A Letter To Brandon.
Hello Brandon.
I didn't get a chance to thank you for our chat earlier. I appreciate the time you made to speak with me about dreams and values. You left our previous chat abruptly, which I understand, your boyfriend called as you said and you had to run. I wish I had more time to explain further the ideas I was trying to convey at the time, that you were open to reading, which was a gift.
I was about to say in response to what I started to sense as a small amount of confusion (my fault entirely) that in regards to my "losing" my singing career, what I meant was, that I actually was a professional singer in Canada but it all just fell apart at some point. About 13 years ago I released an album, on an independent label, that had distribution and promotional capacities, played gigs, the whole nine yards, and then all of a sudden I found myself without anyone being interested in my work anymore professionnally. The label dropped me, promoters dropped me, radio no longer played my work. When I recorded a second cd, then a third, no interest was found and they simply were never released.
It happens that way to most artists. You are listened to and enjoyed for a brief time and then someone new comes around and then you are old news. It's sounds so cliche, but its how it happens. But I must admit that I should have worked harder at it. I stopped doing it at some point. I could have worked and worked more and struggled for years and years, hoping for a break, but I stopped. That was my decision. I got married at one point, bought a house, had to work and make money, I had a life and responsibilities, so music became secondary eventually. It happens. Some persist through the struggle. I didn't. I didn't have it in me. I even let some people talk me out of pursuing the career further.
I don't want this to sound at all that I blame the world or others for my struggles. I don't. You can't do that in life. I don't feel sorry for myself. I used to. Lots. But I grieve now. That is different. Grieving eventually brings closure, so I hope."
I was young then and didnt know how to handle it. I have never really dealt with it well. I have to force closure on it for me now. I put so much work and energy into it, for years afterwards, going broke, and yet the commercial barriers in place just kept getting more difficult to adjust to. I'm almost 40 now. Who breaks into the music scene at 40? I don't even understand how the industry works anymore. Sure the internet has supposedly changed things, opened up channels of distribution and promotion for the indie artist and such. But really, what is so different about it? Artists still compete for the same piece of a very finite population of listeners. The majors (labels) still control the scene. It seems to me it's elitist character has only evolved and become stronger in years. What sort of action is underway to offset that? None as far as I can see, for no one wants to do that.
So I went to school eventually, to finish a degree that I had quit when I was 19. That previous university experience that I left without completing always felt like a failure to me, and I felt a lot of regret about quitting that for many years after. So when I had the opportunity to go back to school and restart a degree program, I jumped at it so to fix that regret, and I succeeded.
I studied sociology because I found it interesting, especially the postmodern critical theory stuff - really sexy material. I was all about Foucault, Derrida, Baudrillard, Bourdieu, Marcuse, many of those pomo-homo French and German theorists for a time. I still am. I borrowed a copy of The Second Sex by Simone de Beauvoir from the library last week and I am looking forward to sinking into that piece of social literature. My undergraduate phase, the second time around was fabulous. I was creating something again. Producing stuff. Learning and being aware of actually learning something. Pedagogy can be at times bland and immaterial in feel, but not in this case. I loved it. I graduated with honours, cum laude, and the year later entered into a masters program at Laurentian University; a graduate degree in applied social research.
My undergraduate experience was akin to making music as an artist, fruitful, dangerously rhythmic, and passionate when I latched onto terrains of research I was drawn to early on such as queer theory, cyborgology, media analytical theory, and postmodernism.
My graduate experience was akin to being a singer in an industry. I struggled to make sense of it, of the work, of research that no longer seemed interesting to me. I wanted sociology to be art, not a social science. I still do. I know it is. And there were people there who encouraged me on that path. But for some reason, depression set in very hard in the past two years. Devastatingly so. I had to leave it. I was very unhappy in that program. My grades went from A's and A-pluses to failing grades because I stopped producing. I really tried to as well. It no longer made any sense to me. I was exhausted.
I am exhausted. All of the time.
I really don't know what I want singing to be for me anymore. It was never about being a star or a celebrity. I knew years ago that really isn't the goal, and it comes with a lot of problems of course. But...
Singing is a public thing for me.
It's social.
It's constructive.
It cannot be internal.
It is not merely a hobby.
If I sing, I must be heard.
It's not ego though I am sure there are some who would disagree.
It's not about me, though it is produced by me.
And when the ears have gone...
I have done small shows, cabaret type stuff with people I have known over the years. Brilliant fun music reviews and such. Great things. But that isn't me. I was a stage performer. I was a recording artist. I made music and sound textual as well as textural. When it is textual, it removes the presence of the word "I" (which seems to be used quite a lot in this discourse) without actually removing my subjectivity as an artist.
I have lost sense of that and that is painful. When I posit that I am giving up singing, I must if it is this difficult for me. And it is. This isn't just about not breaking into the music business and being sad about it. This has been about trying to deal with a lost identity.
I have decided to put away old dreams, old identities, old thoughts, old hangups, old ways in order to be open to what my life can actually be about now, and hopefully, finally, be about other people. That would be a great result of this transition.
Thank you again for our chat earlier.
