Been a while huh?
It’s been over four years since I last posted (my theme doesn’t display dates but I’m writing this on October 2, 2022). In this time, I’ve completed my degree in music composition, almost finished my degree in computer science, moved three times, and seen a lot of people come and go. Some things change, some things don’t.
This website has been sort of superseded as I have improved at my web skillz. You can now find my main page of work at https://peterdevita.com. I’m also planning to write my new blog on top of that platform, it’s probably be at https://peterdevita.com/blog, which may or may not be there when you see this.
This website will stay up to preserve this era in my website journey, but it probably won’t get updated much. I might come on every now and then to update it or fix things in case they break, but it will largely be left as is.
I have a few different ideas for blog posts, but they’ll probably be held on to until the new platform is up. This might be the last words on this site, but it’s not goodbye!
Peter
P.S. For my even earlier website than this one, check out https://peterdevita.com/PetesPage
Its February 2018. Here is what I have been doing.
I have written four compositions for class by now and I feel like I’m starting to understand it. I don’t really feel like I’ve got the hang of it yet but at least I can now see a light at the end of the tunnel of every composition. The one I am most happy about is the most recent Memories in the Sand, a piece for piano and guitar that leverages the piano’s resonance to backdrop the piece. Anthem is an experiment in meter for piano, guitar, flute, and clarinet. Finally, The Leviathan is a spooky atonal piece for cello. Hopefully I’ll get around to making recordings of them.
I’ve written a lot of code in the past few months. SwitcharooHelper now patrols r/switcharoo in order to keep the dumb Reddit joke working. FlaskNAS has been even more of an undertaking than I initially estimated but it is getting somewhere. Pyweek 24 was rather unsuccessful as a game but it did finally spawn the pyglet library I had been trying to write for about a year. I’ve also made my first contributions to open source, fixing a bug in pyglet and another in cx_freeze.
I would like to write more on here but I tend to dislike every piece from more than a few months ago. I think they lack good subject material and writing skill. I am probably going to move the blog from the front page of website to somewhere else in the future.
Ever since I started pursuing composition professionally, I have become increasingly fearful of writing and it has gotten to the point to where it seriously affects my output. It’s not that I don’t like writing, I do. But I feel so pressured to write a lot and write well that I often do none of that.
This is probably a very common one among artists in general but there is always the worry of “Will I find work and will it pay well?”. I briefly entertained the idea of freelancing as a composer. Unfortunately, I found that freelance websites often had customers that couldn’t be bothered to write a professional post and many didn’t pay well. The ones that were written well and paid well could be assured to already have 50+ people applied to. The entire internet itself is flooded with composers everywhere.
Local opportunities are less flooded but it is still difficult to find work. Media groups are looking for electronic producers, not classically trained composers. There are also even more producers than just composers and electronic production just isn’t my strong suit.
And finally, with this huge mass of competition, I fear that I will never garner enough attention to gain any kind of audience. There are a bajillion other composers and producers out there doing some great work. How am I going to find my own place?
At this point, it has been almost two years since I have frequently uploaded to my SoundCloud. I have written several things but most haven’t even seen preview among my closest friends. I am certain that my future is in composition but until my worries are alleviated, I am going be struggling.