You might remember that I have a song about a particularly unpleasant experience with the police, and that TINO had the kindness to feature on it. The story behind writing "Anecdote" is right over here, on a previous blog entry.

This is one of my five singles that have been removed from the world's most popular streaming services. It makes its triumphant return tomorrow, February 22nd.  Would you be so kind as to give it a listen tomorrow wherever you stream music?

I think today is a good day to tell you about my in-progress EP.  Let's pretend I'm a journalist and use the 5 W questions, shall we?

Photo by Joshua Chan

WHY?

I wrote a great deal of songs during the pandemic.  Most of these, you'll never hear.  They're not all winners, you know.  As I kept writing, several of the songs ended up being about Black experiences. As they say, write what you know.  Now, I've written about this sort of thing before. After all, writing songs is how I process emotions and try to deal with my anxiety and depression and life in general. Eventually, I had written enough songs that I thought were good enough to not discard. I'd like to share them.  That's what songwriters do, you know, we generally prefer to share what we write. Instead of staggering these songs across multiple releases, I decided to collect them all into one project.

WHO?

The songs on this project are all very much about Black experiences. That being the case, I thought that the best way to approach recording them would be to enlist the assistance of people who would most be able to personally relate to the subject matter.  The artistic aesthetic for this project is that all personnel are Black. This includes musicians, engineer, mixer, mastering engineer, photographer, videographer, and graphic design. If you've read my blog or heard me talk about music, you know that I consider collaboration to be a highly valuable and important part of making art. This is an opportunity for me to work with some very talented people who I've never worked with before. I feel like the enthusiasm they are bringing to this project can only enhance the final product.

WHERE?

I am recoding at The Dreamcatchers Recording Studio in Reynoldsburg, Ohio. Rizo is the gentleman at the controls.

WHAT?

This is going to be an EP.  In addition to the detail about the personnel above, it will be different from my past work in two major ways.

First, every single song on this project is told from my point of view. By saying that, I don't mean that I've never written a song from my own point of view before.  "North of Sixteen", from Echo in the Crevices, is very much a first person story, and it's a very clear narrative. "Goodbye", from Anxious Inventions & Fictions, is another example of me being the voice speaking in the song. This certainly isn't the case all of the time. Songs like "I Am a Number" and "Your Anthem" are observational.  Songs like "Little Light" , "Le Soldat", and "She Speaks in Metaphor" are purely fiction, but plausible. My most recent single, "Wapakoneta", consists of a kernel of true memories buried in a fabricated story. This new project however... this is extremely personal. I am the voice on all of the songs. I am open, I am vulnerable, and I am speaking the truth. Note that you won't find any instances of me pushing for social or political causes or changes on this EP. (If you're looking for my thoughts in those areas, feel free to reach out to me in person.) I am saying things that are true, and then saying how I feel about them. The listener is free to draw their own conclusion. Being this open is scary.

Second, every song on this EP is in a different genre. Usually, piano is my tool of choice for writing songs. Piano provides a blank slate. There are a nearly unlimited amount of choices one can make as far as arrangement and instrumentation when starting with piano. As I arranged the songs, I tried to put together arrangements that would best serve each song. After I got three songs into the project, I noticed that they were all different genres. At that point, I decided to lean into it. Yes, each song is a different genre, but they all sound like me.

There is another detail about this project that I'll keep secret, but it is a secret that I have shared with the lovely people who subscribe to my mailing list. They are the first to know what I am up to, and I share inside information with them that I won't share elsewhere. If you'd like to join them and step into my world, please sign up here.

In a nod to Jimi Hendrix, the name of the EP will be I Am Experienced.

WHEN?

This blog post is going up on Monday January 17th, 2022.  In the United States, that is a federal holiday called Martin Luther King Jr. Day.  Some people in the United States might spend a few minutes on this day thinking about topics such as racism, prejudice, and equality. Some people might spend a few minutes thinking about how to not be partial in one's individual interactions with other humans, or what the world might be like if everyone had an altruistic love for their fellow person. Many people ask themselves when, if ever, anything will improve. Those are all valid thoughts, and I'm not going to address them here. I will say that I have made some art in which I talk about my feelings, I am working hard to get it professionally recorded, and I will share it with you as soon as I possibly can.

Three points that must be clear before I begin to tell some stories.

1. What follows is all personal experience.  (You know, kind of a like a song I recently released.) Although the combination of getting older and current events have gotten me thinking about this kind of thing more deeply, these are all things that happened to me.  
2. I think it is common to acknowledge that public education has its faults and challenges. There are so many students that do not learn effectively via the methods that are most often used to teach.  I happen to not be one of those.  I could read before I went to kindergarten (thanks Mom!), and I used to remember pretty much everything I would read.  Considering that school most often would ask us to memorize bits of information and then regurgitate them in a variety of tests - the big standardized ones consisted of multiple choice options - well, I was good at that, because the way that I learn works within that framework.  
3. The overwhelming majority of educators in my experience were good, and some were great.  I don't remember how old I was when I first started seeing teachers as actual people with actual lives instead of an appendage that belongs to the school.

***

One.  Junior high.  Music class.  (Maybe if music class had been better executed in my youth, I wouldn't have waited until I was 20 or so to pick up an instrument.)  We had to write a report of some sort, and I don't even remember who or what the topic was.  What I certainly remember was being called to a one-on-one conversation with the teacher, and told that I had failed the assignment because we're not supposed to just copy words from an encyclopedia.  I found that to be all kinds of insulting at the time, and I defended myself rather vigorously.  Looking back... would she have had that same conversation with a white student?

Two.  Junior high.  One of those school assemblies.  People are encouraged to stand and sing their anthem. I abstain.  I am rudely poked and prodded by a teacher, who hisses at me to stand.  My only response is a head shake, an angry stare, and the word "no".  Another teacher approaches to ask the poker/prodder to leave me alone.  Looking back... would that teacher have put their hands on me if I was a white student?

Three.  Junior high.  History class.  I happen to love history.  Most students don't, and that may be because most educators fail to teach it in an engaging way... this particular history teacher was no exception.  Her method of teaching mostly consisted of reading from the textbook, or writing things from the textbook on the overhead projector.  (Those things don't exist anymore, do they?)  I happen to both love history and love to read, so I had read the entire textbook cover to cover by a few weeks into the school year.  One particular day, she "strongly suggested" that we take notes.  Considering that this was not an order, and also considering that everything she was writing for us to copy by hand was already written in the textbook which I had already read, I didn't spend the energy.  For this, I was verbally castigated... and found out later that she had discussed this with other teachers in the lounge, as one of my favorite teachers jokingly mentioned it to me later that day. I got an A in that class.  Would that teacher have treated me that way if I was a white student?

Four. Senior year.  Standardized testing.  Number 2 pencil.  Fill in the circle completely.  Multiple choice, you know, you select the answer that you know is the right one, then you move on.  I had anticipated finishing the test well within the time allotted, and had brought along a book to read for when the test was done.  I finish the test, I read my book.  The "adult" in the room (a substitute this day, not a teacher who knows any of us) walks to my desk and pointedly asks why I am not taking the test.  I say that I'm done.  The "adult" in the room audibly expresses disbelief.  I show the answer sheet with all of the answers filled.  The "adult" in the room starts spouting nonsense about how long the test is supposed to take.  At this point, I might have said something a little snarky about him coming back to check my score later.  I was angry.  Thankfully, a couple of my classmates - lovely human beings then - stuck up for me, and told the "adult" that if we say we're finished, we're finished.  Would that teacher have treated me that way if I was a white student?