...Because the reason I didn't write anything is that I had run out of things to do aside from write, and instead of writing, I decided to go to sleep early. (Well, early for me, anyway.) The result?
Best night's sleep I've had in quite a while. I woke up well-rested and fairly energized for the day. (I did, however, forget to take my pills last night. Ah, well. See the title. I've been taking them every night aside from that.)
Anyway, in other news, I might as well talk about something that I've had in my mind since the day began: a tune.
See, normally, when I talk about a tune that I have in my mind, it is one specific tune that I've kinda sorta managed to more or less pin down so that I can mentally play it on demand. (I generally only do so every couple of months or so. There was a blog-post-that-never-was in which I was going to talk about it, even, but I was too bogged down and tired that Sunday to talk about it.)
This tune wasn't that tune. It has a vague similarity, but is distinctly different. Among the differences? THE tune, the one that I have only sort-of pinned down, I vaguely feel like might be stolen from somewhere (although the amount of customization that I've done means that it might as well be my tune by now anyway since whatever the original may be, I distinctly doubt it's the same as what I managed to produce in my head), but I have no clue where.
THIS tune, though, I think I do. (Also, THE tune I have from more or less start to finish though the bridge is a bit questionable. THIS tune I only vaguely have an idea; I know the beginning and how it picks up, but other than that, not so much; my fingers have been freestyling the snare every time.)
In this case? It might be from three different songs. In ascending order of likeliness, there's a Macklemore&Ryan Lewis song--it was one of their earlier big hit songs, hugely popular. I put this one at the bottom because frankly, I never heard the song that much. While The End plays Macklemore songs, it doesn't play that Maclemore&Ryan Lewis song. I basically only ever heard it on stations I'd have to listen to when my sister was driving and/or for work. The only lyrics I can remember from it are "this is the moment, tonight is the night". Anyway, the part that I think I might have stolen from the song is the trumpet playing. The notes, as far as I can tell, are identical to the tune I have, only instead of a trumpet, it's a bass guitar of some kind. (It's even the same timing: whole notes, four of them, repeating endlessly, because the snare is the focus of the music and the bass is there for support, just like in the song, how the trumpet is there to support the rapping.)
The second song that I'm fairly decently sure I'm stealing from is Tired Old Man, by Sister Axe. Probably best known from Super Crazy Guitar Maniac Deluxe 4, where I heard it from. (I was addicted to that game, playing it every time to try and reach closer and closer to perfection, but unfortunately, the computer with my save file on it was the older computer, and maybe even the older browser on said computer.) There's one section of that song which matches the main part of the snare in the tune I had. (I say 'had', because I'm slowly losing it as THE tune is replacing THIS tune, even though they were once different; they're kinda merging in my head as I write this blog post because the memory of THIS tune is beginning to rapidly fade.)
The third song that I think I stole from was Reptilia, by The Strokes. (Y'know. It's only THE Guitar Hero song that everyone played. It along with Knights of Cydonia are two of the main reasons I began listening to The End more frequently, starting way back in 2004 and growing increasingly addicted to that station with time. The song used to play all the time, so of course I'd have it in my mind when composing my own tunes.) If you replace the guitar from that with the snare from THIS tune, then you get the 'fast' section of my tune basically pinned down. The two highs are two fasts, the low is both sticks hitting the drum at the same time (I fail as a former percussionist--that was such a fundamentally basic term, yet I've already forgotten what it was officially called--I think it started with an f, though), and then the two notes after that are also single snare hits.
I might have stolen the tune, but it was a nice tune, so I thought I'd mention it all the time. (I actually compose music in my mind all the time. The problem there is that it can't be extracted. I lack the talent and training to bring it to life. For instance, I've mentally written entire cover songs to Knights of Cydonia, Boulevard of Broken Dreams, Wizards of Winter, Crystalized (by the XX), Reptilia (a proper, start-to-finish mental cover song), Steady as She Goes, and countless others that I'm not currently remembering. You name a song that I like, and chances are that I can (or already have) written in my mind a cover for that song. Heck, I wrote one for the battle music used in the Epic Battle Fantasy series.
But it's all in my head. I have a band name picked out: Untalented Stupid Young Fool. It's not like I'm doing nothing but covers, either; I'm a songwriter, too, and have nearly finished an entire album worth of songs (albeit over half only written and not sung). So if I actually was able to compose tunes for those lyrics, and actually able to perform them, I'd have created music of my own and made a proper band, which could experiment with covers like the above when possible.
Yet again...other than having actually written most of the album, most of it remains in my mind. (And even then, what I've written for the album is mostly scattered and not even ordered! I have an order in mind. I know PRECISELY how the album's going to go, because the album's music is telling a story. But of course...the order is IN my mind. And nowhere is it laid out.)
It's so...frustrating. I know the talent for greatness is there. Heck, I know that it's basically in my blood to be a musician. My grandfather played the piano quite well. My younger sister is a singer and picked up the piano, even playing in her own band for school as a side project. (She's a singer in...what's it called? Alpaca? I am musically incompetent.) My older sister had a minor in music, and at points considered it as a major. She sings, she does piano (and teaches it), she does guitar (and sometimes teaches it), she did the violin, she did the flute, she's done multiple different recorders, and she's composed, not only piano pieces but also full orchestral ones as well, a well and true, proper, musician, prodigy even.
