The End of an Era (Part I)
I will be leaving the DMV at the end of this month to continue to pursue my career as an artist in Los Angeles, CA. There are so many things I want to say to recap how amazing my time in Washington has been, so I think I will start a series dedicated to my parting sentiments that I can split up into different sections to make it a bit easier to get through. I'll talk about business, different experiences, the places I've been, and of course about the people I've encountered along the way.
(Part I) Let's talk business
Since relocating to the area almost three years ago, I've been fortunate enough to have a steady stream of business, all coming from different places and in different areas within my expertise. One experience I'd really like to highlight outside of the performance side of my career was my position as music director of Just Rock Enterprises.
Starting as a private instructor, the President of the company would come to me with different avenues of revenue and ask me if I was up for different types of music related gigs outside of private lessons. The first trial was a songwriting workshop as an after-school program at a middle school in Bethesda, MD. The program was a success and we began implementing similar programs at schools in the surrounding area.
The best part of working with this company however, was the partnership we had with Children's National in D.C. where we ran songwriting workshops in the adolescent psych unit as well as bedside work in Cardiology, Heart and Kidney long term care, and Dialysis. I've already shared a few of my experiences working at the hospital and will continue to share some of the beautiful moments I've been fortunate enough to be a part of.
What this has done for me, outside of the joy of what the work really has brought to people's lives, is my ability to adapt on the fly. Going into potentially high tension situations with little briefing or idea of how to run any of these types of programs and figuring out what works best and allowing whoever I'm working with to help dictate the manor of which our goal is achieved. I've also learned more and more how to connect with people and calibrate my energy and always be a ray of positivity for the people I come into contact with. This has also transferred to my work as a performer.
With the help of my booking agent, Brad Pugh at Sideshow Music Productions DC, I was able to spend a lot of time on stage each week, working hard at becoming the best performer I can be. Aside from my actual music skills increasing over the years, I put much more effort into involving the audience and making the experience of being at one of my gigs as though we're all hanging out. In many of my life, I match people's energy levels to disarm and slowly elevate. At a crowded bar at the beginning of the night before people are feeling good and drunk, I have learned to let go of that quality and bring the energy that I would want to see on a night out, regardless of what type of reactions I get initially. The results have been astounding and I've made more fans in the last 6 months than I did in two years. Keeping my eyes open more when I'm singing and engaging everyone in conversation and being the life of the party.
Brad, I can't thank you enough for all of the opportunities you gave myself and my band mates. I'm glad that we can continue to work together when I make trips back to the East Coast!
This concludes part one of my own weird send off to myself, but I will get into more juicy stuff on my next entry! Hope everyone is well and is moving forward.