Happy March everyone! This is one of my favourite months because it is the light at the end of what always feels like a too-long winter. Even here on the island where we are fortunate enough to get next to no snow and temperatures generally stick to 5 degrees Celcius at the lowest.
Like last month, I’ve got a new undertaking that I wanted to share with all of you, and it starts with a discussion about labels.
Like most people, I’ve spent much of my life juggling labels put on by others, put on by science, and put on by myself. Some of them helped. Some of them were a hinderance.
Agensis of the corpus callosum, B’s in math, A’s in English, creative, expressive, naturally musicial, shy, lacks confidence, speech troubles, Irish dancer, pianist, swimmer, lifeguard, flutist, voracious reader, geek, Ringer, teacher, writer, web designer, spiritual, intuitive, photographer…the list goes on and falls into various subcategories.
Have you ever tried writing down all the labels that define you? I’ve just stuck to skill-based labels today since I’m focusing on music and the power it has to change things about ourselves we assume we are born with, and thus “stuck with,” (hint: you’re only stuck with those things you let yourself be stuck with).
Sometimes I wonder if I might have ended up like other people I know, had I not had certain labels early on, or if I had not been pushed to walk past labels and just follow my internal drive.
I could have been that kid still living at home. That kid who will never go anywhere or do anything. I could have been that kid who became the top, and the best, in one subject or skill.
Those are all what if’s though, and we all know that those go to places that aren’t any better than the crazy internal drive I developed in the face of feeling like what I did do, was never enough.
That has gotten me into trouble when I’ve been stubborn instead of running on a heart full of willpower, but that’s not the topic today.
Today’s topic, and the general theme of the month, is about the power of music.
Music has always been where I was able to talk when I wasn’t comfortable talking, stumbled over talking, or felt like whatever I was saying came out in a rambling jumble. (Frankly I still feel like that).
But even as music because a voice through which I could speak, it challenged me to use my voice because music also has an element of performance.
After all, like the saying that asks if you can hear a tree falling if no one is around to hear it, music isn’t truly speaking unless you are using it to have a conversation with at least one other person.
So, inevitably, even if it is a wonderful tool to help process thoughts and emotions, it leads to the point when you either need to step up and share your voice with others or it’ll become just another voice that you hide and are unable to share.
I find that absolutely tragic, personally, and sadly, that’s definitely something that happens because it all comes back to a person’s willpower. Willpower interestingly, is something that music challenges and develops.
Unfortunately, as flexible as adults can be, there are things that get set, that if they were not dealt with as children, they won’t ever change much.
I was never great at organizing, and required other people telling me what to do (ie: my very organized mom), so that’s a thing I struggle to learn and put into practice as an adult. But, it still doesn’t stop me from going after my passions.
Anyway, enough of that, I’m not here to talk about the unfortunate sides to musical paths and potentials, that’ll just lead me into my own what if’s along the lines of “what if I was taught as a child that creative work was just as possible as a lifestyle as the now stereotypical doctor/lawyer/nurse/teacher?”
That way lies madness, and so let’s carry on, as I do, brimming with excessive levels of willpower. Willpower to do and be and explore despite the words and labels of others, and everything else that swirls around in our heads.
I shared back in January about how I was putting my music out into the open. Those were just some old recordings that were not particularly good quality and they were all improvisational.
Recently I took things a step further, because I always have wanted to. I decided to say no to the voices that used to tell me that creative work isn’t possible for someone like me, that posting creative work online isn’t something “I” could do.
I mean, I proved to myself that I could go live, I could talk to people, I could post videos to YouTube and bare all sorts of non-traditional sides of myself starting back in 2019.
As a kid I was always a little jealous of the people I saw who were formally chasing after music with university degrees and the like. Now I know you don’t need those things.
You just need willpower, and boy do I have a lot of it.
What you are born like, what your nature is, has little power compared to how you decide to nuture your own mind. I could have had a slew of other labels attached to me because of what I am literally missing in my brain, but I don’t because I was fortunate enough to have parents who pushed me to be more than the sum of my nature.
Yes, it wasn’t easy. I had many fears, and so many moments of doubt, but at the end of those tunnels were some of the best moments I’d ever experienced:
Performing professional concert level pieces, dancing solo on a stage in front of a theatre audience, gettting two degrees, travelling to, and living in the United Kingdom, working toward self-employment, publishing a poetry book and there is more to come.
So to those of you who assume you cannot do something because nature says so, I say, challenge your nature. Do the thing you always wanted to do. But what if you don’t know what you want to do and you are full of too much fear?
Go stand in front of a mirror. Look that fear in the face, and tell that fear you will reach your goal, in whatever way possible. The end might not look exactly like how you imagined it, but that’s okay.
(There was a time when I thought I might teach piano before I injured my wrist. Now I’m doing live improvisation and composing!)
What matters is that you are not giving up. You are not letting yourself get sucked in the whirlpool of labels put on by yourself, society or science. And time doesn’t matter.
Remember how I mentioned it’s tough to learn new things once you’re an adult? That’s not a “can’t learn.” It just takes more willpower and dedication.
So, welcome to my new channel: Alyssa Rae Reynolds
And, if you have Instagram, check me out at @alyssaraereynoldsmusic where I post my progress with composing music, arranging covers, my inspirations and ideas, clips of improvisation from Twitch and more.
May the wind be always at your back as you adventure forth as heroes to your own stories!
ARR
