This is your space to vent and share whatever you feel like sharing with the community. If you ever hesitate to share, thinking, “no one cares,” I can assure you we do! Nothing quite like some love from internet strangers on a shitty day.
I surprised my dad for his birthday! He lives in Seattle and I live in Chicago, so he had no idea I would be there. We went curling for his 70th and then partied into the night! Mom had two martinis and didn’t realize how strong they were so my brother in law did a great job being babysitter for a bit. My mom wasn’t drinking much leading into it so her tolerance was down, but she’s doing well today.
It is hard hanging with my sister and BiL since we went to their new house and they were talking about all the things they are planning and I very much feel like I’m not successful in my life in comparison. I know comparing myself to others isn’t good, but it’s so hard when it’s your sibling who your parents always used as a benchmark of success.
In the meantime I found a beautiful chord progression, C-Gm-F-Fm (I-v-IV-iv), with this melody that sounds so familiar but I just can’t place it. I’m going to write a song with it either way, and if someone comes up to me and says “you just copied off _____” I will say “THANK YOU it’s been driving me up the wall”!
It’s so cool you were able to surprise your dad! I’m sure it meant a lot to him. Curling looks so cool, sounds like quite a night!
It is hard when you have an objectively more successful sibling by society’s and your parents’ standards. Comparison comes easier. I hope that you are able to find success in a way that’s defined by you. And truly be content with where you are.
I know nothing about music, so I have no idea what that chord progression sounds like, but if you end up writing a song, will you record it? I’d love to hear it!
I really like your music and its overall style! I like Slow Dancing In the Kitchen, Kindness and Cruelty, and the Ballad of D.B. Cooper (which is basically all I listened to, so I like everything, lol). Oh, and Don’t Crash Your Car Into The Sea is also great, made me giggle. Have you been into music since childhood? I’m always fascinated by people who can just make music out of nothing. Seems like magic to me.
I have! One of my earliest memories was a teacher showing me “middle C” on the piano. That teacher gave up on me after 2 lessons, but I just kept plunking away on the keys. I couldn’t really read music but I figured out what patterns sounded nice and which didn’t.
Then my sister told me if I joined middle school band I got to go on a field trip to Disneyland in 8th grade, so I took trumpet and began to learn how to read music. I would get 2 or 3 friends and play Christmas Carols in downtown Seattle and make some money that way.
In 7th grade the band teacher needed someone on baritone horn (like a small little tuba, or basically the same as trumpet but bigger) so I got to play the schools horn. Later my mom’s friend came over with her old tenor saxophone and showed me how to make sounds out of it. I bought a saxophone lesson book and learned the fingerings from there. Dad had a guitar and in a fit of boredom one day, I picked that up too and blew through the book in 4 days. My fingers were blistered and bloodied but my heart wanted to hear “riding on the city of New Orleans” one more time!
I don’t think I was naturally good at anything, personally I don’t like the idea of “innate talent”. In fact my 9th grade band teacher stopped us in the middle of rehearsal one day, pointed at me and said “you do understand that you are what is wrong with this band, right?”. I feel the only reason I was able to become the musician I am today is that I didn’t let the love die. In fact I wouldn’t say I was a “good” musician until I took the leap to perform in public- the secret to success wasn’t “practice, practice, practice” it was “perform, perform, perform”.
Anyway, I teach music now and to me the #1 priority of a teacher is to build passion in the student, not fear.
Anyway, fuck you Mr. Miller, YOU were what was wrong with that band.
Yeah, fuck Mr Miller! And yay for good teachers who support and uplift their students!
You are totally right that it’s about practice. I do wonder if there is an issue of innate talent when it comes to writing music rather than performing it, but it also seems that the more you practice/perform, the easier it gets to come up with music? Is that true?
Oh yea! My first songs were bad, but the more I listened, experienced, and wrote, the sharper my ear got for lyrics and musicality.
The secret power kids have is they are, generally, better at being bad at things than adults. When they sound like a cat being electrocuted when playing violin, there’s a little bit of “well yea, no shit this sounds bad, I’m 10” and then they keep practicing (if they like the dream enough). If they don’t, they go be bad at something else that’s more worthwhile and practice that thing until they are good at it!
I started teaching a 45 year old woman trumpet, and she’s already jamming to some backing tracks after 4 months.
I did my talk on bipolar, and it went quite well, so that’s good. Everyone had questions around diagnosis, and I was like “YES, you have to screen EVERY client with depressive symptoms for bipolar.” How many of us were misdiagnosed with depression first? I know I was, and being on antidepressants was a terrible experience.
My mom, who lives in Russia, is really sad because I can’t come visit. She went to Navalny’s funeral, and I was worried about her, but thankfully everything was ok. Hopefully I can meet her somewhere outside of Russia later this year or in 2025.
On a completely unrelated and more positive note, I’m starting to take belly dancing again (I used to be really into it and even did some performances 10 years ago), and I hope it adds a spark to my life. I was missing having a fun way to move my body!
Yay! I’m glad to get the update on the talk. I’m so sorry to hear you can’t visit your mom. Going to Navalny’s funeral is an act of courage, and that is very scary.
Awesome on getting back into belly dancing! I have a friend in Chicago who has been belly dancing for years and she is one of the coolest people I know.
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