavigation of the corporate mainstream music industry by doing everything yourself with limited means.  Check.

• Singer-songwriter:  Writes their own lyrics/melodies, performs their own music, typically on acoustic guitar.  Emphasis on the song itself over the performance.  Personal lyrics.  Me.

Could my music be slacker rock?  

Am I a slacker?  As a student, I am proud I did as little as possible to pass so I could prioritize my social life.  There was no draft for me to dodge, but I was involved in some delinquency in my teenage years, which carried over to my young 20s in the early 1990s, and as a member of Generation X, I was apathetic about political and social causes, and since then, I've been aimless in developing a “conventional” career, but I've always worked hard at whatever I've done to pay the bills.  I’m definitely a slacker when it comes to punctuation and run-on sentences, aren’t I?  It's true I don't put much effort into writing or recording songs either, and it's true that rock music is my biggest influence.  

"Lo-fi indie rock originating in the United States in the early 90s" sounds about right.  Yeah, I guess "slacker rock" is not a bad way to describe my music, and it might not go without saying that I do music for fun, not for work.  I'd like to think I have a mellow swagger and a cool laziness as an artist, because I don't try very hard.  It's a hobby.  I am definitely laid back and relaxed about it, and it's certainly authentic music that I create, despite not taking it too seriously.  I don't really feel closely aligned with or sound like artists who get put into this category such as Pavement, Beck, Alex G, Mac DeMarco, or Courtney Barnett, but I do like their music.  I have my own style, do my own thing, and still struggle to define it, but maybe this one is the closest.

So, then to put them in a better-sounding order, I might type them like this:

Lo-fi / DIY / Singer-songwriter / Indie folk / Slacker rock

It’s a lot to wrap your head around, I know.  It begs the question “why would anyone like music that isn’t perfect?”  I think I may have an answer:

“An Informal Living Room Jam Among Friends”

I intentionally record my songs with the strumming of an acoustic guitar being the primary instrument sound so that if I ever play live and solo, it won’t sound a whole lot different from the records.  Also intentional is that I don’t want it to sound so polished that I can’t reproduce it live.

Here I find myself revisiting the topics of “understanding your audience” and “describing yourself as an artist” – and the challenges non-performing/self-releasing music acts like me have with them.  

If you enjoy complex arrangements and virtuosic performances, or if you have high objective standards, my music won’t be for you.  Subjectively, however, since I’ve been an artist for quite a long time now, people have become familiar with my music, and when I offer something new, they say they like it due to a feeling of nostalgia.  It’s like a fix for something they were already familiar with, without knowing they necessarily craved more of it.  

Even though it’s not considered cool or popular or critically acclaimed, the combination of things my music offers gives them a hit of adrenaline.  Most importantly, I’ve been told my music stirs up memories for people, and despite my lack of skill/talent, it makes them remember certain times in their lives, or people they love.  In other words, it causes people to feel emotional.

Chicks Dig It

I ran across some data recently about my audience, and the analytics showed that my listeners are predominantly female.  I had no idea.  As I continue to write and record new songs, that is in the back of my mind.  The appeal to women certainly isn’t my body or dance moves in my music videos, nor would it be my vocal chops, so it’s got to have something to do with the music and the songs.  

https://app.chartmetric.com/artist/991782

Maybe it’s the lighthearted humor, the simplicity, the sensitivity, the intimacy of being an acoustic guitar guy with a lot of love songs.  I think I’m going to really lean into that more.  Why not?  It’s a good thing, and maybe it’s confirmation of the emotional response I’ve heard my music produces, which is what all songwriters want.

The Modern, Informal, Intimate Live Experience

I have a feeling that many of you have been in someone’s living room before when a few amateur musicians were hanging out together.  Sitting on sofas and chairs in somewhat of a circle, playing acoustic guitars and hand percussion, having a great time.  A few musically-inclined friends who come over to your house for an impromptu, unplugged jam session.  Now imagine me as the lead singer-songwriter involved in such a get-together.  Someone hands you a shaker or tambourine, and you’re intimately involved.  That’s the essence of what I want my recorded music to sound like.  You either get into it, or you just don’t get it.