I know the talent's in there. They have it, and if you've read my descriptions, you probably have no doubt that I have the potential for it. (I know I have none about it being there.) I have a natural inclination to picking up rhythm. (In more than just music, even. I see 'rhythm' of things like art, math, people, you name it.) I can feel the beat, I can modify it, I can go with it, I have this instinctive ability to know where the beat is and be able to be with it.
Yet in spite of that...I can't do anything with it! That gut-wrenching feeling of frustration, at knowing you have a potential gift locked away, yet every time you try to bring it out, it's just not there. And every time you try to practice, either you lack the proper guidance making improvement impossible...ooooooooooor, you get distracted and thus cannot put the time and effort needed into bringing it out. And that will likely never change. Especially since nobody in my family really knows about my musical interest and pastime. (Okay, they may be vaguely aware, since I indicated that I do in fact have attachment to my drums and bells, wanting to use them again and having very briefly attempted to do just that during the summer, and they know that I write poetry. They don't know that those poems are meant as songs, and that I've put hard work into the tune for them, even though the only one capable of singing them can't sing!)
This is one reason yet again I hope beyond all hope that some future generation will be able to see my blog and be able to heed my words. If you are anything at all like me, please do not make the same mistake that I did. In my family, all of us had the potential to be musicians. My older sister got started at too old an age to have music be her major (she was considering it, but could only pull it off as a minor) and thinks herself not good enough to be a member of a proper orchestra. She loved what she did, though, so she stuck to it, not giving up, and while she is far too modest about her capabilities, she's still a competent musician. My younger sister started younger, but only got passionate at too old an age to have music be a focus of her life, but she loves singing enough that she stuck to it and the results showed. (For instance, her band created an absolutely killer cover of Radioactive, by Imagine Dragons, back before everyone was playing it; back then, it was still basically End Music. So, like, 2011-2012 I think.)
Me? I had the interest in the music, nay, the love for it. I got started at a young enough age where I could get training. But unlike my sisters who stuck to it? I gave up. I wasn't getting the training I needed to cultivate my skills. I was getting frustrated. I wasn't progressing in my private lessons, and I wasn't learning in my school's band (as in, school class band, not as in my sister's case, a band that was made of people going to the school but completely on their own time--mine was the standard class format where you play a few songs in performances throughout the year; hers was a meet-when-we-can format where they performed once publicly at a talent show).
But instead of sticking to my guns. Instead of letting this be known, and begging my parents to try and find alternatives. Instead of practicing (this is another biggie--I didn't practice nearly as often as I could, in part because few of the things I was practicing were of interest to me), I quit. I simply gave up being a percussionist by the time I was in high school. So let me tell you. I beg this of you.
Never give up. Never let your passion die. Never cave in, because the temptation will always be there. Pursue your dream. Don't let it go. You can do it. It doesn't matter what you might tell yourself in your mind. You may doubt that you're good enough. But you are. Trust me. You can keep going.
And this applies for more than just musicians, too. For instance, as just one example...something I haven't given up on is my writing. You saw above how I have plans to write. My current failures might not be the best example; I recommend to stop saying "I'll do it tomorrow" and just get it done today. (Do as I say, not as I do, because I know all the ways to do it wrong, so I know what I'm talking about! I just need to apply it to myself.)
HOWEVER, that being said...I've got the writing in my mind, and a plan loosely laid out to attack it head-on. I WILL be a published author. I have determined that much. It is my goal, and I am resolute that I will reach it. I hold absolute conviction that I will get it done. I have the talent. I have the practice. I have the passion. So I am going for it.
One thing that I thought about even is a failsafe. My book is going to be insanely good. (I know that sounds arrogant, and trust me, if I was to look at my own writing, I'd say it'd suck. But I'm going off of what other people have told me of my writing, that it's good, that I see things nobody else sees, that I understand the way humans work. I don't know how true their words are, but they were not said emptily, thus they must believe it themselves, and if they believe it when reading my excerpts, they'll believe it when reading the whole thing...and think basically the above.)
...That does not in any way ensure it will be insanely successful. In fact, it could end up as being incredibly obscure. Most publishers are very likely not going to be willing to take the risk, in spite of my talent. Thus, failsafes: I've been thinking about short stories that I've written or mostly-written. They're years old, but still good. I can if needed revive them, and with minor tweaking to their writing, create killer short stories to build my reputation as a writer. And after I've done that, it'd be much easier to get a top-selling full and proper novel going.
In particular, A Mountain and an Ant, Spoils of War, and The Elements of Death come to mind. AMaaA is basically a conversation between The Hero and a Redshirt, and then years later, aftermath of a war reflecting back on it, with The Hero remembering it and paying respects to the Redshirt, discussing it with his friend. Spoils of War being a story of a soldier returning home, but I can't tell you much more than that without it being spoilers. (Ha.) The Elements of Death are nine short stories I was planning to write, which I got a little over half finished. Each deals with a way to die, and descriptions in great detail of those few seconds. (At the time, it was the best things I was writing.)
Soyeah, that's where I am. Gotta go because I'm about to be late (I just spent the last hour on this blog post), but I'm happy to have said this.