I Should Go To Bed, But

Eventually I will, hopefully.

I was just thinking about why I got into music in the first place. I think for a long time I convinced myself that it was because I wanted girls to notice me (so obviously play guitar), but I don't think that's actually true. I think once I realized that I was pretty bad at basically every sport, and that the incentives for others to get to know me and value being around me didn't come from the Greek god-like, superhero of a human that I pretended to be everyday, I decided that I needed to connect with the people in my life (my mostly male friends) on a deeper level. They didn't value me as their teammate while playing backyard football (why would they value the hyper-asthmatic pudgy kid who always dropped the ball?) so I needed to project an essence that made people feel good; a coolness that they could relate to.

I was really hoping that I could just stand there with this hunk of stringed wood and strike the strings until sounds came out. And then with those sounds, the admiration, attention and coolness would follow.

I think I brought my guitar in for a show-and-tell kind of thing in the 3rd grade, before winter break and I played my entire class the one chord that I knew: A minor. I played the crap out of that A minor, and nobody cared. Why would they? There's nothing to connect with, strumming one chord with no context, no melody, no lyrics, no content. It's barely music. Come to think of it, even though I remember nobody caring, I think I still probably felt cool in a strange way because I signaled to the world (my 3rd grade class) "I'm the master of A minor." And you know what? As deluded as it sounds, it was a start.

But I got the itch and I needed more juice from this attention-seeking squeeze.

So I decided to start listening to more music that the people who I sought the attention from seemed to enjoy. As I type that, it's hard being honest with myself and coming to the realization that I was really just playing the music that I thought everyone else liked. I wish I could lie and say "I just followed my musical heart" but nope, I had a longing for belonging, so-to-speak. In the 3rd grade, I'm pretty sure one of my favorite songs was "Livin' La Vida Loca" by Ricky Martin. I relistened to that song for the first time in a while just now and you know what? Not bad at all.

But I wasn't ready or prepared for the bullying that might occur had I started a Ricky Martin cover band (like I'm considering doing right now), so edgy-boy, emo rock/rap metal it was. I learned all I could from that genre musically and I came away from all those hours locked in my room with an ear for heavy riffs and hard rock vocals. Playing to those songs made me feel seen and heard even when I was the only person in the room. It made no sense.

I guess looking back, I was building a connection with a part of my own psyche that didn't see much light of day. Those Limp Bizkit and Korn songs that I slaved over (as cringy as some of those memories may seems to me now), helped give a voice to a neglected side of me. An angsty, privileged boy's plights that helped birth the next iteration of ignored inner fervor: a hopeless romantic, angsty and still privileged boy that wanted to sing his heart out.

I could continue poking fun at each era of my musical meandering, but I should probably get to the point: each one of these stages were necessary in allowing me to yearn, dream big, and feel a part of something. There was no 'aha' moment where I found myself and stopped trying to signal to others the qualities of myself that I was most proud of. The 3rd grader playing A minor and me, right now, procrastinating bedtime both are allowing for exploration into how one might use music to build better connections with others and within ourselves.