Today I started writing music to the poems of Robert Louis Stevenson. A Child's Garden of Verses.

My Kingdom

From Child's Garden of Verses

Down by a shining water well
I found a very little dell,
    No higher than my head.
The heather and the gorse about
In summer bloom were coming out,
    Some yellow and some red.

I called the little pool a sea;
The little hills were big to me;
    For I am very small.
I made a boat, I made a town,
I searched the caverns up and down,
    And named them one and all.

And all about was mine, I said,
The little sparrows overhead,
    The little minnows too.
This was the world and I was king;
For me the bees came by to sing,
    For me the swallows flew.

I played there were no deeper seas,
Nor any wider plains than these,
    Nor other kings than me.
At last I heard my mother call
Out from the house at evenfall,
    To call me home to tea.

And I must rise and leave my dell,
And leave my dimpled water well,
    And leave my heather blooms.
Alas! and as my home I neared,
How very big my nurse appeared.
    How great and cool the rooms!

Why is so much stock put in charisma? Isn't most charisma simply an act anyway? If you're scripting what you say, how is that charisma? Why do we believe that artists need persona's?

I used to feel bad because I don't have the right personality to go up on stage and wow everyone with my clever quips and deep explanations of songs, but in all truthfulness, I don't care. I have no desire to do those things. Do you ask a painter to come out and explain his painting? Is a poet expected to captivate everyone with his/her personality?

I understand that music is a performance art, but what are we performing? The music, right? We are all so accustomed to instant gratification that we can't wait 30 seconds between songs in silence.

There are no commercial breaks.

Sometimes I feel invisible. I am not in any cool clubs. I couldn't care less about fashion trends. I don't have any pop sensibilities.

I work hard to preserve my art by avoiding labels. So when someone says, "That's really good. I just don't like ____ music," I get a bit frustrated.

You can call it whatever you want, just come listen. You won't be kicked out of the cool kids club for comng to one of my shows. In fact, you might realize being an adult isn't so bad after all.

I haven't been writing here firstly because I'm busy, but also because I feel like I've been writing to flush out all my 'feelings' and not so much to talk about music.

But then I had the thought, is that not art? What is art if it isn't an expression of your experiences and emotions? Art is the language we use to explain the unexplainable. Without that behind your art/music what is your music? It is most likely fashion. Fashion or ego centric back patting. Or both.

I write about relationships, but rarely romantic ones. Or rarely successful romantic relationships anyway. I care about understanding interactions. What is love and how do we show it? Does it even exist if you're not expressing it? Does it only exist in the action?

I write about expectations, family, parents, siblings, etc. I write about vices. Disappointment. All of the real issues we struggle with everyday of our lives. Unfortunately I'm afraid that most people don't want to listen to music about it all. We want parties, fairy tales, sex, vague lyrics implying depth, and not much more. Art is not about escape.

This blog is suffering from the fact that I'm playing and writing music more than I'm writing here. That's a good thing.

When I haven't been sick I've been working on writing quite a bit. I am trying to write songs without thinking TOO much about it. I often worry, 'is this too bland?', 'is this too obvious?', 'is this too obscure sounding?'. I avoid certain chord progressions because it might sound too poppy, or too jazzy, or too SOMETHING. I am tired of worrying. I want to just write what I like and be honest. So that is what I am working on.

I craft the chords and melody until they sound good to ME. I'm sure many of my songs have similar 'vibes' but I think any songwriter deals with this. It's not necessarily a bad thing. These songs are reflections of me, I have no desire to make a well rounded album, only an honest one. I don't want to write the exact same song over and over again, but I don't think I am. Each song is taking it one step farther, one step deeper into myself.

My art will be more pure if I can break through these insecurities. I think.

This winter has been a winter of endless illness. One virus after another has kept me from making as much progress as I would have liked. Still overall, things are going pretty well. I still need more time to write/practice. I have 4 shows booked at this point, and more on the horizon I'm sure.

I am tempted to write a review of a show I went to last week. It was a woman who neither rocked hard nor did anything truly artistic, but the crowd was enraptured by her beauty and quirkiness. But it will inevitably turn into a complaining rant, so I'll just leave you with that teaser.

More to come...