…and that’s the official end of Nascent Music.

The unofficial end, of course, was the recording on May 12th; but I didn’t know it at the time.  However, over the last few months, as the podcast went on unscheduled hiatus for the umpteenth time, I’ve gradually realized that it’s stopped serving the needs and purposes for which I started it almost three years ago, and that maybe it was time to pack it in.

Fortunately, during that same period, an old friend made contact, checked out the podcast, and asked whether I planned to release any compilations, and I recognized that as the perfect way to give the show a proper ending.  I’ve been working feverishly on it (I want to say tirelessly, but let’s be honest: I’m exhausted) for the last two months, and I’m very happy with how it’s come out.  It’s telling, if not exactly ironic, that I’ve put more time, thought, and concerted effort into ending Nascent Music than I was able to muster for any of the actual episodes in the last year or more.

nascentmusic.com expires in January of 2009, and I won’t renew it, so this website will disappear after the new year.  After that, if you want to download any episodes, a complete audio archive will still be available at http://shanecarey.net/nm/archives.html.  Comments have been disabled on all posts (including this one) due to the ratio of spam to anything else, but you will still be able to reach me, as always, at the email address included at the end of every episode.

One thing that hasn’t waned in all this time is my gratitude toward my listeners.  I never figured out how many of you there are, or (other than a couple of close friends) who or where you are, or what you get out of listening.  But I know you’re out there and I appreciate you sticking it out even during the leanest times.  I promise there won’t be any more posts after this, so you won’t miss anything if you remove my feed from your reader/podcatcher.  Do check shanecarey.net every once in a while, as I hope I will be updating that more frequently with new and various projects.

And with that, I’m out.  As always, thanks for listening.

Finally took the time to come up with my own layout and color scheme instead of the original one that combined the standard Blogger layout with a questionable mint green. If you have any comments on the new look, whether good or bad, my door is always open.

I guest-hosted the latest Strada-Sphere Radio Podcast. Juan has always been a vocal supporter of Nascent Music, and I’ve offered a few times to help him out if he needed to take a break or something but wanted to get a show up. This is just such an occasion, as he’s running a theme song contest, but his Macintosh died before he could play the entries. I’ve decided not to link the MP3 directly here or to add an enclosure tag: most of my listeners are also SSR listeners, and wouldn’t appreciate automatically downloading the same file twice. But if you follow this link to the SSR blog, there’s a link to the MP3 file if you want it.

Don’t overlook the new episode of Nascent Music that came out yesterday as well!

http://nascentmusic.com/mp3/2006/10/nm20061014.mp3
More patient music, mellow and spacious, with a few repeating themes to use the time consciously without getting self-conscious about the time.

As mentioned in the intro, comments are open again starting with this post. So drop me a line, why don’tcha?

http://nascentmusic.com/mp3/2006/06/nm20060621.mp3
Not that you’d know it from the intro, in which I speak more quickly than usual, but I finally managed to slow it down. Patient music at last. Music starts at 2:58, and the entire recording is 21:11 (9.70 MB).

Links: I thanked Zak and Juan, but did I name their podcasts? Apologies if not; of course, I was speaking of StickWorld Podcast and Strada-Sphere Radio. Also, check out kataStatik, who recently released a 70-minute improv and finally has an RSS feed/podcast of his own.

Comments are off. In the history of the site, I’ve gotten 8 legitimate comments, a trackback from myself, and dozens of comment spam attempts. WordPress provides a lot of ways to avoid comment spam, but one asks: why bother? The original Notes From The Mind Of… might have become a dialogue, but it never did, and Nascent Music didn’t either; I observe that the other two Stick podcasts also support comments, and also don’t get any. Their feedback comes from emails, and I encourage those as well. My email address is in this podcast, and you’re welcome to email any thoughts you may have. So, with thanks to those who have commented so far, we bid adieu to this largely unneeded feature of Nascent Music.

If you can read this, then you’ve made it to the new host.  Leave a comment or send email if you have any trouble.

Comments have been disabled on all posts but this one.  More on that later.

New podcast due in a few days.

Sorry for the delay — 9 days and counting doesn’t sit right with me even if nobody is asking. I was prepared to record another one on the 8th, but a grotesque hiss has appeared in my equipment and, due to film scoring project, I haven’t been able to work on removing it. I hope to be able to do so and get a new recording online within the next few days. Thanks for bearing with me.

I finally decided on a new name for the podcast: “Nascent Music.” Tweaks to the site are on their way, to use the name and to draw more attention to the podcasts (which are currently not obvious to new visitors, I believe, when a long post like the last one pushes them down to the bottom of the screen).

Having listened to a bunch of other musicians’ podcasts, it is more clear now that single-song podcasts are common in a non-radio show format. This is fine with me; I prefer to present new stuff more often, and the songs are long enough a first-time listener’s patience is tested plenty without putting three of them in one file.

I haven’t given up on saving some time during the week. As planned, I waited until today to edit the week’s recordings, and to record the opening and closing speech for them. However, I’ll still be releasing them 2-3 days apart, so the one I recorded today won’t be posted until Friday. If I were to post all three at once, a lot of people would think that it was a weekly show, because a lot of people will just look at the most recent thing; so it seems reasonable to me to make it more obvious that there are three files a week by putting some time between each post.

I’m not sure it’s the right approach, but we’ll see how this week goes. I don’t think anybody cares whether the recording is made the same night it’s released. But I might.

I don’t have enough examples of other recording artists’ podcasts to know how I’m doing. Is it bad that my podcasts are only fifteen minutes long? Good that I offer new music as often as I do?

Capturing, editing, and posting the MP3s takes about three times as long as the actual recording. Boo-hoo, a whole hour, I know. Still, I’m thinking that, if I do something better with those 45 minutes two days a week, like practicing the instrument, then it might be worth that savings to wait until week’s end to edit all of the recordings together into one single file. This would be more like other podcasts I’ve heard, 45-60 minutes long with several different songs in one release (the difference being, of course, that they’ll still be my brand of song, 10-15 minutes long with all mistakes intact). Better to be more like them, or is it better now? I’m still unsure about it, but I reckon that a holiday week might be a useful example, so I’ll try it this week and see how I feel about it. Feel free to let me know how you feel about it, if you have an opinion.