What have I learned?

A little sunlight…

So, I learned a lesson about nothing yesterday. The “nothing” that results from knowing nothing about how to post an image in a SubStack newsletter, but trying it anyway! Result: nothing, blank, empty white space - at least in the email version SubStack sent to me - did your mileage vary?

In an effort to turn nothing into something, let me say I was attempting a lame joke about how when you start out on your musical journey, you can get a little obsessed with gear and “stuff”, and lose sight of the purpose: music, your music, whether you created it or you’re creating a unique take on someone else’s music by covering it (always keeping their copyright in mind, though!).

Home recording (as I said yesterday, this post will be a bit of potpourri!) can be daunting, and to do it really well, you’ll need a computer with a piece of software called a digital audio workstation (a “DAW”) - they can be kinda expensive, but there are inexpensive and mostly effective entry level DAWs as well (think GarageBand- brilliant move by Apple!! - I don’t have Apple stock or financial interests in Apple and it’s not really an endorsement, but it is cool!). DAWs rely on a bit of software called a “plugin” to process the raw recorded audio and add things like reverb and all the other things that make music sound good on your speakers. DAWs come with some plugins, but it’s easy to want more and that’s where gear obsessions can come in. Guitars, amps, speakers, pedals, audio interfaces, microphones, cables, software, subscriptions to industry publications and instruction and the like can get out of hand, financially and in the consumption of your time. “Simplify, simplify!”, at least at first, until you get the basics down (start with private lessons!).

All of that is jumping way ahead of where we are now, but I started with it, so I could tell you about this, from last week’s Bonus Round: (this post is kinda turning into a Monty Python skit or an Arlo Guthrie song!)

Townes Van Zandt (1944-1997) was a successful and prolific songwriter/artist. He lived a tragic life of his own making, but he at least lived it on his own terms. Covered by practically EVERYONE, some of his early songs would have “cancelled” his career in its infancy in today’s culture, and the world would have been deprived of a great, if sadly wasted, voice and talent. His songs were often simple, but usually packed with storytelling, as in the great song, “Pancho and Lefty”. They were sometimes silly, but they were never “nothing”! Lots of songwriters, did and still do, cite his work as inspiration for their own.

YOUR music is not “nothing” - we all begin by playing someone else’s music as we learn, but at some point we play our own, even if it’s just chord changes in a progression of your own making as you practice. That’s music, your music, and even if no one else ever hears it, the world is a little better off for its creation. Keep at it!

Bonus Round: Name the classic Beatles (mostly) acoustic song about little more than feeling the warmth of the sun on your face!

As always, leave your Bonus Round answers, comments, questions, or simple musings in the comments section.

Cheers, and keep playing!!

Michael Acoustic