Last night was full of strange dreams, but there was one I really enjoyed…
It’s a bright spring day on the playground at my old grade school in Chicago, and today there’s a festival of a sort I don’t ever remember seeing there – balloons and food and people of every age and size running around enjoying themselves, eagerly awaiting the beginning of the music from the bandstand. I have no idea who’s going to be performing, but I recognize the singers when they come out on stage in their richly ornamented Mongolian garb – Huun Huur Tu, who to my knowledge are the premier traditional Tuvan throat-singing band in existence today. This in and of itself is a delightful shock – I didn’t imagine that the Parent-Teacher League members of my Midwestern Lutheran grade school were likely to know what throat-singing was, much less to attract one of the finest ensembles from the other side of the globe to perform at a school function. And now my joy is complete…knowing of my fondness for and enthusiastic (if limited) background in throat-singing, I am invited to lead a jam session on my guitar! I have to think fast…I have no choice but to ask them to harmonize on an American folk tune, unless I am prepared to noodle out – and run a distinct risk of butchering – “Arti-Sayir,” one of the most beloved Tuvan melodies. I think of an American tune which I can literally hear them singing in my head. I sweep across the expanse of the playground in a gossamer ensemble of billowing red and orange fabric which I have long dreamed of, and reflect that I am no longer the too-tall, pale-skinned, painfully quiet misfit that so many classmates taunted during my attendance at the fortress of parochial education that still towers above the crowd of fair-goers…today I am an accomplished and musically gregarious misfit who apparently even commands some degree of respect and attention! I reach for my guitar, hoping I can remember enough of the lyrics to lead competently…
Of course, internal pushes to live my musicianship come and go with time…but they’re coming from the outside now too. Last year I participated in RPM Challenge and recorded my first album, Back to One. The idea of RPM Challenge sounds ridiculous at first – recording an album to the best of one’s ability in one month – but the process can actually yield a beautiful product, and certainly kicks one’s creative tuchus into high gear for a few weeks, which can be a much-needed boost. Well, February is coming up, and the good folks at RPM Challenge HQ haven’t missed a beat – they’re already reminding past participants that the time to sign up for this year’s month of musical madness is beginning. I have to admit it’s tempting – insane, but tempting.
Again, if I can get ProTools working in time it will become a possibility…but then I have to ask myself if it’s a wise thing to consider. There are certainly reasons to do it…
- I have no day job right now, which means that if I really want to stay up until 3am making recordings, I certainly can.
- It’d be a heckuva crash course in using ProTools.
- It’s time to really jump on my music again, which this would force me to do – to write as fast as I could print up blank sheet music and record as quickly as my nimble little fingers will cooperate.
- If I don’t do it now, there’s an excellent chance I’ll have a lot of trouble summoning up the energy and focus to do it at another time…frankly I’m not well-known as a musician and I don’t think much of anyone cares if I record an album or not under most circumstances…but during RPM Challenge all of the other participants care. That’s a LOT of energy.
There are also reasons why it’s not necessarily a great idea…
- I have no day job right now, which means I need to be looking for work.
- It’d be a heckuva crash course in using ProTools, which might be really stressful.
- It’s time to jump on my music again, but I really need to work on my repertoire and get out and perform more than I need to make another album.
- When I think of recording, what excites me is not so much the idea of just making another album, but making a better album with richer, more interesting instrumental textures. I don’t know if I could do that and write and learn new music and learn new equipment all in a month.
- I don’t want to push myself too hard, period, and I already have a ton of goals happening. I just saved myself from the bloody brink of total, across-the-board burnout not too long ago; I don’t want to plummet back in.
…Of course if I wanted to take the pressure off I could always start a new account and spend a month on a novelty album that I’ve been considering for a while…that would be something to accomplish if I could and no big deal if I couldn’t.
Ah, decisions, decisions…I’m not really sure what to do. In the meantime though, whether I’m going to make a new album or not, one thing is certain: I can’t go wrong writing another song.
