Happy Sunday, my dear SC friends. I have an exciting new song to share with you, and an equally exciting story that goes with it. But first, let’s start with a little reality check (brought to by the makers of Common Sense; the fragrance we all crave right now). :)

As you may have read in my previous liner notes, a huge part of my musical slow-down has nothing to do with music. I love creating this stuff, and I love interacting with this community. This is a very happy place for me.

The problem lies in how I’m using my brain when I’m not involved in my musical life. And I need to take responsibility for that, by doing something a bit unusual. I need to stop taking on the world’s suffering, as if it were my own.

That sounds logical. But I’ve had a weird (relatively arrogant) attitude as far back as I can remember. I always felt like an aware child, surrounded by very incapable adults. Granted, that hasn’t changed much. Haha. But because of that, I believed I had a greater responsibility for this planet’s happiness than the average fellow (who just didn’t know any better).

Now for the weird part. The superpower I believed I had was the empathic transference/absorption of other people’s suffering. For example, if I felt a child’s suffering deeply enough, I somehow took a little weight off that child’s shoulders.

But it only takes asking the other person the question “do you feel any lighter in your heart, now that I’ve made myself feel all crappy on your behalf?” to see the silliness. It’s taken me 50 years to wise up. People don’t need my sympathy (some might consider it pity). What everyone needs right now is my faith. We all succeed more frequently, when the folks around us believe in us. It’s a long overdue paradigm shift. Lesson learned. :)

So now you’re probably thinking “since Justin no longer needs to save the world by feeling sad, what’s he gonna do with all his free time?” Well I’ve decided it’s time to renew my Artistic License. And no point in renewing, if I’m not going to commit to using the license. So I’m taking two actions:

First, I reactivated a cute little app I discovered, called Habitica. It’s a daily activities check-list (cleverly disguised as an 8-bit video game). And for some goofy reason, it really motivates me to stay focused. For example, my dailies include (at a minimum): 1 hour making music, 1 hour listening to other SC musicians, 20 minutes exercise (that also includes 20 minutes reading), and the one I’m really excited about… 30 minutes piano practice.

All of this officially started last week. And it was the best week I’ve had in a long time!!

And now we loop back to the exciting bit behind this song. This song contains some of what I’ve learned from my piano practice; the minor pentatonic scales. And my piano practice was inspired by one of the nicest, most generous people I’ve met on Soundcloud; our dear friend Carlos Vivanco (@carlosvivanco-1).

Back in the Autumn of last year, Carlos kindly offered me a few music lessons, as well as some wonderful practice routines and suggestions (my favorite so far… don’t practice to a metronome. Practice to a drum loop. A serious game changer for me. Now I feel like I’m playing along with another musician, which is a blast).

There is an old saying that I truly believe; when the student is ready, the teacher appears. I’m humbled and grateful to call Carlos one of my teachers. I’m confident your teachers (person or otherwise) are out there too. You just need to be open to possibilities; and embrace them with all your heart, when they arrive. I hope you enjoy ‘Renewing My Artistic License’ as much as I enjoyed creating it. And I hope these words may inspire you to more deeply pursue something you really love. :)

Credits: The cover art evolved from a piece first created in the amazing iPad app, WOMBO Dream.