~ Scribing Ways ~
Scribing Ways found its way into being in 2019, as an idea for a self-publishing option that would include both musical & literary works within its catalogue. The space of its inception involved an intricate series of happenstance moments, each important in turn, yet not fully known until afterwards. When pieced together & considered from the perspective of the other side, the following of those ideas essentially charted the terrain of transitioning from the state of mere notes-upon-paper to creating the possibility for the work to find its place in the lives of others, in such a way that supported the gradual development & artistic integrity of such a journey.
Whilst the initial sense of name & concept of self-publishing were very clear, the process of exploring how to bring those into being proved challenging & endeavouring to achieve the release of a website & the possibility of receiving some income from the creative work encountered many delays. Some of those difficulties were caused by individual circumstances, others were simply an inherent part of the terrain of artistic careers. The global pandemic effected all of those, at times exacerbating the previous difficulties, at others, simply adding extra ones.
The experience of those years has been a reminder of how there can be opposing perspectives, equally valid in life & existing simultaneously, particularly in times when the basic well-being of many people is endangered, their way-of-life shifted into ‘survival mode’, the future uncertain. There can be a very clear message in such circumstances, that art does not matter, is selfish, mere frivolous idling & one ought to assist with the real things that do matter, such as caring on a daily basis for those who need assistance, ensuring, supporting, the basic levels of well-being for others & thus contributing responsibly to one’s community. The opposing perspective that art is essential: it nourishes soul, understanding, compassion & actually enables one to endure or reach beyond immediate suffering or other limitation, live fully, becomes also very clear. Choosing between the two perspectives, finding at which point one’s responsibility lies as to nurturing physical, mental or spiritual being, be it upon an individual, family or community level, is not always easy to manage, nor to apply.
However Scribing Ways develops in the future, it will be searching to find an answer for how composers & writers can live true to their artistic calling, contribute positively to the lives of others & also experience happiness & fulfilment in their own personal lives.
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~ The Words ~
One of those life-subtleties that later bring a smile at previous lack of comprehension, writing was ‘always there’, yet remained for a long time unnoticed, simply due to its inherent place-in-the-scheme-of-things. It saw a student through the practicalities of childhood schooling & other formal education, assisted with creating cards for special occasions & was present, albeit in different form, in books.
As life continued, writing discreetly found a place for itself in notebooks of its own during the years of long-distance travel for tertiary studies & much later developed into a further collection of notebooks, fragments of ideas noted upon scraps of paper &, very importantly, some spiral-bound books of blank pages into which printed copies of completed poems were progressively pasted.
Books… plural… poems… plural… the evidence of words-through-time… all catalyst for a moment of recognition of self-as-writer… as one-to-whom-words-find-their-way.
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~ The Music ~
A more obvious journey, this, from the curiosity of a child for sound-patterns & nursery rhymes to piano lessons, from a decided tendency to ‘make up’ pieces to graded exam work, later fronting university auditions & completing a Bachelor of Music degree, it was, probably, clear that music was to be the career ahead. Less clear was the way of it though & with teaching both presented & accepted as the most appropriate means by which to serve that obvious calling, life consequently developed in that direction.
It came with gifts: those of assisting others to find & nurture their own joy of being with music. It also brought difficulties, for neither an inner muse, nor the flow of music itself, can be well, contented, with having been silenced in that manner. Upon consideration of the number of manuscript books filled with sketches throughout that time, perhaps it could be argued that they were not ‘silenced’, at least, not completely, for there was evidently still the following-of-ideas, the fragments of sound & silence that, with listening, then came through into being pieces for piano, string instruments or voice, essentially the song of a land within.
It was a song laid down in the moments of between, part-observance, celebration, of life lived, part-elegy of that not, of all beyond reach. It was also something quite uncommon, something that bespoke ‘composer’, irrespective of the other labels that had been so well-meaningly applied & so diligently tended.
As such, a path of quietly living with music in one’s own time brought its own truth forward, so too the inevitable imperative that the gift of those pieces be passed on to others.
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~ Patreon ~
During late 2021, Patreon was considered as a way to provide subscription-based access to creative work & thus create the possibility to begin developing an income source. A creator page was consequently worked on over the course of a few months, along with plans for which works to include & also preparing the images & recordings that would be involved in the three month trial phase. The page was launched in January 2022, with four tiers to enable patrons to choose which category of works they were interested in accessing & in which format. In July 2022, the tier structure was expanded to eight tiers, with two options being created for each of the original four tiers: a ‘transient’ option, providing access to one lunation’s worth of posts & an ‘archive’ option, which includes access to all posts released for that tier.
The four original tier categories are listed below, along with a description of their current focus:
- Cello: Listening: The focus of this tier is a retrospective journey through pieces for cello & voice (vocalise) & simple duet pieces for string instruments, written between 2021-2017.
- Poetry: Listening & Poetry: Reading: Poems from the years 2018 & 2017 have been completed for these tiers, with the poems from 2016 & 2015 being currently underway.
- Piano: Listening: The focus of this tier is a retrospective journey through pieces for solo piano & occasionally piano & voice (vocalise) or songs with words, written between 2020 to 2016.
Further information about the tiers is available on the Patreon creator page. If you are at all curious, please take some time to explore it & decide whether or not any of those options feel to be something that you’d like to include within your own life.
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