Dreams…

What´s the meaning of them? I, of course, can only talk about my own thoughts about this.

To me, a dream is an idea, something that comes up spontaneously and deeply drives the one who´s been chosen to, eventually, make it real.

I know I have one huge dream (or some, not just one), but there´re different kinds of dreams, and in this case I´m only focusing on one particular way of taking them as.

When I finished high-school, I found a sense of complete freedom. Fortunately, I have always had my family´s support when it came to making music. My parents are music lovers. In fact, it was my father who bought me a guitar when I was eleven in the first place. I don´t remember asking for any instrument, honestly. I did have a set of drums when I was a kid, and CDs were a must at home so music has always been present in my life. (It´s worth recounting a memory that my father shared with me once: a baby moving his feet to the beat of the songs on 5150 by Van Halen. No wonder “Dreams” is my favorite song in the world! It´s been like that even before knowing about this. I was very young to remember). 

During my teens, many musical ideas came up. When the first series started flowing, I was reluctant to sound similar to somebody else. During this beginning of musical composition, I felt everything was predictable when combining notes. I felt that my ideas sounded similar to what I used to listen to. That´s how I always tended to look for some interesting note combination, unusual chords with odd bass notes changing their conventional sound and such. This became in time what I believe is my signature sound, a personal approach to music that makes my songs the way they actually are.

After high-school, live performance became another way to keep on going. However, song-writing never escaped me (thank God! Ha, ha!) A few years later I got a digital camera and began uploading videos on You Tube. It wasn´t until this moment that I understood my music could become official, as it were. 

Every time a video is on the works, it needs to be directed. This activity made me learn a lot in terms of recording and arranging ideas that were mainly born out of in-the-moment guitar jams. The best example I can give is “The Battle of the Pelennor Fields”. I may have written that song, alright, but a lot of people were involved in eventually coming up with the final version, not just me: A.T.A members and the motivation to write something based on Tolkien´s work; Francisco Nogueiras and our willingness to work together by combining his orchestral music with something of mine, which always has to do with non-academic music (though not mainstream-like either); Tom Geisler, who had complete freedom when tackling the drumming on the song; and Dave Williams, who put all of the others´ work together by doing a massive mix.

Now, apply this to all of the covers and original songs that have been done in collaborative form up to this day… The feeling is always great, and apparently the results too because not only us musicians are involved but also anyone interested in watching and listening to the work achieved, which is enjoyed (almost) one-hundred percent of the time (You can tell by the thin long green bar under the You Tube clips or the constant “Like” notification on Facebook. Lol!) 

At first, it was only about uploading a raw vid, though as crisp and clear as possible, and sharing it with what seemed to be like-minded people, users who´d possibly like the content of what was being shared with them. As time went by, each and every project became individually important. To tell the truth, it´s been like that from scratch. But the turning point came when I discovered the possibility of playing virtually with musicians from all around the world.

To me, clarifying again that I´m talking about a particular way of describing one of my meanings when it comes to talking about dreams, every new song recorded and shared is a dream come true. It´s these little things that turn life itself a dream day by day. 

A dream may be just that, to go for it every day, to see what happens and keep an open mind as to what might come. If the heart and mind are true and there´s hope and a wish for everything to be alright, then it´ll surely be, despite the difficulties while we´re here, which aren´t nothing more than a hard test we must go through to hit the next level in our walk of life.