Choose To Be Happy - Week 4 - Art Of Possibility Ch. 3

How do you follow up a song that is a long, slow descent into depression and madness? Why, with the happiest song alive, of course!

Chapter 3 of "The Art of Possibility" is called "Giving an A." It's much more complicated than this, which is why you need to buy the book; but in a nutshell, it's "looking on the bright side." Zander and Zander get into the effect grades have on us in school. You probably remember how hard a failure hit you as a kid, or even as an adult. A "Needs Improvement" on my End of the Year Evaluation will send me into an emotional death spiral from hell. UNTIL you remember that "It's All Invented." That grade means that when assessed according to THOSE parameters, you haven't met the criteria. But if you were assessed according to a DIFFERENT set of criteria.... things change. As Dr. Wayne Dyer said once, while indicating his small Capt. Picard-esque patch of grey behind his bald head: "In a bowl of soup, this is a lot of hair!"

For this song, I needed to kick start my positivity; because I wanted "Miserable Failure" to be the FINAL bit of negativity in the collection. So I went with a jaunty little riff I came up with in the key of C, which has been scientifically proven to be the happiest of all keys. (Spinal Tap fans will remember that d minor is the saddest. Don't believe me, listen to "Lick My Love Pump.") And lyrically, I went with acknowledging the, shall we say, challenges in life, but "on the other hand" listing the ways that there's always a bright side. The whole point here, is that we either choose to live in sadness and depression by focusing on the negative all the time, or we choose to be happy, and look on the bright side.

The beauty of this song is that within the structure of the song, I can literally put in anything that bothers me, and then "on the other hand" find the bright side. So it's a teaching tool as well as a ditty!

On a side note, this is also the last song for this project that I wrote beforehand. I started trying to do this in 2009, but it didn't pan out. So I've been sitting on them until now. That means that starting next week, it's all new original music and lyrics. I'm excited.

Choose to Be Happy - Words and Music by Carl J Ferrara

I lost my job, but on the other hand, I was thinking 'bout a new career
I lost my car, but on the other hand, I was gonna go Hybrid this year,
I lost my house, but on the other hand, I could really use a change of scene,
I lost my wife, but on the other hand, There's no one there a naggin' at me.

I could be laughin' or I could be cryin',
Get busy livin' or get busy dyin'
Little did I know, the choice was up to me
Can't you see...

I'm gonna Choose To Be Happy
I'm gonna Choose to keep everything light
I'm gonna Choose to Be Happy
and see the world from the brighter side of life.

I've got no power, but on the other hand, Intimate Dinner by candle light.
I've got no food, but on the other hand, my diet's gonna start tonight,
I'm all alone, but on the other hand, I can always give my friends a call,
Could be depressed, but on the other hand, life's not that horrible after all.

Bridge/Chorus
Bridge/Chorus

Miserable Failure - Week 3 - Art of Possibility Ch. 2

Welcome to the dark side... we have cookies.

The second practice in The Art of Possibility is "Stepping into a Universe of Possibility." It's a step, not a full immersion yet. But it begs the question, Step INTO this universe, from where?

Most of us live in a world of measurement; or as I call it, a world of competition. This is a world where we judge our own worth based on grades, assessments and comparisons to other people. This creates a feeling of scarcity, and a survival mentality. I CERTAINLY exist in this world, and most of my angst and negative feelings come from this. Recognizing this is a first step towards opening yourself up to more possibilities. Also, I've found that rejecting this measurement is very empowering.

The problem with writing a song about this chapter, is that I sort of already did, last week, when I wrote "It's All Invented." But I thought about the measurement world, and how it can lead to "downward spiral thinking." And I remembered how often exploring and expressing that negativity can purge it from your mind. (This actually works, because I've sung this song in some of my darker moments, and it really helped.)

So, I tried expressing what goes through my mind when I'm in panic mode. It's about as close as I'll ever get to writing rap lyrics. It also gets more and more extreme, paranoid, and rather silly. That's how it works. When I take it to it's logical conclusion, the result is so ridiculously out of touch with reality, I can see why I should opt for this other option. Good to get this out of me at the start of the project, don't you think?

