A Better Than The Book April Fool's bonus track "Mark Your Wall", $1 & $10 Patreon rewards have been sent out including a Patreon exclusive download of the prank + another Jabun demo for the $10 patrons + setting and reflecting on monthly goals!

Hi everyone and hope you're having a great start to April despite the corona virus craziness going on! It's been another week on lock-down doing a bit of Jabun composition and experiments with the total duration of demos up at 96+ minutes now and still a dozen+ ideas I'd like to pursue before reviewing them and sorting out some albums. Having said that, there are a few ideas which have pieced themselves together nicely into a 4 track - 38 minute ambient album which I've set aside for the moment. That's looking to be the next Jabun album, though I'll continues writing demos for a while as I mull it over. In other news I've also been busy sorting out some more LIVE arrangements for the Better Than The Book LIVE band to learn, and since it's not clear when we'll next be able to meet up for a practice we might as well make use of this unprecedented downtime for some solo learning. Onto the main news this week I have an extra special and silly April Fool's BTTB bonus track to share with you (which also ties into April's Patreon rewards), and there's also the monthly goals to review and set as usual. Let's get started!

So first of all this week, yesterday was the first Wednesday of the month which means the $1 Patreon rewards have just been sent out, and this time I have something extra special for you, an unreleased bonus track from the 2016 Better Than The Book album "Two Years On"! Enjoy!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=liE7nsRbgJY

... is what I'd have said if there was such a thing, but anyway, here's Wonderwall... and happy April Fool's Day!

This silly mashup has been sitting half finished in my projects folder since about September 2018 but now seemed like the right time to finish it up ready for some April Fool's fun! I hope you get a kick out of it and sing along loud and proud!

Songs used:
Better Than The Book - Make Your Mark [Instrumental]
Oasis - Wonderwall [Acapella]

This bonus mashup track is a Patreon exclusive download so if you want to pick up a copy, come join the lovely Patreon community! Remember that you'll be getting not just this mashup but all historic rewards for your chosen tier when you sign up too including the full Better Than The Book discography and much more! With the REWARD ARCHIVE tag it's never been easier to catch up with all those posts and music downloads you've missed too! I hope you enjoy them :) 

https://www.patreon.com/NickStanding (Sign up and find out more)
https://www.patreon.com/posts/34612394 (Exclusive download)

And for the $10 patrons, you've got another exclusive demo from Jabun's upcoming 2nd album to look forward to as well as an article on the composition/production process for it and early access to all the upcoming music later this month! Become a $10 patron to access that article and music and much more now!

https://www.patreon.com/posts/34612377 ($10 rewards)

That's it for this set of Patreon rewards, but as it's my 30th birthday on April 24th, there'll be new rewards including 2 more Patreon exclusive mashups coming early next time! I'll leave all the details as a surprise for later this month, but until then, I hope you enjoy the new music and see you on the 24th!

Finally this week it's the beginning of the month and time to set and reflect on some goals! Here's what was set for March:

1) Get the audio 100% complete for the upcoming cover song
2) Write 70+ minutes (total) of Jabun demos
3) Get those 3 bonus tracks uploaded and sort out the Patreon rewards for the next 2 months
4) Prepare and learn the setlist (solid) for Better Than The Book's 1st gig on April 11th!
 
​So with all the disruption going on around the world, 1) has been delayed a bit due to awaiting feedback from other people. It's currently sitting in a mostly done state, but as there's no rush to release it I've been working on the Jabun demos instead. Speaking of which with 96+ minutes of demos completed now, I GREATLY exceeded my targets for 2)! In fact it would appear I've written a whopping 40 minutes of demos in the past month which feels a little crazy. I definitley don't expect to be making as much next time. 3) is all done and sorted, and with the Better Than The Book (and ALL) gigs indefinitely postposed, while I did lean the setlist solid for what would have been next week's gig, it's kind of an irrelevant goal now... Overall a reasonably successful month though, not perfect but definitely making up for the lacking areas with some extra Jabun demos! Let's set some goals for next month!

1) Complete my tax return
2) Renew the JabunAudio website
3) Get the audio 100% complete for the upcoming cover song 
4) Learn the 17 BTTB songs that currently have live band arrangements
5) Write 120+ minutes of Jabun demos (total)

Since I'm likely to be stuck inside and had to cancel my holiday downtime anyway I figured I'd set some big goals this time. Of course 1) & 2) are essential, but the others are lower priority. 3) will depend on the availability of my feedback team, so that's partially out of my control. 4) Should be ok. I've already learnt 8 tracks for the gig + another 2 from the December practice (though those are a little rusty) + 1 more, so really it's only 6 new tracks to get under my fingers and vocal chords. If I can get a few more down that'd be cool, though I'm not too bothered if I don't make the full 17. 5) Is probably a little over ambitious but with 40+ minutes written last month it seems this'll hopefully not be quite as strenuous as it only equates to about 23 minutes of new music, all of which are partially started already. We'll see how it goes but I'd be happy with just 15 minutes of new music! I've a few more maintenance goals for myself too but those are also less in my control so I'll just set these 5 here! Any goals you have for April? Leave them in the comments and we can keep each other accountable!

And that about wraps things up for this blog post! I've honestly no idea what's going on next week or for the foreseeable future with all this corona virus stuff, so I'll be playing it by ear and tending to the goals above and we'll see if there's anything else to share in the next blog post! Until then, I hope you have a great start to April, stay safe and sensible and thanks as always for supporting JabunAudio, Jabun, Better Than The Book and my various projects! See you next time and take care!