Who I am
I am a singer-songwriter. I just want to sing. I got my start in Honolulu, Hawaii where I was living while attending graduate school. I played all over the island and made some amazing musician friends. Now I live in eastern Maryland, and I'm hoping to find a new group of talented musical folks, to collaborate, to be inspired, to inspire, and to learn. If you're interested in learning more about my beginnings, keep reading below.
A Singer is Born...
I didn't grow up in a family of professional musicians. But I did grow up in a family of musical people. My mother sang to us daily. My father blasted Dire Straits and K.D. Lang from the radio of his car while driving us to school. We sang in church. We joined church choirs and school choirs. We learned instruments in school. We sang on long car trips. We sang.
A singer is Lost...
At one point, I stopped singing. At least, I stopped singing to other people. I sang in my car. I sang in my shower. But I'd heard the world of singing was cutthroat. And I am anything but cutthroat. So I stopped singing, I stopped trying out for musicals, I stopped trying out for choirs, I even stopped playing my bass. I sang at home sometimes, got nicknamed the human jukebox - go ahead, say something and I'll remember a song with that line in it - and was asked why I could never be quiet.
A songwriter is born...
One day, out of sheer desperation to get out all the things bottled up inside me, I bought a guitar. It was a two week early birthday present to myself. Turned out to be the best gift I've ever gotten. I looked up three chords, C, G, D. I wrote a song with three chords. I looked up more chords, and wrote more complex songs. I wrote and I wrote and I wrote. I played every single day. And I felt like I was finally myself again.
A Singer-songwriter emerges...
I did my first open mic singing two cover songs. Then, a few months later, I went back, and I sang one of my own. Other than my friends who came along, no one really paid attention. I went back again, and someone looked up, and then someone caught me after the set and told me it was good. And slowly, more and more people took notice, felt my words, related to my songs. I realized, even if only a handful of folks in the room heard me, really heard me, that's all that mattered, that someone appreciated what I was doing, even if it was just one person.