FAWM 2013 - Some Things

I finished the demos for the 2013 FAWM project on the 28th of February.  I usually pace myself, finishing one song and posting it on average every two days.  In this way, I'm assured I'll reach the goal of the 14 songs by the end of the month.

Usually, the routine is to write a song, give it some time (when it's available), then post it and start madly writing comments on others' songs in the hopes that you'll get some comments on the one you just posted.  It's a pretty supportive community, so people usually follow this unwritten rule.  The one exception is that people usually also follow the "if you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything"rule.  So sometimes you don't get any comments, which can be better or worse than getting comments like, "This song sucks."

I won't go into all the reasons I decided not to post comments on others' songs this year, or why I decided to post everything only on the very last day of the competition.  For that, you can check my "manifesto," which I posted on my artist page on FAWM.org.

What the manifesto doesn't say is that one of the key advantages to this process is that I didn't have to feel like something was in a somewhat finalized state after only a day or two of work.  Sometimes dedicating a limited amount of time to a song is all it takes, and sometimes it's beneficial.  However, there are other times where it's best to let a track simmer in my mind before calling it semi-complete.

The whole idea of FAWM is to write songs.  Not necessarily finish them, or even post demos.  However, for me, it doesn't count unless I post a demo.  For the record, I don't think this is the only way to do it, just my way.  I'm fortunate enough to have the equipment, skills and time to do this, and I use February to make this happen.

Waiting until the whole thing was completed allowed me the artistic distance to realize the best order for the songs, the best flow.  I tried to post those songs in that order, but due to a combination of changes to the site and my lack of familiarity with the changes, I flipped the order of a couple near the end.  No biggie.  The intent held in this case.

Part of the limitation of releasing demos in the order they're written is that the people who are out there listening believe that the album should be sequenced in the same way it was written.  This is how I did the first album I released, but it's also partially why I never released a second.  I've never felt that every song I wrote during the month deserved a release after that first year.

So maybe I'm older, wiser, whatever.  I know now that Uncle Frank was right.  "Every artist has a built-in shit detector."  You have to trust your instincts and try to only release things to the public that are better than average, at least.  Why release something that's just not that great?  Chock it up to experience, learn from it, and count it as something you've done, but don't cripple an album by putting something substandard on it because you feel you have to.

So the takeaway is that I really did learn something new this time around, that while I love the process of FAWMing, for me, sometimes it doesn't (directly) contribute to the quality of subsequent tracks.