MOUNTAINS TOO HIGH - Part 2

So was that a missed opportunity? Sure. Was it an important opportunity? No. Niether was it something to be ashamed of or discouraged by. I'm actually more determined now to become a competent storyteller, now that I know where the limits of my present abilities lie.

This experience has made me re-evaluate everything I want to do with storytelling and my songwriting - and why I want to do it. I won't go into that just now, but I can say that storytelling is an important element...the most important element... in my succes as a songwriter. I can write songs, no problem there, but my problem lies in singing them. I can sing them to myself, to a small group of friends, but I'm not good at singing them to an audience I don't know. And that's because I don't have that special ability to CONNECT with an audience and talk TO them as if they were one. If I can learn to do that, then I'll enjoy singing my songs, to anybody and everybody, and therein lies the key to my success.

It's easier to just sing while keeping a distance from the audience than it is to connect - that's what I've done in the past, and that's why I feel so uncomfortable. You can't keep a distance when telling a story - you HAVE to connect... so I HAVE to be, first and foremost, a storyteller - a storyteller who also tells stories in song. STORYTELLER!- not singer/songwriter, musician, popstar, recording artist... simply a storyteller. So that's my goal. I know I can write songs, I know I can write stories... I want to be able to tell them.

In the course of the coming months I'll be busy with my development as a storyteller, and I'll make sure I share my experiences  here...because this is also a story, in the making.

AND... to make up for not having played live on the 17th as I promised... here's the song again, how it should be sung - without nerves.