Years ago I made an album that I knew wouldn’t be the best quality. At the time, I hoped that time would pass and I would learn more, gain better or actual equipment (like not recording on my phone) and improve my knowledge of “audio engineering” so I was not really worried about putting it out in the world. It was okay that it was “crappy.” After all, my goal back then was to encourage every artist I knew whether they painted, drew or musiced to share their beauty as-is because we all are on a journey to improve. I have known so many people who stopped sharing their art because someone somewhere told them they were not good enough, as such I wanted to be the person to encourage everyone on my path in life and let them know all levels have value. Begginners as well as seasoned artists have the right to share their creations. For many years I was passively shamed for doing so as I mentioned on a previous post, and that’s why doing my YouTube channel and all the rest became very crippling.
Anyway, I finally was able to sit down and work on my old album that was all mp3s and change them to a format that was uploadable to Bandcamp and I am guessing other sites that I will decide on working on later probably if I want to put them on Spotify. Right now I can’t think long enough to know if I want to do that so moving on…
The point of this post is… while I started streaming and hearing music produced by people who know a lot more than me and have different tools and didn’t have their cognitive functions hindered by anxiety and depression and trauma like I had while I was at my old job I decided all my old tracks on my old album were trash. As I sat down to change all of my mp3s to FLAC I was waiting to cringe and have a really hard time mentally but as I listened to my voice from 5 years ago when I wasn’t jaded by whatever it is I have been dealing with for half a decade I realized how hard I have been on myself, and it made me kind of sad.
I’ve stopped myself from sharing because I feel so much shame when I do as if I don’t deserve people’s time, as if I am a hindrence to everyone around me if I play them a song. It makes me wonder how many artists feel something similar. We hear a voice that says we’re not good enough (it’s different reasons for everyone) and while I try my best to encourage my fellow artists to fight that voice I never fight that voice myself.
A few weeks ago my therapist asked me to define art and music. Music has always been my voice where I can say everything I was never allowed to say, everything that was always “too much,” everything that was always “in the way,” far from hiding. I have always seen art as a way for our souls to communicate beyond the barriers of language and even the physical dimensions we can measure. Oddly enough soon after I was mediating on those ideas a friend of mine who has amazing music was sharing on her stream how she always wanted to “save the world” and it makes her feel bad as if she is getting in her own way for being the amazing and beautiful soul she is because that little “I’m not good enough” voice creeps in on her even on a stream and in her mind it scares people away. I know this feeling of wanting to help a dying wordl all too well. Her openness and honesty has saved me many nights, the nights where I felt things like “the world is made worse by my music.”
Are you afraid of your heart? Are you afraid of your soul? Are you afraid of being seen? Don’t hide away, the world needs each and everyone of us. I think I have been mourning my past self that was so excited to share her heart with the world to “help” anyone who needed a bit of light, love and peace… I hope that this is a sign that she is coming back.
That being said… here is my “new” album from 2015 in a format (on Bandcamp) that can actually bring me income, heh…
[bandcamp width=100% height=42 album=589702005 size=small bgcol=333333 linkcol=2ebd35]