I'll Do It Afraid

First of all, thanks to everyone for the compliments on the "Every Little Bit" piece- I will post another song, an original this time, in a few days.

I'm especially thankful that a couple of people said they would enjoy playing music with me in the future - I intend to help make that happen - however, I do have some misgivings about recording and posting, and I really need to talk about them.

I think I've given an impression of myself that isn't really accurate - :doh: - I've done that kind of thing a lot, and I need to do better. For one thing, I don't really love getting compliments, but I have learned to appreciate them. It took me a long time to get to a point in my life where I was able to accept any kind of compliment for any reason. I can trace that back to passive-aggressive, co-dependent, and sometimes violent parenting... Let's just say I grew up quiet, and I grew up cautious. In the last song post I asked everyone to "Please be kind" because it was my first song post (well, other than Sorry Charlie, which was not a serious piece, though I do really like it - it makes me feel a jagged kind of mirth to listen to it.) What I really mean by this is that I didn't post that piece to get people to pat me on the back and say, "Wow, b, that was great!", although I do feel good when I hear things like that.

I have worked with a few bands over the years, and, what I found out was that most bands out there just want someone to say "Hey man, yuu Rock!" What most people will say in response to a band is "You Rock!", sometimes they'll even come out and say "You suck!", but it's pretty much the same thing - it's empty of focus and intent - it's like a waitress coming to my table and saying "How's the food?", and I automatically say "It's very good, thank you.", and what I'm thinking is "This spiced sour soup was in the fridge & they nuked it, and then this bitch lied to me and said 'Oh yes, sir, it's fresh from about 15 minutes ago', and the center of my bowl of soup is COLD!", but I don't want to call her a liar, bring her down, or piss her off- and so I just smile a vague smile and let it pass.

One of my kids listened to the Patty Griffin cover piece I posted the other day and said, "Sorry dad, but it sucks - your head sounds all stuffed with cotton." And I think, a lot of the time, that I do sound awful. I have had a lot of problems with this, people telling me I'm "down" on myself, people telling me I'm self-defeating, etc. I've been trying to figure this out, becasue I really do like me - I'm not a POS wannabe human being, I'm a pretty smart guy who's been through and learned a lot over the past few years. So, I've been doing some investigating, and from what I have learned, more than a few well-though-of musicians think that they sound like crap and really sound amazing. I used to chalk it up to self-consciousness, and lack of honesty from my friends, but now I am wondering if it might be my hearing, or something else that I cannot define.

The point is, I really have no idea whether I'm good at making music or not, other than what people tell me - I love making music, and won't ever stop - though, if it turns out that I cannot make music that other people can enjoy, I just won't record it anymore.

I am going to be posting pieces here for the purpose of sending out my own feelings when I play; happy, sad, angry, whatever, and looking for feedback that can help me do better - because, I want to be good enough to take my music somewhere and generate a little more emotion, expression, catharsis, knowledge, power, freedom, and joy in this world.

I have had to work with people (as a small studio engineer), who were so ungodly awful at what they did that I could barely keep from grinding my teeth while going over their tracks - these people were paying me to record them, so I recorded their music and took their money, burned their music, and wiped their tracks from my machines forever. .I don't ever want to end up on the wrong side of the board like that.

Then there's the memory of the really pretty, really sweet girl I knew in middle and high school who could peel paint with her voice, and everyone loved her so much (and lusted after her so much) that none of us could bear to tell her how awful her voice was. And the woman who worked as a stripper and thought she could sing just like Madonna because nobody would tell her she sounded like a cracked plastic horn... I know, I'm not telling anybody anything they don't already know; I'm just sayin' I don't want to face that kind of fate - it scares me very badly to think that I could really, deep down, be a deluded fool.

Please, oh please, when I post my music- don't be kind to me, be honest. These honest, non-positive comments might sting or worse, but the honesty is what I really, really need.
A woman I used to know told me that if I was afraid of something I want to do then I should "do it afraid", and do it again, until I either didn't want to do it anymore, or until I wasn't afraid any more, and then I could just keep on doing it - we were talking about rollerblading at the time, but it applies here, for me, much more.

I have invested a lot of time in learning what music is, developing ability at communicating through music, and now I want to spend some time putting these years of learning toward something that is vivid and beautiful, and I am so afraid.