Bob Dylan, Maya Angelou, Stuart Smalley, and Why I Don't Have Imposter Syndrome

The TLDR short answer:  You sort of need "conventional" success first, and I don't have any, so it doesn't apply to me.

Welcome (or welcome back) to the blog where I pretend to be a solo artist and claim to be a songwriter...and blog about it.  

I find myself blogging more about the solo artist part than the songwriter part.  You won't find much in the past posts herein about how I write songs, or advice about how to write better songs - those are personal, mysterious, and difficult to explain.  I write songs in many different ways, with many different approaches and techniques and genres and styles and subject matter.  They just happen sometimes, and I'd rather not dissect how they happen, because it's a sort of magical thing you don't want to question or mess with.  

On the other hand, you will find a lot of content about me grappling with my music being in the same streaming services as really famous artists like Bob Dylan, and my struggles trying to do everything myself as inexpensively as possible to get it there.

No one has ever said to me, "your songs are not very good" or "you need to give this music hobby a rest" or "you're not good enough to have your music be on the major streaming services" or "you need to give up on this solo artist thing" or "you're embarrassing yourself and you should hang it up"...nothing like that, ever.  When it comes to music appreciation, your taste is what it is, and certainly mainstream popularity can be a strong indicator of quality consensus.  

The current charts are filled with music that I seriously cannot understand the wild popularity of.  Fortunately, there seems to be a slowly-rising trend with Millenials starting to appreciate acoustic guitar playing singer-songwriters again, so my style might appeal to them if discovered!  Therein lies the biggest challenge for artists like me these days: how to make more people aware of my music without a budget or desire to self-promote. 

"Not giving up" is easy when you're passionate about transitioning a hobby into being part of a commercial industry.  Since I'm not beholden to a record company and don't need to recoup any expenses, my measure of success is little improvements over time that maybe only I notice.  I'm really only competing with myself, and without promotion of any kind, I don't really care that those improvements may not translate to increased streaming stats.

It could be the cream can't rise to the top when there's over-saturation, and with no one telling me I should stop, I'm part of the problem.  So I blog about these kinds of things to make sense of it all.  My music is streamable in all the usual places like Apple Music, Spotify, YouTube Music, and Amazon Music - 11 full-length albums so far, with a 12th in progress.  Just as with book "publishing," technology and the internet now allow regular guys like me to join the superstars, so I blog about this a lot to understand how I feel about it.

Maya Angelou: "I have written 11 books, but each time I think, 'Uh oh, they're going to find out now. I've run a game on everybody, and they're going to find me out.'"

My daily affirmation:  My songs are real songs.  I am a real songwriter, and I am a real solo artist.  My music is art.  It helps people.  I've been helped by a 12-step program, and I help people.  I'm good enough, I'm smart enough, and doggone it, people like me.  (Google Stuart Smalley or Senator Al Franken to understand the humor).  Whether any of my music qualifies as being actual art or not is debatable, and although I include my lovely wife Lenore's accordion playing on about one song per album, the rest of everything you hear I did by myself, so pretty solo.  

I've released around 140 original songs on those 11 albums, and you'll just have to trust me that I've written a few hundred more that I have not chosen to release.  The ones I've released arguably qualify as being actual songs.  So, yeah, you can stream Scott Cooley, then switch over to Bob Dylan, and it's as if we are both offering the same kinds of things in the same places - albums of music featuring songs we've written ourselves and recorded as solo artists.

It's not imposter syndrome that I have, however.  I had to look that definition up:

noun

the persistent inability to believe that one's success is deserved or has been legitimately achieved as a result of one's own efforts or skills: people suffering from impostor syndrome may be at increased risk of anxiety.

You need to have success first.  I don't have any (the way most people would define it).  What is success then?  Most people think of fame, wealth, or social status, but there is another definition that I prefer:  the accomplishment of an aim or purpose.  Some of mine have been:

• Learn To Play Guitar:  As a fan of rock music when I was a kid, I thought it might be cool to learn how to play guitar someday.  I bought a used Yamaha acoustic at a pawn shop in Flint, Michigan over Christmas break during my Senior year at Albion College, then used it when I took Intro To Guitar my last semester.  I learned more from friends than I did from the course, but it was a start.

• Learn To Write Songs:  After learning covers of popular rock songs I liked, I thought it might be cool to write my own songs someday.  Having also taken Intro To Poetry enroute to my Bachelor of Arts in English degree, I had a bit of a foundation for creative writing.  With a pencil and notebook paper and acoustic guitar, I made an attempt, friends thought it wasn't bad, so I wrote more.

• Learn To Record Music:  Initially recording on cassette recorders with built-in microphones, then a portable four-track with an external microphone, then continuing multi-tracking on a computer using digital audio workstation software with an audio interface, having multiple tracks available and the ability to overdub brought out some sort of mad scientist in me.  Do a little research, get the equipment, then figure it out through trial and error.

