The road goes ever on and on...

"It's a dangerous business Frodo, going out your door. You step onto the road... and if you don't keep your feet, there's no knowing where you might be swept off to." - The Lord of the Rings
So now's where it begins... Now's when I introduce myself to you all in the world of blogging and introduce myself to the journey.

You see as a child learning the basics of music we all know what it was like to have nothing between us and our instruments. We could sit with our pianos, guitars, drums, or whatever instruments we played and tinker and fiddle to our hearts' content without the worries and cares of our lives getting in the way. I was such a child. I put in the practice. I tinkered. I fiddled. I came up with new ideas and built on old ones. I had the time and the energy and the focus to create for hours on end. After high school I signed up for an internship with a video production company to score videos for them and found that I really excelled at capturing moods and supplementing storytelling. I love soundtracks and being able to create them was a dream come true.

Then the internship was over and I suddenly had to support a life.

Now we all know a different reality. Those of us who love to play or create music also have to pay bills, take care of spouses and long-term relationships and families, and lets not forget eating and sleeping (he said with a gaping yawn while realizing he hadn't eaten all day). For those of us who want to just LEARN to play SOMETHING our hope is almost gone. It's hard to justify writing music when you don't even have the time to take care of responsibilities much less the extra stuff. This isn't limited to music either it can be anything you're passionate about. It may make us happy but are we required to be happy to live or are we required to be productive? Are we supposed to enjoy ourselves or supposed to avoid things that don't make us money or further our careers?  If we begin answering our own questions does that mean we're crazy? (I'm not the crazy one you are!) (Shut up!) (No you shut up!)

Why do what you love it if it's not bringing you results?

This is the summation of my limiting belief... why do it if it doesn't bring results. Over the years since I've given up writing music I've discovered that I need it in order to function. If I don't pick up a guitar or sit at the piano I will become homicidal. So my solution thus far has been to only tinker around enough with music to avoid creative frustration and then go right back to working on the latest project for work, taking care of home stuff, catching up with those friends I haven't seen in forever, spending time with my wife, or trying to grab sustenance and sleep.

I feel like a hobbit. Being both a fan of Howard Shore's score for the films and the little-known-in-the-US musical The Lord of the Rings, it's the connection I make most readily for this sentiment. Nerdy as it sounds I'm a hobbit... I'm a busy little bee but my life is pointless. I live in a hole in the ground running around like a chicken with my head cut off but there's nothing new to experience in my life because I've removed the adventures. I've removed the unknown. Well it's time to go on a journey again. A journey back toward making music.

In order to make this journey a worthwhile quest I've added some treasure to it.  I will be writing a song per week.  By the end of the year (since I'm starting the 10th week of the year) I should have a total of 42 songs to add to a portfolio/demo that will be able to generate work scoring films, games, shows, videos, and other fun composition collaborative projects.

Luckily, I know where to start...

During my internship I wrote some pieces that never made it into any of the projects the company did. As it was unused I uploaded them to http://www.productiontrax.com/profile.php?id=1330 and they've sold to a few people. It's not my best work and was not really designed for stock consumption but my account is there and it's accessible and it's a start. I also signed up for ASCAP for representation and I still have Logic Pro 9 (which I recently upgraded to Logic Pro X) and my mics, instruments, and gear. The path is all laid out in front of me... all I need to do is take the first step and keep my feet.  I encourage those of you reading this blog to join me on the journey of restoring music, art, expression of all kinds, to your lives.  Share with me!  Let's journey together!

The road goes ever on and on... down from the door where it began...