The riff is one I've been toying around with for years. It started as a song called "Content with Mediocrity." That never panned out, so I kept it around until a good vehicle for it came around. It's in e minor, which means I'm basically grumbling, which is why the capo is up to a whopping 5th fret! This also brings the chorus to a good level for my voice.

Enjoy my pathetic desperation!

Miserable Failure - Music and Lyrics by Carl J Ferrara, (C) 2009
As the downward spiral begins, everyone's competing but nobody wins,
Half the world's doing better than me, and the other half's the half that I never see
And I PANIC! And I'm filled with dread, impending doom looming over my head,
From the left and the right it's fight or flight as I scramble for an answer that'll make it all right.
I'm a Miserable Failure, just like everybody said.
I'm a Miserable Failure, the tape keeps looping in my head.
See, I've got this delusion that I'm OK, I'm at the top of my game, and understand the way,
A good father, provider, and husband too, then a voice in my head screams, "That's not true!"
I'm walking on glass as I tiptoe around, one wrong step, I've let everyone down,
One misunderstanding can become a brawl, As a million people come to kick me when I fall.
I'm a Miserable Failure....

CHORUS
I don't measure up, I'm just not good enough!
If I don't succeed, then I'm dead.
This pathetic lie that keeps me terrified
Only exists in my head.

As the downward spiral continues, everybody ridiculing everything in you,
Why didn't you do that, What did you do? Why didn't you know that? What's wrong with you?
Everyone you love, Everyone you trust, makes it their mission to remind you you suck, 
From the minute you're born, and every minute since, They keep on berating you til you're convinced
I'm a Miserable Failure....
CHORUS

As the downward spiral abates, you're reminded again how no one is safe from
The Liberals, The Criminals, The Commies, or from Taxes, Terrorists, Thugs, or from another attack.
They're better than you, smarter than you, hotter than you, 
They're trying to take your daughter from you.
You try to keep it positive, but they just laugh, and make you forget just how much you have,
You're a Miserable Failure...
CHORUS

It's All Invented - Week 2 - Art of Possibility Ch.1

The Art of Possibility is all about letting go of our imagined perceptions of the world, and replacing them with a more positive perception of the world. Some people may say, "Yeah, but the world doesn't really work like that." That is an imagined perception. There is no real limitation.

I just looked back at past blogs, and I wrote this week's song, "It's All Invented," back in 2009! That's 4 years ago. I've been thinking about doing this project for 4 years. What has stopped me from moving on it? I kept telling myself, "yeah but..." Labeling other priorities as being SO important, that I didn't have time to commit to this project. Meanwhile, I totally did... in reality. However, in my mind, I set myself an imagined limitation that prevented me from moving forward.

The famous puzzle where you connect the 9 dots, in a 3 x 3 square, with 4 lines without lifting your pencil?

We put an imagined limitation on the puzzle that we have to stay within the square. But the solution is to start outside the box! That limitation doesn't exist anywhere but inside our mind.

For the song, I reflected on people I know who make their lives miserable because of things in their own mind. "Marie" LIVES for drama, and at times that she has no reason to be worried or feel threatened, she makes up some. "Joe" is paranoid and believes that the world's out to get him. In the final verse, "Rachel" is my real life daughter Rachel, who has had issues with being bullied in school. "Her Dad" is me, and my problems with work.  Except for Rachel and Me, names have been changed to protect the innocent. My real friends Marie and Joe are NOT, repeat, NOT the Marie and Joe in the song.

Ask yourself: What assumption am I making...that gives me what I see? and then: What might I now invent... that would give me other choices?

It's all Invented Music and Lyrics by Carl J Ferrara (c) 2009

Marie's the kind of girl / Angry at all the world
She's the type who thrives on tragedy
She sees dramatic roles / on all her TV shows,
says, "My life's not like that, what's wrong with me."
Her Mom and Dad had really taught her well:
"Can't you see that life's supposed to be a stress-filled hell?"

