I've just been to do my tax.  The person helping me (Sam) asked, “is this (music) a business or a hobby?”

And that's quite the question, isn't it.

Sam observed that if marketing is involved, it's a business.  She was probably talking about tax rules but it resonated with me in a completely different way.

Music has always been a hobby, something I do for fun, because I love it, because it makes me happy.  Some people play footy, others decorate cakes - I write songs and sing them.  

However, here we are - with a website and music-specific social media pages where I make posts about what I do and try to encourage other people to come to the things I'm doing.  

In other words - marketing.  

Sam (and the tax office) were right.  You don't tend to market a hobby.  You might tell people about it because you're proud of it or want to show it off.  But marketing is what you do when you are trying to get someone to “buy” something.  Or be interested in something.  To like something, maybe?  

This shifts the dynamic entirely.   It's not enough to just be quietly pleased that I made up a nice song that I like and enjoy singing - to internally self validate.  Now you need external validation …  you need other people (ideally not just your mum and your cats) to also like your song and like listening to you sing it.

And this is where imposter syndrome kicks in.  I see my friends and others I know who are far, far more talented and skilled than I am - and I wonder what on earth I'm thinking.   And that, frankly is just uncomfortable.

It would be nice to just be able to consider this issue, land on a way to feel about it and move on.  But this one is like standing on one of those things you get to improve your balance.  Constantly wobbling about, leaning one way then another depending on the day.  Sometimes within a day!

I don't think I'm alone.  Let me know if you also feel like that too xx

Songwriters?  Does this happen to you?  

It's a heap of fun writing and recording .. particular when you're doing it in the company of good people - like this dude in the picture with me >>.  It's like this little bubble of happy, creative time.  I thrive on it, I could do it all day every day.  It's the actual thing, right - this is what it's actually about.  Music.  You don't want it to end, because of that - but also because then the rest of it needs to happen.

What's the rest of it?  So glad you asked.

Well once you've done the musical part of making music, there is a shit ton of other stuff that has to be done to get it to the point of being out there in the world.  Artwork, videos, release admin, shameless self promotion (SSP) in the form of social media blergh. Designing posters and merch.  Trying to take selfies with your iphone that are not horrific. See this post for my boomer adventures in selfies and I'm not even a boomer.  And then you launch it.  Aiiiee.  Band and venue logistics.  Ticket sales.  Do they let cats and infants in to make up numbers?

So you really need to knuckle down and concentrate on that stuff.  Get on with it.  RING the venue Tanya.  BOOK THE BOYS IN, THEY WILL ALL BE TOO BUSY IF YOU LEAVE IT TOO LONG!!

But no.  Another song has arrived and is living rent free in my head.  Banging off the insides of my skull while I try to sleep.  And I have to write it.  It won't let me alone. This is how it always is with songs, for me.  However right now it's ABSOLUTELY INCONVENIENT.  I am supposed to be FINISHING things not STARTING them.  Sigh,

Is it just me?  I think it's a good song though.  Let's see.

This post from a week or so ago contains an amount of whining about how hard it is to find a good font these days.  

Well I take it back.  Getting this profile picture was way harder.  

I am not very photogenic, there just isn't any getting around it.  I never have been.  I think the most you can say about my face is that it has character.  I'm fine with that, mostly.  It's only an issue when I have to produce a kind of half decent picture to do some SSP*.  

So the biggest problem for me is that I just can't work out where the hell the camera is on the phone.  I am always looking in random directions - and the photo screams “someone who does not know what they are doing, trying to take a picture with an iphone”.  Hardly very professional.  (Although who am I actually kidding … )

Anyway I think I took about thirty million pictures of myself today. This one was me about to give up in desperation except somehow I managed to be looking in the right direction.  Hallelujah!

*SSP = shameless self promotion.

Felt curious, may delete later.  

Actually maybe I'll just add to this random test blog.  And I'm pretty happy with my new logo so I think I will leave it here and show it off.  

But goddam finding a good font IS HARD WORK.  ESPECIALLY when you have an awkward name like mine.  (Who's dumb idea was it to use my actual name as an artist name … oh yeah, me :/).

Anyway I started down the rabbit hole of making my own, but pulled myself up short as I sat there at 3am googling how to make a SVG.  Enough is enough.  Then I found the font and … get this, it's called TAN Nightingale.  TAN probably stands for something in font-world but I was just stoked that I found a font named after me!  And so my font it shall be.