“Life has no other discipline to impose, if we would but realize it, than to accept life unquestioningly. Everything we shut our eyes to, everything we run away from, everything we deny, denigrate or despise, serves to defeat us in the end. What seems nasty, painful, evil, can become a source of beauty, joy and strength, if faced with an open mind. Every moment is a golden one for him who was the vision to recognize it as such.”
-Henry Miller
American writer and painter. He was known for breaking with existing literary forms and developing a new sort of “novel” that is a mixture of novel, autobiography, social criticism, philosophical reflection, surrealist free association, and mysticism.
Known for Playing Guitar with his tongue.
We are at a very strange and historical time. Pretty much everyone and ever industry is being affected by the financial craziness. For many, it’s become a struggle to pay the bills. For some it seems like everything they have worked for is soon to be erased.
I am a firm believer that everything happens for a reason. Now is a time to not look at the negatives happening, but to embrace what is going on and find the beauty in it.
Turn the painful, nasty events into sources of reflection and inner strength. Maybe you aren’t getting as many gigs or selling as many albums. Well, now is the perfect time to turn these painful emotions and transform them into beautiful music.
Now that you aren’t gigging as much, it is a perfect time to really work on your social media strategy and reach out to fans on guitar blogs, Myspace, Facebook, Last.fm, Reverbnation, etc. Think of new ways to connect with your fans and potential groupies and implement them. Test them out. Get excited!
With the world getting as crazy as it is, it needs more and more healing music. (And some wicked whammy dive bombs.)
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2 responses so far ↓
1 JB // Oct 13, 2008 at 8:56 pm
As weird as it may sound,i can’t create when i’m happy.i need to get anger out of the events and the drama around me,and transcend anger into something beautiful.
It is how i naturally work,i’m like that since my birth!
When i write and record songs in an angry mindset,and listen to them later on,being quiet,or even happy,i find insight in it.
I even shed tears on my own music,on my dive bombs!
Anger doesn’t mean violence.though i play a 8-string guitar for a few now,i have written ballads while angry…
2 jimmy mac // Oct 17, 2008 at 12:15 pm
Acceptance is the ” get out of jail card ” for the game life.
When i couldn’t play guitar because of
neurological injury and even now on certain days i can’t play anywhere near the capacity i could before the health incident, i turned my skills towards composition and arrangement. Only when i accepted the possibility of never playing again could i ever expect to recover and rebuild with the new tools given by a disability. I have a rich history of loved ones who lost everything but their hearts in the Holocaust and came to America and re-wrote their names in the book of life – survivors !
From these people i learn everyday that i have a responsibility to be ” part ” of something bigger than myself.
-peace
now go practice!
-j
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