7:13 left to say something useful

i've been a bit apprehensive about this whole idea of just putting whatever on here even though no one is going to see it. very afraid that i'm going to quit this whole thing really quickly. maybe not afraid but more like worried. pessimistic? or that it's really just going to be a lot of garbage for a long time and that it's NEVER going to get better. all this and i haven't even really started yet! and I haven't even sorted out how this thing is going to work in my day to day schedule yet. (Ha, what schedule?) and i'm just constantly jealous of people who are able to put themselves out there and make the things they want to make, and make them well. i think maybe later today i'll give another go at "things that she said" because my last attempt was really a non-attempt and i just gave up at the ed really. i'm thinking about if i can pass this blog off to some strangers online, or maybe not strangers but maybe paulo or the LWSH. Just so i'm not really just posting a lot of shit things out for nobody to see, like some sort of insane person talking to herself.

Things That She Said 1 by Samantha Liu

So this is my first "stupid thing" that I'm posting on this blog. I figured instead of sitting around being sad about how I suck at music, I should probably, you know, practice making music? so I took this old shitty poem I wrote as a basic constraint, and wrote a simple melody around the poem. The poem isn't supposed to be lyrics or anything, just a basic guide for how the mood of the song should develop over time. Here's the poem:

Things that she said
Open your heart
Uncloud your mind
Let yourself go
But stay on the ground
Look up at the sky
And come back inside

The poem has a three-ish feel, so I thought the music should be in 3. The poem was actually about things that my violin teacher said, and my struggle to resolve the paradoxical advice to let myself be spontaneous and free, but then also to show discipline and restraint and control.
So it starts our sorta casual and attempts to expand and brighten culminating in "let yourself go" but then falls back down (i think measure 16 is the best I got in this regard).

What I really want to say about this, instinctually, is OH MY GOD IT SUCKS SO MUCH WHY AM I EVEN TRYING I HATE THIS I HATE MYSELF AND I HATE EVERYTHING I DO I SHOULD JUST GO DIE RIGHT NOW AND I'M EMBARRASSED FOR THIS THING'S EXISTENCE AND WHYYYYY DID I EVER THINK I COULD DO THISSSS

but I gotta REPLACE NEGATIVE THOUGHTS with MORE POSITIVE ONES and not be FUCKING TOXIC FOR ONCE so, the rational thing to say about this is,

I guess it starts out ok enough. It's really unoriginal, but the point of this exercise wasn't really to be original, it was more about just getting started with something, no matter how simple AND SHITTY it is. I guess it accomplishes what I set out to do, which was to make a simple melody which roughly follows the emotional contours of this poem, even if it doesn't accomplish it all that convincingly or interestingly. I dislike the ending though, because jarring key change. Turns out I have no idea what I'm doing. I already knew that. If it makes it any better, I wrote the whole thing down on paper without listening to it first, and I already knew that it was going to sound kind of funny, but I didn't know HOW funny it would sound until I put it into musescore at which point I was like oh no this is really bad.
well, I remember thinking coming out of measure 16 that it would be weird to end the thing in G major/brighter key than it started in so basically I was like i should probably switch to something else, I need more of a mood change anyways. I thought about just ending in G minor, but I wanted it to feel calmer/bittersweet, not darker. so i was like fuck it i'm just gonna do whatever and just end it. The result was a jarring key change and also deviation from the 4-bar phrase pattern that had been set up, because I tried to force the music in a direction I didn't know how to make it go.

So what I learned from this is that you can't just randomly decide to change keys in the middle of a melody. use pivot chords. note to self, learn how to do that.

So that was my first post of a stupid thing I made. How do I feel about it? Still a little bit embarrassed. There is a lingering feeling that what I have just put out into the world is a shame upon myself, my family, and anybody who's ever associated with me, and especially my music teachers. But I know that all of that it just bullshit in my head. Even if this were really the worst garbage that anyone in history starting out in composition ever wrote, I'm just going to have to be ok with that. I have no delusions of being good. I'm just trying to do this for myself, I'm just trying to not be afraid anymore.
Ok, well... I guess that's enough for today.

