Wednesday, January 18, 2012

Selling my drums on Youtube

This post is much more than just saying that you are now able to hear my Journey Oracle drums on Youtube. It is a story of how big a village it takes to help us, or at least me, learn something new. It all began several weeks ago when a fellow wrote to say he was interested in the Singing Child drum but could he hear it first? I suggested he listen to it over the phone but he replied, "get a good mic, record the sound and post it on Youtube. Easy."

Well. Perhaps if you are under 30 years of age but I am in my 60's and have never even visited Youtube. But I know where to begin. I asked help from my nephew who probably grew up clutching a computer along with his sippy cup in his crib. My nephew sent links to good mics and off I went to find a Canadian equivalent. Avid Pro Tools SE won but then the whole project went sideways down a vocal studio rabbit hole lined with compressors and equalizers and reverb. Back to my good nephew who joined me in a series of on line meetings so we (mostly he) could navigate through the labyrinth of audio files and media converters. Next my musician-neighbor was willing to get involved with translating the sound board dials for me—explaining what low shelves and high shelves are, as well as gains and gates. More hours were spent listening and movie making and deleting and un-movie making.

There were plenty of times when the whole project was tilting dangerously toward the wastebin, and yet I didn`t give up…mostly because the people helping me didn't give up on me. Much more than learn how to post a sound clip on Youtube to share the sound of a journey drum, I learned to just keep with the present moment—not thinking beyond the current step until I was indeed stepping off from it…sometimes out into confusion and frustration but also eventually up into accomplishment. Just do each step. I began to understand that the frustration was created by my thinking into the future with statements like,"this will never work", and,"no matter what I do I'm failing at this".

I know from working with intention that the universe gives me what I ask for. And when I was saying its not working and I'm failing…I received that. Someplace during the sound board lessons I started saying, "this is like a puzzle and I'm able to fit all the parts together into a beautiful sound." And this is what I received. Now, if I could only find the phrase of intention that would enable my headphones to work….