Chorus: 

But It doesn't have to be that way,
You can unlearn what you have learned,
It's All Invented Anyway,
So why not invent a better world

Joe's the suspicious kind / he's good at reading minds
He knows what made you say what you just said,
Says, "You're all versus me, / It's a conspiracy
And you're all trying to mess with my head,"
But all his accusations never help,
'Cause what he sees is really coming from himself...

Chorus

Some people think inside the box / it's their downfall
But if you open your mind, you find, there isn't any box at all...

Rachel came home from school / feeling like a fool,

Some girl said something that made her cry.

Her dad came home from work / his boss was being a jerk,

Feels like a failure and does not know why.

But you don't look all that bad to me,

Tomorrow will be better just wait and see!

Chorus

If only I had a gun....

I often teach my theatre students, when they're playing a villain, that no one does something they believe to be morally and ethically wrong without a reason. Either they don't believe that it's wrong, and the trick as an actor is to imagine their justification for it; or they believe it is wrong, and under some extreme circumstance, they believe it is necessary. The real "morals" or "ethics" of that are a topic for another blog.

The point is, the person whose name I refuse to acknowledge; you know, the one who shot up Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, CT; didn't go into that building armed for bear believing it was wrong. Somehow, in his deranged state of mind, he felt very strongly that this was the right thing to do. Something, and I don't dare speculate, but something happened to this guy to set him off, and he had a thought: "If Only I had a Gun, Then I could take care of this." He then went to his mother's house, killed her, stole her guns, and then proceeded to the school.

After the incident, we all were shocked by the event, and we all tried to figure out how to deal with it. To acknowledge that it's an isolated incident and do nothing seems disrespectful. Not to mention it breeds fear in the hearts of other students in other schools, and we as caregivers need to alleviate their fears. Our attempts to recover from the loss spawned a lot of creative solutions, many of which are now memes travelling virally throughout Facebook, twitter, and finally, the news cycle.

To counter the call for more gun control legislation, the pro-gun advocates are calling for MORE citizens to be armed, for their own protection. Many of them cite specific incidents where a person with a gun, even an assault weapon, stopped a crime in progress, or thank God, stopped it before it ever started. There's a growing faction out there that actually believe that security guards, teachers and principals should be armed in our schools. They imply that a gun toting teacher or principal could have immediately silenced the attacker and possibly saved lives. In other words, "If Only they had a Gun, Then they could've taken care of this."

Now before I go on, I should tell you that I come from a family of gun owners. My father, brother, uncles, grandfather, GREAT grandfather were all licenced gun owners and collectors. Growing up, I was surrounded by hunting rifles, handguns, assault weapons, and high-caliber shotguns. NEVER in my family's history have we been harmed by any of these weapons. No one in my family has ever gone on a spree. In fact, my uncle's buddies have been sent home from camping trips for doing nothing more than pointing the gun in the wrong direction. The NRA's assertion that the rights of law abiding gun owners and collectors should be protected is ABSOLUTELY true, and I firmly believe that.

But the whole idea is that we separate the violent, impulsive, dangerous people for whom having a gun is a bad idea, from the law abiding peaceful people who pray every day that they never have to use this weapon. So it doesn't help our cause for Wayne LaPierre, the president of the NRA, to propose as a solution to our violence problem, "If Only They Had A Gun, Then they could've taken care of this." It NEEDS to be acknowledged that this is the exact same thought process that the aggressor in every school shooting in history had when they decided to commit mass murder.

So what is the solution? Everyone is trying to figure out the one thing that will prevent anything bad from happening anywhere ever. And I'm sorry, but that's impossible.

Gun Control? Sure, controlling, to the best of our ability, who is allowed to have access to guns and assault weapons and who is not is a great idea. But remember; the jack offs from Columbine took their parent's guns, and this nimrod in Newtown stole the guns and ammo he used. They were purchased and obtained legally, then illegally taken and used for harm. If these people have no problem committing a crime like murder, then the fact that the means to commit that crime are illegal won't stop them. Banning ALL guns is not the solution either.

I think we need to come to terms with the fact that there's nothing we could have done to prevent this tragedy. I know that makes us feel powerless, but in this situation, we were powerless. The staff of Sandy Hook did what they were supposed to do in such a situation: they protected the children. They didn't get to save them all, but they kept the situation from becoming worse. The teachers and administration in every school in America will do their best to train their staff and student body to prepare for emergency situations. That's really all we can do. That and mourn.

