Dissonance.

This originally started as a letter to a friend whom I thought could relate or offer advice to this particular plight. Then I realized it was probably more of an elaborate ponderthought, and that it deserved to be posted.

I'm having so many doubts. I know I'm doing well with my voice and theory stuff, but I feel like I just can't do anything else. I'm working hard at things just to still be mediocre at them after so many years.

I put a craigslist ad up and a dude contacted me who is trying to get some producing experience. I met with him today to show him a few of my songs since I don't really have any recordings of originals. We agreed to meet up at a local community centre, which when I got there I realized was a senior's centre. There were no closed rooms and plenty of ears that I didn't want to be around.

My very first thought was: Shit. One of my best songs is an extremely personal expression about sex. And I'm going to sing this not only to some old dude I don't even know, but also have a few dozen even older people hear me from the next room? You know, providing that's not failing them.

So I refused to sing that song even though it's probably the one I'm the most competent at.

The second I saw the guy at the door I felt uneasy, knowing full well that I get nervous even sharing my songs with friends, nevermind strangers. Nevermind old man strangers. I uncomfortably asked questions on what he wanted to work with on the recordings we'd do. I basically just started asking questions to stall and pretty much panicked the entire time he was setting up, wondering what would be the most neutral song of mine that I was also competent at playing to show him first.

I eventually decided (reluctantly) to start with my newest song, the one I wrote about Kara. Once I had the headphones on and I couldn't hear anything outside of them I felt a little more at ease. Kind of like how a mouse thinks you can't see it if it can't see you. I tried my best to sing without stressing, but I continuously fucked up on every single take I tried. I had to sing it three fricking times before he even recorded it, which annoyed me because I just wanted it over with. And the one that we ended up recording came out the worst.

I played a couple more songs which I refused to record for various reasons, mainly because I was getting less cool with this dude that I just met recording my work, and shitty ones at that. I sang one of my songs that didn't have a finished chorus yet and he said, "I notice you don't sing for long breaks. Why do you do that?" I had to push down some rage-y thoughts at that moment, because I thought he had a lot of nerve to ask that. I have a few songs where I have longer guitar breaks. He said it "takes away from the vocals." Sure, but who said I was strictly a vocalist?

And it's not like I don't know I suck at guitar. I do. And it makes me feel consistently sad and incompetent every time I play. He said my guitar was "a little sloppy." I've felt horrible since. Couldn't he just say something like, "We'll need to work on _____"? :/

I come home and of course the first thing I do is go practice because I feel like if I don't fill every spare moment of my life with it I'll just keep giving everyone else a reason to think I'm inadequate. And practicing the same thing over isn't going to help me become a better guitarist, but it's all I know how to do at this point. So I put my guitar down in frustration and go to the piano.

Being upset, my mind wanders while I'm playing. I imagine playing for people in Nanaimo to show them what I've done with my time here. And then my brain puts Owen in there, telling me things like, "you just gotta keep at it to get better," in the subtly condescending way Owen does to make it not sound like he actually thinks you're terrible at it. And then as soon as that enters my head my fingers fail.

"Fuck him," I think to myself, "He can't sing anyway." And I continue playing until I run out of songs in my book that I can play. I look down at the keys and long for the day I can play hours of Beethoven by memory. I play a series of a few melodramatic chords and think of composing a song with it, but I leave it because I'm just not in the mindset to teach myself new things right now. I'll probably forget what they were by the time I get around to it.

Just like that I fall into a massive state of sadness and self doubt. I know I shouldn't, I know I have potential in some things and that I learn things really well, and I know I shouldn't care about what some stranger thinks when more experienced people have told me otherwise. But it just reminds me how insecure I am about everything I do and how every day that I fight through this mediocre retail-job existence might just ending up being for naught, because perhaps I really am just a talentless hack with unrealistic dreams.

Just before I set it away, I sat pondersome with my new guitar Phoenix, my arms wrapped around it the way a child embraces a teddy bear. I won't give up on guitars, because I know it can't give up on me.

And so here I sit, having quit practice for the night, just alone with my instruments.