Hello Substack
One year ago, after a two-decade-long career in software engineering, I took a leap of faith by committing to composing classical music full-time. More context here.
Eight months later, in April 2025, I released my debut album, Burst of Being (also available on streaming platforms). At that point, I hadn’t considered promotion at all. My main priority was to capture my ideas to the best of my ability and share them with the world. By the way, there is also the Burst of Being book.
Play it now, let it be a soundtrack for this post!
As the hype faded within a month, my music quickly sank to the bottom of the deepest ever ocean of songs. Very few people listened to or had a chance to discover it. This is when I realized that a release wasn’t the finish line – it was just the start of the journey. While writing music has proven to be incredibly rewarding on its own, marketing is a challenge I haven’t yet figured out how to handle. Yet, music without listeners is not that different from unpublished.
As I started posting on Instagram to grow my following (and promote my music), it became clear that there is much more to my art than just the audio I uploaded to streaming services. It turns out, I have a lot to share about my creative journey!
However, due to the contemplative nature of my content, I found that Instagram is not the best medium for it. A newsletter/blog format fits much better and is more accessible for people who are not on social media and prefer a less distracting experience.
Substack appears to be a fantastic platform and community for this. I want to try it as the primary destination for everything I create. Let’s see where it takes us!