Today I'm sharing music I've written and recorded over the past couple months. Click here to give it a listen. The rest of this entry consists of ramblings about creativity and expression.
I went to my first Burning Man in 2023 and it was the first time I was surrounded by people who valued "creativity" and, to be honest, I had no idea what they meant and even thought it sounded hokey.
A couple months after I got back to the real world, I went to another art festival of sorts and partied my ass off for three days straight. Sometime in the middle of it, I looked at my friend (who was high as shit) and saw how wide-eyed he was at the energy around us. I thought to myself "I want to be able to do something that makes someone look like that."
I got back to the real world (again) and asked myself what I could do that was even remotely creative. I answered myself with "music." I took piano lessons as a kid and thought maybe I'd pick it back up. So I signed up for lessons with a local music school in January of 2024. During my first lesson I told my teacher "I want to write songs." 😂 I don't think I knew what I was saying.
Well nearly two years later I've done it. Somewhere along the way, a friend told me "no one ever said art has to be good." And I realized then that I could easily write 100 shitty songs. Pick a chord progression, write some lyrics, et voilà . So back in November of last year I challenged myself to write a song a day for 30 days.
As it turns out, my friend was right. I didn't love all my songs. In fact, I didn't like most of them. But what I learned was that the commitment matters most. I don't know if he's the first person to say it, but I recently came across a quote from Jeff Tweedy saying "writer's block isn't being unable to write, it's not liking what you write."
So power through I did. And you know what? Even if I didn't like all my songs, there was something about each day that touched my heart. Sometimes it was a chord progression, sometimes it was a melody, sometimes it was a lyric. There's a lesson in there somewhere about presence, or fear, or shame, or Buddhism, or some shit.
Anyway, the three songs that make up EP01 are the ones that I both loved the most as well as needed the least work from their original day's recordings. I'm both extremely proud of myself as well as extremely humbled. I love writing but I hate recording and editing. I think I've gotten much better on the keys (and also who knew I could come up with such tasty bass lines??), but I so desperately want to be a better singer.
I don't know if these songs will make you wide-eyed, but I hope they make you smile at least. And if they don't, then take a bunch of Molly and you'll be fine.
Extreme special thanks goes to my teachers Daniel, Julia, and Ray. Sorry lessons turned into therapy 💖