My Big White Room

Some of you were concerned about what I wrote in my previous post (Here) and asked me to further explain what I meant. At first, I didn’t know how to do it though because I wasn’t sure the explanation would be as interesting as you might have expected. But when a friend asked me to share a private video publicly, I thought I could bring the two things together to make this post a bit more compelling.

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking lately on how I’m letting a side of me fade away. It’s scary, really. I’m not gonna go into much detail because it’s something that would require a whole other blog post, but I realized that my behavior towards music has changed a lot. Did I simply grow up? Or am I letting my real self on the shelf? I don’t know. If you want me to elaborate on this let me know in the comments, I might just write that whole other blog post.

So here comes the “whole other post”, I’ll try to keep it light because I realize that sometimes my style of writing makes me come out way more dramatic than I actually am. 😅

The thing is: I used to sing all the time. ALL. THE. TIME.
My brother literally hated me because there was no moment of the day in which I kept my mouth shut. I see now how annoying I must have been, but for me back then singing was as normal as breathing. When I was a kid I often thought to myself “Why can’t musicals be an actual thing? Why can’t people just burst up in a song and sing and dance?”.

Weird? Sometimes I think so, but then I recognize I was just a kid and these were the things fantasy suggested to my still barrier-free mind.

The part of me that I mentioned is fading away is simply this, the one that drives me to sing, whenever, wherever. It might just be because of the cynical adult life, of the fact that I have my mind constantly thinking about more tangible, useful, profitable things.

“Profitable” is truly a keyword here. I grew up with the idea (instilled in my subconscious) that singing for a living was not a viable option. Aside from special cases, singing was not a real job, so I never adequately dedicated myself to becoming a professional. I never studied singing, I never really studied music.

Thankfully, my path one day crossed Daniele Mazza’s and his musical project, Ancient Bards. This gave me a glimpse at a life of music and I loved it from day one. I continued singing and making concerts but I always felt like that amateur who from time to time put on her pro disguise. Still loved it nonetheless.

I’ve never truly taken a position, I’ve never truly made a decision, I never truly gave my passion a shot. I just continued trying to balance two parallel lives, the one with the steady job (better if in the field I graduated in), and the dreamy one in which I could run my passion wild. The problem now is that I’m unwillingly, subconsciously letting go of the side of my personality that still clings on to the dream.

The video above is just an example of those things that I don’t do anymore. I don’t do them mostly because I don’t have the time to, but sometimes it’s just that they don’t even cross my mind. I used to practice a lot and record myself to get a measure of my changes and improvements.

I recorded this song with my cellphone 5 years ago, while I was practicing on my own. Mistakes ran wild, and that was ok. Pushing my boundaries was always my thing. I mean I measured myself with some pretty tough role models, so I desperately tried to reach my own impossible standards. I was usually disappointed by these recordings, but I must have thought this one wasn’t that bad because I ended un uploading it to my private Facebook profile, for my friends’ ears only.

I recently shared it again in a nostalgic moment, remembering the times when I did these things.

FUN FACT: When Arjen Lucassen got in touch with me to see if I was a good fit for his new Ayreon album, I sent him exactly one of these crappy recordings – Ah! The courage! –
He liked it though, so my crappy recording served a higher purpose then it was initially supposed to. Will this one have the same effect? I’m sharing it to find out!

Back to us. After I re-shared it one of my friends really liked it and asked me to make it public so he could share it with his friends. I was VERY reluctant! I always thought I would publish and make something “official” only when it’s ready and perfectly polished. He insisted and, against all of my inclinations, I took the request as a challenge and decided to put it on YouTube.

My feelings about this are two and opposite:

1. The realist: one should never publish such raw and unrefined things. Everyone posts cool videos and this just isn’t one.
2. The rebel: what the hell, this is me, no tricks, no post-production. Take it or leave it.

Ok, this post might be even more confusing than the paragraph that originated it, I’m sorry.

The bottom line is that uploading this video publicly is a way to get out of my very own Big White Room, in an attempt to rediscover my natural attraction to music and singing.

You can help too! Please share your thoughts about this, let me know if you’d like to hear some more and maybe I’ll record new stuff (with much better quality).

Sorry for the long post!

See you :*