Parkour/Freerunning -- so that's probably my next post on its way. These are physical sister disciplines I've undertaken, both akin to obstacle courses and involving acrobatic manuevers and critical thinking. I do flips and stuff, and I fall down a lot. I'll have some great links and a broad explanation of what I can do, and what you need to do to get started.
Secondarily, this came up in conversation with the fella who writes this here other blog. My stance on confidence is: You make what you have. You have to put yourself in situations where you'd normally be uncomfortable, realize it's not that bad, and decide to not care about it. Girls are the same way. Just pretend like you know what you're doing and eventually you will. Just jump into your life --talk to strangers, or worse acquaintances-- and most of the time you won't get shot down. I'm going to be performing in front of some people this spring. It's going to crash and burn-- I know it will because my guitarist is a narcissist and so am I and, combined with the excess of members, we step all over each others' toes musically-- but I'll have fun up there in front of a ton of people, realizing that I don't care what they think as much as I originally did and just playing my violin and maybe throwin' a little soul with ma voice.
I love making music, be it with my guitar, violin, or just messing around on the piano (I need to learn someday). I also love making beats and electronic tracks on the computer, even though I'm not fantastic at it.
I think the thing I like about the seemingly new-school concept of electronic music is that it allows you to compose old-school music without looking like an idiot. Even if it is a simple musical phrase, it's got value and it's sad that most other genres seem to stifle such creative freedom with musical conventions and classifications. There are a lot of great undiscovered acoustic composers and folk artists, but it's kind of a box-in. More often than not, with electronic music, you're dealing with actual notes represented visually. You don't need to know chord progressions, you can feel it out by ear. I'm definitely a by-ear kind of guy, and I feel that applies to the rest of my life. I figure things out on my own, without convention, responding to the reactions I attain through series of action, and of course, messing up, falling down, and making crappy music sometimes.
