#50, #51 and #52 The End For Now
This experience has been polarising in many ways, like all good experiences I suppose. The effects on my practice and me as a maker have been extremely positive. I have defined a sound, improved my composition skills, I can write no matter mood or circumstance, see ideas through without thinking too much, meet deadlines, and my tech skills on Logic X/Ableton Live and general sound engineering abilities have seen a pronounced improvement. On the flip side, I put a lot of pressure on myself emotionally that I didn’t notice until the end of the project. Chimera_52 has been a constant in my life while a million other events occurred, and this consistency allowed it to fade into the background of my weekly tasks so that I essentially forgot that I was engaged in a massive undertaking. I began to come apart emotionally and berate myself for not being able to keep up with my commitments. And this thing hung in the background, and I berated myself even more when a week passed and the piece of music I produced didn’t meet some undefined internal standard I had set for myself.
A million other things is: five international tours, teaching privately, teaching two days a week at KDC, teaching at the VCA, rehearsing multiple evenings a week, just being in three bands, around 50 shows, working with playable streets across two installations and a series of virtual workshops, maintaining my relationship and friendships, my physical and mental health. But I wouldn’t trade all of that for anything. I may not do it again the same way, but I wouldn’t give it up.
So what next? I hope to find something to do with this massive collection of music I have. Most likely whittle out the ones that have a sound, or can be tweaked to fit in to a certain vibe. Create a live show, an album, put it out and see what happens. I am looking forward to the prospect of sitting with a piece of music for longer than a week, to go really deep with something and create subtle tweaks, and finally finish. I have already begun this process with #31 Tools, which I’ve reworked into a full-length dance track with the help of Rowan Mason AKA Sanpo Disco. Hopefully it will be seeing the light of day in the coming months.
I will keep up the blog. I’ve been delighted to discover this medium, and even if few people read it I find the process cathartic and enlightening. Time permitting, I would like to keep up the Chimera’s also, but I will most likely do this during writing periods. I would like to experiment with a fortnight format, and do a series that is released properly. But this is all after I deal with this lot of material!
I want to thank my wife Anna, who has proof read every single blog post and listened to every single track. She has dealt with me at all ends of the spectrum during this process and always supported me and given excellent advice. Unfortunately, it’s not completely over as I have a year of dissertation writing coming up, so, sorry bella. I’d also like to acknowledge those few friends and soundcloud followers that kept up with the project and gave me encouragement along the way. Your comments were often very influential on my musical decisions and general emotional overtone. So for now, goodbye and thanks for engaging.









