Originally written and recorded in December 1999 by D-Structor. Lifted from my 4 track to PC to add additional vocals on Chorus by Estrel in 2014. video completed on 22 May 2021. Apart from a clean up of the original recording on the PC, everything is as is when 1st recorded.
Video footage from Pixabay. free stock footage. If you see any of your footage in this video give me a hello and tell me which one is yours.
After writing my last Post “Decisions” I have contemplated my next post. It wasn’t until yesterday I realised there is more to the story I haven’t told.
I’ll recap a bit to get the 1st story connected to this 2nd part.
My earlier post “Decisions” was about an experience I had making a decision as a 9 year old while competing in a running competition and the lasting effect it had on me, “even up to this day”.
I have spent much of my time exploring this moment at this particular time in my life and the ongoing effects it had on me. I never considered anything wrong with what I did. It was after all, a protective mechanism for an event I wasn’t expecting, equipped or prepared to deal with, or to understand the implications of it as well.
So what was the after-flow effect of this decision I made at such a young age that continued to linger in and out of my adult life.
The first thing that bubbled to the service about 25 years ago was a conversation I was having with a friend and my first real look into what unfolded that day. After a bit of soul searching I came to the conclusion that there were a small number of people to blame for my failure at this running event because of their failure to attend and support me, whilst competing.. This became a point of disappointment for me, that ebbed and flowed with my thinking from time to time.
What then followed was the stories I would tell people in general conversation. As an eg. If I was talking to someone and the conversation started to head into a sports orientated conversation and any achievements that were made, I would always bring up my running stories and competing at a state level. This gave me a feeling of achievement.
I realised yesterday though that there was a part missing to the story and how I always told it. I never mention how I quit the race and walked off crying. I also realised if any of my friends, teacher and family were able to attend this competition and cheers me on this would not of altered the final outcome. I was running last and I would’ve finished last.
But now, I am very happy I was at that time good enough to of competed against some of the fasted kids in the state in my age group at that race meeting. That I can still be proud of and now in my mind I can throw my hands up in victory and finally cross that finish line.
This was easily the slowest 100 meters I’ve ever competed in and it only took me 40+ yrs to complete it.
Life as we know is full of decisions, some good, some bad, some easy and some are hard.
Can a decision you made as a child have a major impact on your life today?
Here is my example of a decision I made as a nine year old. The question I have found myself asking lately is, how much impact did this decision have on my life’s journey from that point onward.? Would I have still reached the same results I have now but just on a different pathway?
Ok so what was this major decision? well it was nothing really as far as important life decisions that one has to make, like buying a car or a house etc etc, but it did change what I did at this particular time of the year for the following 2 years.
During the year our school would have their annual sports carnival. All the normal track and field events. This was definitely my favourite time of the year. My specialty was the 100 meter sprint and high jump. Probably due to my extra height I had over other kids in my age group.
Anyway, the 100 meters sprint was where things really happened for me and I was eventually able to go on and compete at zone level and eventually state level. Everything was heaps of fun “and there was a popularity you get to enjoy at school from winning as well”
Once I got to state level I realised later that I was the only kid from my school to make it that far. This started to have a dramatic change in how this made me feel compared to the fun of competing against my friends.
On the day of competition at state level, just before leaving my school to go to QE2 I found out my running teacher wasn’t coming with me, as I was the only kid from our school competing “compared to several kids from my school in the earlier regional zone competitions”.
There was already a teacher from another school with the kids on that day, so my teacher wasn’t required to come with me. This in turn was really starting to have an effect on me, but I wasn’t about to show it yet.
Finally, we get to what used to be called QE2 in Brisbane, which is now called [QSAC] Queensland Sport and Athletics Centre. It was the 1st time I had ever been in a place like that and it was huge, especially compared to the school oval.
I don’t remember a lot about that day except where I sat on a blanket with a bunch of kids I never met before and my disastrous race.
I do however remember just before my race, lining up on the track, and looking at the other kids feeling quietly confident for a good outcome. [At that point in time I never lacked in confidence in winning a 100m race]
Anyway, we take our positions at the starting line and the gunman says his “on your mark get set and BANG”. Oh yeah I thought to myself, I should win this one. After running maybe about 20-30 meters I looked up and realised I was in last place. The kid in first place was what seemed like about a mile in front of me. I knew I couldn’t catch him and I was struggling to even catch the kid just in front of me. [in fact I think I was losing ground on him] This was the momment I made a decision. The emotion of being in last place was to much and I burst into tears and walk off the track. I was a sore loser that day and I carried that attitude with me for the next couple of years.
When the annual school carnivals came around over the next 2 years, I made sure I didn’t put myself in that position again. I purposely came last in all my races. My school running teacher was at a loss to understand why I was doing this, but the grip of fear and what I considered the humiliation of coming last was to much for me to bear. But coming last on purpose was ok as far as I was concerned.
I did however in my last year of primary school, have one last crack at a proper competition running against my main rival. My running teacher rearranged the running fields to make sure the two of us were running against each other and he prompted me to compete and don’t come last.
I decided to except the challenge and win that race, as I expected myself to win it, but I came in 2nd place behind my rival, who wasn’t actually my rival, just my class mate at that time.
This was a shock to me as this was the first time my class mate beat me in proper competition running. This was a dose of reality I wasn’t enjoying and the popularity from winning had long gone and moved onto the next lot of winners. There was a final nail in the coffin once I reached high school.
On the high school carnival day I legitimately wanted to win my race, but I came in a disappointing fourth. Even one of the kids I used to comfortably beat could now sprint past me effortlessly. I don’t remember competing anymore after that.
II spent the last two years trying to fit in with the other kids from high school. I felt like I had lost or thrown away something special I had when I was 9 by making a simple decision not to at least finish my race and worse, not even competing at all.
