Today I start writing my 100th blog. The post has arrived, there’s no telegram from the King or anything, even though I know he’s a subscriber…
Before I dive in though, I’m going to spend a few minutes reading the first blog I published, November 23rd, 2023, to see what I said. Did I set myself any goals? Am I achieving those goals….were they ‘SMART’?? (sustainable or specific, measurable, achievable…. Can’t remember what ‘R’ stands for…. ‘T’ is probably to do with time….) Well, no. Looks like I left it pretty open ended. That might have been just as well.
Going by the sections by which you can navigate and search my blog, I’ve published….
28 Blogs on ‘General Music’
18 Blogs on ‘Songwriting’
17 Blogs on ‘Playing Live’
16 Blogs on ‘Playing Tips’
9 Blogs on ‘Gear’
8 Blogs on ‘Classic Songs’
3 Blogs on ‘Sunday Funday’
Including this - that’s 100 blogs in 389 days. At this point I’d like to thank once again, Tess Henley, Steve Twinley, Keith Toop and Richard Setford for their guest blogs!
I’ve always believed that not everybody will be interested in every blog, but assuming we’re all interested in music, 28% on general topics seems good. My time is spent fairly evenly between songwriting, playing live and teaching, so those feel well represented, and then there’s roughly the same again of other bits and bobs.
I’d be really interested to hear what you think about how much I cover which topic. I started writing this blog with the thought that, ‘’If you want to be a better player, you should play more, so, if you want to be a better writer, you should write more”. It seemed like common sense and although I’m not sure I can really measure that exactly, I can see that I’ve written approximately 50 songs, since I started the blog.
That sounds huge. In fact the song I started writing yesterday is numbered 169 in my book, which makes the relatively paltry total I’ve actually recorded seem insignificant. Some are rubbish though - just process. Leonardo didn’t wake up one morning, thought painting sounded cool and squeezed out the Mona Lisa by lunchtime. Like all art, songwriting requires honing, and fortunately I have some great friends who help to keep me on the right track.
I feel like it’s going okay, although I’ve just made the mistake of googling for a blog failure rate. Apparently it’s an 80% failure rate in the first 18 months, so I’ve still got a way to not add to that statistic. Like songs though, I’m writing for me, and for my students and friends. Although I derive a small, indirect financial benefit from blogging, that’s not really the driving force, so as long as I keep sharing, I’m winning.
What I feel most proud of is that I know, because I’ve been specifically told, that these blogs have directly contributed to many of my subscribers' progression in music. It might only be some new chords, a bit of advice, a new favourite artist, I’m not talking about life changing epiphanies, but a specific, notable influence. If you’re one of those people who's taken the time to tell me that or drop me an email, thank you. And thank you to everyone else who forms a part of my musical landscape, in any capacity. You make it happen.
Or it’s all your fault, depending on your viewpoint ;-)
Cheers.
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