Write A Song Out Of It.

Some time ago I wrote a small little collection of chords that formed a decent skeleton of a future tune.
An advantage of owning an iPhone is that not only do you have access to a very organized and 'nifty' Notes application, it also comes with a Voice Memo application. Talk about handy, the only way that I would ever switch is if any other phone comes with an application closely related, if not a 100% copy... that and it's ability to also play iTunes mp4's so Apple doesn't have a monopoly over the iTunes generation of music collectors (also known as 'suckers') but then again iTunes is property of Apple. ...that's another blog.
Back to the opening paragraph: I wrote something that sounded decent. Only two chords and two power chords, sounds good enough to be a verse. I tried piecing together a chorus or a bridge variation, but nothing has taken me as much as this verse structure has.After a while of playing what I had written I grabbed my iPhone and pulled up the Voice Memos (the 2011 version of the tape recorder) and played my guitar piece.
I can't really describe the feelings I was experiencing as I pieced together and played, I can only really describe what I was thinking about: That piece was actually written two weeks (give or take) before tonight over at my former projects rehearsal space. When I wrote it the singer/songwriter I was working with was sitting next to me intently listening to see if it had potential to add to his arsenal. After I had jammed it out and was in the middle of writing it down for future reference, he tried to give me some pointers as to "what he would do with it." "Your bass playing style is very fast. You're playing a lot of notes in the time that we're playing our chords. Try not to apply that same style to the guitar, give the chords sometime to ring out." At the time I took the suggestion with a grain of salt. I thought "that's how you would play it." So I wrote the rest of what I was doing down and closed my phone and didn't bring it up again.
I also thought back to a time several years ago right after the very first band I was with split up. Around the end of the venture our Guitarist/Singer, Ryan, was convinced that our group needed some outside help in the form of a manager. The group maybe had a show every month or so at the time we started working with the person we were looking to "hire on." She had gotten us a couple shows and was very intent on signing us to a contract to her "management firm." I still remember the night she brought over copies of the contract for us to read and eventually sign, it was so full of lawyer and contract lingo that I was having problems wrapping my head around. Just longer and longer nonsense, intentionally confusing, "hereunto" words that were making no since to the situation we were in, and to what aspirations all four of us were wanting to accomplish as a "group (dot dot dot) with (dot) a manager." At some point the question of "where did you get these?" was asked and answered with "I just copied it from online and replaced some titles and names." A copy and paste contract? ...that's a good idea. Jake and I stalled on signing our names on the "contract," which turned out to be a good idea (for another reason than the obvious one): Ryan had met with us less than a week after the "contract negotiation," and told us he was done. He told us that the fire that had motivated him to this point had given out, that he wasn't wanting to go on in the direction that we were headed. His love for the music just wasn't enough anymore. He apologized and then he left. I was very fresh with the group and had just purchased a new bass and sound system for the band, now I was looking at the equipment in Jake's basement asking myself "well, what do I do with this?" I was in the middle of packing when Jake came down and we just stood there, still in shell shock. I looked at him at some point and just said "I'm not done yet. There is no way. This isn't over." The group was done but I wasn't. It was maybe an hour before I got the call from the would be manager of the now former group to inquire about what we were doing. I shouldn't have told her, but I said that Jake and I weren't done and would start another project. I remember her very vividly saying "I'm in. Whatever you're doing I'm with you. You're my meal ticket."
That phrase really bothered me; we hadn't even figured out how we were going to go about replacing the void that was left, much less, when our next show was, and already I had a hand that I had to provide for. It wasn't too much longer after that phone call that I had called her and said that there was no way I would have her tag along. That, in turn, turned into a huge unnecessary fall out between us and her and, for some reason, her boyfriend. The experience left me scarred. After the huge fall out that ensued hours after I had called her back, a friend of mine who argued on my behalf to the would be manager's boyfriend, walked back with me into the bar we were at and held me as I broke down after the fight.
I was hurt. I had just lost a very close friend and almost all hope in his departure, I was trying to deal with the frustration of 'what am I going to do now?' And now, I had just had a show down with people that were counting on me to "be their meal ticket" with a skeleton of a group that had a void in it's line-up and no direction to go to in it's very immediate future; a very intense 24 hours. While he was with me in that very delicate time he told me, "Hold onto this feeling you have right now. This emotion, keep it with you and write a song out of it."
Years later, in the 2 minutes 30 seconds I had recorded that song structure all those memories came back to me in every vivid, excruciating detail. I stopped and listened to what I had just laid down. Whatever feeling I had from then, from Ryan's departure to the point of breaking down from the hurt I felt 24 hours later, has finally started to leave me and manifest itself into this skeleton of a song that is still being written. I can hear it in the song now. The other parts: the rhythm section, lead and harmonics are still floating around. I can hear them, but have yet to figure it out and write it all down. It has taken time for me to learn how to become a better songwriter, how to apply music theory into writing and actually use it, but I finally feel like I've been able to take that experience and all it's emotions and "write a song out of it."