Not About Streets, But Trying Something New and a Lovely Father-Daughter Essay-Song-Animation Collaboration That Will Make You Smile
Here’s something pretty special. You can read a parallel general context on Tala’s post (link below) but the gist from me is that I’ve wanted to take guitar lessons for a long time but felt weirdly self-conscious about it. Same with singing because I’d been told from an early age I couldn’t, both directly and in many indirect ways. (And honestly, I’m amazed at people who can sing on key or harmonize kind of naturally as that is not a base skill I have.) so this past Fall I decided to take guitar lessons as a 55-year old with an amazing teacher (Jonathan Bilenki) who basically is just excited about anything or anyone music related. Soon after starting he asked if I wanted to also be part of a band with other beginners and if I said yes he knew of some others to ask. Given my year of putting myself out there I said yes and within 24 hours we had a band that included five 50-something’s and a college student. Along the way I asked my teacher if he knew anyone who could give me voice lessons or just help me develop a basic ear and voice to develop a little confidence to move my needle from “can’t” to “can a little, to myself, and that’s ok”.
So of course he immediately said to practice with him right then and there, which was very uncomfortable but still part of my year of putting myself out there. And lo and behold as he played notes on a keyboard I was able to match my voice to them - the exact thing I’d been told since being a kid I couldn’t do. It was really cool. And to be clear, I’m not implying that I have some hidden suppressed talent, just that I’m not as incapable of finding a note with my voice as I was fairly certain I was.
Fast forward two months, and like any music student, our band had a public performance of 7 rock/folky songs (Avett Brothers, CCR, Eddie Vedder, Ringo Starr, Elvis Costello, The Band) to which I also somehow was given a couple electric guitar solos on top of our generally acoustic group, plus general group singing and one verse of one song with one other singer (that was plenty!!!!!). That was all a blast as was our weekly group practices. At 55.
Fast forward a few more months and somehow my oldest daughter and I were on similar wave lengths about what an act of defiance is in these aggressive, mean, belittling, antagonistic days and somehow we both settled on finding ways of having fun and being kind. That is, we won’t have that basic level of enjoying life be broken by forces trying to do just that. So I wrote a song (ha!) and some lyrics to go with the music that I knew weren’t right, but they were a start. Then Tala wrote the substack post linked below that gave me inspiration for a different tactic with the lyrics, particularly one line she included near the end: “A Radical Act of Joy”.
It also turns out Tala is a professional artist (I knew that but you may not), including a very skilled digital animator, so when I sheepishly shared an audio recording of my song that was inspired by her Substack post, she jumped into making an animated music video.
That video and some of Tala’s perspective of the project is in the attached link.
Caution: it’s really catchy. And sweet in so many ways. And feel free to make up your own verses about your own “Radical Acts of Joy” - they can range from small gestures to silly moments to big actions as they are your ways to find ways to live a good life even in moments when it feels like everything is crumbling around us (and to be clear, a lot is crumbling or being purposefully destroyed).
I hope you enjoy the song and video and also the basic experience of it being ok to try new things. And to do things with your cool kids (or cool parents 😀).
And many many many thanks to Jonathan, who really gave all the right kinds of encouragement while also teaching some skills. He’s also one of those wickedly talented musicians who knows how to play anything (it seems to me) and is happy to play anything - instrument or song-wise.
Enjoy. And feel free to share
my favorite video song collaboration ever. you two are awesome!