The Therapy Sessions Vol. 1

Looking back at what I've recorded over these last three years, I'm reminded of the personal revelations this sedentary life has provided me with. The music's been the easy part. Check out the guitar after lunch, work on a new song to record Thursday after group. Me, the unit guitar and a Tascam pocket recorder. But wait doesn't my roommate have a cheap keyboard with drum beats on it?
I've been fortunate to pass my time on a unit with an enthusiastic Music Therapist. Even if nobody else cares, she'll listen to my weekly musical offerings and allow my songs to reflect whatever it is that may have inspired them. That's a long list of things by now.
A handful of songwriters gathered to form “The Wild Coyotes.” An opportunity to develop new material, work with other musicians and perform for our fellow patients that don't get to leave their units that often. Electric guitars, a bass, now checking out the recording gear takes two trips.
It was my old roommate that found the Tascam in a catalog and convinced our Music Therapist to get it. Wednesday was his day with it. I'd sit out in the courtyard drinking coffee so he could have some space to work. He'd do the same for me on Thursdays. There where often knocks on the door, different types of interruptions. Phone calls, census or bored people wondering what all the noise was about. I learned I only had control over my performance and if I tried to hold out for perfect moments, I would get very little accomplished.
Weekday mornings I'd walk the track at the treatment mall and listen to my latest songs and I'd feel comforted that I still had all this music inside of me. Recovering from my psychotic symptoms was a relatively quick process. The first med they tried me on worked, but I now understand that returning to life in the community after what I've done is what this treatment is about. And it's taken a while grasp the totality of this complicated situation.
I remembered a booklet on coping with grief that hospice left behind after my Mom died and channeled those feeling into “Wildfire.” I needed to come to the understanding that this was going to be a lonesome experience and “All of All” summed up those feelings for me. I spent the first day of a X-mas break alone with the guitar and had a blast writing “Corporate Home Cooking.” I imagined a man abandoned by his woman, who tries to come to terms with his life through a vision board and was shocked when I was told that “Golden Seeds” sounded very personal.
The microphone on the 8 track recorder makes a click when you hit stop, a problem that I've lost no sleep over. Little by little new piece's of gear would enter my musical atmosphere. Pedals, better guitars, a Korg micro synth and Roland rhythm performer, which came with six months of frustration before I gave up and read the instructions. “Oh, it's that easy!” Next, my weekends opened up and I had all the time I wanted to revisit songs I wasn't happy with and to seek the therapy that new songs provided me with.
As I assembled this collection, there's no regrets or second guessing when it comes to the music. I worked with the tools and time at my disposal and it all feels like it couldn't have turned out any different. I'm very grateful to have had every opportunity with this recording equipment and if anything comes from this music, I hope it paints a human face on the mysterious canvas that is mental illness. My story, in song, digested, relived and recorded at Napa State Hospital.