Mystery of the Unheard: Transforming Solitude into Sound

Being in Kazakhstan for these past 3 weeks during my Follow Your Art Journey, I am actually quite surprised to not find any open mics (in this part of Kazakhstan) whatsoever. There hasn’t been a single venue that supports local artists in the community that I can connect with popping up on my radar. It’s quite sad really. I’ve searched online, in person, and even directly asked local venues if I can perform there. It has all been a resounding NO echoing back in the totality of my questioning going forward.

Now, I have had a choice to make, and I made it. I went out of my way and bought a brand-new loudspeaker and microphone and have, outside of my hotel in a small open area in the back, began practicing my Metalody songs, with the hotel operators’ permission, away from everyone and everything inside of this small space and time. You see, I am here in Kazakhstan for a limited window and the time taken up NOT performing here in Kazakhstan for anyone else … I am now using to perform specifically FOR nobody else. That is, I get to perform for me alone.

It’s not an entirely unfamiliar feeling I’m speaking to this solitude of practice and practice of solitude. I have spent so much time working on recording and editing and writing that going out of my way to do song after song of versions of my music I have never myself heard on a loudspeaker before that the part about this I don’t recognize is many of these songs I don’t feel are actually mine. When I’ve performed in front of audiences, much of my music I am able to make mine by virtue of the evolution the song takes from the stage. The trouble with this is many songs I have created in private I have completely and entirely left out of any public rotation because I was evolving songs that I already have had on in my set and as a result the set itself, little by little. In other words, the wheel isn’t broken, why try and fix it?

Now, that being said, performing these outside songs on a loudspeaker with a microphone in hand has shown me many of the songs I haven’t done live yet can in fact be done live regardless of if the song itself on the recording sounded to me perfected or not because the live versions I’ve been performing for myself inside this small window have shown me these songs need to get out – and I’m the one to get them out which means  I’m looking forward to making more of these songs mine from the stage and not just sticking to what’s been working but branching out in deeper ways able to make use of so much more I initially wanted to keep locked away in my arsenal … and do something with them now.