Happy New Blog and Genuary 2024

Welcome back, everyone.

It’s January 1st 2024, and I’ve decided to begin a complete overhaul of my personal website/blog. I know some of you used the tutorials I made in the previous version as teaching materials, or even as a personal resource, and they continue freely available in my YouTube channel. One of my goals for 2024 is to get back on track with creating educational resources and sharing more about the things I work on and learn, so expect more content about (mostly free) music software, composition, live electronics, guitar, and programming. Maybe about books, too. I’ll try to keep it simple and share things as they happen. I’m also learning how to do that.

One project I’ll be undertaking early this year is Genuary 2024. While it is usually associated with visual arts, my approach will be different from the prompts you can find in the Genuary website, and also using music and sound. The goal is to work on a single generative piece, bit by bit, throughout January’s 31 days. On each day, at around 18:00 in Portugal, I’ll be releasing a ~ 1 minute video as a short in my YouTube channel and reel on my Instagram account. The video will document a change I made to the piece that day, using generative techniques.

If you want to know more about generative music, I recommend this wonderful guide (and beautifully designed website) by Tero Parviainen. It’s extensive and detailed, with many interactive examples. I’m also planning on writing a weekly post about the videos and my choices. I really don’t know where the composition process will take me, and if you have any suggestions feel free to contact me. All I have at the moment is an idea for the first video. That’s the beauty of it, I guess.

Here’s to a very happy 2024 to all of you.

See you soon,

Óscar