Jessica McFarland

This is the first of many pieces that I plan to share on this site. Happy listening/playing!!

I don’t write songs very often, but I wrote this one last year. It is about Caroline Helstone, a character in Charlotte Brontë’s novel Shirley. I was ill for a few months, and reading this book was one of the things that kept me sane.

Anyway, Caroline is in love with her cousin (that was all right in the 19th century, apparently), and he pretends not to notice. He isn’t interested. Furthermore, his rejection sends her into a deep despair. She goes into seclusion; she almost dies. I don’t want to ruin the story for you, but I also don’t want you to worry, so I will tell you this: she doesn’t die.

caroline.mp3 – The demo.

caroline – lead sheet.pdf – Here is the paper version, in case you’d like to play it yourself.

The demo was recorded earlier this year. Here are the credits:

Voice + piano: Jessica McFarland
Bass: Sean Davey
Guitar: Bryan Smith
Tenor Sax: Sophia Perruzza
Clarinet: Michael Haworth
Engineer: Tony Draper

Well, since I last waxed lyrical about the benefits of paring down my activities, I’ve become completely stressed and feel like there aren’t enough hours in the day. What’s worse, I have a certain set of rituals to which I like to adhere in the “morning” (it’s often a bit later than that when I get up, due to working late), and they have been falling by the wayside. My life has been spiralling out of control. What happened to the simplicity?

Thankfully, this particular morning I was hit with a brain wave. I was on the Bakerloo line to West London, on my way to initiate yet another major life change. I could barely keep my eyes open, and I couldn’t focus on my surroundings. I felt a complete mess, and probably looked it as well. Well, this major life change (I was going to view a flat, if you’re interested) was supposed to be making my life more simple (by cutting down my commute), but it was stressing me out for a variety of reasons I shan’t go into here. But it was something I had to do…

…or was it? I asked myself, honestly, did I really need another major change? Even if it was for the better, of which I am not now convinced? Was it at all possible that my life was already fine?

As I had this thought, I could feel the stress leave my body. I felt relaxed and free for the first time in a week. Joy had returned, and it was all because of the realisation that I have everything I need, even if I don’t have everything I had wanted. Okay, so maybe I won’t have the great West London flat minutes from where I work. Maybe it will take me an hour to get to work; it isn’t like I have to drive. Not only do I have the more than the basic necessities of life, I have more than most people have, especially in the current economic climate (that we’re all sick of being reminded of by now, I’m sure).

The moral of the story, for me, is that, while it’s bad to fear change, it’s just as bad to seek change purely for the sake of it, to be constantly pursuing a “better” situation at the expense of enjoying the present. (A possible second moral is that the London Underground is a great place to think.)

Anyway, I left the train, had a latte and read the newspaper. And felt for the first time in a while that life was really quite good.

I have plans. Big ones. There is so much that I want to achieve as a composer, as a musician, as an artist in general. And I want to do it all NOW. Right this minute, or I feel like I’m wasting time.

Meanwhile, I’m in the grip of some huge life changes: new city, new job, new not-being-a-student-anymore. Most of these things are physically and/or mentally exhausting.

So each day I try to accomplish these major art goals, while at the same time trying to deal with life. It is invariably too much. I even start coming up with “tricks” to fit it all in: I’ll get up early and write, I’ll bring my computer with me on the train. I never end up doing these things. What’s worse is that I kick myself afterwards for “not being productive enough”.

…and then I fall into a slump, which makes the whole new-city-new-job thing harder to bear, which gets me down even more…

…until I spend all my spare time drinking and watching old episodes of Lost, silently lamenting the days when I used to do music. Ouch.

All this hasn’t happened yet, but it’s happened before, and I have an idea to stop it. This time, I will keep it simple. For me, that means the following:

• I will try to remember that there is only so much that one person can be expected to accomplish each day (even me).
• I will remember that it takes time and space to adjust to new surroundings, and that this adjustment IS productive.
• I will pick the most important musical project and focus on that during the times that I’m not working or recovering from working, and
• aside from that, I will only do small bits, and only on things I really enjoy. (Like writing blog posts. :) All my other ideas can wait.

So from now on, if I need to spend a day off doing nothing, rather than trying to fit in everything I felt I needed to do during the week, so be it. That’s better than waiting until I’m burnt out and catatonic. Simple.

I think starting is the hardest part of any project.  And it’s even worse if that project is divided into a bunch of little projects.  Because even though a bunch of little projects may seem more do-able than one massive project, each one has to be started.

It can be such a drag, and I have developed all these little ways to put it off for as long as possible.  ”Oh, I won’t have enough time to work on it now (even if I have 2 hours free), I’ll have more time later.”  ”Oh, I’ll just have a snack and then do it.”  ”Well, I’ll see if anything’s on TV first…”

And the longer I put it off, the worse it gets.  Suddenly a project that might have taken 3 hours seems to take a week, because I’ve spent six days figuring out how and when to start it.  Six days of head-thinking time, dreading, agonising, and eventually the whole thing seems completely impossible.

But I have created things.  I’ve even finished things.  So I must have found a work-around.  And here it is:

Remember that starting is at least half the battle.

Simple?  Yes.  Effective?  Definitely.  Because how long does it take to start something?  To transition between not doing and doing, metaphysically, is instantaneous.  A split second; not even.  And then that’s it, all one has to do is to continue.

So if the starting is actually instantaneous, 5 minutes is plenty of time. 5 minutes is enough time to start an infinite number of projects, metaphysically at least.  (I wouldn’t recommend trying it.)  And how hard is it to find 5 minutes?  You’ve probably spent 5 minutes surfing the internet today.

So here’s my 3-step process for starting a project.  Any project.

1. Set aside 5 minutes (or 10 if you’re feeling really enthusiastic).  Make them as soon as possible.  Better yet, make them the five minutes you would have spent thinking about all the work you have to do.
2. Start something. Do the smallest possible thing that signifies that it’s begun.  Open a file.  Write a couple of notes, or a sentence.  Open one book.
3. Congratulate yourself. After all, you’ve done the hardest part already.

If it feels right, keep going.  If you really can’t stomach the thought of doing any more work, take a break.  When you come back to it later, it probably won’t seem so difficult, especially when you consider that you’re already half-done.

One is staring at me, right now.  I don’t know what to fill it with.  All my fears, all my insecurities, all my worries that I’m not a good enough composer or fluent enough writer to make any creative act worth doing, they’re all brought up by this empty white text box on my computer screen.

And it’s always the same: a blank document, a blank page, a blank staff, an empty stage.  How do I fill it?  Am I even good enough to fill it?  Why me?

Why you?  Why not you?  Everyone’s got something to say, and you can’t say anyone else’s something, so you might as well say yours.  Anything.  Don’t think.  Just write.  Fill the page.  Fill another.  Ignore the voices that tell you you aren’t good enough.  You’re at war with the empty space.  Sound your battle horn and determine that the powers of goodness will win.  Those voices in your head, they don’t exist.  They’re a figment of your imagination: force them to go away.  That composition teacher who said you didn’t know how to develop your ideas, that music teacher that hated your voice; just put your hands over your ears and shout, “LA LA LA I CAN’T HEAR YOU!!!”

What do you know?  That page isn’t blank anymore.  It may not be a masterpiece (though it may be–who decides?), but it isn’t a void.  Nature abhors a vacuum.  Do nature a favour and fill it up.