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Well, I live in New York now. So far I’ve spent most of my time lazing in Central Park, exploring the NYU campus in Greenwich Village, or piecing together my tiny bedroom in my Upper West Side apartment (pictured above). All summer I’ve been excited about this move and proud of myself for taking this leap, but I confess I didn’t (and still don’t) know what I was getting myself into. I suppose a naive part of me expected that I would arrive and immediately begin walking down a clearly paved road to musical success. In reality, I’ve just been trying to figure out how to properly feed, clothe, shelter, and transport myself in this enormous city. I’ve been here for just over a week, and every day I oscillate between being a giddy tourist and a homesick child. I walk around stupefied by the iconic streets full of hip beautiful people, I constantly screw up on the subway, and I miss my family and friends to the point of tears.

And still, I’m so happy to be here. I know that eventually I am going to figure out the subway, I’ll learn where/when to go to the grocery store, I’ll make great new friends, and I’ll start to feel like my tiny closet of a bedroom is a cozy home. Many of my now effortful actions will change into natural routines. What will not change is the fact that I am living in one of the most exciting cities in the world, surrounded by rich culture and a talented, driven, diverse population. I have every resource I could hope for to help me fulfill my dream of musical success: world renowned instructors, innumerable venues, plenty of talented collaborators, and a potentially vast audience of music fans. I have a sense that if I am not successful here, it will be my own fault. This city is full opportunities for me and I believe that I’m going to be rewarded if I only work hard and consistently choose to step out of my comfort zone. Frankly, my dream is to write, record, and perform music all over the world, and I think I’m in the best possible place to make that dream a reality.

This is where you come in precious reader. I’m going to document my musical life and thoughts once a week in this blog, and I need you and everyone else to read it. Sure I could try to hold myself accountable to my goals on my own, but I’d likely end up frequently binge watching any of the brilliant shows available in this golden age of television instead. I wish I were entirely self-motivated, but the fact is, if I know I have an audience, I’m going to try a lot harder. In exchange for your readership, I’ll offer you delightfully useless observations (e.g. New Yorkers won’t make eye contact with you until they are slowly rolling out of your life forever on a subway car— and then it’s nothing but blazing eye contact), as well as priceless nuggets of wisdom (sometimes). You’ll also have a candid look at my life as I rise from Lucas Murray levels of obscurity to Kanye West levels of international superstardom and egotistical delusion.

Finally, I’m going to cap off each weekly blog post with a playlist. I’ve adopted the city-wide habit of walking around with my headphones in— I put all of my music on shuffle, and am consistently delighted by the synchronicity of the random song I’m listening to and my outside environment. Thus, the songs that I’ll include in each playlist are the songs that were most significant or enjoyable to me that week as I roamed the city. And like New York itself, this playlist is going to be diverse, including both old and new songs from a variety of styles. You can find each playlist at the bottom of my blog posts, or follow me on Spotify and find the weekly playlists there if you’re interested in hearing the songs but don’t want to read the blog (you lazy so and so), or if you you like, I can even burn it on to a CD and mail it to you because I’m cool like that (just shoot me an email).

So if you believe in me like I believe in me, please follow this blog, share it with your friends, family, and rich patrons, and don’t be afraid to contact me with any questions, comments, or words of encouragement. Also, if you don’t believe in me or just plain dislike me, please follow this blog, diss me often in the comments section, and judge me as I shamelessly try to pursue my foolish dream of musical success. Whether friend or foe, WordPress user or not, if you would, please go push that follow button at the top right of this post, drop me your email, and then tune in each week for a new post. Thank you!

And here is this week’s playlist:

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So I was listening to Iron Maiden yesterday, and all of a sudden I had a queer sort of feeling. I was compelled to sacrifice a baby goat to Satan! I briefly tried to fight it, but deep in my soul, I knew I had to do Lucifer’s dark bidding, so I hopped in my car (iPod still blasting those sinister tones), and drove to the nearest farm to find an innocent young life. As it turns out, my travel time just outlasted the modest 39 minute running time of Iron Maiden’s seminal heavy metal album The Number of The Beast, so I pretty well snapped out of my possession by the time I got sight of the most adorable animal in the world.

This story is obviously absurd (I mean who has an iPod anymore), but the debate about the effect of different types of music is one that humans have been having long before Tipper Gore started slapping parental advisory tags on our CDs. The Ancient Greeks believed that music had a profound effect on our Ethos, or that music could influence our emotions, behaviors, and morals. In Plato’s Republic for instance, Socrates said “musical training is a more potent instrument than any other, because rhythm and harmony find their way into the inward places of the soul, on which they mightily fasten, imparting grace, and making the soul of him who is rightly educated, graceful.” Plato believed that people should only listen to music that promotes intelligence, self-discipline, and courage.

