Signposts Towards a Murky Future

FRIDAY FIGURINGS (9/16/22): I've been off the road because of the pandemic pretty much 2 1/2 years now, with brief outbursts of joyful travel to actually play music in living 3D with other people. Life as an "independent" artist in the Before Times was hard enough without adding another complex layer of uncertainty to the planning. And especially when there are a ton of eager artists wanting the same opportunities, and there's a whole lot of venues - and people - that haven't survived. I'm cautiously optimistic that my audiences are going to be willing to do more things soon, but planning "the old way" of 6 to 18 months or more in advance just isn't possible right now. 

So I've been learning some new things this past year to be able to do more with content I've already created; the biggies being video editing with Adobe Premiere Elements, #livestreaming from home like a broadcast that includes but isn't limited to live #performance, and learning more reading and writing music through transcribing some of the crazy things I played with Nor'easter back in my youth. 

My pandemic project, restoring that Nor'easter #recording from 1989 with engineer/tech wiz extraordinaire Dustin Delage up at Cabin Studios, has been both emotionally meaningful and intellectually challenging. My #folkmusic marketing skills are a rudimentary foundation for publicity work for a hard rock legacy project from the mid-80s in 2022. 

On this day, I'm choosing to see these experiences as the signposts towards what comes next. Performers need audiences for their work, and places to share it. I still do all the things I did before - sing, play, write, speak - but maybe the platforming will evolve into something more sustainable and economically reliable too. 

Always brainstorming, even at Happy Hour ;) Have a great weekend!

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