After retiring, I thought it would be fun to combine my interest in recording, with my interest in music, world events, politics, history, philosophy, culture, spirituality, and my "gift of the gab" and try my hand at creating a podcast. It was originally conceived as a vehicle for promoting music and musicians from Sound Cloud, offering to chat about the music I was enjoying on that music platform. I even created a bit of a promotional YouTube ad offering that service for the Sound Cloud community (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uMQXR5bzsfk). It was not completely without selfish motives, though. I had wondered about how to earn some additional income in my retirement and hoped that a modest stipend derived from a fee-for-service approach would gain some interest and some steam. Alas, that has not materialized, and over the past few years there are some things I think I have come to understand that I did not fully appreciate or understand when I started on this podcasting adventure. So, what are these gems of wisdom?
The first lesson is that FUN must a big part of the endeavour. If it wasn't going to be fun, then what was the point of expending the energy to create the podcasts? The original concept was to include music reviews as a major part of the enterprise and a glance back over some of the blogs reveals that effort. Even dividing the blog section of the website into Music and Life was to try to operate the two spheres of interest distinctly. Finding willing artists, and trying to promote their music was, in the end, too much of a challenge and too time consuming with little reward for that effort. It was a little disappointing to see the hopes of the music review section of the blogs and podcasts fall short of my expectations. The lesson here seemed to be to do the thing that you enjoyed more, and let the joy become its own reward.
Secondly, shifting the focus from promoting other artists to promoting our own music seemed to evolve rather naturally over the past year or so. Reviewing and promoting other artists may have been the original idea, but shifting to music I co-create with others, as well as promoting Jim's gospel music, both seemed to be the more readily achievable goal. Fitting excerpts from songs, both current, in production, as well as from the musical archives, into the opening of each podcast seemed to be a more natural fit and so that is what has emerged as our format on the Jim and Terry Show.
Lastly, I learned that I enjoy fellowship - the chatting and coffee with my good friend Jim really became an end and not a means. Perhaps that was the main lesson of the year of Covid 19, where Jim and I were determined to meet, in the safest ways that science and knowledge would suggest. When Covid first erupted in the early spring, we began to Skype and record the audio ( we are more comfortable with our radio mugs, so the videos were never uploaded). When the summer came and the weather warmed, science suggested that 6 ft separation and masks were sufficient safe protocols, and keeping outside the main house, we recorded our podcasts in a cabin, and this seemed to be a cautious step forward. Now that the second wave has hit in the late fall, we are back to skyping. Why do I mention all this? It is part of my learning that Jim and I have come to enjoy our weekly catch-ups on all that has transpired in the news each week. We have our pet theories and explore some personal areas of interests (Not another rant about Trump! * note: I won the bet that Trump would lose in 2020, though I did not know who the contender would be at the time (back in 2019) Not more SpaceX?) but above all we enjoy chatting, and exploring, and we are learning to be comfortable not knowing all the answers, though we often sound as though we are convinced we do know :)
I don't think either of us realized how the podcasts were a type of glue for of us, helping to keep us from becoming un-glued in the pandemic.
So, here's to podcasting throughout a pandemic. We're not famous, and we're not rich in monetary terms, but we are rich in friendship, life experience, chatting and enjoying the process.