But the question remains: can music actually effect our emotions, behaviors, and moral make-up? I don’t exactly have an adequate answer to that question. I know that I have at various times been uplifted, or saddened, or put at ease, or baffled, or agitated by music, but I’m not so sure that music has improved my IQ or ever kept me from committing any ritual sacrifices to Beelzebub. The Mozart effect (the hypothesis that listening to Mozart can temporarily improve spatial-temporal reasoning) has been supported by some experiments and contradicted by others— the consensus now seems to be that any improvement in spatial-temporal reasoning is caused by the arousal of listening to the Mozart and not the actual music of Mozart (i.e. many different stimuli could cause this arousal). Instead of arguing one way or another about music’s ability to improve or degrade human capacities, I’d like to ask you to think about that question.

Listen to this piece of music, which was written by an equation in order to utilize every key on the piano and contain no repetition. By objective design, the mathematician who created this piece wanted it to be “the world’s ugliest music.”

Now listen to any or all of Mozart’s “Jupiter Symphony.” This piece, like most of Mozart’s works, is a triumph of clear themes, repetition, contrast, and cohesive form. In many ways, this piece makes objective sense.

If I were to ascribe worldview’s to these pieces of music, I would say that the first piece is telling us that the universe is random, ugly, cold, and meaningless. Mozart, on the other hand is telling us that universe is dramatic, meaningful, ordered, and ultimately good. Do these worldviews seep into your soul simply through the act of listening to these pieces? Do they? I’m asking you. If you were asking me, I’d tell you that I think that music undoubtedly does effect us in profound ways. I certainly wouldn’t argue that someone shouldn’t listen to certain types of music, but I would invite everyone to become aware of the effects that different kinds of music have on us.

Personally, I think that it is best to listen to many many different kinds of music! Life is full of all different types of experiences and emotions, and music is here to both represent and encourage that diverse abundance. We can all agree that broccoli is good for you, but that doesn’t mean you should only eat broccoli; and we can all agree that Cheetos taste good, but that doesn’t mean you should only eat Cheetos. Why not approach music like you (hopefully) approach your diet— eat/listen to everything you can stomach. Because yeah, sometimes life is cold and meaningless; sometimes it is beautiful and clear; and sometimes its just damn groovy.

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Good news everyone! Today I offer you the blog equivalent of that school day in which you got to watch a movie in class! Ooooh you thought it was a real treat to get to watch a documentary about the civil war instead of reading your stuffy old textbook. The truth is, your teacher was just giving himself/herself a break. And that is exactly what I am doing as well.

All good movie days include something at least a little bit edifying, so I’d like to begin with jazz master Bill Evans expounding his views about music, learning, and creativity. I think this should be required viewing for any young musician attempting to learn how to play jazz, but there are also plenty of nuggets of wisdom here that apply to any creative endeavor. The Bill Evans portion doesn’t start until 6:25 in this video, so skip ahead if you want to, but Steve Allen gives a pretty charming introduction that won’t hurt you to watch either.

Ok, that was all well and good Mr. Murray but can’t we watch something fun? Why yes you can, because I’m actually that cool substitute teacher who let’s you do whatever you want. Here’s a bunch of famous singers (and Tyra Banks for some reason) taking spills on stage. My personal favorite falls are by Beyonce, Madonna, and Shakira.

And Finally, I’d like to leave you with Pharoah Sanders playing saxophone in an abandoned tunnel in San Fransisco. Sanders was born and raised in my hometown of Little Rock, AR, and I’m not sure why we don’t have a statue of him somewhere— he’s an all time great saxophonist and a true artist who pushed the jazz language to new creative heights. If you didn’t know Pharoah, you’re welcome, now you know.

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Here’s a secret to life kids: do what you say you are going to do. In 2008 I was 19, I had just dropped out of Lake Forest College after one uninspired semester, and I was telling myself that I was going to write and record an epic album. I imagined all the glory, wealth, and fame I would eventually receive— oh how sweet it would be. Instead, I got a job working at Burge’s Smoked Turkeys & Hams, drank too much, smoked too much (and I’m not talking about the turkeys), and grew depressed. It would have been depressing enough to have a poor diet, not get enough sleep, and live in a disgusting house with three other lethargic 19 year old dudes (as I did), yet added on top was the existential angst of not doing what I had set out to do. I yearned to write and record, and instead I ate catfish sandwiches and partied for a year.

