Dave Haynes // Bytesize Music

Derek Sivers blog is always a great read. If you’re not already subscribed to his RSS feed or following him on Twitter then you should think about changing that. I don’t always agree with him however. His recent post Shut up! Announcing your plans makes you less motivated to finish them is a case in point. Derek argues that it’s not a good idea to announce future goals or to discuss upcoming projects with your network. He goes on to describe the phenomenon of ’symbolic self-completion’ ie. that announcing your plans to others satisfies your self-identity just enough that you’re actually less motivated to do the hard work needed.

Turning this argument over in my head made me think about two of my own projects that I announced this year.

Firstly, I resolved in January to try and help raise more money for charity than I earn in a year. Admittedly I am kind of regretting announcing this. Although it’s still quite possible, it’s now over half way through the year and I’ve only completed one project, Twestival.fm, raising around $5000 for charity:water. But if I hadn’t announced it, I probably wouldn’t have had the self-motivation to raise that first $5000. And I wouldn’t have gotten to work or meet with some absolutely wonderful people (@stef, @amanda, @renate, @adamstrawson). Nor would I now been involved in two potentially awesome music charity projects coming up later this year (I hope I’ll be able to confirm more about those soon!).

Secondly, Music Hack Day would not be set to take place on 11/12 July. I’d been talking about the concept of doing something like this since last June. It was only once I started talking about it with lots of different people (when the idea was still quite implausible) that all the pieces started coming together earlier this year. Even then we still announced the Hack Day publicly before we had anything like a date, venue or any sponsors! Three months later and we’re setup for what should be an absolutely fantastic event (blog post coming soon).

I think there’s probably an element of truth in what Derek is saying and he does lay down evidence to make his case. But I would argue that a greater crime than announcing your plans (and risking non-completion) is to not announce any plans through fear that you won’t succeed or look like a failure..

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Recently I blogged about an exciting new music iPhone app called Lilt Line. I thought it would be interesting to catch up with it’s creator Gordon Midwood for a quick chat to find out a bit more about it.

Previous interviews I’ve done for full articles I’ve written have all been done over the phone, but I thought it might be fun to doing something over Twitter this time round. I’ve seen a few so called ‘Twinterviews’ recently and it’s an interesting concept. I like the idea that the interview takes places in public. It encourages people to follow both participants in the ‘twinterview’ and by using #hashtags the whole thing can be searched and read in its entirety. We used the hashtag #bytsz1 and I’m thinking of maybe extending it into a series.

There were definitely some downsides however. I initially thought that doing the interview over Twitter would make it short, quick and snappy. I couldn’t have been more wrong. It actually took over an hour! For some reason I thought that Twitter was realtime but it took anywhere from 5-10 minutes for a reply to show up. One improvement could be to actually do the interview over the natural course of a day. Your thoughts and feedback would be more than welcome.

Anyhow, here’s how the interview ran. Or you can see it on directly on twitter here: http://twitter.com/#search?q=%23bytsz1

haynes_dave: So describe Lilt Line to me in 140 characters

differentcloth: lilt line is a massively single player rhythm racing tactical beat ‘em up hack’n’slash dubstep space flight simulation

haynes_dave: That’s different! When and how did you first come up with the idea?

differentcloth: i love rhythm games and always wanted to make one - i also love original games - & i dont like guitar hero!

haynes_dave: it seems deceptively simply. How long did it take to put together?

differentcloth: um, deceptively long, about 4 months!

haynes_dave: and do you develop games full time or are you one of the new breed of bedroom app creators?
differentcloth: i have a full time job, it’s very much a hobby, so i am one of the new breed…
differentcloth: so i made lilt line mainly between the hours of 12-4 in the morning which is probably why it turned out so dark

haynes_dave: this is probably the first ever game to purely feature dubstep. Are u a big fan or did it just suit the game’s vibe?

differentcloth: i love all kinds of discordant music, but actually a friend put me on to 16bit and they just fit perfectly, so good…
differentcloth: & i’m really happy that it’s the first dubstep music game too!

haynes_dave: so which came first, the music or the game?

differentcloth: the game, 16bit came on board later, but their music influenced the style massively and determined the level design too

haynes_dave: so do you see new levels, with new artists and new genres? Or will you move onto new projects entirely after this?
differentcloth: well i’d like to do an update for the app with a few new levels and possibly a new game mode when i get some time
differentcloth: if lilt line turns out to be a commercial success then i’d love to do a tapulous with it if that’s what you mean

haynes_dave: and what’s the reaction been like to the music? Do you think the game is helping drive sales or attention to 16bit?
differentcloth: and then i have loads of experimental game ideas i want to try out too - but whether or not i do it on the iphone…
differentcloth: ppl generally love the music - there are a few that hate it too - but when u do something different that’s how it goes
differentcloth: and i hope it does drive attention & sales to 16bit because they are brilliant

haynes_dave: you mention commercial success so I gotta ask. What’s more lucrative? Releasing a music-app or album on iTunes?
differentcloth: haha interesting question that i guess many music execs are asking themselves right now
differentcloth: however so far i have yet to recoup my costs from sales of the game - but its a hobby not a commercial venture

haynes_dave: and do you think labels and artists should be releasing music as iPhone apps? If so, in what sort of form?
differentcloth: if it was a commercial venture i probably would have had to make it a lot more mundane
differentcloth: as i see it, the music industry is scrambling to try and find revenue anywhere, so they’d be stupid not to try
differentcloth: there are so many forms music apps could take, i hope that some cool original games come out of it

haynes_dave: and so how do independent artists connect with independent game developers such as yourself? By chance?

differentcloth: not sure how to answer that in general, if anyone’s interested just drop me a message though!

haynes_dave: Finally, any fave apps you think are really creative or innovative? Either game or music. Personally I love Eliss

differentcloth: yep i’m with you there, Eliss and Edge are my favourite apps - thx for the interview!

haynes_dave: cool, thanks for the chat! Everyone following should check out Lilt Line on iTunes at http://bit.ly/liltline

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For the last week or so I’ve been reviewing many of the applications that we’ve received for interns (and other positions) at SoundCloud. It got me thinking about the changing ways in which jobs should be applied for nowadays and how important your online personal brand is, even when starting out in your career. I think this is particularly true if you’re hunting for an opening in the music or web industry. So I’ve jotted down my thoughts briefly in a guest post over at New Music Strategies, a blog that you should definitely be reading every week if you’re looking to start out in today’s music business.

Read full post over at New Music Strategies

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