When I was very young, I was trained to sing in a variety of ways. This was both good and bad; I loved music, but hated the kind I was being pressured to stick to. Church and school choirs left a lot to be desired, and that’s sugar-coating it.
There were a handful of times when I picked up an instrument, and a few piano lessons, but they never amounted to sufficient practice enough to really learn. I had a lot else going on, too; college-level courses, sports, paramilitary training, my first part-time jobs, and more than my fair share of other things. Having a ‘less than quiet’ home situation during my youth didn’t help in that department, either.
Years later, while I was in the military, I was part of a garage band and barbershop quartet that flickered on and off whenever there were random moments of free time between training exercises and deployment missions. It was a thrill to be brainstorming, writing, and playing all our own stuff. We went through some disappointing auditions at the start, but really started having quality jam sessions; if things had worked out a little differently, we might have even tried touring.
Somehow, in all that time, all I ever really did was dabble, sing, and dream. I got some compliments here and there, and made it through a number of live and stage performances, but nothing serious; nothing substantial. I had this growing collection of song and costume ideas, and it felt like there was this growing space where something major had been missing from my life. I knew of plenty of things to fill it with, but not when or how.
These past few weeks, at long last, I have finally found myself living amongst musicians, witnessing professional-band jam-sessions, and paying for formal and regular lessons. I am starting to learn the drums, guitar, and piano, and all the notes, songs, and stage performances I wrote down for nearly two decades… finally seem to have a chance at being performed in the near-ish future. I am very pleased about this, and look forward to each new riff and piece I become able to play. This is really cheering me up, and rekindling that inner muse which always demanded my time before.
Depending on who you ask, my band during the military was either called Violent Rebirth or Violence Reborn. (Of course, as you can tell, it was mostly metal.) I’ve had a lot of ideas come to me for new versions of that band, always with the name VR2 and VR3. Something tells me… once I get a handle on these three first instruments I’m being taught, the destined members of at least the first of those two other bands will show up, right on time.
My goal is to take the unwanted and mandatory rehearsals from my youth which ensured my range of notes and volume were high, with the journals and boxes full of ideas jotted down during the military, and the very much wanted and needed instrument lessons now, put them all together, maybe with some of the great tech I’ve learned about since, and get all my songs good enough that they are worth performing. I don’t ever plan on touring across the U.S., as all my time right now is devoted to making my city a construction project reality, but I do want to say with certainty that I could tour if the opportunity presented itself.
Does the future hold in store VR2 and more? Everything else has worked itself out, so why not? Whenever it does for my band and music, I will be extremely pleased. I’ve been writing about it for years, after all, envisioning and hoping; it feels to me… nearly time.