The discussion is geared towards "Guns for ALL" or "Guns for Nobody;" when what we should be talking about it how to fear the power of guns, and use them safely; as well as how to safeguard these guns from getting into the wrong hands.

God bless the families of the victims, and God bless US as we recover from the shock of this tragedy. Help to guide our leaders towards a logical, intelligent solution to our problems. Amen.

Nothing's Impossible - Week 1 - "Art of Possibility" Prelude

"Nothing's Impossible" is the 11 O'clock number from my musical, "The Legend of St. Nicholas." This is based on the "Autobiography of Santa Claus," edited by Jeff Guinn. The plot starts with historical St. Nicholas in 343 a.d. His incredible generosity blesses him with immortality, and he continues through pretty much all of history until he morphs into the figure we now know as Santa Claus.

Along the way, he meets many historical figures, some of whom follow him on his mission of giving. (they become the "elves," so to speak) Three of these characters are Leonardo da Vinci, Benjamin Franklin, and Willie Skokan, an expert toymaker. Towards the end of the play, the team read Clement Moore's poem "A Visit From Saint Nicholas," and read for the first time how Santa is supposed to have a sleigh and 8 flying reindeer. Not wanting to disappoint the children, they try to figure out how to make reindeer fly, and as they do, they sing this song about how you need to change your perspective to make the impossible happen.

The "Art of Possibility" project was inspired by the book by Benjamin and Rosamunde Zander, but also by Nikki Sixx's "Heroin Diaries." Along with the book, his band, Sixx A.M., released a soundtrack, with one song for each chapter of the book. I'm going to try to do the same with "The Art of Possibility." Hopefully, this will serve to remind me of the practices in the book, and "talk me down" when I find myself in that downward spiral. But after writing the song for the first chapter, (Next week's song) I felt the whole project needed a prelude. "Nothing's Impossible" seemed appropriate. And because the whole thing seems like a guitar based project to me, I re-arranged the piano chords for guitar.

Leo, Ben, and Willie, in the show, are kind of the "brain trust" of Nicholas' mission. When I wrote the song, I wanted to convey that they're all geniuses in their own field. What has always attracted me to bands like Rush, Bela Fleck and the Flecktones, and the like is their apparent musical intelligence. The litmus test for that intelligence is their use of asymmetrical meter (5/8, 7/8, 17/2, etc.) and flexible tonality. Because of that, "Nothing's Impossible" is in 5/8, ending each verse in 6/8, with a bridge in 7/8. The bridge also changes key often. I wanted it to be complex, yet very doable. Enjoy.

Nothing's Impossible, Music and Lyrics by Carl J Ferrara, (c)1995

If you need something made, And that something does not exist,
And you think that it can't be done, there must be something that you missed.
I have always believed, and I will believe til I die,
I believe Nothing's Impossible if you try.

Simply take a wild idea, let it loose and set it free,
Find what it needs to survive, that's how it first comes to be.
And If at first you don't succeed, try and try and try again,
you will find Nothing's Impossible in the end.

If you need it, you can get it
If you can't find it, just invent it
If you want it, you can have it
If you dream it, you can do it!

There'll always be those who say "Nay." Just you wait and they will see
exactly how wrong they were when your dream becomes reality
If you simply believe, I tell you you will never fall
Although some things are improbable
No problem is unsolvable
Difficult, maybe, but through it all,
I'm telling you Nothing's Impossible
Nothing at all!

A Song a Week

I, CJ Ferrara, hereby lay down the melancholy burden of sanity and conceive the strangest project ever imagined... I intend to post a video demo of an original song on YouTube every week throughout 2013.

You may be asking... "Why?"  A few reasons...

A) I have all these songs, and I want to write more. I want to be more prolific as a songwriter, and more successful. Songs that live in my head are nice, but if an audience can't hear them, they're nothing. I hope to build my performing chops back up and sort of "Come out" as a singer/songwriter. Hopefully this will kickstart a career.

