Last summer I mentioned to my friend Sian that I had written a lot of songs about whiskey and she suggested that I should put out a songbook of whiskey songs. That thought incubated for six or seven months and has now hatched. Not only has the thought hatched but the process of transcribing recordings into sheet music with melody, chords, and lyrics has begun!
A friend suggested that I could transpose the songs with AI. For the record I have a fear and revulsion of AI and stay way clear of it. If AI was a black monolith I would be an ape prancing around it beating the ground with a bone. So this idea was a no go. Being a musical primitive, I have contracted a skilled professional Adrian Dolan to transcribe recordings into sheets of music with melody, chords, and lyrics. It’s exciting to see my songs in this form! At some point in this process I will mount a fundraiser to cover the costs of the project.
I am so glad that Adrian is doing this work for me. That we are two humans interacting with a creative project and a skillset, that at some point we will sit across from each other, our eyes will take in each other's physical appearance, and our tongues will flap and words will come from our mouths and go into each other's ear holes. I feel certain that taking this project on with AI would have been a total fucking nightmare and I am glad that I will be putting money in his pocket and not some fucking tech bro's.
At some point in this process, when I finalize the costs, I will mount a fundraiser. There are two reasons for this fundraiser. The key reason is that I want to ascertain that there is enough interest in the book to warrant publication. I don't want to have boxes of unsold books to put in the furnace room with my boxes of unsold CD's and records. The second reason is that I am working less, earning less, and I don't have as much money to throw away on creative vanity projects. The fundraiser serves three purposes. One, raising funds. Two, gauging interest. Three, pre-selling The Product before production.
If you would like to receive very occasional updates about this project and be informed when the finished book is available contact me and I will add you to the list.