THIS IS YOUR SONG

This Is Your Song was a project in which participants fill in a form about an experience they would like a song written about. From their telling of the story I write a song for them and, if possible, take my piano to their house and play them their song for the first time. 

“It is this desire to be transformed by understanding that has pretty much propelled me through every single day” 
- Miranda July 

I tend to ask a lot of people - personal stories, naked images of their crotch, answers to the meaning of life. I'm interested in what we're made up of and how we go about our lives. Most likely I ask too much, but I too yearn to be transformed by understanding.

I'm also a problem solver, and every work I make is usually an attempt to work through a personal dilemma. This project comes from my desire to be a musician. Since I was a child I've written songs, but I always thought that I wasn't musically skilled enough and that my lyrics weren't as insightful or as eloquent as they should be. In an attempt to prove myself wrong, This Is Your Song was born. I used others' stories as inspiration, and forced myself to compose, to learn, and to improve.

But this project has become much more than the resolution of a childhood dream. It has become about storytelling, and about how we choose to reveal ourselves. It's stopped being about me, and started being about the storyteller's lives; their regrets, hopes, fears and dreams. I asked people what one story they wanted to see turned into a song, and seeing what they chose was often as interesting as the stories themselves.

I have some grandiose idea that most problems can be solved through honesty, so I'm always chasing truth, and I'm always right on its heels. But when you're touching truth, people are at their most vulnerable, and when I reach it that's where I want to stay. There, at the core of human connection, is the possibility of transformation.