Weirdly enough, I think the most fulfilling part of this project was when I realized that it wasn't going to be amazing. 

For a while, I felt this immense internal pressure surrounding this project, because in my mind, it needed to be amazing. I've always gravitated towards things that come easy to me, and I have a history of dropping something if I can't immediately feel like I'm good enough. Even after several months of writing music, It still just never sounded the way it sounded in my head, and this frustrated me so much. You probably think this frustration sounds silly, and you're right, because obviously songwriting would take time to learn, I was just impatient. The problem is that I was visualizing this project as a whole journey, when realistically its just the first few steps up a mountain. I wanted to excel, to become a master of my craft in just a few months and totally blow everyone away, but who am I kidding? That type of mindset made it impossible for me to enjoy the learning process, which, let's be real, is still where I'm at. Utuado isn't anything close to a magnum opus, and thats perfectly fine, because Utuado has taught me to take pride in the learning process. If I continue writing music, I'll probably re-listen to this project in 5 years and cringe, which is also perfectly fine, because it just means I will have improved even more. 

Here's what matters: I had such an amazing time making music for this project, and I can't express how much of an impact it's had on me. The feeling of creating my first "good" song is something I'll never forget, and its a feeling I continue to chase as I climb further up this mountain. This songwriting stuff might be new to me, but my love of music has been here as long as I can remember. I've spend so much of my learning things about music, whether its reading sheet music, playing piano, memorizing theory, playing with a band, or just spending hours obsessively listening to the same Radiohead album in disbelief of how good it is. 

After a life of living and breathing music, learning to express my own musical self feels immensely satisfying. Songwriting ended up becoming way more than just an interest me; it became an outlet for my emotions. If I had a lot of energy, I could just go up to the studio and record a driving beat with a fast bassline. If I was depressed, I could try and emphasize my feelings of emptiness by recording a bleak, sad, quiet piano part. No matter how good, bad, or whatever any of these pieces are, they are a true representation of my musical and artistic soul, and more importantly, I'm still just learning. I'm really proud of myself for learning to love this project and its creation process, which aren't perfect, but are at least authentic. I spent years locked in a basement studying a language, and when I hit record for the first time back in January, I finally emerged into the light and spoke the language for the first time. I still might mispronounce a word from time to time, but the truth is, I couldn't care less; I'm having an amazing time.