I’ve been deeply involved with music for most of my life. And according to an astrology report based on my past lives, I’ve been a musician several times before.
You’re probably thinking “so, what’s your point?” And depending on your mental models of the world, you may even be thinking “astrology? Seriously? Past lives? What?!”
Don’t worry. This article is not about astrology. Maybe in the future. I’m not an astrologer but in my experience, it’s quite a profound tool for self understanding. Even enneagrams (from Sufism) are being accepted into mainstream psychology and the corporate world. I’m simply more familiar with astrology.
And even though I believe (and perceive) that consciousness transcends death of the physical body, I still face my own mortality most days. This inspires me to use my talents and abilities the best I can every day.
I feel like I really have something to say. And if I don’t say it now, I may not get another chance.
sidenote: It’s a paradox to believe in reincarnation but to also be present in the moment. It can be pretty amazing when the veil lifts and the infinite reveals itself to be right here right now.
I’m on a mission to express my soul.
What Is Success?
Success to me is being able to express my true and authentic self. My soul. This includes my musical abilities as a singer, songwriter and guitarist.
BUT and this is a part of the struggle I’ve been facing. I also have another part of myself that yearns expression. I’ve been a “mystic” since I can remember. As far back as I can remember the presence of a mysterious and formless Higher Power has been self evident to me.
Many strange experiences since childhood and I’ve now been seriously practicing a meditative and spiritual path for many years.
I finally realize it’s time to stop thinking about how to blend these 2 voices and just simply start doing it.
My Essential Strategy And Main Point Of This Article
My essential strategy for 2018 is to build my fanbase. I intend to do it with YouTube. I’m a bit scared but my excitement and passion are bigger than my fear right now.
I look at my YouTube channel and see my numbers and I think “man, that’s pathetic!” I have like 20 views or something like that on videos.
I should have many more than that! Not because anyone owes me anything or I think I’m “God’s gift.” I’m saying this to myself. “Dude! You should do something about your YouTube channel!”
So far I’ve only used YouTube as a repository to hold my videos so I can share them with you — my subscribers or anyone who happens by my website.
The numbers are pretty low and I really really want to take action on changing that. At least as much as I possibly can.
Will I succeed? Who knows. But I should be able to at least grow my fanbase to larger than it currently is. So I think that makes it well worth the effort and risk.
Launching My YouTube Channel
Yes. I already have a YouTube channel. But I’ve never truly “launched” it before. And I’ve certainly never committed to regular video uploading.
This is what I intend to do. I’m going to come up with a schedule that is realistic. Something along the lines of one upload per week along with one blog post per week.
My content will consist of my original songs since that is my main goal. I want more people to be aware of my songs so that hopefully more people can benefit from the inspiration, beauty and entertainment that they perceive in them.
And songwriting is really the reason why I do what I do at the end of the day. For me, there’s nothing like having an idea in your heart and mind and then bringing it to life.
I’ll also do my best to do a new blog post like this once a week or so. We’ll have to see how the scheduling goes because I’m already so busy writing, practicing, learning and upgrading skills, teaching students, etc.
I may need to cut back on how much social media interaction I do from my Instagram channel. I usually do this in the mornings — but I’ll probably cut back to 2 or 3 days weekly so I can blog and create video content.
Cover Songs
Since not very many people have heard of me, and the Internet world’s a pretty big and noisy place, I’ll need to do some cover songs so that people will find me on YouTube.
Here’s where it gets tricky. I have made a list of cover songs that I think I would enjoy doing a version of, but I don’t want to paint myself into a corner and wander off track from my original music.
However, I think I’ll have fun doing some covers. Mostly just guitar and voice so it should be fun and challenging to make them come to life in an interesting and cool way.
Guitar Instrumentals
I spend a fair amount of time playing my guitar (not as much as you may think since I need to spend time singing and keeping my voice strong as well as writing music and lyrics. Not to mention maintaining some basic chops on the piano). So I’ll probably do videos where I just play guitar. Acoustic and electric.
Behind The Scenes
There’s not much going on behind the scenes here, but if I think of something I’ll share it. Perhaps something I’m working on, new lyrics, how I work, etc. A few videos of this nature.
My Story
I’ll definitely share my thoughts. I can’t make music videos all the time — they tend to take a fair amount of preparation.
I think deeply a lot about life, who we are, mystical experiences…some call it “woo.” I find the term derogatory and arrogant since the fact that we exist at all is ALREADY pretty “woo” don’t you think?
That said, I do respect the beliefs of others. I believe very strongly that Love (understanding, empathy and sanity — not sentimentality) is the answer. We all have mental models of the world. Some of us don’t realize that we do, however.
So I’ll make videos about “woo” and how to overcome challenges, never give up, etc. They may also include books I’m reading that I’m excited to share.
I’ll probably write about spirituality and “grounded transcendence” in my blog as well.
Then What?
If I can grow a fanbase around my music this year, I’ll be thrilled to say the least! I don’t know what then, but hopefully many more possibilities will open up to me that aren’t open to me right now.
I’ve come to realize it’s not so much about how good your music is as much as it is the experience of connection it provides for people.
Although for myself as an artist, I derive my own sense of satisfaction through creating something that reaches up to my own standards of what I want to hear. I also believe there’s a certain energetic “fingerprint” that gets encoded to the music. But that’s for another article on another day.
Although the past year has been a success filled year in many ways (and for which I’m incredibly grateful) hopefully my music will resonate with more even people this year!
Maybe I can even manage to outsource some of the recording responsibilities. When I do ALL the recording myself it takes a tremendous amount of time.
That way I can focus more on creating new music and other value filled content.
My Purpose
Another deeper and more soulful purpose with this mission helps to fuel me is this: I hope my story and journey will inspire others to do the same with whatever their mission is.
I really want to do my part in my little corner of the world to make the world a better place. By “better place” I don’t mean some kind of utopia like the one John Lennon sang about in Imagine.
Although I’m idealistic as well, I’m more of what you could call a pragmatic idealist.
My wish is to simply bring more sanity into the world.
If my sparks can help spark someone else, then I’ve done my job. Let’s bring more sanity in and eliminate more of the madness that seems to surround us. That’s our task right now.
Bigg Luv,
Dave