JonesJr876 
I love music. Rhythm and blues, hip hop, pop, reggae, dancehall, top 100 charts. Been loving music for years. Especially the production of music. I have been trying to learn the piano since age seven, or ten. My cousin did get a keyboard piano when I was around age 13, but I didn’t really stick to using it. At age 24-25 I got my own keyboard, and for years two I didn’t stick to it. I would advance and stop for months. Start again, advance again, and stop for months. I grew up putting on performances for the holidays and family occasions, so must of my practice was geared towards performing at some event, which I was never ready for in time.
In 2021, I thought I may have a reason for my lack of commitment. While playing the keyboard, and watching YouTube videos I figured I needed sustain pedal to feel the music more. I did, and there was a immediate love felt. I would play around on the keyboard for longer periods of time. However, when it came to learning songs, I still had difficulty. I did notice, I could hear some electronic sounds coming from the keyboard when I held a note for a period of time, sans pedal. It was like the sound you would expect from a speaker when it’s getting additional signals, or maybe the recording of the key on my keyboard has a faint sound in the background. I concluded that the keyboard wasn’t real music.
For some years, I’ve also wanted a guitar. I found the guitar very sexy to know how to play. I found if very portable to walk around with, looking cool. And most of all, I found the guitar easy to pull out and play at social gatherings, bringing people together. So I have been telling myself not to get one until I can actually play a song from memory on the keyboard. For years, I still couldn’t play a full song on the keyboard. The moment I recognised the keyboard wasn’t real music, I wasn’t feeling the vibrations of sounds, I decided I had to get a guitar, so I can actually feel the music I make.
As I write this, I’ve had the guitar for four months. It’s been fantastic, I only pay attention to 5 chords now, but I’m having a blast making what ever tune, rhythm or sounds I can from them. Since getting the guitar I’ve decided to use it and my keyboard to make an album of voice, guitar, keyboard piano and the drums kit on the keyboard. The album creation is all apart of my reconnecting with my childhood creative self. I would regularly create arts and craft. It today’s world I’ve been trained and engrained into consumption that creation is not only limited by time, but also by attention span, and an ill-resourced standard of commercial perfection.
Tic-Tok, YouTube, and social media in general is great for lowering standards for visual media, or better year, creating a sub-culture of home-grown media, that thrives, and any one can participate in without the resources of tv networks. As someone with a background and interest in television production, I’ve missed that boat with my focus on the other. With music, I haven’t been looking for the sub-culture of home-grown music, but I will be producing an album, creating music either about gay love, Jamaica’s nature, or community living; and participate fully my creative being/ energy.
I find consumption to have its place in eating, and resting, and showering. But hours each day on social media, consuming entertainment and information, needs a balance of creating and producing something too. Usually our work is our producing aspect of our lives. We work and gain income, to use the income and consume. However, the media we consume on social media and streaming channels are curated to our likes and interests. Is the work we do, specifically the creations we make, our interests? If it is, we can find ease in creating a balance of consumption and creation. This balance I assume for me should be 50/50. When I cook I create, when I eat I consume. However if I the work I do, the creation I make is not my own interests, then I have to find other ways to create, for me. Other ways to have a balance between the hours of consumption I participate in, by finding time to create from my own being.
So, I’m creating music. For me, to share with you. I find the regular consumption or constant consumption I’m currently in draining every time I take a break. This back-to-creation journey I’m on (I love this journey for me) is refreshing and feels cliché-ly rewarding. But maybe it’s less to do with how much I consume, and more to do how little I do in my free time, now being used to create. I hope the album is done soon, albeit I would now like an acoustic piano to use in the album, and I hope I enjoy the album to put it out and I hope you enjoy the album when it’s out too.