• Learn Other Instruments:  If you can mix a bunch of tracks together to make your song sound like a band played it, you need other instruments.  Starting with a tambourine and harmonica, I got some drums and a bass guitar, later adding a marimba and a ukulele, and then eventually a MIDI keyboard, which really opened up the possibilities.  The approach was get the instruments first, then teach yourself how to play them.

• Learn Music Distribution:  The first services I became aware of were TuneCore and CDBaby that offered this ability to get your songs in iTunes.  There was also the burn-CD-on-demand service offered by Amazon.  It was about selling discs and downloads back before the streaming thing caught on.  I read about the services, signed up, and sure enough, they distributed my music after I followed their instructions.

• Learn Online Presence Establishment:  Initially, I was proud of learning the old-school way of hosting scottcooley.com from a computer in my basement that was always running, then got in as an early adopter on Google Sites, which allowed me to move into the cloud absolutely for free for about 10 years.  I taught myself HTML and some of the basics, using my songwriting hobby as website practice.  Blogging and social media would be included here, but anyone can do those.  I've also done some music videos too, which might be part of this.

Somehow along the way, I developed this aim or purpose that I was a songwriter, and that instead of pitching my songs to famous singers to record, I thought I would also try becoming a solo artist myself.  I made it a goal to do as much as I could on my own without spending any money.  I didn't want to pay anyone to help me, didn't want to ask anyone to help me, didn't want to pay for anything I couldn't do myself.  I bought reasonably-priced instruments, recording equipment, and paid for the music distribution service, but that's it.  I did everything else at no cost other than my own labor.

Therefore, I have been successful.  I believe I deserve that success.  I've achieved it legitimately as the result of my own effort and skill.  I've accomplished my goals.  I suppose the next steps would be to play live (memorize my own songs, have a setlist, then somehow get gigs playing in public for money), offer merch (sell t-shirts or whatever), get publicity (solicit music press and bloggers to write about me), and advertise (actually spend money on promotional ads and marketing campaigns for my albums), however, those are not currently goals I have.

I know I'm not the type to ever achieve any sort of popularity or mainstream success as most people define it.  I don't have the singing voice, instrument-playing chops, looks, youth, dance moves, or whatever you'd look for in a new artist if you were a record company seeking profitability.  In a way, my music journey has employed a fake-it-'till-you-make-it approach, but I'm realizing more and more that what I've done is not fraudulent or phony - it's authentic and real.  I feel like I am pretending less as I move forward, thinking I am achieving some sort of legitimacy along the way.

Acoustic Guitar Solos - Why They Are An Important Part of the Scott Cooley Signature Sound

As a music consumer, I love perfect music that uses electric instruments, don't get me wrong, but as a musician, I prefer unplugging, especially for solos.  I know this drastically goes against mainstream music trends.  Boston's first album was one of my first albums I owned as a kid and I loved their perfect sound with awesome electric guitar solos, harmony guitar, and electric organ.  Every song was flawless and sounded like it was from the future.

As a musician though, there are times when you are sitting around in a basement, living room or garage with at least one other person and you're both jamming together on acoustic guitars.  Inevitably, in such sessions, you will get an opportunity to play a solo during an instrumental break section of a song.  

You're so excited about your chance to really shine that you grip the pick a little too hard and overplay a bit because you're a tad overenthusiastic.  The results can often be underwhelming as compared to what you imagined in your mind because you picked too harshly, which is an easy mistake to make with an acoustic guitar.  

Although I'm not sure how to explain exactly what is going on, but there's like an unintentional muting that can happen.  In these moments, you find your fingers press down too hard on the strings too.  Somehow you sort of want it to sound more like an electric guitar solo, and to stand out volume-wise over the other acoustic guitars, but overdoing it takes away some desired sustain so you overcompensate for that subconsciously. To me, despite being sonically imperfect and possibly undesirable, it is actually pleasing to my ears.

I am of the opinion that the aforementioned sound is more fun to listen to than an electric guitar solo played through an amp with effects.  You can hear the purity and joy and desire in there.  There's a raw sound of passion, and it produces fist-pumping adrenaline in the listener, which I suspect releases a rush of dopamine.

It's times like these that are often the most memorable as a musician participant, and for the audience.  Through my own informal research and testing and observation over many years, I've come to believe there's some honest truth to this theory, despite a lack of any real scientific proof.  When someone wants to rock harder than they're capable of - either with their technical ability or their equipment - you can hear that.  It's hard to explain but you know it when you hear it.  I happen to love that, whatever it is.

