Mar 8, 2021 3 min read

Music to my Ears

Music really does make the world go round.

I'm at my desk. Roger Waters is playing on my good speakers and I'm feeling great. Music, amirite?

I do a daily tracker in Notion. One of the entries is for a gratitude list. Often it starts out with another day at home, cos, you know, I love working from home and not having to go anywhere. It's a default answer when I cba doing it properly and coming up with something a bit more meaningful. But today, it was a no brainer.

I'm playing more music now, after having had a life-hack suggestions from a very good friend. She said 'why not do a live stream of your practice session?' I thought it wasn't a bad idea; in fact I've tried it before and then fell off it. This time I've put it in my calendar as a way of making sure that it happens. And, in the morning of practice day, I put out a scheduled event on my social media, because I know that evening Cams will be feeling like not showing up. So morning Cams is taking care of that with a lightweight accountability hack. It's working!

It's on my Acoustic Guitar IO channel if you would care to watch.

It's not just the playing of music that I'm missing though. It's the listening. So many audiobooks, so many podcasts, no time for music. And that's a tragedy, because music really does get to the heart of me. I'm not taking good care of myself when I remove music from my life.

The older I get, the more convinced I become that art is the reason, it's the answer, it's the connection, the channel, it's everything. Expressing oneself through creativity, without fear or prejudice is a way of sharing the universe. And consuming the art of others, finding something that opens you up in a way that nothing else could connects you to the universe.

So whenever I feel performance anxiety, as I do before literally every single gig, I tell myself on the drive to the venue that it is a privilege that I get to do this. I get to share my soul, and if that opens up something in you, then so much the better. But even if it doesn't, I still have to do it, because it opens up something in me.

Roger Waters does that to me. So does Dodie. And Shostakovich. And Nine Inch Nails. And Beastie Boys. And Genesis. And Spice Girls. And on and on and on ...