 2) To meet another New Year's Resolution: To restore my positive attitude. After the crappy year I had (overall) last year, I've caught myself thinking the way that used to depress me. My "Cleanse" to wash out the negativity is to begin an old project again. The book "The Art of Possibility" by Benjamin and Rosamunde Zander has become my self help "Bible." It's a series of practices which are designed to eliminate feelings of competition and negativity, and expand your mind to open it up to possibility. (You'll understand as I go.) My method of incorporating these practices is to write a song for each chapter. Doing this online will keep me honest about it.

 D) I think it would be cool. I'm a little inspired by my friends Sean and Christine Fitzgerald who did the same thing, but with original films. This will be my own "Project 52." I invite you to follow me and help me out. Constructive feedback is good, and I will try not to take criticism personally. I strongly believe in the "Art of Possibility" so I invite you all to share in these practices.

 One obstacle I can foresee is that whenever I try a "do something every week for a year" project, I never keep it up. I have a bunch of original songs that are written already, so these will be used when I haven't written a new song that week.

A journey of 52 songs begins with one step, so here I go, to film my first video. Wish me luck!

In Defense of Russell Crowe

The reviews are in for the long awaited film version of "Les Miserables." People either LOVED it, or HATED it. Those who hated it had their reasons. Some who dabble in film making themselves profoundly disagreed with director Tom Hooper's choice of using jump-cuts, close-ups, jump-cutting close-ups, Close-up jumping, or whatever. Other haters hated because they were all singing and stuff. Some even disliked how dark and depressing the story was. I mean, what were they expecting? The movie isn't called "Les Happy People of France," it's called "Les Miserables."

Whether you thought it was an abomination against all things cinematic, or the most glorious event to happen to film since the wrestling scene in Borat; everyone can agree on one thing: Russell Crowe was the weak link in the film.

It's not his fault, really. Everyone else was a real singer. Hugh Jackman's been on Broadway. So has most of the rest of the cast. Crowe, while being a great actor, is more of a rocker. With his band "30 Odd Feet of Grunt", he's terrible. He's got that kind of affected terrible voice that makes so many emo rock bands popular. (Click the link, you'll see what I mean.) His voice is all wrong for the part of Javert, just as Gerard Butler was all wrong for the part of the Phantom in "Phantom of the Opera."

But I have to say a few things about this performance. First of all, like Nick Jonas in the 25th Anniversary Concert, he CLEARLY trained for this part. You can palpably sense the vocal technique in his performance. You can almost hear his coach saying to him from behind the camera, "Open! Watch your pitch, Russell! Support the tone!" And THAT, I believe was his undoing.

Russell Crowe is NOT BAD in the film. He's bad in exactly two parts: "Stars" and "Javert's Suicide." Unfortunately for Crowe, these are the two defining moments for the character. And I don't even think he sang the songs badly. On the contrary, I think he was in very good voice for those two scenes. The biggest criticism of those performances was that it was Emotionless and One-Dimensional. The dramatic pay-off of these two songs is lost. I think that Crowe was so focused on his vocal technique, that he forgot to give his all into the performance. You've seen his other films, you KNOW he's capable of more depth.

So there's the irony of Russell Crowe's performance: he sang it so well, it sucked. I actually may have preferred if he scream-sang it but delivered the emotional punch that it needed.

But in the scenes with other actors; the Confrontation, the opening scene when he releases Valjean, the attack at the baracade; he's fine! He acts well, he has a bit of a naturalness to his vocal tone, he's in tune, which is more than I can say for his performances with "Grunt." And never forget, unlike in Phantom, Crowe had to do it LIVE! They could pitch corrected a lip-synched performance. Crowe was really preparing for a theatrical performance, and I say, compared to his level of vocal talent, and considering the rest of the film, he held his own against a powerhouse ensemble.

So, like the film, don't like it, I don't care. But give Russell Crowe credit for working so hard to deliver a pretty good performance when it could have been a disaster of Gerard Butler proportions! You either hated the movie and his performance was one of the many reasons why, or you loved the film, and his performance did not take away from your enjoyment of it.