Having now familiarized myself with Word Press and the FWRD/Iron Template the site is coming together quite quickly! But what is a bunch of well placed chunks of data if the data isn’t interesting or eye-catching? This is where I’m very thankful to have had my good friend Joe Cantin help me with the design of the website. From taking the main pictures on the Home and Composer/Sound Designer pages, to creating my logo, to also suggesting a colour and font scheme, Joe has helped capture a similar energy to my music and bring it to life visually within my site. To see more of Joe’s work, visit his Instagram HERE
Next up is having two good friends of mine help me with some educational videos that will help clients better understand my process as a composer, and why/when hiring a composer is the right move. Craig McDonald has been my best friend for many years, and so when he needed some work to beef up his portfolio as a Copy Writer, the timing couldn’t have worked out any more perfectly. Craig has a way with words where he can be concise while painting a full picture in the readers mind. A true wordsmith, Craig has been very helpful in the creation of my Compositional Blueprint, and creating the written content for each of my educational videos (also, there’s a good chance he’ll have proof read these first few blogs). It will be exciting to see where his new career takes him, and I’m very thankful to have had his help on the site thus far. Wherever Josh the Musician takes me in my career, and however far Craig takes his new gig in Copy Writing, it’s great to know we will always be there for one another, no matter what the journey. Also, I need to mention my good friend KC Pickett who has recently got a job as a video editor, and will be assisting Craig and I in the completion of my educational videos. Any video editing tricks, colour correction, or general video goodies will have been because of KC’s hard work. Many thanks to both of these stellar friends for coming to my rescue in areas that I otherwise would have attempted, and executed in a sadly unprofessional way.
Next goals for JTM:
Seizures Palace – this page is currently just a bunch of links to other social media outlets. For now, I am considering switching to a new online distributor (Distrokid, instead of Tunecore) and once that’s done the links will be updated. Furthermore, the Seizures Palace page will be filled with new content, including: music production tutorial videos, DJ sets, upcoming gigs (also seen on Home Page currently), photo gallery, and a new album release in late summer 2018. Of course, any other passion projects associated with my electronic music stylings will be posted on the Seizures Palace page as well, but those goodies are often best left as a secret…for now.
Composer/Sound Designer – for this page I’m looking forward to adding some testimonials at the bottom of the page to show my past clients’ impressions of the work I’ve done for them. I also have a couple of larger projects that I’m working on, one including a nine and a half minute long song that goes through over 10 genres of music, and will be presented as a simple music video done by my great friend Pedro Peres from Los Angeles. Also, my Song a Week video series will be presented in an easy to navigate fashion, as well as any other passion projects (which will be disclosed at at a later date). I am also still trying to decide if I’d like to put my gear/software list on this page, or my Seizures Palace page. So far, this page is looking like the appropriate spot.
Teacher – I will also be adding a testimonials page at the bottom of the Teacher section to show both the perspective of current students and parents in regard to my teaching style, professionalism as a teacher, and anything else they feel is worth sharing. Also, down the line I’d like to do more videos going over some of the basics of piano/vocal technique, and a couple of advanced videos to catch the eye of people at the intermediate level that are hoping to bring their playing up another level. These videos will hopefully lead people to my full online teaching courses, which is another large project that I will be taking on during 2018-2020. For current students, these videos will serve as resources to help instil the fundamentals that I have taught them through our lessons, and might just be fun to watch.
Mixing/Mastering – I will be adding the mixing work that I’ve done for the Toronto band Simcoe, as well as some mastering I’ve done for my Seizures Palace projects. For my mastering section, I’m going to show how the songs sound before and after the mastering process.
Blog – shortly before the release of this website, I will be doing my third blog post on the building of joshthemusician.com, which will help explain any other major developments to the site, as well as discuss issues I had along the way and how those issues were fixed. After that, my blog will open up to many other topics that I am very much looking forward to explore (composition/teacher philosophy, software/hardware reviews, upcoming projects, general journals, and many more!)
Until the next blog, cheers!
*Alternate idea for the home page’s main picture
