Restoration Project’s 2020 Roadmap

As if I need another idea or toy or project or child to occupy my oh-so-abundant time… Yes, all of what you see on this website are active projects that I’m involved with. The latest time suck has been the brewery. Hours of equipment research, cost-benefit analysis, and the slow purchase of very expensive brew gear. Basically, I’m out of cash and still need to spend a few hundred more just to get the first batch bottled. But that’s not even why I began writing this post! I digress…

Today’s post also isn’t about my Biomes EP series or my failure of a Patreon page. Because that series of recordings is still indeed happening—just not as quickly as I’d like. Again, I digress…

What I’m actually writing about is the 2020 Restoration Project Roadmap. Basically, our plan for moving and growing from now through 2020. I love that we (all of us humans) get to use 20/20 as a refocusing year. It’s coming. It’s coming upon us all. God, am I excited! 2020 is going to be an incredible year. A time for me to refocus with my wife and family, my music, my business ventures. Everything that matters to me, spoken here or not.

So here’s what’s up with Restoration Project: I’m “getting the band back together”, so to speak, and we’re writing a super-secret-but-I’m-also-publicly-talking-about-it series of songs based strictly on the text of the 1689 Baptist Confession of Faith. We are talking verbatim text-to-music songs here. It’s difficult and fun and puts us in different musical meters within the same verse, has interesting and uncommon syllabic accents. Okay, I know you are officially asking yourself “Why the 1689? What is it anyway?”. Basically, it’s a kick-ass document that outlines a historic perspective on who Jesus is, who God is, who we are, and what’s ahead. It’s great.

Why do I think this is an important and worthy endeavor? I’d suggest checking out the ResProj About page

The plan is to fund this bad boy with a series of small-ish Kickstarter campaigns that correspond with the release of each of each volume of songs (four volumes of eight songs each. so 32 songs in all.) Our Firm Foundation series raised over $12k and we needed nearly every penny of it. This new collection is more songs, more volumes, and just more overall. But I’m hoping to kind-of piece together the funding as we go along. It might be more work, but the hope is that it keeps more people connected and involved through the whole process and for a longer period of time. It falls right in line with part of our 20/20 vision to create a sustainable resource for the restoring of historic and mostly-unknown hymns and Christian documents.

Multiple Kickstarter campaigns. Four albums. A network for sustainability. New old songs. (Does that even make sense!?!?!)

Through it all, thank you. For reading. For listening. For sharing. It’s 2020 time.

Right now, I’m listening to Echosmith’s Inside a Dream EP. It’s fantastic.

Join Me Every Monday Night!

YouTube Vids Strip

Seven weeks ago, I began a weekly livestream on my YouTube Channel and on Instagram, showcasing my process for creating songs—everything from riff and melody generation, lyric writing, and harmonization to developing ideas, writing strategies and more. Each video is archived on YouTube. Go check it out!

Tune in every Monday night at 7 PM Central at: youtube.com/jaymathesmusic

The livestream started as a way to allow my backers on Patreon to get an exclusive look behind the scene of my songwriting process. I’ve never before shared my music in this way—nor have I ever seen anyone else do it (though I’ve now been told that Taylor Swift does it…). For those who like and listen to my music, this provides just an extra little taste of my creative process. But I want it to be more than that.

For young songwriters or aspiring artists who are struggling with what the songwriting process might look like—or should look like or could look like—I want these videos to perhaps be a place for these songwriters to see “oh, so it’s okay that I XY or Z when I write…” The point is, there is no one right way to create a song. Artists of all disciplines are first subject to their cultures and the information they take in, their education and even their genes. And songwriters are dependent on specific tools of the trade: vocabulary, cultural capital, music theory, and musical training.

So come join me! Every Monday night at 7 PM Central. On YouTube and Instagram.