I Can Do Great Things!

Monday Check-In (8/5/24)

Happy Sunday Monday, internet friends! Today’s weekly check-in is a day late because yesterday was my spouse’s birthday, which is a damn good reason not to be sitting at my laptop writing for the internet!

This week’s photo is taken from a recent interview for the documentary being made about Cryptid Soup and my system of harmony. Videography by Elayne Wylie.

Celebrating My Awesomeness

If you’ve been following my newsletter or my life, you’re probably aware that I’m currently training to be a life coach in the areas of creativity, existential wellness, and mindfulness. As part of that process of becoming, I have formed a co-coaching arrangement with another of Eric Maisel’s students where we spend a couple of hours a week coaching each other for training and hour-logging purposes. This week’s check-in is pretty much me doing my assignment from our last session.

The issue that I’m working through is self-confidence, which is something I fully had in my youth, but lost in a big way in a moment when a literal judge shattered my dream of being a full-time professional musician 24 years ago. I won’t recount the whole story here, but I wrote about it in my first ever Substack post.

My assignment was to list some of my accomplishments and meaningful moments to help me remember that I am awesome, capable, and worthy of my dreams in moments where I’m not quite feeling it. So here they are, mostly in chronological order.

I was 1st violin for 3 years in my school orchestra

This was the beginning of my confidence as a musician. My middle school had 3 first violinist chairs and I sat in one of them for the whole 3 years. There were regular tryouts to shuffle people around, but those top 3 chairs always belonged to me, Pam, and Jimmy.

I was a Kentucky Governor’s Scholar

This was a competitive academic achievement in high school that landed me a letter from the Governor and the opportunity to go to Murray State University for 5 weeks one summer. It’s one of those obscure high school things that kind of sticks with you.

I went to the International Science and Engineering Fair

I won my high school and regional science fairs with my psychoacoustic imagery recording project and was invited to compete at the international science fair with some pretty amazing young minds. My dad and I were flown to Puerto Rico and treated to a week of tours and banquets, and walking through the rainforest is still one of my favorite memories. I’m also a tiny bit convinced I’m partially responsible for inspiring Air Force audio heads-up display technology, but that’s another story.

I’m a Gulf War Vet

I’ve never been that physically capable, and I’m not a fan of armies and wars and military nonsense, but I did survive 5 years in the infantry and 4 months in Kuwait and Iraq. The military was hard for me, but there were moments that I excelled when it was necessary. It’s one of a handful of hardships I’ve endured in my life and it reminds me that I’m resilient, adaptable, and capable of making it through difficult times.

I sold out my first album

After the Army I moved to Seattle and started writing songs and playing the singer/songwriter circuit. I recorded a live album and put together 250 cassettes by hand to sell at shows, selling them all within a few months. I played over 50 shows before life took a turn and I stopped playing full time.

I was a Fuzz rock star

In 2007, I started recording and releasing solo instrumental guitar albums as Echo Root. There was a popular music site called Fuzz.com that was somewhat like Bandcamp is now, except it had a bit more of a community vibe and charts listing the top artists. I somehow landed at the top of the rock charts and held on for a few months, which made me popular on the site and gave me a bit of an ego boost. Unfortunately, Fuzz totally shifted business models to become sort of a streaming radio site and eventually died (and I never got paid for any of my sales on the site).

I also got my first film placement during this period with the song “Can’t Fake the Funk” from my album Starfish Taco. The song shows up in the opening scenes of the short film Emma by directors Ivon Skula and Juraj Dobis.

I was an iOS music pioneer and ran a record label

After sustaining nerve damage that prevented me from playing guitar, I got into making music on iPads, releasing the first Mood481 album in January of 2013. iOS music production was still in its infancy at that point. Later that year, I worked with German musician Martin Neuhold to release a series of compilation albums, and it worked so well that we formed the Apptronica label soon after. At its peak, we had over 25 artists from all over the world and distributed over 500 albums.

Although Apptronica is no longer really a thing, I have remained one of the most prolific iOS producers on the planet, releasing 119 albums as Mood481 and 10 as Qid Love, all produced primarily on iPads.

I published the first (and only) iOS music magazine

Another thing I did under the Apptronica banner was put together a digital magazine, which featured prominently on the Apple Newsstand in the music section when that was a thing. Unfortunately, I learned quickly how much work it was to edit, write, layout, and publish a magazine while also selling ad space, wrangling writers, and promoting sales. We got out 3 solid issues before I had to throw in the towel, but it was an amazing journey and I’m still proud of the accomplishment.

I went to film school

During the height of my Apptronica days, I saw the movie I Dream of Wires and decided I wanted to film a documentary about iOS music. So I went to film school, specifically TheFilmSchool founded by Tom Skerrit (MASH, Alien, Top Gun, etc). It was there that I met my good friend and cinematographer Joseph Assi, who put me to work as a sound recordist on the short film, Shards. I went on to work with Joseph on many occasions (for Tom and others) on a number of documentary, reality and behind the scenes projects. I also shot, edited, and directed my own short documentary on Lyme disease, as well as a number of other short films. By the way, you can read about Joseph’s amazing story on the Substack Cultural Crossroads.

I created my own system of harmony

Around the time I was doing the Echo Root thing, I came up with xenomes, the scale-naming/harmony system that I’ve used in all my work for the past couple of decades. I’m in the process of writing the book which will undoubtedly change the face of music theory as we know it, which is why Elayne is making this whole documentary about it. I’m also teaching it to the mostly willing participants of Cryptid Soup, who seem to be fine with it so far, as long as I buy them color-coded glockenspiels.

I taught myself a thing and made a career out of it

Even though my career as a programmer isn’t the musical career I wanted for myself, it has provided well for me and my various family configurations over the past 25 years. I am self-taught and didn’t actually finish college, but somehow I’m pretty damn good at what I do. I’ve been a developer, application manager, software architect, and even a director of technology - all from reading some books and learning fast on the job. So, even though my daily work isn’t always the most fulfilling part of my life, it is a pretty major accomplishment, and something I’m proud of.

What are you proud of?

That’s all for this week! Thanks as always for reading. Leave a comment (or reply to the email) and let me know what accomplishment you’re proud of!

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