Terami.com Blog

My friend Emily tagged me to list 7 things about myself. Since you're reading this, you probably already know more than 7 things, so I'll be more specific and write 7 things about my creative life that I haven't discussed before.

I am...

...A musician who doesn't hear well
Although I'm a musician, hearing is not my strongest sense. In fact, it's not even in the top three. I'm extremely kinesthetic, closely followed by visual, and lastly I have a good sense of smell. It's not to say that music doesn't move me (it does), but I have to really focus on listening and it kind of wears me out.

...A kinesthetic synaesthete
In fact, I'm so kinesthetic that I perceive sound as texture and shape. When I listen to a song, I feel its surface and can describe its terrain. This sense is both tactile and emotional. I will feel the edges of music and describe it as rough, chalky, grainy, warm, limber, sharp, circular, uneven, etc; but I will also get a sense of being submerged underwater, floating in a sea of glass, or being suspended in concrete; each scenario will trigger an emotion. Another example is when I worked on my new album, I wrote a song based on the typeface and layout design of a novel. I showed Carter the book's pages and said, "I want the cello to sound like how this page makes me feel." Fortunately, she understood. It's not surprising that many artists also have synesthesia.

[As a side note, this is why I have a difficult time going to concerts. I don't just hear the music, I absorb it as texture and it becomes overwhelming. The crowd, the intensity, the volume...it's usually too much for me to bear. Is that precious enough for you?]

...Not a cinematographer
When I went to art school, I thought I would become a cinematographer. I can become transfixed by shadows and light, and have a strong emotional response when they play in interesting ways. However, it turns out that while I appreciate beautiful lighting, I am not good at creating or manipulating it. It was horribly crushing to admit my mediocrity.

...Lucky
Before I was able to make music full-time, I was a web designer. My first website was terami.com and it consisted of text links and a couple pictures. I went on design interviews using that version of this site as an example of my talent. Nobody would hire me. Unemployed, I took a job transcribing old television show scripts for archive purposes. That same week, my mom bragged to her friend that I was a designer and the woman introduced me to her husband who was a web producer. He hired me (I'll never understand why) and my first client was Microsoft.

...A fast learner, who isn't afraid of being a geek
I believe that one of my greatest creative assets is that I love to learn. For some reason, I have a natural aptitude for assimilating information and can easily learn how to do things for myself. If I didn't have this ability, I wouldn't be able to produce my albums, create this website, design my album covers, or do any of the other things I have to do in order to be a DIY artist, including learning HTML, CSS, and PHP. Certainly at some point it will make sense to hire someone to take over some of these jobs, but until then, I get as much joy out of these things as I do out of making music.

...Pretty lonely
My biggest creative shortcoming is that I often feel isolated because I do everything myself. I get lonely, I lose perspective, I move slowly, and as a result, my life often feels inactive. It's a shame that something I consider to be an asset (DIY) merges into something that really slows me down (isolation). One of my top priorities is to figure out a way to balance these things so that I feel creative and expressive, but not overwhelmed.

...Grateful for my friends
One of the things that helps restore my sanity are my creative friends. Not all of them are full-time artists, but just about everyone I know has an artistic brain. The biggest lessons I've learned are that everyone has a unique perspective, there are infinite ways to perceive the world around us, and expression is a life force, no matter how well trained or amateur.

It's probably horrible luck to break a blog tag chain, but I'm not comfortable tagging someone else. However, if you feel inspired to write a similar entry in your own blog, I invite you to add the link in the comment section of this entry!