Performance is Powerful: A Lifelong Journey with Music

I thought I chose a very safe route for this story — not diving into TOO much personal content — but this story feels incredibly revealing.

This is my first attempt with putting my face on camera and telling a story. Picking the story was much, much harder than I expected. I feel like the one I chose felt so distant — my difficulty in picking a major — but I realized in telling the story, I am STILL struggling with how much I am or am not playing music: I’m in a constant battle with time, responsibility, distraction, and desire.

I see now how telling a story from your life can indeed help clarify the story to YOURSELF. I believe I was carrying around vague ideas about music’s power in my life — in all our lives — but actually telling the story was not easy.

I wrote three written drafts and to my own surprise, when I talked to the camera, the story changed even more.

I really enjoyed the process of finding and editing photos and adding captions to this story. Adding captions felt the most playful.

I want to give a sincere shoutout to my thought partner in this project, Hector Ortiz, who read a written draft, offered incredibly helpful feedback in my first video draft, and served as a true creative team member through this process. I found I really needed someone else’s perspective as I worked through this personal project, and his expert-level knowledge on both me, as a person, and clear communication was illuminating and motivating.

A note on stock footage: I thought this would be a great project to “go to town” with the stock footage options in WeVideo, but as Hector pointed out — the length of generic images can actually detract from the story. It seems way more effective to use personal images and video to tell this personal story.

After completing this project, even though this feels like an exercise in vulnerability, I feel inspired to create more videos, try out different filming techniques, and maybe even go on a vlogging journey of some sort.

As a teacher, I am wondering how to incorporate a video memoir project for my own students. So much reflection makes me think this is more than just a vlog.

I want to also give tremendous credit to the wonderful Moth storyteller Phill Brandon and his story “If The Suit Fits” which I found masterful and inspiring, and opened the door to how to tell this particular story. Listen to his hilarious and touching story here: http://themoth.org/stories/if-the-suit-fits

With both Phil Brandon and Hector’s help, I am realizing how much I really require the feedback and inspiration of others to move forward on creative projects. Now that I write this, I realize that part of the reason I think I’m not playing music right now is because I need other people — creative thought partners! — in order to produce songs, just like videos, just like writings.

Thank you for this opportunity to express an authentic part of my life experience, that I hope will inspire others to persue creative projects and find some power in expression.