The Big Music Project

The last big trip around Southeast Asia with Kim was AMAZING – the best time of my life. Beautiful beaches, an amazing travel partner, awesome adventures. My only complaint is that it lacked any sort of sustained focus. Just ride the motorcycle until tired, find a hotel, and search out something cool to do. Spend a week and then  move on. Repeat. Which was actually, really, really awesome. But sometimes it’s nice to learn something; to have a bigger goal than just unadulterated hedonism.

So with that in mind and a new trip in the works, I’ve decided on a new focus for travel: Music. I love playing, writing, listening – everything about music. And because I’m financially and location free for the next while, I’m free to follow what I love. The plan is to learning all the things I’ve always wanted to learn: piano, drums, djembe, harmony singing, songwriting, and eventually recording music I’ve written. Rather than spending the bulk of the time driving and racking up miles like the last trip, Kim and I are planning on spending more time in each place, taking music and dance lessons (the dancing bit is Kim’s), joining language classes and actually DOING STUFF. I’m sure there’ll be some beach lounging in there too, don’t get me wrong. But this is quite different from the way I’ve traveled in the past and from the way most people I’ve met do.

Preliminary forays into music in the past few months since getting back to Halifax have been pretty awesome. I’ve been taking two drum lessons and one vocal lesson per week (verdict: I think I may have been a drummer in a previous life). For ten days, I went to a harmony singing workshop in Vermont – essentially like a band camp for adults. I actually performed — yes, sang — in two concerts (those that know how shy I usually am about singing know this is a big deal). And this past week I started piano lessons (both through a video program and in person) and it’s amazing. I really should have been doing this for years.

It feels really great to do something that I’ve always wanted to do but always came up with reasons not to. How many times have you heard somebody say, “Man, one of these days I’m going to take guitar/piano/voice lessons”?  In fact, maybe it was you that said it. All I can say is, don’t wait, sign up for a lesson right now. Do it now. I’ll de-friend you on facebook if you don’t.

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