See that guitar? I’ve owned it since 2008. Yet up until 2021, the most it got played was usually by my students (I kept it in my office so they wouldn’t have to lug their own guitars). However, in 2020, I called my friend and amazing guitarist and teacher Pete McCann and asked if he would give me lessons. We started in the summer and by October, I’d still barely touched the instrument even though I was taking bi-weekly lessons. Feeling that I was not only wasting my own time, but my friends, I called it quits to figure out what was going on. See, the issue is that I wanted to play the guitar. Badly. As a songwriter, I wanted to be able to have more facility on the instrument to allow me to write – and to see what happens when I did write – on an instrument that isn’t as familiar (I’ve played piano since I was 8).
And then it hit me. Songwriting is my superpower. It’s the lens through which I process life. I LOVE new original music. For anyone who knows me, you know I have this weird prolific streak in terms of writing songs – not that you would know or have heard most of the hundreds – possibly thousands – of songs I’ve written over the past 25 years – because honestly most of them never see the light of day. But, they are mostly all finished. On average, when I’m not working really hard to prep for a gig (like the last month), I’m writing 3-5 complete songs a week – and I have for the past at least 10 years. I’m not saying this to brag – but just saying that’s how I process music. It’s how I process the world and my feelings and interesting and mundane things I see in my daily life. Through writing. I don’t really get a kick out of singing other people’s music – I love hearing it – but it rarely strikes me to learn someone else’s song unless I’m mining it for ideas to help my own creative process and work (notice a pattern?) Someone asked me the other day if I ever did covers on my gig – and honestly, the last cover I worked up to perform (aside from a few jazz standard gigs I’ve done here and there and some transcription videos on YouTube) was Limelight by RUSH (you can find it on my album, Spark) in 2015.
And that’s what every guitar teacher I’ve ever had has started with: learn this song…now this song…and well, what I realized in thinking about songwriting was that I just don’t care enough to learn someone else’s music for the sake of playing someone else’s music – it doesn’t invigorate me or make me want to practice. That’s what I realized in taking a break and thinking about how I needed to learn. I went back to Pete and said: Ok, here’s what I want to do. I want you to give me chord shapes and strumming patterns and I’ll write you a song with those patterns and chords every two weeks. And it worked! Not only did I WANT to practice, I practiced. I got callouses on my fingers. I cut off all my fingernails so they wouldn’t interfere with the sound. I started geeking out on alternate tunings and not fully knowing what the heck I was playing harmonically – just letting my ears take me and finding and seeking out things until I landed on something I liked. By the time I’d written the third song – six weeks in – I was putting in between 1-2 hours a day at least 5 days a week. Playing MY songs. Figuring out new songs. Playing around. Making a mess. Having fun exploring. And that pattern kept going. New song every two weeks for a year plus. I’m still excited to pick up the guitar and there are SO many things that I still have to work on – mainly tuning while talking – but other things like pedals and amps and strings and humidity and electric guitar and…well…so many things! Weirdly, I’m at a point where I’m WANTING to learn other people’s songs – but again, to add more technique to my playing – so my next goal is to learn a song and then write a song using the technique in that song every two weeks. The thought of that is SO exciting I’m looking forward to scheduling my next lesson after I practice and write with hammer-ons because that’s where I left off
In October, I played one song with my band on my release show – and then I started thinking: man, what about if I could play a whole gig by myself on guitar? Like a ‘real’ singer-songwriter? (I have no idea why I think that’s what ‘real’ singer-songwriters do – but it’s definitely a thing in my brain). So, in January, I booked a show for March 23 at Rockwood Music Hall in NYC. Thinking, well, if I chicken out, I still have enough time to get a band lol. But I didn’t get a band. I practiced like crazy – every day I could I put in at least an hour. I played a house concert for friends of friends that helped me get over some of the nerves. I practiced more. Each song multiple times a day. Working on the grip of the pic, keeping my strumming pattern even, singing WHILE playing (shit, that’s hard – I find guitar so much more physical than the piano), thinking about the arrangement and what I could do with the burgeoning skills I have. I even ended up writing a new song (I wanna be like Steve Martin) during this time that is probably one of the most challenging songs to sing and play I’ve ever written – and I totally played it on my gig. In the end, I played a nine-song set. Six songs on guitar and three on piano. I did recruit my husband and expert bass player, Bob Sabin, to play on three tunes. Not because I couldn’t hold my own, but because I felt the bass really added to the sound of what I was working to achieve with the songs and helped break up the set a little (as well as help me be not so nervous because I had a friend on the stage ) IT WAS SO FUN! Was it perfect? Nope. Not at all. I totally missed a couple chords, forgot an entire verse of one of my songs, botched a transition and I think my strumming was a little erratic in the first song because I was so nervous. But honestly, I don’t care. Because I DID IT. I haven’t felt this accomplished in a really long time. The feeling of working towards something – and having that awareness that I totally didn’t have in my youth in school settings – that this was something I chose. No one was making me learn or do this. I didn’t have to learn guitar. I didn’t have to play a gig. I didn’t have to write songs on the guitar. But something inside me kept yelling: DO IT! And I did. And I’m kinda crying about the whole thing. I’m excited about the possibility. I’m swimming in the joy of the journey and I just don’t want to get out of the ocean.
