“Make your own fucking mistakes.”
Andy used to tell me that all the time. He died 3 years ago but he was a wonderful man. Andy lived and breathed music, it was in his bones, so in a shorter time than anyone else I had ever learned from, Andy was able to help me express myself musically. This was my yearning – how do I get the music that I feel inside out. Andy knew how to pull it out because he knew the language of music. He made music something tangible that I could feel and study and model outside of my body.
Andy also strongly believed in me, and it was from that place that he would repeatedly tell me, “Make your own fucking mistakes.” ..and so I did. The lesson that I learned from Andy was that the language of music transcends everything. Making one’s own mistakes was exactly like the practice of taking ones own inner music and bringing it to life. You would need to write it, to strum it, to play it…to know whether it worked or not. There is no guitar in my head but there can be one in my hand, and I can work out the song (life) by playing it.
I haven’t played music for a long time and who knows when I might ever pick that back up. I know now that this is one of the mistakes I had actively made for a long time. I’ve always juggled too many things. I am so full of creative energy that it is often hard to put myself in a silo but..there is a level of focused intensity that’s needed in order to birth things. If I try to spread that focus across too many things, I lose the intensity.
This one is for Andy…thank you king. You taught me SO much and you are not forgotten. To all of you, ‘don’t be afraid..’ to make your own fucking mistakes.
JanBerry 