The Musician's Battle

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On and on the invasive sound echoes around the room in a steady rhythm, it snakes around the walls, ceiling and windows and into the crevices of my mind, willing me to notice it and join its hypnotic cult. I resist for as long as I can, until the inevitable happens. I turn my head. I stare at the metronome and it blinks back at me. It has a habit of taunting me; it wins every time with its loud incessant sound. Its constant cadence is imprinted on my mind, as irresistible as a siren's song.

This is the real life of a musician. We are slaves to our craft; it’s easy to think of stages, crowds, fame and money when imagining a day in the life. But most musicians will tell you that the stages and crowds only make up a tiny portion of life and fame and money is reserved for the lucky few. We work in clubs or on the circuit. We work wherever and whenever we can. Sometimes we get paid; sometimes we get nothing. But still we march forward wanting to share our passion and love of beautiful music.

For me, most days are made up of practise and hard work. I hone my craft. I practise my guitar until my fingers are swollen. I’ve often gone past that point and been so focused on getting a particular riff just right that I haven’t noticed until I’ve smeared blood down the fretboard. I sing every day, until my vocal cords rasp and rub together like chaffed thighs. I make sure that my voice knows the songs and my heart understands the feeling that I’m trying to communicate so that when the show starts and the lights come on, I am ready to fight. Not the audience! Myself. I’m ready to fight my demons and battle my insecurities for three and a half minutes…rinse and repeat. The battle is normally short but I have to be prepared because my demons have also been honing their skills, not with metronomes or instruments but with mistakes I’ve made and mistakes that I have yet to make…

So why, if it’s so brutal, do I do it you ask? Well, it is my calling. I know that to be a fact just like I know that grass is green and that there is always room for ice cream! I have anxiety and normally I overthink everything but when I’m playing, I can just turn my brain off and feel. I can feel the strings as they make contact with my fingers, feel the beat of the drums through the floor, feel that indescribable crackle of energy, feel the swell of the music as it takes me higher until the wave breaks and with a deafening crescendo I open my eyes, reborn. I am no longer afraid of the world. Through my music I feel the strength to be me. To own my choices and my destiny. My anxieties become quiet, and I can do anything, be anything. I am whole. I am Superwoman and I claim my superpower.

I want to give that feeling to other people. I want to allow them to express themselves through music, release their emotions though song writing and feel through this powerful medium. I want to run a course on song writing and guitar for beginners. Their goal doesn’t have to be “to become a professional musician” it can simply be to explore their interests and empower themselves. I want to encourage people to be unafraid and to believe in their infinite potential. Music has this beautiful ability to break you down to your most elemental parts but it also has this amazing restorative, healing power to make you more than you ever thought possible. I want to help everyone experience that.

It might seem a bit silly to still practice with a metronome but my anxiety loves to disrupt my routines and so I go out of my way to make sure that they’re enforced. It’s repetitive, but through repetition comes structure, through structure comes competence, through competence comes strength and belief. Through strength and belief, we all begin to heal from the traumas and disappointments in our lives. My course will allow people to harness their innate musicality and release themselves from their everyday stresses and traumas. I hope to eventually create a virtual community that is focused on healing through music. But until then, I’ve got to practise, because I’ve got a metronome waiting for me and it’s not going to stop anytime soon! It’s nothing if not relentless.

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