Music is My Madness

Music as an instrument of change

I recently attended Tatmagouche Free school, and one of the questions they asked was "What are your gifts in exile?" And, surprising as it may seem to many since I am addicted to play music, I quickly answered that music is my gift in exile. I hate being called or self-identifying as a musician.


Then: What does music mean to me?

Many a person covets the position of musicians, and my dad is certainly one of those. Though I admire musicians sometimes, I do not envy them. And I don't like talking about music. I like playing it, but I hate using exclusive language and talking about it in an elite fashion. And what is there to covet or be obsessed about with music?

What a treat it is to share such a thing, perform an art. Create an intimate moment between you and countless people...but what is the cost? What does music make a musician? What does the industry do to your art?

Certainly, it can make you influential, and give you the chance to express yourself and create a shared cathartic experience, some money and see behind many closed doors... but a day of a musician is not much covetted in my eyes. What is it to play songs over and over, put yourself in an untouchable place, and sell your art almost always in addition to your face?

My Battle between Business, Music, The Greater Good and my own brainhood.

I suppose it isn't really about the music (though it can feel like prostituting your art) its about the business of personality. And I already have a flawed personality which too rarely gets called on its faults due to my relatively pleasant disposition. Ask my sisters!

"Music is spiritual. The music business is not. " -- Van Morrison

I have visions and neurosis about musicians being douchebags, and so music-centric and self important they don't attend to the most meaningful matters of the world and squander their gift of influence and visibility. I think this idea was brought to a head when I went to the ECMA's in Sydney last year.
But there I realized: Good people still find good people, even in a strange feild of frauds, fiends and friends.

"Music should never be harmless." -- Robbie Robertson

And!
It made me realize that: I am a musician.
Whew. I said it. Why do I hate that title so much? Even when people say "guitarist" or "cellist" or 'singer songwriter" it gets me perturbed. And feeling a wee bit fraudulent.

"The music business was not safe, but it was FUN. It was like falling in love with a woman you know is bad for you, but you love every minute with her, anyway." -- Lionel Richie

I was so worried that I would exacerbate my worst qualities through the sphere of performing art: untruths, self-centredness, overly reverent public, living in a dreamworld, any variety of substance abuse, late nights, flightyness.... but these are things I need to work on anyway.


I think I am in a place where I don't have to worry about making myself worse, and I am quite excited to make myself much better. And conquer my self-made barriers.


And! I think, in my own mind, I have accumulated enough social merit and use of myself outside of music, I cannot help but use music and performance and spectacle to assist in helping all things that I think need to happen to make a better world
.
and its okay if I don't have time to teach people how to be good people. I can be a good person, and do the best I can. And it is okay I am not the best and never care to be... I cannot help but be addicted to expressing myself through music, and playing music and hearing it and using it to speak whatever truths need be said, even if I do dress them up to be a lil' differently digested than they might otherwise be. That is art!

The responsibility of being a public figure. It makes me uncomfortable, and I am not certain it is a struggle of my own ego.  When talking about music I often quote John Gardner:

"Pity the leader caught between unloving critics and uncritical lovers."

I often catch myself saying "Leadership: sunk!" Because: What place is that for self growth? I need people to call me out on my shit. I outsource for personal growth, because I know I do not catch myself doing those things that make me an imperfect being. It is pathological. AND I already have a problem with people not calling me out enough without putting myself in a place that is more public and less personally accessible.


I have troubles still with the words "leadership" and "leader" and "artist" in a similar fashion. I have gotten the farthest in not thwarting Musician out of all of these titles.

But, if a facet of being me is being a "musician," then so be it.

And in the words of my friend Kev Corbett, "I was made for a position of service, whether monastic, military or politician... but from the juxiposition of music I can serve all of those feilds best." My dad had said this to me before, in one way or another, but I could not hear him at that time. And much of my musical neurosis clearly comes from his own obsessions with music.
I wanted to live my own dream for my own reasons.


