I’d like to start this week’s blog post on a bit of a tangent. Regular readers may have noticed that over the past few months the TOTW posts have been more sporadic then they have in their history.

I used to release them on a set day each week. Occasionally I would try new things, but there would always be a structure to these release times and they were always at least once a week. Recently, this has slipped. For that, I apologize.

I’ve been writing about music I love or find interesting on this blog post since April 2012. Over that time, I have changed my thoughts on what this Track Of The Weeks Sections aims are.

When I started the post, I believed that my opinion on music mattered, and that over time I would build up a collection of readers and introduce them to an eclectic world of music that they wouldn’t have heard of without me. I guess I was a little naive in this dream.

This section has never grown to more than a handful of readers over the past eight and a half years of doing it. The rare but amazing times I have heard back from artists have been few and far between.

So, for a time, I then started to think about it less as a blog purely for other people, but instead a musical diary for myself. This especially came into focus when I created the Spotify TOTW playlist. Listening back took me to moments in my life and the music that made those times. Reading the blog posts that accompany the tracks further enhanced these memories.

But over the last few years I have begun struggling again with these blog posts. To be honest, my passion has been waning.

Writing each week about a piece of music requires a lot of listening time and thought. This then takes away time I could spend on working on my own music or my other hobbies and life commitments.

For the past few months I have been contemplating these problems and trying to find a solution that will keep me happy.

The easy solution would be to end my TOTW posts and spend the time I work on them on my own music. However I have realised that I need these posts.

TOTW forces me to dedicate time listening to new music. This expands my musical knowledge and understanding of all the techniques in music production. Without this TOTW blog, I could quite easily resort to listening to music I already own, falling into a trap of becoming a musical historian, like so many people do as they get older.

So what should this blog become?

Although my thoughts about the posts have changed over the years, I have always tried to keep one aspect of the blog posts the same, and that is to only talk positively about music. To not be critical about things I don’t like. Instead, to celebrate and champion, either to the readers or myself in the future, music that genuinely interests me at the time of writing.

That I will continue to do.

I’m hoping maybe we can build a community around music that was closer to my original idea then what the TOTW posts have become.

From this point on, I’m going to continue to highlight music each week and write a blog post. However, if I like a piece of music, but don’t know why, I’m not going to try and bleed a stone by writing a few formulaic paragraphs on it that don’t add anything meaningful for either myself or my readers. And from now on the posts may be more about what I’m up to, my thoughts outside of music, and my ideas about my own music.

This may work as part of a TOTW post, or it may be a separate blog post outside of TOTW, in which case I will label it as such.

Also, if I’m working hard on my own music, or have other commitments and need to spend my spare time that week on that rather than my TOTW posts, I will let you know. I will still post a track, whether I write about it or not.

I hope the few readers I have will understand this change in my TOTW posts but if not please leave a comment.

So with that all said, and the heavy stuff out the way, the track that grabbed me this week was “Leaving Paris” by Bruno Pernadas. I’ve never seen the film “Patrick,” which this track was written for. But I’ve always been a fan of this type of wistful, plodding piano playing, which carries a nostalgic resonance, encapsulated in the title of the track.

Add string swells to enhance the piano, and we have a bittersweet track that takes me to a place I could return to again and again.

From now on the TOTW section will change and morph into something new. Leaving Paris is a great track to say goodbye to the old way of doing things. Hopefully you will enjoy what the future has to offer:

Spotify:

TOTW Playlist: