2022 Music Goals

This year I have three big music related goals:

Finish at least 26 songs
Learn a lot more theory/composition
Practice piano at least as much as last year(30-60 minutes per day)

Creating songs will be the most beneficial thing I can do so it's the biggest priority. If I can make 26 songs that will be a win, in a perfect world I'd aim for one a week but I've got a tendency to take hobbies a bit too seriously so I'm trying to not burn myself out completely.

The other big thing is the theory/composition. Last year I finished a short Coursera class but I didn't really feel like it helped me much. So this year I'm going to make an effort to read one theory/composition book every month or two depending on length. About ten pages of technical reading a day is probably good upper maximum but I may need to adjust this throughout the year. As long as I'm learning and making progress I won't stress out in the event any of the books end up being a lot more difficult than I imagine.

January Goals

In January I want to finish up all the half finished things I've paid for/started that are just laying around. So by February 1st the goal is to finish:

2 or 3 songs
Syntorial
Audible Genius Building Blocks
Sound on Sound Synth Secrets series, I can't find the link for this now and I have a bootleg pdf copy that's floating around if you Google

Beyond January and Books

Piano practice/song creation should basically be the same unless I'm planning a vacation. So that leaves book selection, my current list of music books is below, but it's honestly pretty up in the air and subject to change. If someone comes along and recommends something that will offer a bigger pay off in terms of skills learned I'll definitely bump it to the top and some of these might end up getting booted as I learn more about them:

Idiot's Guide to Music Theory by Michael Miller Something about having an Idiot's guide on my shelf feels bad but it came with rave reviews.
Idiot's Guide to Music Composition by Michael Miller This was just frequently purchased with the other one, same author though
Dance Music Manual by Rick Snoman A classic apparently
Mixing Secrets for the Small Studio by Mike Senior Another classic according to reddit posts
Composing Music: A New Approach by William Russel This one, the first idiot's guide, and the next book were all recommended on one of Ben Prunty's ancient blog posts.
The Guide to MIDI Orchestration by Paul Gilreath This looks really interesting but I'm worried it's going to be above my head so I really want to save it for last.

Potential other books I haven't researched enough but sound interesting: Mastering Audio, A Composer's Guide to Game Music, Ear Training for the Contempary Musician.

Summary

So that's it! Ideally by the end of 2022 I'll be much better at playing and making music. I'm pretty sure if I come anywhere close to hitting these goals I'll improve a lot. I'd love to know enough to that I'm able to compose basic music across a few different genres, create my own unique syth sounds, and overall be a much better musician and producer.