Today I woke up to 500 Followers and decided I gotta say THANK YOU! I never once asked someone to follow me or upvote or resteem. It just happened. Today I wanna share with you a part of my musical journey that finally led me here.
When I joined Steemit last year because @chaifm told me about it I had no clue at all what I'm getting into but since I trust in her judgement I thought I'd just give it a try. At first I didn't really know what to do (or what I'm doing at all) since I didn't know if I want to share my thoughts, paintings, poetry or music... My life is a sleepless cycle of creativity and burnt down candles but I didn't quite know what to make of it.
Then I found the #openmic. My first ever post was my original song „Magic window“ recorded on my old and broken phone and when I went to sleep after posting it I would have never dreamed of waking up to over 170 Steem Dollars on it and about 80 new comments. That was the first overwhelming experience I had here. All the love and support that came my way just hit me. I was filled up with gratitude from head to toes. Suddenly there were people actually listening to the message of my songs. All the support and appreciation was empowering me so much it motivated me to record more of my originals and upload them on steemit.
Before for all my life my songs were some kind of self therapy. I would write them to get something off my chest or just set my troubling thoughts free. Basically I thought these songs were too particular and personal to share them in the internet and so I never did. It was like clearing out my emotional mailbox, answering the feelings that were too strong to process them in another way. So I stored them in the „sent“ section for years and years and partly even forgot about them completely. When I started participating in the openmic these songs came back to me as something miraculously new. Not only they suddenly had value to someone else but also they threw me back in my history, telling me stories about myself and making new sense years after writing them.
There are many angels in my life that guided me to where I am right now. I will start with the one who gave me life. It's my mother Ines.
I never had a singing lesson in my life. At least not an intentional one. But I was lucky to have a mother who sang to me from the moment I approached this planet. She gave me the gift of expressing my emotions through music.
These pictures are an impression of what my musical education looked like.
She named me after the singer Melanie Safka and she still swears she never heard that name before anywhere else. Here's our cover of her song "Good book".
Another angel was my childhood friend Niki, who loved to play school with me.
She was a quite persistent and strict teacher at the age of nine and eventually she taught me to read and write when I was four years old. Since I was so empowered to know things others in my age didn't I grew up reading a lot. This is how books got to be my most cherished company during my childhood years and the love for the magic of words never left me.
This is us now:
As I grew older I started to combine these two arts and it became an inner need to express myself through music. Since I was quite a rebel during my teenage years I refused to learn an instrument - just because - until I first picked up the guitar again voluntarily when I was about 19 years old.
Another angel, Karl, a great musician, friend and musical mentor who already played concerts with my mum in the past tried to empower me all throughout my twenties to share my music with the world. He tried to connect me with people who were in the music business but I wasn't really confident or determined enough to make it happen. I even recorded a song with a producer but then didn't sign the contract because I had a strange feeling about it. Afterwards I am glad I didn't since my intuition didn't fail me and this was just not the place where my music really belongs. I just never felt like selling myself. These songs are coming from the inner core of my being so they just felt too personal to make a business out of them.
So I spent my years singing occasionally on weddings, baptisms, lectures, vernissages, festivals, at campfires and in the streets.
In 2016 after returning from a long journey through Asia the next angel, Martina, who is the writer who's lectures I use to accompany musically for the last 5 years now encouraged me to take part in a competition in Germany called „Panik Preis“. It is initiated by Udo Lindenberg, a famous German musician who also is an activist. His songs were hymns of freedom in times of the fall of the Berlin wall. A part of that competition was to make a song out of a poem of Hermann Hesse, who's books changed my world during my teenage years. For the first time I felt this was the right place to share my music. After struggling with my guitar skills and self doubt and letting the whole thing go completely I finally submitted some of my songs in the last night before the contests deadline. A few weeks later Martina called me euphorically to tell me that I won the „Hermann Hesse Preis“. What I take from this competition is letting go of my fears of never being good enough and the amazing experience of singing in front of a few thousand people – which was waaaay beyond my comfort zone. But from that moment on I suddenly glimpsed that there was really something about my music that people can connect to without even being me.
[Photo by Tine Acke]
These are the German songs I participated in the competition with.
