Twenty Two is a Seatbelt

I feel like twenty two is a seatbelt. In college, I studied communications, video production, creative writing, prose fiction, and a dash of music business, but I didn't study music. Those four years were focused on developing marketable skills that would open practical pay-check doors.  I wanted to graduate with the ability to work. But all the while, music stayed on the back burner, simmering and impatient. Here and there, I performed at some bars and little things, but nothing substantial.  There were brief periods of time where I didn't even really write music.  My junior year was a real low point for creative endeavors. Somehow, my studies and my TV production work sucked me into this ever-busy cycle of monotony and allowed for little to no personal growth.  There's a certain amount that needs be sacrificed in order to grow professionally, but at all points, I felt empty.  18, 19, 20, 21.  They each went by without me accepting and embracing my music seriously.  Pretty crucial years, in fact. Having worked my ass off through school, I'm now allowing myself the freedom to zero in on my writing and my performing. Graduation was in May and since then I've been continuously busy working towards music. I've performed with and met some amazing folks who look at me first as a musician/friend and second as anything else.  In college, it was always "Dave, the TV guy that kind of plays music sometimes."  That's no one's fault but my own. If you embrace yourself, others will as well.  It's projection and interpretation, the give and take of interaction.  So now, I'm twenty two and I want more than anything to be running in high gear and performing all the time but my life just isn't there yet.  I want to take this so seriously that it consumes me the way that my education did for the last four years but I haven't had the time yet.  If I finally do that, though, I can say I'm working in the right direction. The ever-present issue is that I'm only twenty two. I need to travel, meet people, see places, fail, stand up, fail again, perform, succeed, change, grow. All of that takes time and, as I mentioned before, my music is impatient. But it'll get there. Bring it on, life, I need you to raise me.

Most Of It Is Crap

When I set out to write a new song, most of it is crap. It really is. I think most musicians will know what I'm talking about when I say that, by the time they stumble onto something they like and plan to keep, they've tried a bunch of shit that will never be heard.  (Unless drunk... in a room... with a friend or two -- that tends to be the setting for the resurfacing of the mediocre).  But when I'm writing something, I'll tend to have four or five co-existing, untitled, unfinished Word documents full of different ideas. These little half-assed brigades of the cliché and overcompensating.  Really though, how many different ways can someone write "I'll love you whether you like it or not"?  When that workable material finally finds its ways through your fingers, though, it's not about finding new ways to say the old. It's about finding the thread of thought strong enough and consistent enough to tell a simple story.  That's when you commit, dive in, and swim around in the deep end that feeling.  If you were body surfing, you're going to have a lot of "oh I've got this one, I've got this one!... Never mind, next one, next one."  It's a lot like finding that wave to carry you. A good one will crash you into the sand and make you want to do it again and again. You finish writing something you like and you should be mentally, emotionally, personally exhausted but want nothing more than to start back at the top and play it again. Lately, I've had waves in droves and it's been a particularly spaghetti-on-the-wall week of new songs, so we'll see how it goes and if I decide to keep any of them.

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Finding Balance

Music can't be anxious, or worried, or rushed. Songs can emote those things but the performer has to control all variables when composing a piece. Some incredibly talented people can obviously make things up perfectly on the fly, but that's different from controlling the sound. If you can't separate feelings of anxiety and anger from the way you approach your writing, the equilibrium of good music will tilt to the desperate and the clarity of thought will be lost.  I'm young. I'm young and anxious and nervous and excited and desperate and loud and quiet and hopeless.  I'm all of these things and it affects my music. I want to put all that into my songs but what's more important than taking four minutes and whining into a microphone is finding balance in the only way I know how to compose myself. If I can't channel all that into simple threads of story or imagery or thought, then I'm not writing the best music I can. Some might disagree, maybe they think you have to bare all of yourself as raw and as broken as that is, and that the music has to be that too. But I think there's a threshold, where raw emotion meets clarity.  Step too far through the door on either side and the music can suffer. That's why good writers are so impressive. They tiptoe the balance and make it look easy.  The video below is an example of all this, where he found the threshold between broken and deliberate and balanced there in the writing. He's one of my favorites and he should be one of yours as well.  'Stranded' by Chris Ayer.

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