Richard
I didn't get a chance to thank you for our chat earlier. I appreciate the time you made to speak with me about dreams and values. You left our previous chat abruptly, which I understand, your boyfriend called as you said and you had to run. I wish I had more time to explain further the ideas I was trying to convey at the time, that you were open to reading, which was a gift.
I was about to say in response to what I started to sense as a small amount of confusion (my fault entirely) that in regards to my "losing" my singing career, what I meant was, that I actually was a professional singer in Canada but it all just fell apart at some point. About 13 years ago I released an album, on an independent label, that had distribution and promotional capacities, played gigs, the whole nine yards, and then all of a sudden I found myself without anyone being interested in my work anymore professionnally. The label dropped me, promoters dropped me, radio no longer played my work. When I recorded a second cd, then a third, no interest was found and they simply were never released.
It happens that way to most artists. You are listened to and enjoyed for a brief time and then someone new comes around and then you are old news. It's sounds so cliche, but its how it happens. But I must admit that I should have worked harder at it. I stopped doing it at some point. I could have worked and worked more and struggled for years and years, hoping for a break, but I stopped. That was my decision. I got married at one point, bought a house, had to work and make money, I had a life and responsibilities, so music became secondary eventually. It happens. Some persist through the struggle. I didn't. I didn't have it in me. I even let some people talk me out of pursuing the career further.
I don't want this to sound at all that I blame the world or others for my struggles. I don't. You can't do that in life. I don't feel sorry for myself. I used to. Lots. But I grieve now. That is different. Grieving eventually brings closure, so I hope."
I was young then and didnt know how to handle it. I have never really dealt with it well. I have to force closure on it for me now. I put so much work and energy into it, for years afterwards, going broke, and yet the commercial barriers in place just kept getting more difficult to adjust to. I'm almost 40 now. Who breaks into the music scene at 40? I don't even understand how the industry works anymore. Sure the internet has supposedly changed things, opened up channels of distribution and promotion for the indie artist and such. But really, what is so different about it? Artists still compete for the same piece of a very finite population of listeners. The majors (labels) still control the scene. It seems to me it's elitist character has only evolved and become stronger in years. What sort of action is underway to offset that? None as far as I can see, for no one wants to do that.
So I went to school eventually, to finish a degree that I had quit when I was 19. That previous university experience that I left without completing always felt like a failure to me, and I felt a lot of regret about quitting that for many years after. So when I had the opportunity to go back to school and restart a degree program, I jumped at it so to fix that regret, and I succeeded.
I studied sociology because I found it interesting, especially the postmodern critical theory stuff - really sexy material. I was all about Foucault, Derrida, Baudrillard, Bourdieu, Marcuse, many of those pomo-homo French and German theorists for a time. I still am. I borrowed a copy of The Second Sex by Simone de Beauvoir from the library last week and I am looking forward to sinking into that piece of social literature. My undergraduate phase, the second time around was fabulous. I was creating something again. Producing stuff. Learning and being aware of actually learning something. Pedagogy can be at times bland and immaterial in feel, but not in this case. I loved it. I graduated with honours, cum laude, and the year later entered into a masters program at Laurentian University; a graduate degree in applied social research.
My undergraduate experience was akin to making music as an artist, fruitful, dangerously rhythmic, and passionate when I latched onto terrains of research I was drawn to early on such as queer theory, cyborgology, media analytical theory, and postmodernism.
My graduate experience was akin to being a singer in an industry. I struggled to make sense of it, of the work, of research that no longer seemed interesting to me. I wanted sociology to be art, not a social science. I still do. I know it is. And there were people there who encouraged me on that path. But for some reason, depression set in very hard in the past two years. Devastatingly so. I had to leave it. I was very unhappy in that program. My grades went from A's and A-pluses to failing grades because I stopped producing. I really tried to as well. It no longer made any sense to me. I was exhausted.
I am exhausted. All of the time.
I really don't know what I want singing to be for me anymore. It was never about being a star or a celebrity. I knew years ago that really isn't the goal, and it comes with a lot of problems of course. But...
Singing is a public thing for me.
It's social.
It's constructive.
It cannot be internal.
It is not merely a hobby.
If I sing, I must be heard.
It's not ego though I am sure there are some who would disagree.
It's not about me, though it is produced by me.
And when the ears have gone...
I have done small shows, cabaret type stuff with people I have known over the years. Brilliant fun music reviews and such. Great things. But that isn't me. I was a stage performer. I was a recording artist. I made music and sound textual as well as textural. When it is textual, it removes the presence of the word "I" (which seems to be used quite a lot in this discourse) without actually removing my subjectivity as an artist.
I have lost sense of that and that is painful. When I posit that I am giving up singing, I must if it is this difficult for me. And it is. This isn't just about not breaking into the music business and being sad about it. This has been about trying to deal with a lost identity.
I have decided to put away old dreams, old identities, old thoughts, old hangups, old ways in order to be open to what my life can actually be about now, and hopefully, finally, be about other people. That would be a great result of this transition.
Thank you again for our chat earlier.
Richard
posted by energetika at 10:02 PM
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