I’m reminded of a quote by one of my favorite songwriters:

“There's always that argument to make - that you're in better company historically if people don't understand what you're doing.” --Elliott Smith

He also said “If you play acoustic guitar, you’re the depressed, sensitive guy”

Wouldn’t it be cool if history shows I was misunderstood?  My amateur quality can be appealing, so I’ve been told, and maybe there will be increased interest in the future.  I have been depressed and sensitive before, and people have probably struggled to understand my music before.  

Trending Upward Again, History Repeats

However, there is a trend I’ve become aware of recently that people are generally starting to like my style of music.  It’s almost as if it’s a backlash against the formulaic fakeness of current popular music.  Music streaming has offered a bit of a democracy wherein consumers are trying to find homemade music that is more real-sounding, and it’s showing up as a shift in listening preferences.  Don’t get me wrong, I’m in no danger of the major labels assimilating me due to this trend, but if they reached out and booked me some real-studio time, I’d still prefer any recordings I made to sound pretty close to what I already do myself.

A Guilty Pleasure

People have told me that my music – especially from the early Scott Cooley albums – is what they consider their “guilty pleasure” music.  It may be the fact that it is overly simplistic, slightly off-key, corny, or even cheesy, but they say it has special meaning, brings back happy memories, or gives them strong positive emotions when they hear it, even though it’s not technically good.  Despite the obvious flaws, they enjoy it anyway.  That is exactly what I thought when I wrote and recorded it!  None of my music has ever been what you’d call “well received,” but maybe some of it is underrated.

My music is rough around the edges, and that's the point.  It’s the antithesis of the over-produced mainstream.  Raw and organic, pure and simple.  It’s a big part of the appeal.  Anti-algorithm and anti-perfection scenes are flourishing.  Online, yet still "underground" with a foot in analogue revival, it's almost like a power-to-the-people, counter-culture phenomenon that is happening.  "Long-tail" artists like me who employ rudimentary DIY production techniques in home studios offer something people can hear and appreciate:  a really short distance between song idea and recorded output.

Between Two Worlds

It's somewhere in-between a live band recording and a pro studio recording.  Even though I’m the only musician, I like to nail each take in each track live, then blend them.  If I don’t, and it’s not too disturbing, I leave it that way.  I don’t use the digital tools that make everything sound perfect.  I want it to be real, the way it would sound if you were hanging out in the room with me when I recorded it.  I’ll admit sometimes I’m overwhelmed by the thought of re-doing things, and usually conclude the extra hassle isn’t worth my time.  My abilities are limited, and I don’t hide that.  I do the best I can with what I’m capable of, and people appreciate that.

It's also somewhere in-between a songwriter demo and fully-produced studio recording.  Real sounds made by real voices and real instruments.  I want the music to generally sound like if it were played 100 years ago before electric guitars existed, it wouldn’t be a whole lot different.  The fewer digital electronic effects or tools used, the better, in my opinion.  I’ve called it acoustic garage rock.  It has the DIY lo-fi amateur enthusiasm of garage rock, without the fuzz distortion, and let’s face it, a living room is better than a garage anyway.

Low Brow Rising

Since I release my music to the masses via streaming, that sort of sets it apart from music performed live for small audiences.  Although I don’t write notation, I have created a songbook.  It’s far from classical music, but I consider some of my songs to be classics and most of them to be art.  If my music is folk, as some may define it, I suppose it is therefore considered a product of low culture, which means both I as its creator and its consumers have somewhat crude tastes.  

Theoretically, folk reflects the common themes of the lower/working classes in the community.  I can admit that a few of my songs could be considered by some to be either vulgar, in poor taste, or lacking in artistic merit.  On the other hand, I feel there is overall a lot of depth that would be considered more characteristic of more high-brow music, especially when compared with other modern pop music.  That’s why I often say it has a certain level of sophistication, but not too much.

Elitists Welcome

To my knowledge, no high society people have ever discredited my music.  My music appeals to simple, basic human emotions and offers a perspective of innocence and an escape from real world problems.  I happen to know that many elite people have enjoyed my music, and realize it may be an example of them “slumming” although I never create it specifically to appeal to them.  I do think my music is somewhat subtle and refined.  Their curiosity leads to some amount of intellectual entertainment.

