Interiors

I've never really been one to wander around loudly being an artist.  I was married to a man for a decade who dyed his hair multiple colors and wore as many different hues and patterns as possible, my father used to wear his hair like a frozen firework, and most of my friends have relentlessly informative clothes and tastes that announce them as art in process. I have always envied their clear voices.

If you met me without knowing a thing about me you'd never know I'm a composer or a vocalist or a poet or a writer or any type of artist at all. I dress simply. My hair is going grey.  I don't talk about my art to most people that I interact with and my conversation is usually about the other person and their life as, to be honest, there's little art in the known and I know quite a bit about myself.  I'm interested in other.



For most of my life I've considered the outside of my skin to be mostly mirror, but the inside of my skin, that is a whole other story.  The inside of my skin, the thin layer that touches fascia and muscle, the part always unseen and lit only with the body electric that so many have written about over the centuries - this inside has always been a riot of color and pattern and shape and image.  I'm covered on the inside with symbols and charts pointing out navigational routes and weather warnings.  There are instructions in languages that have never been spoken and images of beings that won't ever be seen. There are patterns standing in for ideas, and ideas evoked by placeholder images.

The outside of me moves through the world unnoticed most of the time.  The inside of me presses outward, a constantly shifting landscape of color and pattern in an endless visual discussion.

A few months ago I noticed that come September, a new chapter of my life will be starting.  I'll be living on my own after a few decades of sharing time and daily space with others.  My time will be more flexible and my choices will be based solely on my own wants and needs. So I made a mental note that it might be a good idea to let all the colors and patterns inside me swirl out, drain out, and leave a clean slate behind for the new. 

And so my body decided to take my mind literally and I've spent the last 6 weeks hemorrhaging. We've figured it out now and I'm turned around, heading back towards a more physically balanced body. 

But now all the images and patterns inside my skin are gone. I am clean and clear inside, and have taken to drawing little pictures on my arms and legs to see if they soak in.  I have a blank canvas to work with and am a mix of joyful and hollow. Send light and vibrant color.

Defining Moments

 

I'm jumping through the hoops to get onto Spotify right now.  The process of defining my music well enough for it to be categorized always makes me a bit queasy, as if I'm cooking something unhealthy that I don't even like to eat.

Back in the waybackwhen days I tried desperately for about a decade to get a manager.  I sent out cassette tapes and endless reams of photocopied promo packs with newspaper articles and carefully typed up reviews.  I had this idea that if I could just get one person on my side, just one person to represent the music, I could make a dent. 

When the rejection letters came rolling in, they had a common theme.  They loved my music, they thought they could sell my looks and personality, I had a fantastic voice - but they needed me to sing something else.  Or write different music.  Not because what I was doing was poorly done, but because there was no way for them to sell it, or me, as there was no category that I fit in.  As one fellow put it, "You're not pop, you're not R&B, you're not classical, you're not soul, you're not rock, and you're all those things. Pick one."

These days there are categories for vocal driven music that I fall into naturally.  I don't fit 100% but well enough so I can sneak into and perch in the corner until I'm discovered and tossed out.  Back when MP3.com was a thing I was able to stay in their World Music section for years. Nowadays I use the Alternative Music category and get emails from folks yelling at me for putting "weird stuff" in their preferred section. 

I don't think my music is that odd, to be honest.  Perhaps it's because I'm living with it everyday. Perhaps it's because the structures I'm using are often verse chorus based and that's relentlessly normal (well, tbh the next CD has a lot of not-that-normal-of-a-structure pieces on it).  Or maybe it's because most of the time my arrangement may be voice only but they do mirror standard rock/pop frequency spreads.

It's my hope, my prayer, my belief that the work I'm doing has value and merit of its own accord.  That no matter what the arrangement, there's a method to the madness and that people don't need or even want to have music so rigidly assigned and defined.  That eventually all music will define its own category.

In the meanwhile, I'm checking off the "Alternative" box in the Spotify application.  Wish me luck.  

Perspective

Like all creators, my process sometimes involves That Which Is Other Than Creation.

This is one of those times when I'm writing a little and connecting a lot.  It's time to update the blog, wrap up the online courses, generate social media, and make contact with other musicians. I'm dashing from project to project, finding new ways to present ancient ideas and keeping a sense of balance.

Every few years I seem to do this.  I make an effort to bridge the gap between myself and the rest of the world.  I teach more, write about my work more, reach out to listeners more, aim to find more sources of funding.  This time I'm using online courses to teach more, this blog and Facebook to write about my work more, Spotify to reach out to my listeners more and Patreon to find more sources of funding.

Something is different this time around though.  Usually these types of tasks feel like forcing my way through a hip deep river of sludge, but right now I feel oddly energized.  I think that I may have finally found a way to communicate about my music without having to simply play my work and then wait for folks to get it or not.   I think for the first time that people are responding to what I do.

I write vocal driven music.  Soaring, cutting, floating music.  Music that adds, music that resonates, music that relates. Writing is powerful, moving, razor's edge stuff.  Singing what I write is like constantly yearning and sometimes getting nearly, almost close to what I have in my head. Somehow I'm getting the hang of communicating that.  And why it's important for people to be a part of it.

This are lightening times, the tide coming in and sunlight on the top of your head times.  Far landscapes and the feeling of a puppy nosing under your hand times.  There's few times that are better.

So please be a part.  And reach out if you'd like me to be a part of what you create.