Controlled Weirdness

This is the hardest thing to do. Most of us find it hard enough to write music that sounds like a certain genre, but in some ways, writing in your own idiom is the easiest thing to do. Since the days of military cadences, many of us knew all about "rapping," but someone had to have the guts to lay it out and call it music-the Pool song from "The Music Man" is one of the earliest examples, but there have been plenty of others to help out a performer who just couldn't sing. Someone had to be brave enough to try singing operatically to hard rock music-now it's pretty passé. Someone had to be brave enough to try being a member of a different race and singing what was thought purely another race's music-Elvis for one, but there are many other examples. If you've done certain songs a certain way for years, that way will be honest and sincere for you, and others are likely to like the way you do those songs, but you've got to be brave enough to do them. Someday, I might just cut that number I like to do of John Denver's as a hard rock anthem-it works for me. In the meanwhile, as a teacher, I will be happy to see some of my students have the nerve to succeed being themselves by being musically different.

So get out there and stop worrying if your guitar is a little clangy or that you have a cheap keyboard, that you have to perform in tattered clothes or have to hand out homemade cds at your gigs-many bands made it big doing the same thing, so you are in great company.

Most of all though, just keep writing and having fun!

©2002 Cindy Lee Haddock

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