People who get into music that isn’t perfect by technical standards do so because they simply find enjoyment in the authentic quality.  I’ve been told people become fans of my music because they appreciate the spontaneous improvisational effort I made, and feel an emotional connection somehow, despite my lack of proficiency.  They may know me personally, I might remind them of someone they know, they may feel nostalgic for the good times they had playing a shaker while their friends played acoustic guitars at their house, they may find it to be more genuine and relatable, they may get a sense of belonging, etc.  

The Intent Matters

I intentionally record my songs so that they don’t sound a whole lot different than when I play them live, so that if I ever do play live, it’s not a shock.  I occasionally entertain with makeshift bands, but for the most part prefer to go solo.  The other instruments may not be there, but the primary ingredients - the strumming of chords on an acoustic guitar, and my singing voice – are what makes the songs sound like me anyway.  Take this live version of my “hit” for example:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1fuhZiKFj2Y

An informal living room jam among friends (or as shown above, family). Could be the best way I’ve come up with to describe the style I strive for yet…and due to what I’ve learned about my fanbase, ultimately, they would be mostly female friends.  😉  Yep, that’s how I want it to sound.

Even more actual songwriting advice from Scott Cooley

My most recent post before this one contained some songwriting advice that I thought people might like to read, and like we bloggers sometimes do, I re-read my own published post recently and then thought of a couple more pieces.  Since more tips have now occurred to me since that previous advice post, I thought it warranted a follow-up, so welcome to part two of what I’m now calling my “experiences with the craft” series in which I impart some wisdom.  In other words, and to paraphrase Lebowski-esque words from movie character The Dude, new shit has come to light, man, that you’re not privy to…yet, but that’s what you pay me for.  These are just, like, my opinions, man.

I’ve been informed by some readers that some of my similar posts have inspired them in the past.  With limited natural talent (or acquired singing or instrumental skill), and no music-related education or formal training of any kind, my “figure-it-all-out-on-your-own,” self-taught perspective has been helpful and interesting to those approaching creative musical pursuits from a similar background, so I’ve been told.  Further, my understanding is that I can explain what I do in a way that makes others less intimidated about giving it a try or not giving up.  

You have to want to do it, and for mysterious reasons, soon after I started teaching myself how to play guitar in 1989, I wanted to write a song, so I did.  I’ve been doing it ever since.  I’ve always found it to be more enjoyable than just learning to play other people’s songs.  The writing of songs is a mysterious thing to do, especially for the self-taught musicians out there, but hopefully something you read here will make it seem less mysterious for those wanting to do it and/or get better at it.

Way back in 2013, I posted this somewhat related one simply entitled “How To Write Songs” https://blog.scottcooley.com/2013/09/how-to-write-songs.html that might also be of interest.

In my last post - https://blog.scottcooley.com/2025/02/actual-songwriting-advice-from-scott.html, I emphasized the following “tips to keep in mind”, re-summarized for you here in a handy takeaway list:

1. Listen intently to what makes great songs by others great
2. Buy the basics – acoustic guitar, computer, audio interface, microphone, MIDI keyboard, etc.
3. Google “song parts” or “song structure” and learn what each is
4. Google “common song forms” and attempt each type
5. Google “song rhyme schemes” and attempt each type
6. Use a free, online rhyming dictionary, regular dictionary, & thesaurus as needed
7. Google “chord families” and refer to table for writing progressions in a key
8. Strum a guitar progression while you whistle/hum/nonsense-sing a “dummy” melody
9. Replace dummy melody with the singing of your lyrics
10. Record your own songs and covers to learn how to improve writing
11. Use a word processing app like Word for editing efficiency
12. The idea for the song (if a song with lyrics) is important
13. Don’t get bummed when only 2 out of 10 songs you write are “keepers”

Another important tip that just occurred to me is:

Live with your songs for a while.  Forget about them, then revisit them.  Give them time before you make a hasty judgement call on their “keeper” status.  Here’s why:

When you just finish writing a song, and you get a bit of that feeling that it magically came together somehow, you’re amazed and proud.  It’s a great feeling if and when it happens.  It can be a rare occurrence (see #13 above).

