iambrakes

After reading about this yesterday, I found myself going through the catalog of Apple products at my house. Some are old and not used anymore, but at 15 Apple products in a household of 2, it's no wonder they are the biggest company in the country....ever.

Fair point. Passion and business don't often go hand in hand. But you will have at least a better chance of sticking with it if you care about it.

Not every idea is a good one, but at least parse through the ones you have and look for a personal angle that you can get excited about.

The other angle is not so much building on your passion, but building on your pain. If there is a pain point in something you do that is really a problem for you, then maybe you can solve it and stay energized because you are solving your own problem.

Am I allowed to comment on this if I'm not a coder? I design and work on my startup (and occasionally do coding tutorials) to music anyway.

I can't do stuff with lyrics if I'm really trying to concentrate, so I stick to indie instrumentals like...

Ratatat, Delicate Steve, Mice Parade, French Paddleboat

Otherwise, old school jazz like...

Gerry Mulligan, Hank Mobley, Horace Silver

And sometimes Jamaican style ska like...

The Skatalites, Blue Beat Players, Jazz Jamaica

Are any of your ideas based around anything that you have a personal passion about? Are they based on hobbys are something you studied in school?

You are going to have your best chance at making it if you have a personal interest in it beyond just being a good idea for a business.

The startup I'm working on is based around musical instruments because that's the number one thing that I find interesting.

I'd suggest taking a good look at your list and seeing which of your ideas is most interesting to you outside of probable success in a general sense and see if you can move that forward. Or look for a totally new idea that is in your personal interest space. Cooking, reading, complex math equations, whatever that is.

Cool idea. Would be nice if you programmed a few songs based on those chords and roughly timed them out. Sometimes it's more hunti feel like you are playing a song.

Another thing you could do is add a finger chart that shows the chord layout after a few seconds if you can't remember it.

Either way, good luck with the guitar.

I did for the first time today.

I wish you the best of luck but how do you plan on contending with some of the large stock music sites? I won't give names.

Are you going to open up to other composers to sell through your service?

I enjoyed this post. It's actually refreshing to hear that not everyone hits it big and that's okay sometimes. I'm in a similar situation.

As much as I read about the glorious successes and the spectacular failures, its important to also hear about the guys in the middle, working hard and keeping the dream alive. Good luck with Moon Clerk.

I like seeing this data charted out. For hardcore musicians, it's probably pretty common knowledge, but it's interesting to see it in chart form.

It actually makes we want to try writing some things avoiding the most common progressions to see what comes out.

With regards to other genres and other time periods, I think you'd find pretty similar data with what was "popular" at any given time. Although there have been composers who push the limits, and with some success, our brains seem to be hard wired to react well to the mathematical correlations that are present in the chord parings. On the other hand, perhaps the more exposed we become to varied chord progressions, the more pleasing they would sound.

There is a very interesting RadioLab episode exploring the rage that incited at the premiere of Stravinsky's "The Rite Of Spring". Essentially, scientists are learning how the brain reacts to dissonance in music. The story begins about 32 minutes in.

http://www.radiolab.org/2007/sep/24/