Getting Started

Before I get this blog truly up and running, I wanted to give a little back-story.

My story begins on the windward side of O'ahu where I was born and raised.  Even from a young age, music was an essential ingredient in my life.  Our family would sing loudly while we listened to music in the car.  If someone was in the shower, you knew you'd get a private concert.  I grew up around live Hawaiian music since my dad danced hula.  I even tried my hand at writing a song when I was a child - "Erase the Hate" was the title, but I've thankfully forgotten the lyrics.

I didn't get my hands on a guitar until my last summer of high school.  I picked up the guitar to strum and sing along to my favorite artists.  I started writing my own songs though almost as quickly as I picked up the first few basic chords.  By the time I graduated I had written a handful of songs, one of which I still play today.

I moved to Chicago in August of 2002 for undergrad.  I moved into the dorms with my guitar and continued playing, singing, and writing music - sometimes with the company of my floormates during jam sessions.  I even fell in love my first summer with the guitar I still play today.  However, my time in Chicago did not lead to the boon of musical opportunities I had imagined.   I stopped playing music regularly in my second year of college.  I had hit a major wall and couldn't write a song I liked no matter how hard I tried.  So, I put away my guitar, forgot almost every song I had written, and generally forgot about making music.

Life truly moved and changed during the five years I spent away from music.  I graduated from college.  I moved across the country with my then-partner to attend law school.  I lost 80 pounds.  I started doing distance running and cycling events.  It wasn't until my life got chaotic that I sought the company of my guitar.  After a harsh break-up and difficulty dealing with the identity crisis that follows a dramatic weight-loss, I finally re-opened my guitar case and started playing again.  Playing, but not writing.

It was again crisis that brought me back to making music.  In the summer of 2009, I moved away from Tucson hoping to alleviate personal crises and depression.  I spent three months in Hawai'i before I was strong enough to return to Tucson and reclaim my life.  One of the first items I insisted on pulling out of storage, for some unexplained reason, was my guitar.  I started playing and singing the first week or so, but still not writing.

And then, it came to me.  I had played a chord progression over and over again until finally something clicked.  I strummed, hummed, wrote, re-wrote, until finally "Lie to Me" was done fewer than 24 hours after I had begun writing it.  Over the following couple weeks song after song came out of me.  I worked on them over the fall and winter, and when 2010 began, I had 10 new songs fully or almost completed. 

I thought seriously about pursuing music as 2010 approached.  I had grown much stronger just over the few months I had returned to Tucson.  My confidence built.  My friends encouraged me.  So...I made the resolution to start making music more seriously.  After my first open mic at Sky Bar, I fell in love again with performing and sharing my music, and my resolve strengthened.

Here I am now.  I'm ready to get out there and start sharing my music.  I do it because I love it.  I do it because I hope people can hear my music and know they're not alone in their experiences.  I do it for my own release.  I do it because it's fun.

So...here I go.