Inevitably, you think the song you just wrote is a lot better than it turns out to be later on.  It’s not a bad idea to just shelve it, set it aside, and move on to writing other new songs.  It’s good to have several you think are pretty good now, and keep revising that list.  New ones you write will knock others off your top five list, or whatever.

So, in other words, if you have some to compare it to, it may not be as great as you originally thought.  I’ve finished songs that I self-graded in my mind with a B+ or some rating, and a few months later after listening back, realize that compared to the others in the recent batch of new songs, it’s really only a B-.

The opposite can be true as well!  Sometimes you can surprise yourself three months down the road when you re-listen back to one you only gave a B+ to and realize it’s one of your best-ever and bump it up to an A- or A.

It’s a good idea to finish writing a song, think it’s awesome and everything, then wait until you even play it again.  Maybe do a first take on your phone, wait three months, then get out your guitar and play it again.  I rarely do this, but it’s probably good advice to play your song several times before you actually record a studio multi-track version of it too.  You want to sound comfortable with it when you record it, but you also want it to sound fresh, which is a conundrum.  

Then, give it even more time after recording a proper version of it.  It may be one of your top contenders for release now, but you may change your mind later.  Again, it’s hard to do, but you may even realize you can re-record it and make it even better.  I never do this, but probably should.  The problem is you sink so much time and effort into the multi-track version that you dread having to start over from scratch and throw away all those parts of tracks that you nailed.  Even more reason to get comfortable with it via practice before ever recording it in the first place.

Get a stockpile built up of contenders for release on your next album, and keep writing more.  It’s way easier said than done, but it’s a great strategy.  Some that don’t make the cut may see the light of day on a subsequent release, possibly after further revision, when the muse is on vacation.

Songs are like your babies, your creations, you made them, and out of pride you want others to hear them, even the ones you didn’t rate that highly.  It’s hard to make the judgement call.  You need some quality control.  On the other hand, in this day and age of the self-releasing independent artist, why not release your Cs and let the world be the judge?

It’s so tempting in the excitement of a song being new to get carried away and prematurely release everything as a single upon completion.  I’m just saying give it time to breathe, decant that wine before you pour the world a sip.

Yet another tip I’m introducing in this post is:  

Like I said in my last one when I said “singing matters,” I’m also now advising that melody matters.  The two are somewhat related.  Whether you start with a melody, then find a supporting chord progression for it, or start with a chord progression, then write a melody over the top of it, it’s often one of the most important things you do as a songwriter.

You can write some lyrics that, when read alone, are maybe not that interesting on the paper or electronic document.  Singing them with the right melody, however, can transform those words into things of beauty.  It can really bring out the emotion and power in them.

Rules.  There are some arguable rules around this aspect of writing songs.  If you have a chord progression first, the melody notes you might choose are likely to exist within the chords being played at the time, so there’s that.  Generally having verses with more static melodies and choruses with more soaring, dynamic melodies is a combo that can be pleasing to the ear.  There is a thought that minor is sad, major is happy, etc.  “They” say you “should” always include humor, detail and irony, for example, and on and on.  I won’t get into these, but there are tons of them online available for free that you can check out at your leisure.

I said “arguable” because these can all be broken with success.  Countless examples out there.  Still, these are good to take into consideration.  You can google many more such tips from the supposed expert advice-givers out there.

• There are wildly popular songs with lyrics that don’t have much melody at all.  Hip-hop and Rap come to mind here.
• There are wildly popular songs with lyrics that have great melodies despite not having many chords at all.
• There are wildly popular songs with lyrics that no one understands, often because the melodies are great.

Melodies, hooks, beats, grooves, riffs, etc. can all make songs awesome whether the lyrics are intelligible or not.  One could argue the lyrics are the least important part of a good song and not really be wrong.  

You can bend your singing of lyrics to fit a melody, you can change the syllabic emphasis until it works within the time/space available, sometimes editing the lyrics along the way to make it happen.  Or, you can craft a melody based on how you read the lyrics to yourself in your head, which I do a lot, then build everything else around it.  Just reading them can conjure a “dummy” melody in your mind that you can translate with your voice or instrument.

