So Danco Samba

I know that it's only been a month since I posted Summer Samba, but this was the song on my Posting Schedule, so I had to do it, right? As I've stated before, it's hard to have a successful blog if you don't do any planning. (If there's anyone reading this who is pulling their hair out because they don't write their blog posts until two days before, don't worry - by no planning I mean literally not even thinking about your post until the day before or even the morning of.)

Especially with this kind of blog where significant time must be spent before each post. Even for a simple jazz standard, it takes a few weeks to get it prepared, and several months or even a year for RCM level 10 songs like this rondo (okay, that might be an exaggeration because it's 7 pages long, but you get the point, it takes time).

So if I completely ignore all the things I've written down about my plans and goals for learning, recording, and posting songs, combined with having the completely wrong mindset about blogging that I certainly don't have, then look below for what's going to happen.

Note: I suggest you scroll down and start playing the song before you begin reading the post, because it's going to be quite long.

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Tuesday, August 7
I say, "Hmm. What should I post tomorrow. Let's see. Well, I haven't learned any new songs in weeks, and I don't have any songs I've recorded, and I can't learn a song in only two days, so.... I guess I'll just skip this week's post and move on to the next one."

Tuesday, August 14
"Well let's see. Oh. Today's Tuesday. Tomorrow I'm supposed to have a song ready to post. What's it going to be? Well hmm........ I didn't learn any songs, and I don't have any waiting to be posted, so.... I'll just skip my post again."

This pattern continues for many weeks. I get a few brief insights into what might be going on, but I don't do anything about it.

Wednesday, November 21
After making my first post in a very long while, and celebrating the "relative success" it's had during the week it's been online, I glance at my stats and realize they are all going down. "My blog and channel haven't been getting many views, no one's subscribed in over four months, and I can't even remember the last time someone liked or commented. It seems like no one's really interested in me anymore, so......Forget it! I'm not going to put any effort into my blog anymore because obviously it's going to be useless. I'll just throw my songs out there whenever I want and whoever finds them might be kind enough to help me get some big numbers and get to the top. I was hoping for hundreds of thousands of followers, but since that will never happen, why try?"

November 2022, four years later, looking at my channel homepage:

Still only 3??

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You can see what happened in that little story I told you. (But what I've been saying here isn't how I feel about my music at all. Yes, I admit that sometimes I record a song in a rush, skip a post, or forget about my goals. But I try to avoid doing what I've just told you about here.) 

I didn't bother to find a solution and make an effort towards my goals, instead I just made quick and dirty excuses that I learned nothing from, and then moved on. This caused me to lose my audience due to inconsistent posting, and because I cared more about having a big audience than actually making music for my enjoyment and yours, I promptly stopped putting in effort, lost all interest and gave up. Seems pretty foolish to me.

And hoping for hundreds of thousands is probably a silly goal. First of all, I might not be comfortable with having that many fans listening to my music. I don't need that many fans listening to my music. But if we do the math, I first let loose on the internet less than a year ago. If I wanted 100,000 subscribers in a year, I'd need almost 300 every day, which is about one every 5 minutes. That's a crazy rate! I think it would break the world record. Only the top stars get fans that fast, and even if they did, they probably couldn't sustain that rate for a whole year.

So long story short, if you don't make a plan, success is going to be hard to come by. And don't worry about being the best or the most popular. You don't have to be the next George Gershwin or have three million fans to be somebody special. I know something you can plan to do in the next five minutes - listen to this samba, which I said practically nothing about (oops). Why don't you turn on this song, fill your black cup with a blue music note on it with a tropical smoothie, and enjoy on a hot summer day.....