Moving moving moving again.
August 1st was the day my life was supposed to become officially, relatively stable here in NYC. I've been moving from place to place since I got here, four different dwellings since I moved here 12 1/2 months ago. This was to be the fifth, but it was going to be a real one: a year lease, with the nice young man I've been dating for eight months now. I was looking forward to settling down a bit--lifting the anxiety of "where am I going to live four months from now?" from me, allowing myself to focus more on what I'm doing here--namely, creating and promoting my music.
But a week ago, we learned that the place isn't going to be ready, so we are now preparing to live in friend's places and hotels for a month.
Just when you think things are finally going to settle down, the ground shifts again.
I guess the only solution is learning how to live in motion.
Monday, July 30, 2012
Sunday, July 29, 2012
A Different Venue
I have played many gigs since moving to the city, and I have also taken many yoga classes. So when I got the opportunity to play music for a yoga class, I didn't think it would be much of a stretch--simply putting two of my favorite things together.
It was petrifying.
First of all, I realized that playing an hour and 15 minutes of yoga class is much different than playing a one or two hour gig. In a gig, I fill up a good chunk of that time with banter, joking with the audience, explaining my songs. In the yoga class, there was none of that. I just had to keep playing straight through.
Then there was the issue of playing songs that wouldn't distract from the yoga practice. So no comedic numbers. "Stupid Noah" was out. "Just Give a Jewish Guy a Try" was out. I wound up playing "La Media Naranja" simply because I needed material, and I thought it would be okay. But I got a few amused looks during the song. Under normal circumstances, this would be the intended result, but in this case, not so much. Oh well.
The most frightening part was how exceptionally exposed I felt. Everyone was sober, and everyone could hear me clearly. There was no other conversation happening except for the instructor's cues. I'm not used to my playing being the only noise. At a bar, or even busking, I'm competing for ear attention with many other sounds. Here, I was the sound. When I made a mistake, there was nothing to cover it up.
As the students went through their sun salutes, warrior series, balancing, stretches, inversions, and finishing poses, I went through my repertoire of yoga-appropriate originals and covers. And while I spent the first half of the class worrying that they wouldn't like my song choices, voice, or guitar playing, those fears eventually dissolved into the mission of making my material last for the rest of class.
For savasana, I stopped singing and merely played notes on the guitar, forming the chords for a song I had learned in honor of the occasion, but had not yet mastered. By the time savasana was over, I realized I knew it well enough to share, and as the class sat in final meditation, I sang the words:
"Om nama shivaya, om nama shivaya..."
Despite all of the fretting which had preceded this, class ended with several breaths accompanied by this beautiful melody.
A long stretch of worry, with a perfect ending.
We all said Namaste, and the students began rolling up their mats. The teacher said she'd love to have me back anytime, and a few students came up to say thank you for the music.
I packed up my guitar and headed to the front desk to redeem my free month of yoga, earned through this offering.
Om nama shivaya.
I think it will be much easier next time.
It was petrifying.
First of all, I realized that playing an hour and 15 minutes of yoga class is much different than playing a one or two hour gig. In a gig, I fill up a good chunk of that time with banter, joking with the audience, explaining my songs. In the yoga class, there was none of that. I just had to keep playing straight through.
Then there was the issue of playing songs that wouldn't distract from the yoga practice. So no comedic numbers. "Stupid Noah" was out. "Just Give a Jewish Guy a Try" was out. I wound up playing "La Media Naranja" simply because I needed material, and I thought it would be okay. But I got a few amused looks during the song. Under normal circumstances, this would be the intended result, but in this case, not so much. Oh well.
The most frightening part was how exceptionally exposed I felt. Everyone was sober, and everyone could hear me clearly. There was no other conversation happening except for the instructor's cues. I'm not used to my playing being the only noise. At a bar, or even busking, I'm competing for ear attention with many other sounds. Here, I was the sound. When I made a mistake, there was nothing to cover it up.
As the students went through their sun salutes, warrior series, balancing, stretches, inversions, and finishing poses, I went through my repertoire of yoga-appropriate originals and covers. And while I spent the first half of the class worrying that they wouldn't like my song choices, voice, or guitar playing, those fears eventually dissolved into the mission of making my material last for the rest of class.
For savasana, I stopped singing and merely played notes on the guitar, forming the chords for a song I had learned in honor of the occasion, but had not yet mastered. By the time savasana was over, I realized I knew it well enough to share, and as the class sat in final meditation, I sang the words:
"Om nama shivaya, om nama shivaya..."
Despite all of the fretting which had preceded this, class ended with several breaths accompanied by this beautiful melody.
A long stretch of worry, with a perfect ending.
We all said Namaste, and the students began rolling up their mats. The teacher said she'd love to have me back anytime, and a few students came up to say thank you for the music.
I packed up my guitar and headed to the front desk to redeem my free month of yoga, earned through this offering.
Om nama shivaya.
I think it will be much easier next time.
Thursday, July 19, 2012
Letting Go of Things We Think Are Good
I've written a lot here about letting go, a concept that has been helpful to me over the past few years. We know that it is good to let go of certain things, like fear and doubt.
But what about letting go of things we generally associate with good, like loyalty? Like things we are proud of? Letting go of something that seems to have worked well?