To get over fear of judgement

I've been doing a lot of thinking, and I've come to this single idea that everything I do is shaped by fear. Fear of judgement, of not being good enough, of not being able to make it, of things being difficult, etc. etc. And anybody who really knows me (actually not a lot of people now that I think of it ) knows that I hate fear, and I believe fear is the absolute worst thing ever, a mere evolutionary remnant from a time when the environment was full of tigers and whatnot trying to eat you. Fear is good for helping you not die, but is literally the most maladaptive trait to ever exist when you're trying to accomplish things and make friends and get things done and just live life the way you want to.
I forgot what I came here to do lmao
ok, well, fear of judgement. I figure if I just do enough stupid things/make enough shitty things, I'll have nothing left that people can judge me for that I haven't already given over willingly to be judged. IF that makes any sense. I don't think I'm ready yet to announce this project out to the world, but I'm going to start putting really, really shitty things and ideas onto this really old shitty blog that I used to post on when I was like 13 or whatever. (Actually I say it's shitty but I look back at some of the stuff and actually start to like some of it. It's nice in like that naive optimism sort of way. I could honestly stand to have some more of that nowadays.)
So yeah, anyone can technically see this, but not anyone who isn't intentionally searching for this, i.e. knew I had a blog back in middle school and was like "hey i wonder if that old thing is still up"
placing my bets now, it's gonna be pat or jennifer (if anyone at all.) if it's one of you then hiiiiiii
what's uppp
lel
wait shit my analytics say i have one follower
whatever hopefully they don't actually check
BUT THE whole POINT of this is to BE OK WITH BEING JUDGED so i guess, let them see this. it don't matter to mE (well right now it still does but hopefully that changes.)

Progress

I think I've finally gotten to a point where I can look back at the posts on this blog and feel no shame or embarrassment about them. I think this is progress.

The thing I have in common with someone who's been to outer space

I saw this blue jay feather today. Isn't this life so beautiful?

It's the small things that matter. :)

That Waterpark Kid

It was a long line. Looking up, you could see the many flights of stairs spiraling up to the waterslides. Looking down, you could see the whole indoor waterpark, see people swimming and running and laughing. Sunlight from the glass ceiling pleasantly warmed my back.
I saw a little boy making his way up the stairs to join the back of the line where I was, pulling with him a blue double tube that seemed comically large compared to his small body. He was wearing a turquoise swim shirt and he had dark chocolate hair, and large innocent brown eyes. Coming up behind me, he asked me, "Can you please hold my place in line for me? I need to go get someone." So I said sure and I took his tube in addition to my own so he could dash back down the stairs.
The line slowly moved forward, and the boy soon came back to reclaim his tube, still alone as he didn't appear to have found the person he was looking for. He waited impatiently in line for a bit before he had me take his tube again, running back down the stairs to find whoever it was he was looking for.
Soon I was nearing the front of the line, and I was beginning to worry that the kid wouldn't make it back in time to go on the slide. Finally I saw his face as he made his way back to our place in line, still the other person was nowhere to be seen.
"Did you find who you were looking for?" I asked.
He nodded, but I saw that he kept looking over the stair railing down at the ground, anxiously searching for someone, hoping to see them making their way up the steps so they could go on the slide together.
We got to the top, but still no one had showed up. As I was about to go down the slide, I looked back to see that the lifeguard had taken the boy's double tube, exchanging it for a single tube.
The lifeguard said I could go, so I pushed off and down the slide, crashing out of the bottom of the slide into a wave of water and laughs.
But when I looked back to see the boy come out of the slide after me, his face looked absolutely crestfallen. My heart fell.
I didn't see him after that but I hope he's having a good life.

The Sun Shines the Same Way in All Places

Lost old lady wandering lone
Looking for a bit of home
Soft youth trying to find her way
To each, the other's eyes, they say
Things are going to be okay.