Heart beating, shirt sticking to my cold sweating body, soon it'll be my turn. Someone tells me to breath, to take a deep breath and just dive in to the song and let the song tell the story. Easy for you to say, the spotlight isn't on you, dear. Someone shoves a mike in my hand and gives me a gentle push towards the stage. The crowd is silent, it's now or never.
Bob Marley once said "one good thing about music, when it hits you, you feel no pain". Bobby was right, but also wrong. Sometimes music does inflict pain. Or joy. Or love. Or any number of feelings. Sometimes, music makes you feel so much it hurts. That's why I love music. For me, as a person that lives life more based on feelings then on rationale, music is the ultimate fountain of feelings. It's a way to ventilate all the good and the bad both in and out of your system.
Someone asked me what music means to me. On one hand, this is a very simple questions with a very simple answer: everything. On the other hand, it's the trickiest question of them all. How can I explain that music is like the air I breath, the rain after a drought, the spring sun after a cold winter, the first snowfall after a gray and dark autumn, like the best of wines combined with the best of foods enjoyed with the best of friends. It is pure joy. Music is like a love story, a bitter sweet one. Passionate and lustful, it eases me into a state of trust and devotion. It lures me into the deepest of satisfactions, yet always reminding me that we can never truly be together. Reminding me that I am not worthy. Until perhaps now.
Music expresses that which cannot be said and on which it is impossible to be silent. - Victor Hugo
It all started when I was a kid. Like any other kid, I'd pick up my moms hairbrush and sing in it like it was a microphone, stand in front of the mirror, waggling my hips to the beat of an imaginative beat, performing to an imaginative audience who was imaginatively chanting my name like a choir. I decided I was going to be a rock star. This was the only profession I could imagine. So I studied music for many years, until I graduated from high school and life's realities struck down on me. I went abroad, I studied, I worked and I buried my dream deep deep down inside of me. I closed the lid on it so tightly, I almost forgot the damn thing. But then you can't really forget your dreams, because without dreams, what do you really have left?
Without music, life would be a mistake. - Friedrich Nietzsche
About a year ago, I started practicing music again. After almost ten years off the stage, I did a show at my local pub and it was magical. At least for me, couldn't say about the audience. As I sang the songs on stage, I carefully took the off lid and, believe it or not, in that little jar I found my dream was still intact. A little older and perhaps a little rough around the edges, there it was exactly where I had left it. Thus, I decided to pick up my fragile little dream and see how far my wings would carry. I wanted to be a rock star. Again.
Without music to decorate it, time is just a bunch of boring production deadlines or dates by which bills must be paid. - Frank Zappa
This is how we get back to my beating heart and cold sweating body. My little dream needed a lot of work. I might add that during those years in that jar, my dream had become a little more humble than "rock star". Making a living out of music would really be enough. Just as a banker goes to work at the office in the morning, or a teacher prepares class, or a clerk tends to the shop, so did I too want to spend my days working with music. That is why I decided to take part in a competition.
I sent in an audio sample and next thing you know, I was called in to an audition. The cut was clean and simple: sing to us and we'll tell you if you got through or not. I stood waiting for the verdict with my friend. Here we go, they would call out the names of the ones that had made the cut. I hear someone say Cecilia. Cecilia? Well that's me! I see my friends red locks of hair dance in front of me as she is jumping up and down, screaming in my ear as I stand completely still, acting all super awesome and cool. Probably failing in the most embarrassing of ways. I was a step closer to my dream, my wings had carried me through my first jump.
This brings us to Friday. Two days from now, my fate will again be decided by someone else, this time by four music moguls. They will decide whether my wings will carry me closer to my dream, or if I will fall flat on my face. It's that leap of faith that everyone keeps talking about, it's happening. It's scary, it's fun and it's necessary. It's my life and, most of all, it is my dream.
Heart beating, shirt sticking to my cold sweating body. The lights feel warm on my face, my head is filled with a slight buzzing and the sound of my beating heart. The band plays the first riff of the song. The crowd is silent, it's now or never.
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