Musical Inspirations

I thought I should clue you all in on my top 10 musical inspirations. All of these musicians inspire me either through their own journey, their expressive lyrics or just their overall energy and presence. So, without further adieu, my top 10 inspirations:

1. Zach Hurd - My cousin and biggest inspiration, Zach has been a musician for as long as I can remember and has worked so hard to get where he is now and working even harder to get further. I can only hope to be half the guitarist and songwriter he is one day. Everyone should check out his music, www.zachhurd.com!
2. Bonnie Raitt
3. India.Arie
4. Jennifer Hudson
5. Taylor Swift
6. John Mayer
7. Priscilla Ahn
8. Adele
9. Meshell Ndegeocello
10. Sugarland

Practice Makes Perfect, But It Takes a While

Over this winter break I finally admitted to myself and my family that my only choice after graduation is to indeed move to Nashville, TN and give music a shot as a career. It has taken me a while to admit this is what I want to do because of the caliber of risk it involves.

I know no one in that region of the country so I would be going completely on my own and working my way alone. This is why I have found it incredibly necessary to polish my musical talents while I have the overwhelming support of my family and friends.

While my singing has always been a source of pride for me, my guitar skills have never been strong enough for me to feel confident performing while accompanying myself. So, needless to say this will be my greatest struggle: battling the guitar, one string at a time.

So I tuned my Fender, grabbed my pick and got to work on the guitar by proceeding to play the same four chords over, and over, and over, and..yes..over again until I thought I would never enjoy hearing the progression again.

Yes, my fingers are borderline numb. Yes, I am aware that my left hand has nubs for fingernails and my right hand nails are normal length. But that's two more "Yes's" toward being able to say, "Yes, I performed my own song tonight and accompanied myself."

Adding a Challenge

So as I mentioned previously, this blog is thanks to a class assignment, specifically, my New Media class. Here we are hard at work on our blogs:

While we are indeed, hard at work, I have been thinking of a way to make this blog assignment more challenging on myself. 

As my friends and family know, I have no problem giving my opinion and speaking as long as my breath will hold, so I have decided my challenge will be including songs I have written, are working on and even quotes I have decided to use as inspiration while writing songs. 

The difficulty with sharing my musical works is that any successful musician/songwriter only becomes successful by exposing a part of their innermost secrets and feelings. This can be especially difficult because it means you have to put words and music to feelings or situations you may not understand.

Writing songs is a lot more difficult than it may seem, but half the battle is getting over your own fear of admitting everything you are or believe in your music. So maybe that will become more of my challenge. I guess we'll find out.

About Me

Hello world and welcome to my blog. I am currently a senior at a university in Pennsylvania and getting ready to enter the world lacking direction or even preparation. However, the plan I do have is to take my chance in the music industry as a singer/songwriter. I will use my blog to update you all on my own struggles and successes at my first official recordings of original songs, practicing and attempting to master the guitar and finally culminating in my move to Nashville, TN. There are several aspects of this goal that are incredibly difficult so never fear that I won't have plenty of stories down the road. I hope you enjoy!