The year after in the Road junky creativity festival that @tomthumb initiates since two years now (which is also the place @chaifm and I met the year before) I talked to Fabrice from France, who is a life coach and shared his knowledge there. When he asked me: „What is it that you really want?“ I said: „I wanna make music but I don't wanna be part of the music business.“ He answered: „You cannot work AGAINST something. You gotta work FOR something. You got to find your music tribe. Find people who you share the same values with.“
So I started examining my own values. My list contained words like: Freedom, Peace, Love, Kindness, Loyality...
A month later a friend, Sam, who is playing bass in the band Tribe Time approached me and asked me if I wanna write some lyrics to their song called „Awakening“. When he sent me the song, the words were already there and it was kind of a 5-minute one take in writing them down as well as recording them.
Some month later I got to know about steemit. The rest is history. I think I can say although it was a very impressive and beautiful experience to get that resonance to my songs I didn't really get what was really happening until the day I got invited to the first Sounds of Steem show.
The night before he show I had a dream that started out as a quite scary nightmare where there was an invisible threat present all around me. Suddenly it felt like someone slapped me on the back of my head and it felt like there was something activated in my brain that made me realize that this was all a dream. After I recognized I am having a lucid dream I decided to just fly away from my fear. It took me two attempts to take off since I had to convince myself multiple times I am really dreaming but in the end I was floating through clouds and it was breathtakingly beautiful and liberating.
The next day when the show was happening I was quite nervous and exited but I felt so comforted by all the beautiful people there that it was just a blast to be part of it. It also felt like a dream becoming lucid in a way because suddenly I realized that there was more to steemit and the openmic than I had ever known. There is an incredible community growing. Full of people who appreciate and support each other, who are kind and gentle and loving. People who share my values.
After the show I met my friend Sam and I told him „I think today I finally I found my music tribe.“ His answer was: „Isn't that what you've been singing all along in our song?“
And then it hit me. These are the lyrics that I wrote back then:
Know your vibe and you'll find your tribe
it will change your life
we'll fly with you
Know your tribe and you'll love this life
it will feel so fine
we'll fly with you
Ask your mind and your heart will find
that your very tribe is here with you
We're here with you
(Lyrics start at about 9:30 min)
All the magic that has happened to me seems to good to be random.
I am not religious but I believe in a spiritual connection. The beautiful people I met here and the way they welcomed me in the community felt like signs I am in the right place and it finally made me recognize a red thread throughout my story.
I'm gonna close this as I started it: with gratitude.
Thank you so much for all the love you send my way. I feel truly blessed.
We love your vibe, and you're most definitely part of our tribe! So happy we found each other! Great account, great history, and such a beautiful story! Thank you, Melavie - and Melavie's Mom too! We love you all!
Thank you too for your amazing energy and the warm welcome! You are indeed a trigger of positivity! Love love love!!!
Love your story of musical self-discovery. The journey music takes us on is full of surprises and unexpected turns. I'm so happy Open Mic was on your path and we found each other. You are a big part of this community and I'm glad you are here. To more music and discoveries together and may the Steem be with you.
I'm really glad to be here with amazing people like you! It was an amazing journey so far and I'm so happy you created that space for us all to connect through music! <3
Awesome to hear your story! And great songs as always.. I felt similar when I first found Steemit. It’s like people on here actually appreciate the music 🎶
Thank you @drewley!! That's the beautiful thing about it. It's about music and the connection that comes with it. :)
wow melavie, it was so lovely to read this story. I think that songs are spells. In fact words are spells and we use them to manifest our lives. You have done a wonderful job of manifesting your tribe and no doubt there is PLENTY more to come :) much love to you x x
That's exactly it. The music magic takes over. And now that we know we can manifest anything we want. :)
Thank you for being you!
Much love back!
I love this story so much Melavie... I feel pride in being part of your tribe too and grateful to have shared songs and lyrics with your soul.
Much love
I love this story too since it brought me here.
What a tribe! :)
Thank you meno for everything you are and do for the community!
<3
Love to hear the story from u.nice sharing
Thank you for reading! :)
Congrats, and keep up the great work! Ill also be following :-)
Yey! Thanks. :)