The morning after, I’m just still totally processing everything. I’m aware that I’m very lucky in that, at age 45, I have the time and means to be able to put this kind of effort into something new. I’m aware that so many people just stop trying or even being able to try when they hit a certain age and life journey point and that I’m doing something that many people maybe wish they could (not the guitar thing, but just following a weird dream). It’s incredibly humbling. And I keep wondering: what happens if we all give ourselves a little more grace and a little more permission to just TRY things? When I started this journey in 2008 with the purchase – ok – actually, I worked off this guitar at a music store I was teaching at – I wanted to do the exact thing I did last night. It took me almost 15 years, but I did it. And maybe I wasn’t ready to do it the many many times I tried in the past. Or maybe I just didn’t understand the thing about myself that motivates me to do the thing I want to do. And if I’d stopped and didn’t allow myself the permission to keep trying and the grace to be ok with myself at failing all the other times, I never would have gotten here. And here feels pretty damned good.
Last year, someone asked my what my WHY was for doing this whole music thing. I didn’t really have a solid answer then, but I think my WHY in doing music is to share and to help and to do what I can to make the world a better place and a place where people are seen. And to be someone that people can look at and say – gosh – maybe I CAN do that insert whatever you want to do at whatever time in your life you want to do it (this also got me thinking about teaching and how I teach and help my students – and to encourage them to discover their WHY and to continue to give themselves permission).
I went into this show not knowing what would happen – but just that my goal was to DO THE THING. I’ve been struggling to figure out what I want this whole ‘artist life’ to look like on the other side (fingers crossed) of the pandemic. I wasn’t even sure if I still wanted to do live performances anymore – and if I did – what would they look like? Solo? Band? Duo? Huge band? Honestly, I still don’t know, but what I DO know is that I want to do more live shows. So that means I’m gonna have to get back on the booking train and book shows. And try to keep this feeling of what it feels like to perform loud because I HATE booking shows. I mean. HATE. And I have TRIED. I have had mentors, I have taken classes, I have TRIED. And I still just hate it. Sigh. But I’m gonna do it anyways because that’s the only way I’m going to play more shows. (Unless someone reading this wants to be my booking agent??? Lol). Still, what I learned is that I still love to perform. I love figuring out what to wear and doing my hair. I love prepping all the things for the gig. Making sure all my ducks are in a row. Making sure I have an extra set of strings and that my voice is being taken care of. Leaving way too early for the gig so by the time we get there that there’s so much time before we need to be at the venue that my husband gets dinner beforehand (I probably would have just stayed in the car and gotten nervous). Coming home and still feeling like I could take on the world and instead, I need to go to bed because I have to get up at 5:00 am the next morning to commute to Berklee where I teach on Thursdays and Fridays.
I’m invigorated. I’m excited. Possibility seems to be hanging in the air and I want to taste all it has to offer – with the foremost feeling being one of: let’s just go on this road less traveled and see what’s at the end.