As the Pandemic Winds Down, Life Goes On… But What’s Next?
It’s amazing how we’ve been enduring this pandemic over a year now, but life just keeps going on. It’s been particularly hard on musicians, but we just adapt and figure out new ways to connect with our audience and to continue to serve.
Once thing that – for me – came out of the combination of the pandemic and having the child at the same time is the birth of my Podcast, The Modern Psalmist (El Salmista Moderno). I haven’t really talked much about it, partially because I didn’t know if I would be able to do it. But now I’ve kinda proved to myself that I can do it, I just need to get better at batching the recording and writing and all that. That’s part of why I’ve mentioned wanting to have a schedule – I think I’d be able to put together a better plan that way.
Al lot of musicians have been pivoting in their careers during this time. I’ve come to the point where I realized that I have composed hundreds – literally HUNDREDS – of Christian songs, particularly musical settings for the psalms. So in an effort to publish this music in a way that gives it a slightly better chance to *not* just get lost in the shuffle of the THOUSANDS of songs that are released EVERY DAY, I decided to create my own stage for releasing these compositions.
The Modern Psalmist Podcast
This is a dual-language podcast – meaning, separate English and Spanish versions, NOT a single, bilingual podcast – of traditional and original “modern sacred” music that encourages listeners to meditate on the psalms and associated readings for a given feast day in the Catholic Liturgical Calendar. Ideally, the podcast is released each weekend – both in English and in Spanish – with reflections and recordings corresponding to the readings for that Sunday.
The goal is to guide the listener to pray in a different way by hearing the verbatim psalms and associated hymns delivered in a relatively-short (10-15 min) podcast format, in both English and Spanish (as separate podcasts/episodes). Anyone who is Christian, who loves original music and/or new takes on more ancient compositions, and who wishes to enhance his/her spiritual life will enjoy this podcast. The goal is help people to pray, and the podcast is short enough that it can be enjoyed by even the busiest listener.
So far I’ve released over 30 episodes of the podcast (half in English and half in Spanish). Actually, I’ve hardly even told anyone about it because I wasn’t sure that I’d be able to keep it up since I have a new baby to take care of full-time. So I haven’t really pushed the podcast, but it’s already getting an organic audience. It actually has some reviews on Apple Podcasts and I don’t even know who the reviews are, which is encouraging.
The podcast requires music planning, script writing, translating the script to Spanish, composing all the music, recording/producing all the music, etc and all of this in two languages. It’s a lot of work, which would explain why no one else is doing anything quite like this. I would like to be able to be consistent and release the podcast every week, but I really need production help. So in the meantime, I’m just getting it out as often as I can.
What about Bohemian Insurgence?
Well I’m still trying to get the band back together in the fall so we can start performing again. Stylistically Bohemian has a sound that resonates so fully with me that I will not let it go. It will have to evolve with the times and circumstances of life, but it is not going away as long as I can make music.
What about my other music?
I am still working on my secular songs, but the world is changing – actually the music industry has been favoring the single over the album for many years now. In an effort to put out better work, I will be working with fellow musicians to continue to produce and release quality secular music that really expresses the human experience and celebrates everything I love about songwriting and great music production. I’ll be sharing snippets of my work here in the coming weeks and months, so stay tuned.
Back to the podcast…
I’ll be getting more episodes out soon, now that Easter/Lent is over. Here is a link to the companion web site, The Modern Psalmist.