Why Bother?

Why bother?
It's gonna hurt me
It's gonna kill when you desert me
This happened to me twice before
It won't happen to me anymore...
—Weezer

What is the purpose of this pursuit, really?  Prove my chops, serve my ego, assert my will on others, earn indie cred?  Do I have anything of worth to say about life or relationships or social issues or ________?  Can I, a person who's studying to become a scientist, make art?  And can I, a Christian, make legitimate and original and good art?

I assure you there are a lot of little reasons I just mentioned (and probably a few I don't quite know yet, good or bad), but the simplest answer is that there's a sound in my head that has been swimming around for years, and it needs to pour out.  Whenever my defeated mind tells me I should just play music with whoever wants me around and not worry about it, my heart reaction is NO.  Recently, as I've attended more shows in Seattle this year than the previous three years combined, I would watch a band on stage and...  THIS is what I came here for.  This is where I belong.

Overcome @ Cornerstone Festival, 2010

The guitar blog completed from last year to a few months ago had a low amount of risk associated with it—Come listen to me talk your ear off about components and watch me make something legitimately cool.  But writing music?  There's a whole world of criticism out there waiting to find you.  I had to learn to take that criticism well, and to filter out the voices of trolls and naysayers, when I started posting tutorial demo videos on YouTube in 2009.  Perhaps I just figured that songwriting would be a hundred times worse.  Fear can stop you, but that doesn't negate the drive nor flush out your ideas.  I'd like to think that time, age, a few dozen rejections from women, and those YouTube videos have made me a more resilient individual, such that I'm ready to tackle a much more personal project and release it to the world.

Alright, enough talk.  Over the years I've amassed a library of guitar riffs and chord progressions using the most crude software (Cubase AI, Audacity) and microphones (Shure SM63 into a XLR/TRS converter, smartphone).  Recording was just never a world I wanted to get into.  The idea of dropping enormous amounts of money on gear and software, just to have it all go obsolete in a couple years' time with another Pro Tools update, was something that kept me at bay.

I have all of my files arranged by date as YYYYMMDD and loaded in my iTunes under my own name.  Narcissistic?  Maybe.  But it makes for easy access:

I'll start with these files and see if there's anything interesting there that will spark any new ideas.  And I've got plenty more sound files between two different smartphones, too.

Speaking of ideas:

I'm Not A Songwriter

As of March 2015, I've been playing guitar for fifteen years.  That's half of my life spent on one passion; one pursuit.  Music has been a tremendous gift that has kept on giving.  There have been rock bands, church worship bands, shows, flights to other states to play, recording sessions, and a YouTube channel as a platform for gear tutorials.  I've had a good run and a fun ride on this thing so far.  But lately a wire in the light bulb of my thought process has begun to glow: I'm not a songwriter.

I've always been someone else's musician.  The hired gun.  The backup guitar or bass player called in when someone else in my circle of friends needs someone who can play.  Over the years I've developed this skill set of being able to drop in at a moment's notice (especially in worship music), and I can improvise working or sometimes even interesting parts.  I've prided myself on this ability, but whenever I've been asked if I have any songs, or a band, there would be that awkward moment of tension where I have to admit that I haven't developed the discipline for those pursuits.

I had left "my" previous metal band, Overcome, in 2011 to move to Seattle so that I could rock out here.  I say "my" because it really wasn't MY band; Overcome is Jason Stinson's band; there's a history attached with that band name that I'm only a small part of, and while I was a full member for over a year and recorded an album with them (The Great Campaign of Sabotage, Facedown Records), and it was a fantastic experience, and I was challenged in ways that were good...  There was something missing.  The space was left open at the time where I could write some riffs or contribute a major portion of a song structure for Overcome, but everything I wrote at home just didn't fit.  I learned to trust Stinson's judgment and songwriting style and keep up the pace.

I could go on and on about how the last four or so years here in Seattle have left me with no opportunity to pursue music here, including phases of intense involvement in a church, or being broke poor to the point of living solely on pasta, or returning to school (I'm now enrolled full-time and working toward and engineering degree), etc.; while true, it's all BS.  It's time to get over being my own worst enemy as far as having discipline is concerned.

I'm not a songwriter, but it's time to work on becoming one.

This blog will be structured much like my custom guitar blog from last year (That Dream Guitar, which turned out to be a huge success): chronicle the individual decisions working up to a larger whole.  In that blog, I knew I wanted a tangible thing as a result of the process.  Here, I may need some time and processing to figure what my actual goals are.  Are you a songwriter if you write just one song?

To be explored in my next few entries, my goals are to:
-Write a minimum of 3 songs with... well-thought out structures and riffs.
-Discover my lyric writing style.
-Develop my singing voice and determine whether or not it would truly fit in with the [loud and abrasive] music I want to write.
-Attempt to have these songs recorded professionally.  None of this "Oh yeah, I've got a buddy with a mic preamp in his bedroom at his mom's house; I can hook up a discounted rate" nonsense.
-Address the issue of pulling off this project entirely solo or attempting to become a bandleader in the process.
-PLAY AT LEAST ONE SHOW IN SEATTLE.  This one is huge for me, you guys.
-Accomplish most of these goals by Summer 2016.

Let's rock!

—Nicholas Greenwood, April 2015