With all that having been typed, set it all aside in your mind for a moment.  File it away as two more pieces of songwriting advice from Scott Cooley:  Patience.  Melody.  Both important.  Lyrics, maybe not so much…arguably.  They are to me though.  I have to like them to finish a song.

Now I’ll tell you my alternate opinion on melody and my lyrics-first approach.  The wrong melody can wreck a great lyric. Absolutely.  Been there, done that.  That said, I almost always like to start with a complete song, lyrics-wise, before I set the melody in stone.  It’s just my preferred method to my madness.  Some necessary tweaks – to either the words or music – will inevitably present themselves, and as I’ve said, it’s always a little bit of both in no particular order as a back-and-forth, give-and-take process between lyrics and melody until you finalize a song anyway.  

I’ve done it every which way, but I really need the lyrics to be good first.  Who is to say what makes a good lyric or melody?  You is (are).  All songs have a melody.  Music scholars can probably explain why some melodies and lyrics and songs are better than others.  Popularity can tell you something, as can ranking lists from reputable sources.  God Only Knows by the Beach Boys, Imagine by John Lennon, Waterloo Sunset by the Kinks, What’s Going On by Marvin Gaye, Smells Like Teen Spirit by Nirvana, Like A Rolling Stone by Bob Dylan, A Change Is Gonna Come by Sam Cooke, Respect by Aretha Franklin – most agree these are great songs. It's not possible to listen to all the music in the world in your lifetime, so you need curation.  Ultimately, it’s only your opinion that matters.

And my alternate opinion on patience is that sometimes you just know a song is and will always be one of your best, immediately after you write it, so go ahead and put that instant keeper on the top of your list, record it, place as the first track on your next album, make it a single, get it out there ASAP.  Don’t die with the music in you, as they say.  Congratulate yourself, because as aforementioned, it’s a rare treat to have this happen and it’s why you try in the first place!  

The you that just wrote what seems like a masterpiece shouldn’t be discouraged by the you that just listened to it again with a lower opinion three months later when experiencing déjà vu.  Enjoy the highs, and don’t forget to stay patient during the low points of your creative journey.  You might be right to seek progress over perfection, but no one just keeps besting themselves with each new song they write until they die.  

A third and final (for this post anyway) piece of advice from me, a totally unqualified non-expert giver, would be this:  Don’t compare yourself to others.  That song you just decided was an A+ for you might not have ever made the cut on a Beatles album, but it doesn’t matter.  As so many have said, comparison is the thief of joy.  Write and release songs that made you happy.  Chances are they will make some other people happy too.

So add these to the numbered list above that comprise Scott Cooley’s songwriting advice tips:

14. Finish a song, forget it for a while, then re-listen to avoid overenthusiasm when fresh
15. Melodies are more important than you might think, likely more important than words
16. Instead of comparing and competing, please yourself first, if you like it, others will too

In case you’re a newcomer to this blog, I’ll get the disclaimer out of the way:  I’m not an expert, not a pro in the traditional sense.  I don’t claim to be so good at writing songs that people seek out my advice about how to do it, but I offer it anyway, because this is America, dammit, and I can.  

This is what blogging is about.  You pick a topic you know something about.  I don’t consider myself an authority or an educator, but the content I create herein is sometimes instructional or at least informative, despite the fact that it’s offered in a stream-of-consciousness journal entry style like that of a personal online diary.  

I don’t care for the prevalence of people with few qualifications who pretend to be experts on subjects, or fake news writers, or influencers, or self-proclaimed gurus who self-publish books, but such are the times.  My complaints about the changes in the music business in posts in this blog might be on the verge of spewing conspiracy theories, so I should be careful.  I shouldn’t complain because the whole self-publishing online thing has made my music “career” possible.

When I started writing songs in the 1990s, blogs didn’t exist yet.  I’ve found I sort of like this type of writing as well, and I did study journalism, newswriting and expository writing in college.  Frequency-wise, I can only muster about one long post every two months on average or maybe about a minimum of six posts per year but rarely kick one out monthly for very long.  Like the songs, the blogs tend to come in spurts and are prone to considerable droughts in between.  My posts are usually about my hobby of writing songs and recording them and then distributing them for streaming.  

