Mostly I\u2019ve been writing about the mystical and magical aspects of music and songwriting. This column will be more practical, albeit equally as alchemical. The transformation process that wanting to take your musical performance out into the world is often pretty grand. It is both an internal and external journey that is taken on ALL levels\u2026spiritually, mentally, emotionally, and physically.<\/p>\n
First, you make noise that becomes music. Maybe it\u2019s a just a note, a painful plink on the strings or an awkward hit on the drums. Maybe it\u2019s singing in the shower or the car. Maybe it\u2019s a poem that you know could be a song or dreaming of music you\u2019ve never heard before. Something inspired you to play. You put some time in and are thinking, \u201chey I might be pretty good maybe sorta.\u201d You play for your dog, then your wife, then your best friend, and none of them told you that you sucked. They even seemed impressed\u2026but they\u2019re biased.<\/p>\n
Second, you find a thread of confidence in your abilities. You wanted it to get better, so you practiced, and made progress. Ever think, \u201cWow! That performer\/player makes it look so easy!?\u201d That\u2019s hours upon hours, days and nights, and years of honing their craft! Learning to play an instrument is not easy. If it was, everyone would be jammin\u2019. It\u2019s incredibly therapeutic and cathartic if you can get to a point where you don\u2019t have to work so hard doing it though.<\/p>\n
Third, you build up callouses and maybe even take a few lessons. You might\u2019ve learned some stuff about rhythm, melody, and taking care of your instrument. You buy a PA and put on a show (or 20) in the living room. You say to yourself, \u201cI think I\u2019m ready to take this show out into the world!\u201d Now what? That\u2019s a point many players never get to, but the ones that do? What a journey it has been. For many, creating that space and committing to a musical conquest can raise questions within. Am I doing this right? Why am I doing this? Where is this going? Am I any good? The honing of the craft and the building up of courage and confidence to make musical noise are in step with each other always. Then taking the stage, phew\u2026.that can feel like the wild, wild west. Nervousness can make you shudder, pee your pants, have anxiety for days, totally mess it all up, talk stupid, act weird, and cry. To overcome all of that just to get on stage and play a song or two. Now that\u2019s<\/em> power. The power of music to challenge fear and make us feel deeply (whether we\u2019re listening or playing) is like nothing else.<\/p>\n So, you\u2019ve got a few tunes to play out in the world? Find an open mic, a song circle, a bon fire, a party, an open jam, a street corner, or a park bench and make your noise! Send those sound waves out as far as you can and do it with love and reverence. We are listening.<\/p>\n ***I guess I\u2019m still talking about the magical and mystical musical things. So be it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Mostly I\u2019ve been writing about the mystical and magical aspects of music and songwriting. This column will be more practical, albeit equally as alchemical. The transformation process that wanting to take your musical performance out into the world is often pretty grand. It is both an internal and external journey that is taken on ALL levels\u2026spiritually, mentally, emotionally, and physically. First, you make noise that becomes music. Maybe it\u2019s a just a note, a painful plink on the strings or an awkward hit on the drums. Maybe it\u2019s singing in the shower or the car. Maybe it\u2019s a poem that you know could be a song or dreaming of music you\u2019ve never heard before. Something inspired you to play. You put some time in and are thinking, \u201chey I might be pretty good maybe sorta.\u201d You play for your dog, then your wife, then your best friend, and none of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":25126,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[184],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-25124","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-alchemy-of-music"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sandiegotroubadour.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25124","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sandiegotroubadour.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sandiegotroubadour.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sandiegotroubadour.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sandiegotroubadour.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25124"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sandiegotroubadour.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25124\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25125,"href":"https:\/\/sandiegotroubadour.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25124\/revisions\/25125"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sandiegotroubadour.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25126"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sandiegotroubadour.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25124"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sandiegotroubadour.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25124"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sandiegotroubadour.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25124"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}