A turning point came when Michael Carenbauer, the Director of Guitar Studies at UALR, walked into Burge’s one day to get some lunch. I had known Michael from my days at the community school of the arts at UALR and he suggested I enroll in some of his guitar classes. Thus, I went to UALR part time for a semester until I decided, with encouragement from my parents and Carenbauer, that I should apply for the Donaghey Scholars Program. I received a full-scholarship and a generous stipend and began classes full-time in the fall of 2009. Unlike at Lake Forest, I was determined to put in my best effort this time around. Fearing a lifetime of making cherry limeades at Burge’s, I told myself that I would work harder than I ever had in school, and that is exactly what I did. In 2013, I graduated summa cum laude with a 4.0 GPA.

Yet the most potent takeaway from my time at UALR was not my institutional success, nor was it the knowledge and skills I gained there— with a bachelor’s in music, and my only tangible skills being the ability to play guitar and write essays, I didn’t exactly have a clear path to follow after college. The most important thing I realized at UALR was that I had the personal ability to set my mind to something and achieve it. So I set upon my next goal: I would be a full time professional musician. I vowed to not take a job unless it was related to music, and thus started hustling to find enough gigs and guitar students to pay my bills. For three years I’ve steadily increased my musicianship, my notoriety, and my income (though all three are certainly modest) as I’ve succeeded in my goal of being a full time musician. I feel very proud of this fact. Although it is rarely a glamorous lifestyle, and I make far less money than some of my professional peers, I have a great psychological peace with the fact that I am doing what I dreamed of doing and what I said I would do.

Those of you who have followed the premise of my recent blog posts know that this is something else that I said I would do. On April 7th I stated that I would release one blog post and one song every week for nine months. For fourteen weeks I have diligently stuck to that promise (if you’re wondering why this week’s song is only Opus 12, it’s because two of the weeks I released songs under an alias). Now I’m going to quit. Yes I realize I just spent the last three and a half paragraphs talking about the importance of doing what you say you are going to do and bragging on myself for doing so! So what! I quit.

The truth is, I’m quitting for a good reason (I can hear your skeptical comments). I made the vow of doing this for nine months before I knew that I would be moving to New York City. Upon deciding that I would attend NYU this fall, I realized that I would not be able to keep recording a song every week. It has taken a lot of time and effort to keep this up, and I will not have that kind of time when I’m trying to keep up with the accelerated pace of grad school and NYC. I will, however, keep doing a blog post every week, I simply won’t be releasing a song.

I’m stopping now primarily because I need to take time to prepare for school. At the beginning of September I have music history and theory placement exams as well as ensemble auditions at NYU. I am going to take the time I had been using to write and record songs and use it instead to practice and study (I received two thick music textbooks to work through yesterday in the mail). Yet another big reason I’ve chosen to cut it off this week is that I am preparing to fulfill another long standing commitment I once made. I’m finally going to record that “epic album” I dreamed about when I was 19!

Ok, it might not be epic; it might not bring me fame or fortune; it might not even be that good. But I once told myself that I would record an album and I know that I won’t be happy unless I do. I’ve booked time with Jason Tedford at Wolfman Studios, recruited my friend and musician extraordinaire Daniel Olah to help me, and later this month will record 12 of my best songs (many of which I released during this project). I’m just gonna do it!

Now I could wrap this all up by saying this: “life is short, just do it!” But that would be a lie. Life isn’t necessarily short. If you aren’t doing that thing that you want to do or that thing you’ve been saying you are going to do, then life will be very long. You’ll have a nagging sense of regret, shame, and yearning and time will just creep slowly by. The good news is that in that long, lingering lifetime you can turn it around at any moment and start doing what you say you’re going to do. Don’t worry if you never become rich or famous— life isn’t about winning the prize, it’s just about doing the damn thing.

Now that was a nice, neat narrative, but the larger reality (like everything in life) is much more complicated and deserves some qualification. I realize that not everyone was born into circumstances as favorable as mine. I have a wonderful supportive family, and while I did not grow up rich, I certainly never felt worried about money. Some people do not have the freedom to set their mind to some lofty ideal because they are simply struggling to get out of a dire economic situation, or even worse, struggling for their survival. I am not here arguing that everyone can easily come up with a dream and achieve it. I understand that in America the chips are stacked greatly against you if you are a person of color, a woman, LGBQT, physically disabled, poor, or anything else that isn’t rich, white, and male. The inequality in our country is horrendous, and must be remedied if we want to continue to pretend to be a civilized country. I wanted in this blog post to offer inspiration and advice, but I’ve quickly bumped into the realization that my perspective is limited due to my fortunate upbringing. I haven’t fully wrapped my head around how to reconcile this. Yet I still feel that there are some good sentiments in this post, and they are here for anyone who might find them useful.

