Time To Make Music

I've been experimenting with making music lately. For decades I have wanted to be a professional musician. I never really tried to "make it". I more or less dreamed about making it, but never really tried to do the stuff required of me to actually make it. In fairness, I have been trying to make it as a father for the last 20 years and so my focus was on trying to provide a stable income. In addition, my wife was disabled in 2005 with a traumatic brain injury and doesn't work as a result, so my hands have been full. So this about a month ago I set out on a journey to really go for it. I set out to make an album in time for my 47th birthday.

This date is a bit arbitrary, but if I am being truthful, we were invited to a wedding that is set to happen two days after my birthday this year. At this wedding, I will be seeing a lot of people that are childhood friends and really close family friends. What I didn't want to do is show up with nothing to report. I didn't want to have to say that I am desperately seeking a way out of my dreadful day job, that I regret moving back to the East coast, and that I basically suffer in a poor mental health state on a daily basis. I thought instead, how cool would it be if I could say, "I've been working on an album, here's a link." Even cooler than that, what if it was actually good?

I'm about 2 months into my effort to truly try and make something. The first month I toyed with ideas. Then I actually wrote a song that I was proud of, but spent about two weeks trying to track vocals. Oh yeah, I can't really sing. I can sing, but I am not skilled at singing, at least not yet.

Finally the New Year came and I just said, whatever I make I'm going to do a quick mix on it and bounce it. So now I am at this point where I have about 10 short mediocre songs that I could potentially show. I might like one or two of them. They are all pretty short (about 1-2 minutes each) and most of them don't even really have changes or song segments. They are just more musical ideas at this point. I'm not sure that anything that I have finished could be considered an actual song.

Now I am at the point where I am asking myself, "Am I fooling myself. I feel like I suck at this." I have a room filled with musical equipment. This does feel like who I am. I feel like I am better than average at this, but am I?

I'm getting older and as I do the ticking of the clock gets louder and louder. I know that I am getting older and closer to my last day, whenever it may be, hopefully quite some time from now. 

Location: New Jersey, USA

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