What started as an escape has become my life's work, at least in this edition of the story. The lessons learned, the music made, the love had and lost, all wove together to create a platform on which I stand in this very moment. I've accomplished my goal of getting into grad school- a goal 10 years in the making- and now I understand that it had to take that long for me to be in the position that my heart, soul, and ear can navigate through what promises to be a tough, but enlightening three years ahead.
Getting fired from amplifi, though it may not have been the most graceful exit, was a blessing in disguise. The knots in my heart knowing that this company's best interests laid first and foremost in profit without providing the right tools or resources for their instructors, has now dissipated. I still think about and care for all the students of mine who have come and gone, and hope to keep ties with the ones who want me to be a bigger part of their artistic journey. In a way, we are going through this together, and if I've learned anything, it is that I am not alone, nor do I intend for them to ever feel that way, if I can help it. Nonetheless, a bright future lies ahead and I feel more open to the possibilities of it than ever before in my 32 years of life.
It didn't happen without sacrifice. I've had to learn how to create boundaries with people, addictions, habits, and my own Self- my former Self- a Self that I had to mourn and make room for a new, improved, better, stronger, more productive Self. I've lost friends on the way, but have more room for ones that actually serve me, in turn, serve the world; I've lost familiarity with substances that numbed pain from inner and outer sources; I've had to push myself out of bad habits and force my brain to not fall into the traps of easy ways out, for what is growth if the foundations crumble in chaos? If conflict is inevitable, then my suit of armour has to be made of gold.
Still, music remains my constant, traveling through time, before, after, through me in a way over which I finally realize I have little control. To quote my very first post in TSP:
Love is not an energy that just comes and goes.. it's a chameleon; that energy transforms itself into other forms and there must be some organization to its growth when manifested into art. The repression of that passion, whether formulated by circumstance or happenstance, is what pulls the spirit down into a place not easy to crawl out of, and can only be rescued by the willpower to hone the thing that flows so naturally from the tips of your fingers. Mine is music.
I'd like to take that quote further: The repression of passion can only be rescued by the willpower to hone the thing that flows so naturally from the tips of your fingers... and for me, also has an intentional value to implicate change for the betterment of humanity. That is music.
Happy September 1st, my friends.
Here is a little improvisational ditty of two other classmates and me exploring the Dorian mode in a practice room on a piano, a 10-note xylophone, and a hand drum. It's a Side A Track 1 of what's to come.
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