This is why I prefer to record such moments and incorporate them as key ingredients in my signature sound.   Yes, it has an amateur quality to it, but there's something about hearing great potential in your mind of what could be or could've been that is arguably better than a fully realized perfect version with high production value.  I argue it IS better to listen to this way.

We can't all play smooth and fast on acoustic like Billy Strings, and we all have our own style and influences.  In the 70s and 80s, I grew up on what is now called classic rock, but there was also punk, disco, and new wave in there, so it was confusing.  The music I liked best had great guitar solos, which may not happen much anymore in modern music, but I also loved acoustic music, and in my mind I've always had similarly weird ideas that acoustic music doesn't have to limited to folk and can have drums and bass too.  I also think leaving in a few imperfections in a recording can be fine.  Happy accidents.

I actually like knowing my signature sound makes people envision being at a house concert, or just hanging around their musician friends jamming in someone's house.  Informal, intimate, not doctored up too much with technology.  Maybe it's my fond memories of such times that skew my preference for the acoustic guitar solo, making me think it's cooler than it really is, so I can consider that.  

In the meantime, the best advice I've ever heard about being a songwriter/recording artist is to simply do what pleases you.  If you yourself like it, chances are others probably will too.

Why The Violent Femmes’ First Album Was, Is And Always Will Be A Classic

It's easy to name many recording artists whose first albums were clearly better than their subsequent ones, and unfortunately, the Violent Femmes are one of them.  I liked the vast majority of the songs on their self-titled debut, which obviously made any subsequent album disappointing in comparison.  While bands should be able to change their style and not feel pressure to clone a past success, it is too bad they didn't give us more of what we loved about that first album, but nonetheless understandable since it would be impossible to live up to.

It would be difficult to duplicate an album so youthful due to the simple fact of aging.  Without a doubt, the band’s legacy is their first album, which I am arguing was an instant classic.  Seems like even if they resolve their differences about royalties and personality conflicts with drummers or whatever, they've matured, and for that reason alone won't be able to easily repeat what most of us loved about them early in their career.  

This is one of those bands where people like me were careful about who we admitted we liked the band to.  I was a somewhat average, heterosexual 16 year old guy who was hesitant to like this group when I first heard their band name, and further, after hearing the singer's somewhat gayish-sounding voice, but I got past my initial homophobia and embraced the "femme" aspect just as I eventually thought the Rocky Horror Picture Show was pretty cool, despite it's gayness.  The love songs were universal and seemed to be a dude singing about or to a chick, and were ambiguous anyway, if not intentionally so.

The reason wasn't a case of a straight guy getting in touch with his feminine side necessarily, but it was the fact that this music was impossible to not like for many reasons.  This was something totally new and bold, and I couldn't help really liking it, but I wasn't sure I could easily explain why back in 82 or 83 - I thought they were badass because they dared to be different.  When I discovered that album, and gave it a chance, it made a lasting impact on me and I still consider it one of the best albums ever made.  I thought I'd blog about why I thought it was so great, so here goes.

What I loved about that first Violent Femmes album was the combination of 1) the unique instrumental sound (acoustic bass guitar, minimalist drums w/ brush, and acoustic guitar all playing a variety of tempos with hints of reggae, country, blues, folk, and punk rock), 2) the unique sound of the singer's voice (raw, whiny, full of rebellious emotion - from lust to rage), and 3) the lyrical content, full of universally-appealing high school angst.  

That wasn't all.  4) Usage of explicit lyrics and the xylophone were surprise bonuses that added to the appeal. Topping it all off was 5) this artsy theme of contrast - the music went from slow to fast, the subject matter juxtaposed dark and light, etc., and then the always-important band name reflected that, and finally, the cover art of the girl tied it all together perfectly for an irresistable package.

It is for these aforementioned five main reasons I consider it a classic and believe it will stand the test of time.  Another indicator is I recently moved to a university town, and they still play it on college radio.  You never hear REM anymore, but they still play VF. The mostly-acoustic, simple, minimal sound played with passion and aggression led me to later have an appreciation for MTV’s Unplugged show starting in the early 90s, which features electric rock bands going mostly acoustic.  It also led me to discover similar music such as early T-Rex, Meat Puppets II, Pixies, the Pogues, Gogol Bordello, and several others.

About a decade after the Violent Femmes album was released, I became an amateur songwriter and musician myself, and I must say the sound of this record was and still is a big influence.  Of course, I consider Gordon Gano to be one of my songwriting heroes as well.  They appealed to all different types of people I would imagine, but probably their biggest fans were like me - just a few years younger than the band members themselves when that record got popular.  I know there are others out there with similar opinions, which is good to know, like this guy for example:

http://zenarchery.com/2008/04/reasons-why-the-violent-femmes-are-not-as-revered-as-the-pixies-and-some-reasons-why-they-ought-to-be-a-life-memoir/