Four Years

Four years ago, I wanted so badly to become a songwriter. I thought that was something I could do better than others. So I emailed a producer and asked him about becoming a songwriter. The how, who, and what.

Write good songs, and let the right person listen to them, he said. Gladly he offered to listen to my compositions. Elated I was, that I anchored before my music notation software for a several months and began churning out the melody, then the harmony, then the rhythm. Thinking dreams could be kicked started so easily in a matter of a few audio clips sent as email attachments, I was crushed.

I never hear back from him. And my compositions became abandoned construction projects during times of crisis. Except mine was the crisis of confidence. For a while my compositions were left in the wild, and I kept myself busy on other things, which somehow was a natural refuge to distract myself from unmet desire to produce and share good music. I sometimes cringed at my rejected demos. The music player screams “Amateur” with the capital A – cheesy sound samples, hastily thought out melody lines, and banal chord progressions.

Then, things happened. I discovered a few things – a new software, an urgent need for fresh elixir of income to sustain my ambitions in various other areas, a library filled with songwriting books, and a few friends who had successfully produced good demos. I sensed that surmounting inner resilience, but the painful scars of rejection reappeared. Oscillating between the dichotomies, I lived through the past twelve months, labouring through the audio editing books, tweaking knobs on the parametric EQ and audio compressors, and writing and rewriting the arrangement of the song – for a total of 59 times. I successfully made my first demo today. 

It was a song about a boy who wished to become a songwriter, who lived through darkness for four years, unsure if he will ever pen any songs again. He finally discovered that the earlier rejection was a humbling experience. He had in turn discovered so much more that he had ever imagine. And armed with the new found technique, knowledge and skills, he penned his first demo, which is a personal milestone, a  new beginning.

The title of the song was “Sunrise”.