Here’s the final Opus (for now). Sorry to end it on a sad note, but hey, tears are part of life too.

 

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Three months ago, I told myself and the public that I would release one blog post and one song every week for nine months. So far I’ve been able to stick to my guns because, as I’ve stated before, this project is not about quality— it is simply about quantity. It is a personal quest to get better at the crafts of blog writing, songwriting, and recording simply by putting in some work. However, I’ve run into a problem this week. I had a song to record, and have been working on it all week, but I had no idea what I would write my blog-post about. I casually assumed that I would eventually think of something to write and would be able to knock it out in time, yet each day passed, and I still had no idea what I would write. Even today, the day that I will post this entry, and even now as I am writing this sentence, I still don’t fully know what I am going to write in this blog post.

Yet I’ve got a start. I took a creative writing class my freshman year of college in which we had to write poetry, and my professor told the class that if you don’t have an idea for a full poem, just use fragments of other poems. I was the only one in class who took his advice and I got an A on the poem. It pays to listen to your teachers kids. Well there are no teachers to grade this, but I am hoping that if I just piece together some of my current thoughts on musical things (the phrase “some of my current thoughts on musical things” is best read with a southern accent), it will make for a passable blog post, and we’ll all feel good about Lucas continuing his outpouring of quantity work. Let’s begin with some confessions.

These are my confessions:

  • I haven’t listened to Beyonce’s Lemonade. Why not?! No reason, I just haven’t gotten around to it yet. I’ve been told it’s “a masterpiece,” that it’s full of juicy references to Beyonce and Jay-Z’s marital turmoil, that it’s the “best album of the last two years,” and that she’s not only going to win the Grammy for best album this year, but the Grammy committee is also going to go back in time and give her Beck’s Grammy from 2015 as Kanye tried to do at the time. But yeah, I just haven’t gotten around to it. Perhaps I’ll celebrate the fourth of July with some Lemonade.
  • I’m fairly certain I started playing guitar to impress girls. Now, granted my memory is hazy on this. I’ve always loved music, and I took piano lessons from age 8 to 10, but right around the time I became aware of girls, I insisted on switching from piano to guitar. Coincidence? I think not. I know that by the time I was in high school, I definitely thought it would help me “get girls.” It didn’t, but I stubbornly continued to play, and practice until, by the time college rolled around, I just fell in love with learning the instrument. I’m now (mostly) free from my early ulterior motive, but if it weren’t for my naive misconception that girls would automatically fall in love with me because I played guitar, I might not be the guitarist you see today.
  • Guitar is not my favorite instrument to listen to. When I listen to music, I tend to prefer the timbres of the voice, or an organ, or a horn section, or a nice flute, or even the humble oboe. I play guitar simply because it is the instrument that feels the most natural and comfortable to me. If I am going to contribute to the creation of beautiful music, it’s going to be with a guitar. I do love the guitar, I just like the sound of some other instruments a bit more.

Brief announcements:

  • I have a couple of Rev Room shows coming up soon. The first is with Jamaal Lee on July 3rd for the Drummers in the House event. I don’t know why, but I’m pretty sure Little Rock has the highest dope drummers per capita of anywhere in the world. This Sunday is a showcase of some of these guys including Paul Campbell, Jonathan Burks, Stephen Bailey, and Jamaal Lee, with whom I am playing a short set. I don’t want to give anything away, but we are going to play a song that is going to make you say out loud “what the duck just happened?!” Except remove that auto correct from the word duck. The second show is July 9th, with Big Piph and Tomorrow Maybe for The Legacy Project release show. It’s going to Blow. Your. Mind.
  • I’m going to go in the studio and record an album at the end of July with some of the best songs I’ve written during these past few months. There, I said it. Now I have to do it.

The last album I listened to in full was:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BRrXlj9Mdyk

Mr. wonderful by Action Bronson. I got this recommendation yesterday from a special someone— thank you, you know who you are! This album is so incredibly enjoyable. The samples are amazing, the production is great, and Action Bronson’s voice is perfect for his humorous, feel good, braggadocious lyrics. Any album that open’s up with a Billy Joel sample and ends with someone riding “the harley into the sunset” is alright with me.

Something Deep:

Throughout the inevitable ups and downs of a long life, it helps an individual to be at peace and content if he or she is connected to an eternal principle. I am comforted that I get to play, teach, learn and listen to music, because Music is eternal. I’m not talking about any one piece of music, I’m talking about the big, abstract, capital “M” Music that holds all of the various musical works and activities throughout the universe in its embrace. Music is forever waiting and willing for us to touch it’s surface, and is always open to letting us pry it’s depths.

