Well, Christmas was interesting for me, full of cheer, and other bumpy things.  Ran across an old school mate of mine who is a multimedia artist living in LA.  I have always admired him even from Jr. High School days, but when I got this response from a simple question:  What do you think of my tunes?  I replied with a full on blog post, and have come up with some questions for any other listeners out there that might read this.  Here goes the letters (btw, they are edited to protect the innocent LOL):


Dave,

First let me apologize for not getting back to you sooner. Traveling to see family(s) in MO was not ideal for having some time to contemplate a response to your question, so I put it off until I was back at home in LA.

I think your tunes are pretty cool. Sometimes the genres you work in aren't exactly my cup of tea but so what - it's still interesting listening. Standouts for me are New Horizon, the new one Seven Headed Beast, and Satori. Things like Pulse and Heat, not so much. I'll keep listening though because I've consistently enjoyed the sound design choices you make. I admire how prolific you are too - it's inspirational makes me want to be able to put up more tracks.

Your blog is interesting too. I enjoyed the posts about your approach to music theory. You might like heatercore.net. He's been doing a series of Live tips this year, some great stuff in there - most purely technical.

Have a good new year man, keep it up.

Cheers,
---b__


B__,

It's funny because I'm not so sure of what genre that I am trying to work in.  Some times it just comes out.  I have been, for a long time, trying to emulate a lot of synth pop, power pop, or what have you....also lately been trying to be in EBM.  But for the most part, I find that the listener defines the genre for a musician....so, am now wondering what you had categorized the tunes as?


Also, what genre(s) do you prefer working in, and/or listening to?  Reason why I ask, is that you said that you will keep listening, I mean I don't necessarily want to pander to my audience, but if I happen to like the same genre, then hell yes, I will give it a shot.  Something is bound to take hold with my audience such that they will pay to hear the tunes.  Ministry started out as a synth pop band before going full on crazy industrial metal, for example.

Oh, as far as Pulse and Heat go...LOL, I hated pulse from the get-go.  It was originally composed by J___ H______, and rearranged by myself.  He plays the guitar on the track.  We had a falling out due the the tune, his ego, and the fact that he wouldn't return some CDs that I had lent him.  (hate to dog a fellow artist like J___ who is an awesome guitarist, but...truths gotta be told somewhere).

As far as Heat goes, I never really liked it either...it's just a work that i posted early on, and it has remained on soundcloud due to the number of listens, and downloads (if there are any).  I rotate the songs on the basis of popularity and age.  If they get a lot of listens, and are fairly young, I keep them up.  Else, I dump them for new tracks.

On the subject of the frequency of releases, I gotta say a couple of things:  I am a Zazzle.com contributor.  I get a royalty for T-shirt designs, and some other graphic design stuff from there about every other month.  It's not much, but it buys lunch or so each payment that I get.

I got to thinking about how I could branch out, and after acquiring Ableton, and developing a proficiency at it, I decided that it was time to try to market the tunes too.  I have noticed that over the years, the Zazzle royalties have increased.  I believe it is due to true popularity, not just simple inflation.  My reasoning again for the music was to post, post, post, then it takes hold.  Increases.  Makes free money for me basically.  I am especially glad that I can inspire another artist!

I also mentioned to you in [gigantic department store chain store], that I "enjoy" a mental illness.  I have been on and off disability a couple of times for it, and free time is supremely available for me.  I gotta do something with it.  Hopefully I can dump the disability for income from creativity.

The blog is something that I started to emulate Tom Shear of Assemblage 23.  I gotta say a few things about the guy:  1)  He is an amazing musician.  Pretty much does the same thing I do, writes at home, probably from his bedroom in his underwear, LOL.  But then he travels to Europe, Russia, and Mexico, not to mention all over the U.S. to perform.  His lable is Metropolis Records, where many of my favorite artists are produced.

Now the second thing about him is that I have struck up an e-mail correspondence with him, and man, he is very, very, cool.  He has a one on one relationship with his fans.  I only wish I had the gumption to do this back in 87 when Trent Reznor just got his break, ya know.

I really appreciate your encouragement.  It seemed to me, when we bumped into each other, as though someone recognized my "blooming", if you will.  You appeared to be surprised that the loner guy in Jr. High who ate twinkies all alone for breakfast finally broke out into something better.  And I appreciate that.

Thank you,

David.

P.S. B__, I am gonna use an edited version of this letter as a blog post, hope you don't mind....thanks again.


So, for the reader, the above questions still linger:  What genre do you like?  What genre do you categorize me as?  And well, what do you want to hear?

I know that Kurt Vonnegut suggests writing to entertain only one person (probably himself, as what I do with my tunes), however feedback is incredibly important to me too. 

Again reader, the questions still linger.

David
HMM/TCM