"This could be the start of something new."

Significant things happen on a regular basis. One can never know what is going to unfold in the next moment. It could be life-changing.

I don't know if you're like me, but most things in my life don't seem like a big deal at the time in which they are happening. I live my life, moments come, moments go, and for the most part, they all feel about the same. Life is ordinary. That doesn't mean it's not interesting, but interest is not an exclusive, or even necessary, determiner of significance. I look at most things in my life and think, "Well, that was fun. I don't know if it will ever mean anything beyond that. But it was fun nonetheless."

To be sure, there are moments that feel really weighty and they are really weighty. On the whole, however, it's not that obvious. In many cases, the urge to speculate is irresistible. Something happens that seems like it could develop into more, and I mull over what that might look like in my head.

One of those moments occurred today, in my History of Popular Music in America class.

We were assigned a big semester group project, and that project was to write and record a song.

When I first heard this, I was both excited and scared. The thought of writing and recording a song is cool. But before this, I had no composition experience. Not a single song lyric had been penned, outside of the ridiculous things that seem to come unthinkingly out of my head when I'm cleaning, cooking, walking down the street, etc. No melodies had been strung together, outside of those same ridiculous songs. No harmonic progressions had been dreamed up, outside of the disastrous passacaglia I had to write in theory II (and that was classical music, so it doesn't count anyway.) So I was feeling inadequate. The fact that I can't really play anything didn't boost my confidence either. The one thing I clung to was my ability to sing. That I knew I could do, so I didn't despair completely.

So we started, none of us really knowing what to expect. While talking about what we might want to write about, one girl in my group pulled out a song that she had written with a friend and played it for us, just because. But we all liked it. It was good. With some work, it would fit our purposes.

And so I had my first real venture into songwriting. It was a tiny one. The song was mostly whole, but I wrote a few lines, changed a few existing ones. And she had words for a bridge, and a chord progression for said bridge, but no melody. So I wrote a melody. The work I did wasn't much, but it was exciting nonetheless.

The next big obstacle was recording. None of us had access to a studio, and it turned out that none of us even had basic okay quality recording equipment. Nor much experience editing. The best thing I could come up with was to ask my brother if we could use his laptop, which I knew would produce something passable. Graciously, he agreed and we got together in a practice room with an acoustic guitar and my voice, and recorded one track of the ambient sound in the room. It wasn't great, but you could hear everything. And it wasn't painful.

Thus we were done, and felt kind of nervous about what people would think about it.

Today was the day of reckoning. Presentations of the songs from every group took place. When our turn came, I thought "here goes!" and we stood at the front of the room while everyone else listened.

To my great surprise and pleasure, the first thing that was said was something like this: "That was beautiful. I really liked that. That recording did not do that justice at all. I think you need to give that to someone who can take it and really make it something great."

What? Did I hear that correctly? I, of course, don't take much credit, because most of the writing was done by someone other than me, but I did contribute. And it was my voice that was on that recording, and as great as the words may have been, I don't think anyone would have earnestly called it beautiful if the vocal presentation had been crummy. Or worse. So I'm encouraged!

This is only possibly significant because of the things I've been thinking and feeling. I have felt for a long time like making music is in my future, but with the lack of original creativity, there never has really been any evidence to suggest that that would be a reality. Also, even though before this project I had never written anything, my brother has been...not quite hounding me, but almost...about writing songs. He keeps telling me I need to. I've been thinking to myself, "Where is this coming from? I have no songwriting track record, so why is that the one thing that he keeps telling me I should get busy doing?" It would make more sense for him to tell me to start catering. Or writing literary criticism. Or sewing for people, even. I do not call myself an experienced seamstress, but I have more experience with a needle and thread than I do with melody-making.

Maybe there's a reason for all of this. Maybe this song project will lead to something more in my personal life that just a grade in a class. Maybe, even though this felt like just another ordinary, yet fun, part of my life as a college student, I will look back on it in the future and see that it was significant.

Or maybe not.

Either way, I'm grateful for this experience. Whether anyone ever knows me as such, I can now call myself a songwriter.