How much of an effect did walking off the race track that day cause me to take a different pathway compared to doing my best and finishing that race? That one I don’t know, but one thing that track running did get replaced with was music and songwriting. I picked up a guitar for the first time at the age of 17 and this became a new pathway for me to travel on and has helped me during my deepest darkest momments during my late teens and adult life.
Once I reached my late teens and beyond I was struggling to finish most things I started, I lost confidence in myself, went from one bad relationship to another. Did the typical drinking and weed smoking during this time and continued to drift further into a un-seeable dark hole. Struggled with jobs, so money has becoming an issue.
Something happened though once I hit my mid 20’s, God came into my life and gave me a helping hand. I had to make a real decision during this period and I had to stick to it. Good had said to me “follow me or go back from where I got you out from”. That decision is still in action today. I have allowed myself to follow God’s voice to the best of my ability from age 25 to over 50. It continues to be the best decision I have made to this day and the journey since then is my testimony to my belief in him.
These days I have looked back and can see some regrettable decisions I have made, but not all were bad and not all were wrong,
I’ve learned since then to do my best to finish the things/projects I start and don’t concern myself where that places me compared to others.
Some of the first question I wanted answered when God first came into my life was who was this voice, where did it come from and where was it going to take me?
The journey out from my darkness was just as hard though, but I have never let go or quit.
This is something I wrote this morning.
I have lived out enjoyed the “freedoms” of mainstream living, but I got caught in it’s unforeseeable deep dark web of desires. I have now found my home and have turned towards him, allowing God’s gift of freewill to help me untangle and clear my mind one day at a time, while keeping me safe within his circle of light.
Wow, it ‘s been 3 yrs since me last post, in fact my last post was on May 6, 2018 when I posted a song called Paranoid.
To put things simply I got sick of writing post every week and needed a break from it. It was to hard to write something interesting, which probably wasn’t very interesting anyway.
So what’s different? Nothing really, except I have freed up some time for myself and feel good about writing some post again.
I’ve now changed my header name from howtostartasong to Locusts and wild honey Talking things of a spirit nature and my passion for songwriting..
My main topics as usual will be music, but I want to add into the conversation, spiritual experiences and the voices that guide us to where?
To kick start, I’m going to upload my latest 4 song ep. titled “It’s a party” by Family Matters with Estrel on vocals https://darrylsteele.bandcamp.com/
I will talk more about this ep in future posts and the journey of it’s beginning to it’s finish and what I’ve learned musically and spiritually on this part of my journey.
If you want to check out the videos for these 4 songs then hit the link https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCXBtMs4-N6tO5tPSvqwCUOg
Heh folks, It has been a long time since my last blog.
Thought I might upload my latest song.
Here it is
“Paranoid” https://soundcloud.com/darrylsteele/paranoid
It has been a while since my last post, but now that Rockit and I have finished latest video, I thought it time to post it.
The song is called “Don’t forget us” https://youtu.be/2usQjUIBtsI
As usual from previous recordings, The whole adventure for this project was to record home produced music on the cheapest equipment you can lay your hands on.
This process though, can take years to acquire. With some careful searching and spending you can have a functional setup at a very low cost. The 2 PC’S below cost a total of $100. Some might say that’s a $200 to much when someone should’ve payed me to take them off their hands. Anyway, you get my drift.
Despite their appearance, both pieces of equipment have survived the processes and rigors of our recordings so far [There is still one song to go]. Though, it hasn’t all been smooth sailing, with the bottom machine in constant need of attention to keep it on the road. This is where a little bit of self taught IT repairmanship comes in handy.
This is our current setup, with the latest addition being my Washburn vintage sunburst electric guitar [cost $240], which I used for this recording. The setup for that was a direct line into my Ashton 80watt [$120]. I miked up the amp with a direct line into the bottom PC and used cool edit pro 2.1 to record and edit.
If I was to price everything together Rockit and I and spent to record this song, overall cost would be approximately $2000.
This setup won’t get you the squeaky clean sounds you hear on the radio, but it will get you the start you need to learn the process and understandings of recording music in a home studio recording environment, which in turn, will be invaluable when it comes to recording your songs in a proper recording studio.
Cheers, Have fun and Rock n roll.
D-Structor
Happy Easter everyone from “Mould”. Whatever you may be doing this Easter, I hope you have a safe and enjoyable time.
Recording drums for our forth song has taken a new turn. Due to the difficulties with recording live drums by using one microphone, such as placement to capture a consistent and even sound of all the drums. It was time to upgrade to two microphones and the use of my 6 channel mixer.
With our last recorded song Galvanised, I wanted to continue with keeping our recordings of the drums simple by using one microphone. This eventually brought ahead the difficulties associated with using one microphone, [e.g. positioning the microphone to capture the snare drum but sacrificing the crash as was the case in our song Galvanised]. I did however record the crashes separately on another track and added them later in the mix.
This time round on our new song, it was time for an upgrade. I did have the equipment at my disposal, so I figured, lets see how we go with positioning two microphones, run them throw my mixer and in to the .p.c.
After some juggling around, we finally recorded a drum track that had more consistency with each part of the drum, able to be heard.
If you are a drummer looking to record as simply as possible, then I would say the one microphone option is where to begin. If you have 2 microphones and a small mixer. [My Ashton 2nd hand cost me $35] then a setup could be like this.
For our first two recordings, I had positioned the microphone high and above the toms. This sacrificed the snare drum somewhat. For our 3rd song “Galvanised”, I positioned the microphone low and close to the snare drum, but that sacrificed the crash.
This I hope will solve the problems of recording live drums, but also keeping it simple and as cheap as possible.
Good luck with your recordings
D-Structor
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Locusts and wild honey 