In this blog post, I share how music is helping me through a period of reflection and growth. I explore the connection between music and mental health, and how it has helped me express what I couldn’t put into words. Join me on my journey as I rediscover my love for music and work towards realizing new dreams.
My Summer of Sound – Music and Mental Health
Downtime is nice! I almost forgot what it feels like to have nothing to do for a while.
I’m sure you’ve picked up on this by now, but I’ll say it anyway. I’m a bit of a restless soul. I enjoy having new experiences, meeting new people, trying new tools and techniques, and learning new ideas. I think it’s essential to creativity.
But sometimes you just need to slow down.
I finished Season 1 of Never Give Up: A Rare Disease Podcast on July 4th (It’s available here on my blog, on Apple Podcasts, and on Spotify). I worked on it non-stop since January. Writing multiple drafts of the scripts, recording, editing, mixing, and mastering each episode. And then during the season, I was promoting it heavily – producing reels for Instagram, writing for my blog, and posting on social media.
So, by July 4th I was tired. Not burned out, thankfully. But I needed time to think and reflect once the season was over.
But since then I’ve had nothing on the agenda (outside of work, that is, and we’ve been busy).
So, I’ve finally had time for my hobbies again. And for me, that’s playing and writing music.
In Episode 9 of the podcast, I shared a story about playing guitar in a band. What I didn’t share in the story was that when I left that band I barely played music at all for almost 5 years.
Sometimes, when you love something deeply, and you go through a tough season of life, you give up the thing you love. Because you’ve given up on life.
It was such a dark period for me that I sold almost every guitar I had. Each one was a reminder of a bad memory, a season of my life that I wanted to forget.
But a few years ago I started playing again, and I’ve slowly been building up my collection once more. Just this past weekend I got a new guitar and recorded this instrumental piece I’ve been composing.
Turning to Music When Words Aren’t Enough
And so this is my summer of sound. Music helps me express what I can’t put into words. I don’t write pop music, although I love any good music no matter the genre. In the last year, I’ve become a Swiftie (not kidding. She’s got TALENT).
But instrumentals have always been my favorite. Maybe that goes back to my guitar hero, Stevie Ray Vaughan. His legendary instrumental, “Lenny”, was one of the first songs I attempted to learn once I started learning to play the blues. I’ve been working on it for almost 30 years, and it will keep me busy for the rest of my life. If you’ve never heard it, check it out:
So, recently I’ve been writing some instrumentals on my guitar. They typically begin with me just improvising… zoning out and playing for an hour or so… The same thing, over and over and over. Until it reaches some deep place inside and I stop thinking about what I’m playing, and just feel it.
I’ve also been learning how to compose Neoclassical and Orchestral music as well. That’s something I started learning during the height of the pandemic. I love film scores, so I’ve been writing music that sounds like it could be from a film score.
A couple of years ago, I wrote this piece of music in memory of my grandmother. She was the focus of Episode 9, and at Christmas a few years ago I was missing her like I hadn’t in years. So I wrote this for her:
Embracing New Dreams
Composing music relaxes me. And I’m a firm believer that if you’ve lived through difficult life experiences, if chronic anxiety is always with you, then you need to find something to help you relax. To help you sleep.
There’s another reason I’m writing music, though. As I said in another episode, I almost majored in music. I’m happy with my choice to become a professional storyteller, but in the back of my mind, I’ve always wondered if I had the skill to be a professional musician.
So, I’ve been practicing. A LOT. Going through some online guitar and piano lessons (for those interested, I highly recommend TrueFire for guitar lessons and Pianote for piano lessons). Recently I’ve spent a minimum of an hour per day practicing guitar and maybe a half hour at the piano. On the weekends it’s probably closer to 4 hours.
And I’m slowly studying material published by the Berklee School of Music. I’m not going back to school. I don’t need a degree. But I’m a fan of lifelong learning and self-education. I researched Berklee’s curriculum for composition and developed my own list of materials to study. And I’m slowly working on it.
Currently, I’m learning to read and write sheet music. Something I began to learn as a child when I took piano lessons for a year. I’m trying to finish what I began so many years ago.
Playing and listening to music is central to my mental health. I’m almost always listening to something. And I love to discover new music. It’s central to my life.
In my podcast, I shared experiences from my past. But music keeps me grounded in the present. And it also represents what I want in the future.
I gave up what I love for so long because I was just coasting through life. No more. I feel alive again. And dreams are returning. But they aren’t the same dreams I had years ago. These are new dreams.
There’s a line from Episode 7: Some dreams have to die for new ones to be born.
These dreams are just forming, and I am barely able to recognize their shape at this point.
But I know in the depths of my heart that for the rest of my life, music will always be at the center of my being.
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