This week, I renounced my 20-year fanhood of the New York Knicks. I've written about my love of basketball a few times on the blog. I watched Knicks games with my dad when I was young, back in the better old days of the team. The good old days of the Knicks occurred before I was born, and will never be replicated in my lifetime, as confirmed by the events of this week.
See, we long-suffering Knicks fans have had nothing to cheer about for a long time. And then out of nowhere comes this wonderful, overlooked, underdog Jeremy Lin, who set the city on fire, and became a huge international celebrity, by stepping up and playing great basketball beyond anyone's expectations. We thought we were saved. At last, at last. A reason to justify holding on for so long in the first place.
I couldn't afford Knicks tickets, but I stood outside of MSG with my guitar singing songs about him. That's how excited I was.
And now, it has slipped away. And it could have been grabbed. It would have been expensive to grab, but the team has grabbed other expensive things before, and this was one thing that made a lot of people happy. People who had given up on hope. People who needed this hope more than you, James Dolan.
Long story short, it's great timing for me, because I'm moving to Brooklyn at the end of the month, and they now have an NBA team of their own. The colors are black and white (modern, timeless, versatile) and the co-owner is Jay-Z (hello, music mogul).
It's still this traumatic ordeal for me to switch teams. Which seems silly, but I think it comes down to human resistance to change, sentimentality (happy childhood memories of my father and I), and wanting to maintain loyalty. Or maybe even stronger than that, not wanting to appear/feel disloyal, a display of poor character.
But I can make this change. It feels like I'm losing something, but I'm really not. As unimaginable as it still seems, I think I will be happier on the other side.
It reminds me of another change that I really struggled with over the course of my album production. One of the songs that has been most popular with people over the years is called Brass Heart. I wrote it five or six years ago. Many people have told me it is their favorite of my songs, and is definitely one of mine.
When I brought it to my producer, he suggested that I think of ways to change the song before we considered putting it on the album. I was flabbergasted. How could I change a song that people liked so much? And why?
I was very resistant to changing Brass Heart, but I trusted my producer, and after fighting the resistance, I began to search for ways to change the song.
Once I started experimenting with this, in earnest, it became pretty exciting. I had gotten permission to do something I wouldn't have dreamed of doing. It was okay to reopen the decision. Eventually I came up with a change that I thought would be good. My producer like the proposed change. We started working on this new version of the song.
And I like it.
I like it and I never imagined a year ago that I would ever consider changing my beloved Brass Heart. And now it's changed, and I like it. And it's definitely much better than it would have been if I hadn't been pushed to make the change.
So why was I so resistant in the first place?
Maybe the better question is, what else am I so attached to, so convinced is working, that would really be better if I went back to the drawing board?
But what about letting go of things we generally associate with good, like loyalty? Like things we are proud of? Letting go of something that seems to have worked well?
This week, I renounced my 20-year fanhood of the New York Knicks. I've written about my love of basketball a few times on the blog. I watched Knicks games with my dad when I was young, back in the better old days of the team. The good old days of the Knicks occurred before I was born, and will never be replicated in my lifetime, as confirmed by the events of this week.
See, we long-suffering Knicks fans have had nothing to cheer about for a long time. And then out of nowhere comes this wonderful, overlooked, underdog Jeremy Lin, who set the city on fire, and became a huge international celebrity, by stepping up and playing great basketball beyond anyone's expectations. We thought we were saved. At last, at last. A reason to justify holding on for so long in the first place.
I couldn't afford Knicks tickets, but I stood outside of MSG with my guitar singing songs about him. That's how excited I was.
And now, it has slipped away. And it could have been grabbed. It would have been expensive to grab, but the team has grabbed other expensive things before, and this was one thing that made a lot of people happy. People who had given up on hope. People who needed this hope more than you, James Dolan.
Long story short, it's great timing for me, because I'm moving to Brooklyn at the end of the month, and they now have an NBA team of their own. The colors are black and white (modern, timeless, versatile) and the co-owner is Jay-Z (hello, music mogul).
It's still this traumatic ordeal for me to switch teams. Which seems silly, but I think it comes down to human resistance to change, sentimentality (happy childhood memories of my father and I), and wanting to maintain loyalty. Or maybe even stronger than that, not wanting to appear/feel disloyal, a display of poor character.
But I can make this change. It feels like I'm losing something, but I'm really not. As unimaginable as it still seems, I think I will be happier on the other side.
It reminds me of another change that I really struggled with over the course of my album production. One of the songs that has been most popular with people over the years is called Brass Heart. I wrote it five or six years ago. Many people have told me it is their favorite of my songs, and is definitely one of mine.
When I brought it to my producer, he suggested that I think of ways to change the song before we considered putting it on the album. I was flabbergasted. How could I change a song that people liked so much? And why?
I was very resistant to changing Brass Heart, but I trusted my producer, and after fighting the resistance, I began to search for ways to change the song.
Once I started experimenting with this, in earnest, it became pretty exciting. I had gotten permission to do something I wouldn't have dreamed of doing. It was okay to reopen the decision. Eventually I came up with a change that I thought would be good. My producer like the proposed change. We started working on this new version of the song.
And I like it.
I like it and I never imagined a year ago that I would ever consider changing my beloved Brass Heart. And now it's changed, and I like it. And it's definitely much better than it would have been if I hadn't been pushed to make the change.
So why was I so resistant in the first place?
Maybe the better question is, what else am I so attached to, so convinced is working, that would really be better if I went back to the drawing board?
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