COTTON AND CHINA

It would probably be a good start to explain why I have titled this blog post as 'Cotton and China'. Cotton is described as the 'traditional' gift of a second wedding anniversary and 'china' being the 'modern' gift of the same. Well, for the past two years I have been married to the music industry and I thought that I should mark the occassion with a little gift for myself. I am going to interpret the 'cotton' as going into town to buy myself some new clothes and I'll meet a few friends for a cuppa to honour 'china'. Then it's time to move on and prepare for year three of this marriage. It looks like a pair of 'leather' trousers are on the cards for next year's anniversary gift!!

Mine will be slightly 'shorter'

I have discovered that the people who enjoy reading the 10,000 blog are people interested in getting an understanding of some aspects of the music industry, maybe some people starting out in it and hopefully some people who enjoy keeping up with my own adventures in it.

2012 was a strange year for me. It began it with complete burn out. Having worked on three projects (3 single releases) throughout 2011 right up until January 2012, I had no option but to stop for a few months to take stock and find out what exactly had worked, what hadn't etc etc.
It was March before I started to think straight again and before I knew it, I was overloaded with ideas, with 10,000 being the idea that I loved the most.

I knew the volume of work and time was going to be incredible but I was hopeful that the concept alone would pull a few punches for me. (please see previous blog posts for all the info on the 10,000 project). I began with great gusto and sense of spirit for the project and spent from April until September knee deep in the 10,000 experiments.

With hindsight, being one of the great 'wonders of the world' of course, I have come to the conclusion that the project idea was excellent but the work involved in achieving all of the experiments was over ambitious. I am not going to make excuses either. I don't do trying to explain my way out of things. It was a superb idea and worked on many levels but I also experienced another period of burnout from September to October and normally life dutes were difficult to fulfill, never mind trying to achieve targets. So with that in mind, I would have set the project targets for a period of 12 months rather than 3. So with that knowledge, I decided to keep the 10,000 project ticking over into 2013 and make the most of a product and project that I am extremely proud of!

Over the past two months, after I caught up on my sleep, I decided to open up my eyes and ears to everything else going on around me musically and I discovered some gems. I had the pleasure of playing a traditional music set in PJ O'Hare's in Carlingford every Tuesday night for a couple of months and rediscovered my love for Irish traditional music, especially a contemporary style of it and one of the acts I discovered doing this very well are 'Ciorras'. CIORRAS

I also got back to listening to music from some popular piano artists such as 'Gavin De Graw', who I am a big fan of. Gavin De Graw LIVE with 'Chariot'

I also had some time to think about some things I had overlooked, such as a website!! www.sineadmcnally.ie
I got the ball rolling and through the magic of 'Twitter', I accidently found a web designer whose work I really liked. Within just days of correspondance with him, the web design was created and we launched it on the 19th October. It is a work in progress with pages etc to add to it. I'd like to give Ross a plug here as he was a pleasure to work with! ELECTRIC KIWI WEB DESIGN

Whilst enjoying the time to listen and watch and take in the successes and failures of my projects in 2012, I have enjoyed some correspondance with the 'Lady In Red' man himself Mr.Chris De Burgh who got in touch to say he enjoyed listening to my music. I was delighted to hear of my five nominations for the Music Review Unsigned Awards being held this December 16th. With the shortlist for each category being announced next week, I have my fingers and toes crossed that I make it on to one of the shortlists of 5 acts. You can check out Ireland's FIRST ever unsigned music awards event here: MUSIC REVIEW UNSIGNED

I have also found myself laughing a lot over the last month or two and it is true that laughter is the best medicine. So with that in mind, I'll leave with a piece from Mr.Tommy Tiernan that cracks me up everytime I watch it. Anyone who grew up in Ireland especially will get this. Enjoy and take care. I'll chat to you soon xx

TOMMY TIERNAN LAUGHTER MEDICINE