Playing music is one of my passions in life, its a true escape. When I'm in the middle of a writing session or playing with the band, I am at peace. I know that sounds cliche, but its the only way I can think to describe it. In that moment nothing matters, everything is calm and I feel at peace with myself. There's no judgement, no thinking, just being. Just reading that back makes me want to gag, but I've re-written it three times and that seems to be the best way I can describe it.
The great thing about all this is I'm not a great musician, I think for the most part I'm barely passable, despite that mediocrity I love playing music. I will say that I have begun to really embrace the guitar in a way I have not in the past.
It is amazing how far recording equipment has come. I've had a recording studio in the basement for 25 years and what used to take thousands of dollars and a floor to ceiling rack of gear can now be done by a single piece of equipment a bit bigger than a laptop (the one I have is a 2488 Neo). The sound quality on this HDR is miles above any other kind of recorder I've had - the fact that it cost less than $500 is kind of incredible too.
I started playing with this current band about 4 years ago - we play mostly original songs and most of the ones I've brought are songs I wrote many years ago with various bands. I've had creative "spurts" in my life where songs were rolling out as quick as I could record them, but this last four years plus the three or so before it when I wasn't in a band have been a bit of a drought. Recently I've been making a bit more time to get in the studio to write and I feel like the creative streak is back. I've written 4 songs in the last 2 months.
Song writing is a very personal thing I guess. When I'm writing I try to not judge at all - I let things happen and see where they go. For reasons I don't understand at all the words usually go in a pretty dark direction. I am a very positive person so I don't know where this stuff comes from or why, I just let it happen. A lot of times the words are from an imaginary person's perspective, who is this guy and why does he hate life so much? I don't know.
So here's my latest creation, warts and all. I always consider these solo writing sessions as sort of rough drafts of the final songs, so there are always warts. Probably the biggest wart (besides my singing) is the use of a drum machine. I could spend time programming the thing so its not so 1, 2, 3, 4, but since this is a rough draft I'm willing to give up on a good drum track to keep the process moving.
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