UPDATE: The Kickstarter is now live!

Dear Composer Quest listeners,

I have to share some potentially heartbreaking news with you: 2016 will be the final year of Composer Quest (see below for an explanation). But I want the podcast to go out with a bang, which is why I’m planning a Composer Quest WORLD TOUR in the fall. The plan is to travel for three months, visit fans, conduct interviews, and produce epic weekly episodes based on my travels.

If you’re interested in getting involved with this tour, either by inviting me to come visit, helping Kickstart the tour, or just following along by getting email updates, please fill out this form:

WHY, CHARLIE, WHY?!

For my reasons behind retiring Composer Quest, here’s my transcript from Episode 138.

2016 will be the final year of the Composer Quest podcast.

I’ve wrestled with this decision for a while, and I’ve decided that I really want this podcast to end on a high note, while I’m still passionate about making it. I’ve seen too many podcasts sadly fizzle out, or lose quality over time, and I want to have a solid plan for the final year of the podcast. To those of you who have been tuning in regularly, and especially to those of you donating as patrons, I hope you know that you’ve helped inspire me to make this podcast as awesome as possible. There’s no way I would have kept it up for this long without all the support from you, so I really, really appreciate it.

So why am I ending the show? I can’t help but feel somewhat selfish for this decision, but I’ve been feeling like I’m gearing up for a life change of some sort. What that will be, I’m not sure exactly. I’ve mentioned my newfound passion of board game design, and I’m feeling like I need to fully commit to trying out this path. This month I started an internship at Fantasy Flight Games, which I hope might lead to some more opportunities. That said, game design is potentially even less lucrative than composing! But that’s kind of what this whole podcast is built around, taking a risk and leading a creative life. It is cliche to say it, but you only have one life to live, so why not try out whatever you can.
Sidenote: I started getting the Bon Jovi song “It’s My Life” in my head…now those are some terrible lyrics!

Anyways, for someone who put it a little more eloquently, let’s turn to Alan Watts:

“Better to have a short life that is full of what you like doing than a long life spent in a miserable way. And after all, if you do really like what you’re doing, it doesn’t matter what it is, you can eventually…become a master of it. It’s the only way to become a master of something, to be really with it.”

This was the philosophy that sparked me to start the podcast in the first place, and now it’s sparking me to try a new adventure in game design.

So at this point you might be wondering – what’s going to happen to Composer Quest in 2016? Well, I have a plan, and I hope it’s an exciting one.

I’ll be taking a three month break from January through March to get interviews set up and recorded. Then April through June will be Season 6 of the podcast, the final regular season. I know at least one guest already, and it’s gonna be cool.

Then, my grand, pie-in-the-sky dream for Season 7: a Composer Quest farewell tour. Here’s the idea: I travel around the world for three months, visiting you Composer Quest listeners, conducting interviews, exploring music from different cultures, and making an epic weekly podcast episode documenting the process. I would also love to create a new song each week, as a collaboration with my host composers, and weave the song’s creation into each episode.

What do you think? Could it happen? I hope you are as excited about this idea as I am! Maybe I can come visit you along the way! If you’re interested in hosting me for any length of time, please fill out my Google form.

Once I hear from everyone, I’ll try planning a route and see what’s possible. I know off the bat that I’ll need to raise some travel funds, beyond the Patreon contributions. Don’t get me wrong patrons, your donations have been extremely helpful thus far, but a 3-month world tour is a different kind of project!

So to my loyal listeners, if you think you’d be willing to chip in to make this final season happen, please let me know so I can plan a Kickstarter project. There’s a question about this in the Google form.

Thanks in advance for considering helping me with this crazy idea! I think it would be the perfect finale to the podcast, going on a literal Composer Quest around the world. Am I nervous about this idea? Of course! I have no idea what to expect by taking Composer Quest on the road. And three months is a pretty long time to be traveling. But the unknowns are the most exciting part about it for me. I feel like this will break new podcasting ground, and I hope you can be a part of it.

Well, this has been my longest monologue yet, but it had to be said. In summary, make sure to fill out my Google form by the end of January 2016. Then I’ll plan the tour and announce the Kickstarter at the start of Season 6 in April. Again, I really appreciate you listeners, and I hope this world tour announcement is exciting enough to balance out the bittersweet news of me retiring Composer Quest.

Sincerely,
Charlie