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I’ve had tunnel vision lately, and at the end of the tunnel is a new song I am writing about homelessness called, “People on the Streets.” It’s inspired by my work with The Giving Spirit, an L.A. based non-profit that distributes survival kits to the homeless in Los Angeles. There is another event coming real soon on June 11-12, 2011, so I guess it is appropriate that I am inspired to work on this now.

There're people living on the streets

Since last weekend I have been recording guitars and the various other layers in Pro Tools. I’m finally at the point where I can use Pro Tools to capture most of the ideas I have, it’s a great program with a steep learning curve, in my opinion, but now that I’ve got the basics of recording and mixing down it’s all downhill from here. Now it’s just a matter of making the music. Nice.

Here are the lyrics for People on the Streets:

I had a little conversation

Thought about my situation

And the people living on the streets

Outcast and forgotten

Extreme reality

It’s not a movie, and it’s not TV

Put your fears aside

Put your judgment aside

They’re just trying to stay alive

They’re just trying to survive

Food is a basic human right

Put a shelter over everyone in sight

Put your fears aside

Put your judgment aside

They’re just trying to stay alive

They’re just trying to survive

Food is a basic human right

Put a shelter over everyone in sight

Hopefully soon I can share my song. I tried to give it a walking-down-the-street vibe with a nice rhythm section. I still have to work on the arrangement a little and I’m still trying to get a vocal take that I like so wish me luck on that, and hopefully the end result will be a nice song that honors the homeless and makes us think about the issue a little.

The Shock

I couldn’t believe it when it happened. My guitar fell from the bed to the floor and… SNAP! The headstock, as you can see in the picture, broke in half like a match stick. What the..?

That’s all I could think. I couldn’t even get mad because this was so shocking that it was beyond anger, it was jaw-dropping disbelief. I just thought WOAH, what’s going on? I had no answer.

After a few hours of absorbing what happened I started to think of the meaning behind it. I’m the kind of person who believes there’s a higher reason for things like this to happen, so I needed to know why.

The Notebook Entry

My notebooks are a place for me to reflect on the meaning of things in my life. For this incident, I wanted to know how a broken guitar could be good for me. There had to be a higher reason, there always is. Somehow this event was a catalyst for personal growth, so I reflected in my journal last night about what this all meant and here’s what I wrote:

Guitar playing means nothing

Singing means nothing

Making a statement means nothing

Overcoming suffering means nothing

Writing songs means nothing

Being good means nothing

Having fun means nothing

Changing the world means nothing

Wikileaks means nothing

Blog posts mean nothing

Facebook means nothing

The Meaning

My thought process in interpreting the meaning of this began by looking at this event as obviously being connected to my relationship to the guitar or music. I know my attitude with music lately has been a little impatient, even a little frustrating, and because I know these feelings are not coming from the highest part of me I know that my broken guitar has to do with healing those feelings. There is clearly a message here for me to let go of the guitar, or to let go of music.

You can see in my notebook entry that this list of things, which are things I feel to be important and valuable, I was telling myself meant nothing. I remembered that more important than achieving all of my goals is to let go of them. Let go of guitar playing, let go of singing, let go of music. Let go of all of it so I can detach from expecting results. When I expect certain results I get frustrated if they don’t manifest, sometimes subtly, sometimes not.

I remembered that when things mean nothing, they lose their hold over us. We just let them happen because we are not personally attached to them in any way and we are not expecting a certain outcome. If we learn to have a higher relationship of detachment to that which we most desire, as well as to that which we least desire, we allow deeper states of self expression to manifest. We can create for the sake of creation, not for the sake of some goal.

I guess I am getting a pretty strong message to let go of even my most important goals, and of expecting certain outcomes so that I can free myself from pressure to succeed and discover deeper levels of being. Good thing I have another guitar so I can continue with making music, but note to God – I got the message, no need for another.

From now on there’s going to be two parts of my life: pre August 29 and post Aug 29. Yesterday, August 29, 2010 was the first time I ever performed my own songs and sang in front of a crowd. My whole life has been a build up to performance. My style as a music student has been to practice everything in private until there was nothing else to do except perform. Well, that time is now.

I am at the point where I just have to get out there and be in front of others to build my confidence and my stage performance. The biggest lesson I learned from my first time was that my mind needs to stay focused on the words I am singing and forget about the people watching. I realized that to be a professional is to have a clear mental idea of the words and phrase to be sung, whereas when I went up there I was paying too much attention to the group outside of me and wasn’t focused wholly on everything I was trying to do. It caused me to flub a few vocal and guitar parts, but oh well, I am pleased with my first time out.

I performed two songs. First I read a poem while playing my guitar, and then I sang one of my songs called “Wild Life.”

Anyway, now is forever post August 29, and that means that I am now a developing performer rather than just a guy who practices. For years I have wondered what this day would be like and when it would arrive. I have long thought that once I reach this point then I am getting close to mastery. Things are only going to get better.