I've had a strong interest in music my entire life. I've always loved to sing, make noise, listen to, and study the history of music. But other than my early childhood years of participating in the school choir and orchestra, I never really took music seriously. It wasn't until my mid-teenage years that I started to devote a large portion of my life to music.
I picked up the guitar late - I think I was around 15 years old. One of my best friends at the time showed me how to play a few songs from Modest Mouse and At The Drive-In, and in doing so taught me how to read and write tablature. I rediscovered the classical guitar that my mom had forgotten from her teen years - a guitar that she had never learned to play - and then spent the next year (and rest of my life) teaching myself how to play using the old manuscripts that she had purchased when she was a teen.
Learning the guitar was a mix bag. Some things came easily and naturally, while others were much more difficult. I remember trying to teach myself how to barre an F Major chord, and spending roughly a month acquiring the proper technique and hand muscle strength to be able to play a single song. I honestly thought that I would never get it down.
Here is a pic of an F Major barred for those of you who don't know what I'm referring to:
But practice makes perfect. Soon, I was able to perform those F Major chords with ease. Playing an F chord went from being something that I despised and found ways to avoid, to becoming a major staple in my playing. That chord shape is vital to many guitarists as you can transpose that chord shape anywhere on the guitar to create other major chords (or minor if you drop down to start on the A string).
Why am I telling you all of this? Well, I guess I'm going on sort of a tangent and derailing from my original intention. But, looking back, learning how to play that chord helped me to acquire much more than just a new musical voicing. To this day, I use that memory of my difficulty with learning the barred F chord shape to remind myself that it's possible to get over challenges that seem exceedingly difficult. Memories like that can be helpful, especially for me when I approach a mental hurdle in my life.
I suppose now that you know the back story, I can finally dive into the main point of this story. A few years ago, I gave up trying to write songs. Why? Because I hated my voice. I didn't like the way my voice sounded, and I thought my lyrics were dumb. I went from writing a song or two a week, to focusing solely on musical composition through the use of only instruments. Vocals melodies and lyrics were completely written off because of a fear.
So recently, something in me changed. One day I woke up, and decided that life is too short to be fearful of stupid things. So I latched on to the memory I had of learning to play that F chord, and I decided to just give up the negativity and go for it. I started writing lyrics. Something that I hadn't done for a good 5 years. I played guitar and wrote lyrics in a little book, and then slowly started humming them out loud to build the vocal melody. I slowly built up the courage to hum notes in front of my wife, and with her loving support, I built up the courage to sing to her. With each barrier that broke down, I felt a little more empowered. I'm now a little a more than a month into writing lyrics and singing again. I've recorded a few songs and I would like to present them here on Steemit.
This first one is called "A Way Out", and I didn't know it at the time, but looking back on it, I now think that this song was about finding a way out of my fear of letting my voice be heard. I hope you enjoy.
