Here is an interesting little story for music lovers.

Everyone who knows me, acknowledges that throughout my life, it has always been about the music. I have been a musician since I was twelve or thirteen years old. I have performed on stages for thousands of people and in small dive bars where there were more employees than paying customers. Through life’s twists, there were periods where I did not play music, but was always involved in some way, as a music teacher, band manager, festival entertainment booker and on and on.

Yet, through all these different stages, I never entertained the idea that I could actually create something original. When I attended the 2018 Winter NAMM (National Association of Music Merchants) convention this past January, I found myself with some unstructured time on my hands and decided to sit in on a couple of panels. One of those was on songwriting.

Now,…I have never even thought about writing a song, nor do I understand anything about the process, or song structure. But, I needed a place to sit down and rest my aching feet. During the panel there was a challenge put forth to write a song, so I decided to see if I could come up with anything at all based on the given criteria.

A few weeks later I remembered that panel and decided to give it a try. Over a couple of weeks I put something together. I was sure it had to be terrible, but what the heck, I had been writing for years on blogs and now I wanted to try.

But then what? Do I just read the words over and over again and pat myself on the back for doing a great job? Kind of self-serving I suppose.

I decided to share it, but with whom? Thinking on that, I realized I have so many singer/songwriters here in San Diego that I know that maybe I should ask one of them to take a look. So I did. I picked out two who I respect for their writing and performances and asked them if they would take a look. They both said yes to my surprise. I made it perfectly clear that I understood that this might read as just awful, but they had to promise to tell me how bad, and why, so maybe I could learn something.

Both had some very positive things to say and some suggestions on what the editing process might look like. I was pleased, even though I could not manage to edit this darn thing without making it longer. So I left it alone.

To my surprise, a couple of months later, out of the blue, I received an email from one of them with an audio attachment. I pretty much fell on the floor. She had written a guitar part for what I had sent her and she recorded herself performing it, guitar and vocal and sent me the audio file. Just blew me away. Who does something like this just to do it?

Well, it may never be played in public, but I will always be indebted to her for taking time out of her busy schedule to create something for me just because she could.

Now I can say I wrote a song. Will I ever write another? Absolutely! I will give it a try at some point, even if I am the only one to hear it.

If you have a song inside you somewhere, find a way to let it out. Get out some paper and pencil. Even if no one else ever hears it, you can say you wrote that. It’s always about the music. Music is the best way to express your feelings.

Oh, and here is a photo of my friend Veronica May who recorded the song for me.