Next time you listen to something, don’t think “I’m listening to Taylor Swift.” Just turn something on, and think “I’m listening to Music,” and then stop thinking, and just let it hit you. As much as we like to glorify our favorite artists, they are not the point— the point is Music itself. No one invented Music, we’re all just channeling it.

Something Shallow:

It helps to be hot.

BeyonceyoungelvisNow listen to my new song. Peace!

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TheLegacyProjectFor the second straight week, I have the honor of contributing to Big Piph’s The Legacy Project. For those who haven’t heard about it, go check out the first paragraph of my blog post last week (I don’t have time to be repeating myself). Piph has already released the album portion (it’s great, go get a copy), yet the truly unprecedented part of this project will be released later this month in app form. Suffice it to say, that there is a whole world of characters in this project, and just like you or me, they each have a rich web of personal history, personality traits, and influences that make them unique. Today I’m giving you a special sneak peak into the world of one such character. Meet Eric Smith.

boom2Eric Smith lead something of a charmed life. He was an orphan before he could even crawl, yet he was quickly adopted by a wealthy, loving couple, who nurtured, guided, and bonded with Eric as much as any biological parent ever could. Growing up, he went to the finest schools, was treated to European vacations in the summer, and was never lacking in emotional or material support from his parents. Athletic, intelligent, light-hearted, and friendly, Eric was well liked and had many friends. By the time he was a teenager, it was apparent that Eric had a world of opportunities before him; he could have been a professional athlete, a doctor, a lawyer, an entrepreneur, or anything else he set his mind to. Yet Eric’s singular flaw was that he did not set his mind to anything. Indeed from Eric’s perspective, he could not set his mind to anything. For despite having all the comfort and security a young man could hope for, he always had a restless sense that there was something missing and a higher path that he needed to discover for himself.

As a senior in high school, his restlessness turned to despair. He became reclusive and uninterested in schoolwork, sports, or friends. Witnessing their son’s stagnation and desperate to help him, his parents decided to tell Eric about his adoption. Far from being shocked, sad, or confused, Eric was inspired by the news of his adoption. He felt he finally had a direction he could follow— he needed to find out who his real parents were. He hoped his past would hold the key to his future, his higher path.

It wasn’t difficult for him to find out the names of his biological parents— just a matter of contacting the orphanage. Unfortunately, once he started looking in the public records, he saw that the most recent appearances of his parents’ names were on death certificates. Yet Eric also discovered that before they died, both of his parents were registered members and proponents of The Class, a now defunct self-help organization that was notorious for pushing it’s members to the peak of intellectual achievement and beyond the limits of psychological and physical pain in an attempt to make them super-human. Eric wanted to take The Class. He knew that it’s practitioners must still be around somewhere and he vowed to find them. After a year long search, Eric finally found what he was looking for… within the walls of L.E.S. headquarters.

That was six years ago, and Eric has since proven the most distinguished member of The Class to date. Yet even an Übermensch has a soul. Eric Smith may have achieved supreme intellectual, physical, and psychological strength, but he still likes to kick back and listen to some tunes. Here’s a candid look into Eric’s musical life.

1. You are at an amazing, lush house party at a Venice Beach mansion. Everyone there seems to be friendly, attractive, intelligent, and having the time of their life drinking, dancing, and socializing. Mos Def and Penelope Cruz are among the guests that are casually enjoying this party. This is the best party you’ve ever been to. You must pick one song that will play every time you walk into a new room at this party. What song do you pick?

Eric: My House— Flo Rida

2. What is the one song you wish you had written? Note: You are not necessarily the performer of this song, but you will receive royalties from it, and everyone who knows and loves this song will know that you were the brilliant person who wrote it.

Eric: Started From The Bottom— Drake

3. What was the last song that played in your car?

Eric: Outro— M83

4. You are an Olympic boxer in Rio this summer about to compete for the gold medal. What song do you play in your headphones beforehand to get you ready to fight?

Eric: BLKKK SKKKN HEAD— Kanye West

5. You are 76 years old telling your teenage grand kids that their music is crap, and how much better your musical taste was during your teenage years. What is the first song you play for them to prove this point?

Eric: The Pursuit of Happiness— Kid Cudi

Finally, you’ll remember from last week’s blog post (or you won’t because you didn’t read it) that another Legacy Project character is a recording artist in her spare time. For your listening pleasure, we have another dark masterpiece from Ellie V. Enjoy.