Hello friends! I want to introduce a new art + music project called "Closer to the Truth." This is both a vehicle for releasing new Andy Barr music and a way to confront the challenges I experience during the creative process.
Some backstory:
I've been writing songs since I first picked up the guitar at 13, hundreds and hundreds of songs, most of which have never been seen or heard outside of a chicken-scratch notebook and an infinite folder of voice memos and unfinished Logic demos. I know this is a common condition for creatives. For me, the act of birthing a new and perfect idea eventually reveals its imperfections and begins a complicated process of fixing and correcting the idea until it is (often) deadd, lost, unrecognizable, or stuck in creative paralysis purgatory. This is the case with about 95% of my work.
Of course I have also had the experience of allowing an idea to develop over weeks, months, and years which can lead to exquisite discoveries and transcendent beauty, but I find that in general, the longer I spend correcting a song the duller and duller it gets, further away from the spirit in which it was first presented to me.
This latter path leads to several undesirable outcomes: 1) a song never quite feels "complete" and so I never release it, 2) a song somehow gets finished but feels exhausted, drained of the excitement and vivacity of early versions, or 3) mountains and mountains of self-judgment pile up over my role in these failures and prevent me from trying to create again.
Closer to the Truth is a path towards creative outcomes that are more aligned with what I actually want: to write and share the gift of song with you! And ideally to do so within humming distance from when the original inspiration comes.
My hope is that this practice will loosen the lure of perfectionism, allow me to succeed and fail in community, and help me develop a greater sense of self-worth in all of my artistic expression.
The plan is to release music every 10 days through the end of 2022, for a total of 30 songs. The first few releases will be pieces I wrote in early 2021, when I was devotedly producing music every week. (My plan at THAT time was to eventually refine each demo and release it but, alas, here we are. Human.)
After honoring last year's creations I'll start moving on to new music. As the year goes by my hope is that the strict 10-day timeline will reduce the possibility of overwork and invite acceptance for what is. I genuinely hope some songs won't even make it to the production process and will find their own worth by being sung or played simply on the guitar.
My goal is to get closer and closer to expressing the joy and excitement of musical inspiration before my brain gets involved in assigning meaning to it. Closer to the Truth*.*
To accompany each release I'll be sharing some extras:
Original voice memos of the inspiration
Production demos
Handwritten lyric sheets
Stories, photos, inspiration that accompanied the process
These extras will be available in posts like this, both here and at andybarrandy.com.
I'll be offering 5/5 NFT versions of each song via Mintsongs on the Polygon blockchain (which also can be purchased on Opensea). I'm excited about Web3 as a way to redefine the value of art and especially music in our society. I also love that the blockchain is immutable -- meaning entries can never be changed or erased -- because it feels thematically aligned with my concept of sharing things as they are without needing them to be something else.
I am conscious of the incredible amount of energy used by blockchain technology. I chose to mint my NFT's on Polygon, which uses a Proof of Service protocol and thus 99% less energy than chains like Bitcoin and Ethereum. (Although I do believe ETH is the future).
For anyone who has made it this far into my manifesto, thank you! You are here at the onset of something that is very meaningful to me and I'd like to offer you my deepest gratitude for being a vital and inspirational figure in my life and in this world.
I'll be sending my first song and release note in a few days and then continuing on every 10 days for the rest of the year. I look forward to sharing more of myself and my love of music with you.
Eternally, Andy
