Operating Outline

The Composuary project has quite a bit of work that goes into operation and maintainance. As I ask for financial backing into this project, I think it only fair to be transparent about the work that goes into making this event happen every year so that doners are able to decide for themselve whether they believe this project is worth their support.

While I enjoy the work that goes into maintaining this event and find the task quite rewardsing, the reality is that coffee isn't free, so I ask for a small salary and place it as the last priority among the operational expenses for Composuary. Every year, once the operational budget has been filled, I pull back all sales to "at cost" and no longer aim to profit.

Quarterly Operations

  • Q1 (April-June): I'm doing a lot of clean up and shutdown tasks to put Composuary to sleep for the year: updating the website, archiving, managing permission in the Discord, etc. None of this is particularly challenging, but it is time consuming.

  • Q2 (July-September): I'm beginning to hunt for prompt material; this involves watching a lot of video essays, reading books, listening to a large assortment of music, catching up on new, going through podcasts and world history. None of this really counts as "work", it just kinda has me working through what the core theme for the following year should be as that will drive the following.

  • Q3 (October-December): By this point I've decided on the core prompt for Literature week. I commission artwork for the album, contact various organizations to sponsor content (no luck on that one yet) and looks for auxiliary resources to build out the core prompt into a bigger juicer problem. I solidify my list around the music I'll use to inspire harmony, melody, and rhythm week and assemble the playlist of song that cross genres, themes, and times.

  • Q4 (January-March): This final month of work is where things get really busy:

    • With a general outline of all the prompts in hand, I sit down to write them all. A full week of prompts is a full day of work setting up, from writing to MuseScore, exporting MP3s and PNGs, chopping everything apart, and getting set in the website.
    • Writing the literature prompt takes quite a bit of time as I try to pull together months of thinking, research, and disparate ideas into a digestible form.
    • Printing and distributing fliers and other miscellaneous advertising efforts take place during this point.
    • Putting the album together: tracking metadata, audio mastering, printing, burning discs, shipping.
    • Planning out the Gala: finding location, prepping food, setting schedule, cooking decorating, coordinating hybrid elements, cleaning up and clearing out.