Cat Fight In The Kitchen-Wattpad Rant

Musicians

I have to do another clarification type thing here. Since the "Weird Personal Rituals" rant people have been sending me messages that are a little...uh...well...it was the thing about my best friend wearing stuff on his wrists because of scars.

He wasn't a cutter in the typical sense. Just thought I'd clear that up.

These people have been messaging me and asking why he cut and how he managed to stop and all this stuff. And it's cool. I don't mind if you guys want to share your stories, but I just think you should know. A lot of the questions I've gotten I don't have answers for and I'm so sorry about that.

His wasn't a depression thing. They're just scars from something else that he doesn't like.

I'm so sorry. Please, feel free to keep sending your stories if you want to. I'm not telling you to stop, I'm telling you that I probably won't have the right answers. I'm not much help for the things I do know about. Sorry.

Sorry about all that confusion. Just...sorry.

Can we get back to the rants now?

Can we finally talk about something that really bothers me? And after we talk about it, so many of you are going to be annoyed with me and think I'm just bragging or being a brat, but I'm not. And if you think that about me, you're just further proving my point.

Let's talk about: Musicians

Have you ever noticed that with all the stories on here, anyone that plays an instrument or sings is automatically labeled a musician?

That really, really pisses me off. Maybe more than the fact that everything has to romanticize everything (which is a HUGE statement.) I don't joke around about musicians, okay?

We gotta stop throwing that term around like we know what it means, because obviously we don't.

I was raised musically by bluegrass musicians. And where I come from, music is a big deal. Like, you don't just get the title "musician" by being able to sing or play guitar. You pay your dues before you even get considered as a player.

It took me almost ten years to get recognized as a player. Not a picker (that's a huge title that I got after almost fifteen years (still under the title musician)). Not a musician. Not a singer. Not a songwriter. Just a player.

I started singing with my grandpa in bluegrass circles when I was three. That was a huge thing for me to finally, after (I guess it was thirteen years...) to be called a player. I worked fucking hard for that. It wasn't just me deciding when I was younger I wanted to play piano or mandolin or guitar. It wasn't the fact that I taught myself to play seven instruments comfortably (and be able to dabble and pick at anything with strings).

It was that I worked my ass off at it. Night and day to the point where it wasn't even a big deal or anything. I just did it.

No longer something to brag about. Not something to constantly discuss. Just life. Just fact.

That's why I get insanely pissy when people try to say that they've been a musician since they started playing piano two years ago. No. You fucking earn that title. It doesn't come with a set of strings, kids.

Can we stop acting like all our characters are just great musicians and that they all have the most talent and best voice? No. Just no. Don't. That's an insult to musicians that worked for years and years and years for that title.

And it sounds crazy, but I was raised in an insanely humble community and after almost twenty years as a part of it, I don't call myself a musician. I don't even call myself a pianist or a guitarist or a mandolinist, or a violinist, or a banjoist, or anything "ist" to the instruments I play. I'm a piano player. A guitar player.

It drives me crazy that people don't understand there's a difference between a guitar player and a guitarist. And there is a HUGE difference between someone who plays music and a musician.

I just wish more people in the stories understand that inside music communities, titles aren't just handed out. In serious, good music communities, you cut your teeth with the worst instruments in the worst bars singing the worst lyrics until suddenly you just get it.

Until suddenly you're humble enough to get it.

Please stop with the girls that have perfect voices.

Stop making them "so passionate that they don't feel anything but the music and they are the music" and blah blah blah. Shit. Shut up.

You obviously don't understand what it takes to be a musician if you're writing that.

Musicians don't just hand out compliments like "you have the best voice" or "you're such a good guitar player". At least they don't if they're sincere musicians.

My best friend (God I love to brag on him) got his title as a musician after twenty years of insane work. He was with musicians every weekend for fifteen years working with them and learning from them and it has been a hug part of his life for twenty years. And the night the told him he was one of the youngest musicians they'd ever seen with so much passion, I thought he was going to cry.

He smiled for like a month straight after that.

And he earned it. He earned every word they said to him. He earned his job as a professional musician.

Yes, he's naturally talented. But you've never seen someone work so hard. Day in. Day out. All the time.

I'm so proud of him. And no because he just picked up a guitar and learned a few chords.

Because he earned his title. He is a musician.

Can we stop just handing out that title? We get it. Music takes passion and drive. It takes intensity and emotion. It takes heart and guts.

Stop talking about it and show it. Damn. It's not hard.

Funny story time...let's see. OH!

So my best friend hates to sing. He's really shy about it and I don't know why. Obviously I love his voice (it's my favorite sound). But he does not sing in public that often.

Except one night he was at our house, and I guess he didn't know I got off early (even though I texted him and told him), so I brought a few people home with me to write and jam.

And he didn't hear us pull in because he was being so loud.

Anyway, he had a keyboard set up in our living room and he'd brought in the stray cat that kept coming to our house (that he said he wasn't going to let me keep). (It's name is Jimi now. After Jimi Hendrix).

When we all went in the house, he had the cat (that he supposedly hated) laying on the keyboard and was serenading it. And not in a silly way where you replace certain words with the animal's name. He was sincerely serenading the cat as though he were in front of a large crowd or singing to a lover or something. 

And I still cannot figure out how he didn't hear all of us.

But it was the most beautiful thing. Like he was so passionately just staring at this cat singing all the lines of Bohemian Rhapsody. He got really, really into it (and it was the first time I realized that he has a great range!) And the cat was really into the performance as well. They were making some intense eye contact.

And when it was over (because we weren't going to NOT let him finish. They were having a very tender moment), we all started clapping for him.

I've never seen him jump up so fast and I've also never seen him be so embarrassed. It was beautiful.

And we can't make fun of him because it was beautiful.

But he still hates us all.

And he still refuses to sing.

And I still love that he likes the cat.