Giving the muse an office job.

Finally got it rendered and zipped. This (zip, 37MB) is the result of an experiment, based on "I write only when inspiration strikes. Fortunately it strikes every morning at nine o'clock sharp" (W. Somerset Maugham).

The aim: write a song on each of thirty days in a row. Doesn't have to be good, can be any old crap. You just have to do something that constitutes a finished piece. If you do two in a day, that's great! You still need to do one the next day.

Failures: I didn't manage one a day for thirty days, but twenty-two over thirty-five days. Many are nothing like a finished piece, just the barest sketch. Reasons include being too busy to reliably clear an uninterrupted hour each day on headphones to work on stuff, a bout of illness and just saying "fuck it" a bit often.

Successes: this "do something every day" method seems to get my brain pointed in the right direction, and when I said "OK, need today's tune" something would bubble up out of my brain. Frequently something awful, but that's not a criterion, and some of it is not a bad starting point at all. I also have a map of my personal clichés to work on.

I'd say it demonstrated the value of the method. It seems the sort of thing I'd do again, but if I think "would I actually do it this year, for instance?" I'm not so sure. Even though I'm basically not doing anything else in particular. You should try it too, and report back.

Bits you can help with: some of these I think I nicked. In particular the last one, "Please Don't Make Me Wait" (n.b.: working titles were made up on the spot) — I've listened to ten or so songs of that title, but I still strongly suspect it's ripped off. Edit: It's "Don't Get In My Way" by Linx from C81. Bah!