The music biz establishment let amateurs like me in for several years, but now they’re increasingly trying to limit those who don’t meet some popularity threshold and justify pushing us back out so they can make more profit, which I’ve griped about in the past musings herein.

Lots of them deal with my struggles to understand how I feel about making my music public knowing that in decades prior, it would not likely have been possible, and how the struggle of wanting more popularity but not easily getting it has made me wonder if my music should be made public in the first place.  

This phenomenon brought about by technological change is not unlike that of blogging, where technology changed to allow amateur writers to act as if they are professionals.  The lines have gotten blurry between amateur and pro.

Each post of mine typically gets a minimum of 30 reads, but some are surprisingly over 100 for unknown reasons – the readership not dissimilar from the stream counts for my songs.  The only advertising I do on my blog is for my own music.  Anyone can leave comments, but hardly anyone ever does.

I’ll reiterate my musical background info quickly here.  I took Intro to Guitar as a blow-off class my Senior year at Albion College, got a B, and that’s it.  Also took Intro to Poetry.  Also briefly sung in a choir in junior high.  Also took a handful of piano lessons at about age 10, then convinced my parents to let me quit.  The family had a stereo with turntable and a few albums.  Started buying my own at some point with money earned from odd jobs as a kid.  Listened to local FM radio who played rock before it became classic rock, which the same stations still play now.  Checked out some live concerts at Pine Knob and lesser-known acts who played at my college.  Open mic nights there were my first experience with amateurs with acoustic guitars getting up in front of people to play live.  It made me want to be like them some day.  Eventually, I got up the courage in 1989.  In the early 90s, I played in some duos and bands and solo, some actual paying gigs, a few as the headlining act.  Realizing shortcomings as a performer, and dislike for playing covers, gravitated toward originals.  Then cassette recording experimentation, buying more instruments, getting a computer, releasing my own CDs & downloads, digital aggregator distribution, etc., on through to being what I am now.

I do, however, claim to have a few minor qualifications for giving advice about writing songs.  Who am I to be giving people advice on how to write songs?  I am a self-releasing, independent solo artist with 12 albums of original material.  There are over 150 songs I’ve written, recorded and released worldwide that you can listen to right now on Apple Music, Spotify, Amazon Music, YouTube Music, Pandora, Bandcamp and most other music streaming services.  The most popular is one called “Mackinac Island” which people have played enough that I actually make a little bit of money from it every year.  One really great solo artist – Ultimate Rick Jones - recorded and released a really great cover version of another song I wrote called “Used To Be Good Looking”.  Oh yeah, almost forgot, I also won an honorable mention t-shirt in a songwriting competition once.  That’s about it.

I wrote my first in 1990, so for the last 35 years, I figure I’ve averaged writing approximately one song per month, which should bring the total over 400 songs at least since taking on the hobby.  So, by my old math, that’s around 30% I’ve released, meaning my keeper ratio is approximately 3 out of every 10 songs being release worthy in my own mind.  In retrospect, I could now pick a few from each album I could’ve done without releasing at all.  I’ve stopped caring about counting the volume, and there’s probably more than 500 first takes by now on old cassettes and in my phone, but many of the early attempts might not even qualify as being actual songs, depending on how you define them.  Anyhow, this further backs up tip #13 above.

Thankfully, I’m not a famous celebrity, yet I’d like it if the music became more popular of course.  So, I’m not well known or critically acclaimed in any way (no critics have ever written about my music to my knowledge), but in an attempt to help my music reach a larger audience, I followed advice to create a web site and blog so people could learn more about my musical pursuits with the hope it might result in more streams.  

Since I’m mostly a non-performing songwriter and solo artist, I don’t have much to blog about except to occasionally announce the availability of new music.  Lately, however, I thought that beyond that, out of all the music-related things I do, the songwriting part is probably what I’m best at, hence a couple more posts about the craft.  Hope you’ve enjoyed them.  

In closing, for you actual fans of my music who happen to be reading my actual songwriting advice, I’m happy to report that more new songs are currently in progress.  Actual songs too – no artificial intelligence being used.  Check back for updates, and as always, thanks for reading (and listening)!