I just have to remember that music is not the most important thing on the planet. It is a method of and instrument of change, and one of expression.

I shall conquer and be made better.
I am going on tour next summer. That is that.
I will try to avoid embodying the following by following those music notes across the country:

And thus I clothe my naked villainy, With old odd ends, stol'n forth of holy writ; And seem a saint, when most I play the devil.

To whom it may concern...

To Whom it may concern;

I have been lucky to have never been without work whenever I looked for it. The last time I went to western Canada to find seasonal work at a fair wage, though, I vowed that I would make my living in Nova Scotia from now on. In part because I think it is unfortunate to reinforce the belief that Eastern Canadians have to leave their homes to make decent money, but also because I love and know this place the most because it is my home. The only difference in my job search this time was that I refused to work at something I didn’t love, that didn’t make me a better person, didn’t challenge me and did not help the greater good. I wanted to work in a way that was beneficial to the community and helped foster all those things I love about the future of the place where I am from. I wanted to work in Nova Scotia in a field which developed the skills I needed to succeed, was innovative, payed me enough to live and was aligned closely to my principals and values. I was not surprised to find that there was plenty of work in the field of Community Development, but there was very little money.

Over the past few years, I have found my passions in life. I used to feel somewhat lathargic and unmotivated about my life plans and practices, but now I find my work animates and inspires me at every turn so that I have seemingly limitless energy. After going both University & College, working in various fields while volunteering as much as was physically possible, I became quite adamant about community-based and service learning. I had found the missing piece to my own education: putting what you learn into practice. I started to develop leadership programs with the Halifax Regional School Board, Centre for Entrepreneurship Education & Development, Dalhousie and others to help enrich our education systems to be more empowering to youth, to help kids and young adults get hands on experience and create rewards systems for their work in community development. This work was amazingly satisfying, because it redressed social issues from being what seemed to make life difficult into a perfect chance to develop personal skills,  cultivate meaning, take action and be proud of ones work. I developed a special interest in the role of business and entrepreneurial skills as a tool to help people manage and plan how to apply their passions while remedying some of the challenges in society. While teaching one of my sessions, on a fully volunteer basis, I realized that I was not practicing what I had set out to teach: I was teaching youth to live their dreams and address community issues with entrepreneurial know-how, and yet I was volunteering and trying to find ways to supplement my volunteer income through less meaningful work that did not suit my abilities or who I wanted to grow into. So, after some hefty community research, I set off on an entrepreneurial path.

I applied for Self Employment Benefits program through Employment Insurance, participated as a competitor in an Enterprise Atlantic contest and learned as much as I could about how the realm of business and the spirit of enterprise is beneficial to Nova Scotia and to me. I was told that my business ideas and models were amazing, innovative and well thought out. I was told my community projects were needed in our communities, but I needed to be more concerned with profit and creating capitol and that I did not quite fit into the current model of business or many support programs.

I am quite blessed to be someone who has multiple interests and aptitudes, but there is nothing I love so much as my home, its communities and people. I want to live and work here, and think that we can embody a truly innovative and sustainable model with our economy and our people. Over time, I have come to feel like we need to make more room for an economy that thrives on community development and alternative education, and I want to help create jobs outside of charitable organizations and social welfare instituions so that those who are ethical and community-centred can generate an income without depleting government funds or operating wholly separate from business.  We deserve to use the wealth of human potential we have in our amazingly educated capitol, and use these in tandem with entrepreneurials skills so that we might use them most effectively.

I believe that social enterprise and education is part of the future legacy of Nova Scotian identity, and I think that generating awareness and living by example is what I should do with my life. I want to develop the skills, the research, the connections and the knowledge to be business savvy and a community resource simultaneously, and I want to help other Nova Scotians do the same. I would take every chance to embody the ethically, sustainably employed vision I have for this province and try to better myself and the greater community at every turn and I will not be giving up anytime soon.

Can you help me create my job and my Nova Scotia?

Thanks for your time,

Julia M. Feltham