Behind the Scenes of Making my First Music Video

Believe it or not, I’m more scared of singing live than showing myself on a music video. Not only scared, it’s terrifying. I feel this rush of anxiety coming up from my stomach towards my throat, blocking the airflow and breaking my voice into little fractals of desperation. My hands get very sweaty. I forget how to breathe properly, which then of course doesn’t allow me to project my voice, which then of course reinforces the fear of being heard because I know I’m not sounding good. It’s a ripple effect. One fear consolidates the next one and so on.

Whilst I was making the video I was being completely free, even when I was doing it in front of people. But there was an important factor that helped: I knew that I had as many opportunities I wanted to repeat the same shot over and over. Besides, people cannot really notice the tremble of my voice behind the camera. Additionally, I’m a trained actress, so performing behind lenses is not a problem for me. The problem comes when I expose myself to the proximity of people. When I sing live, that one time a song comes out will reflect my inner state, and there’s no going back at it to repeat it. When performing, my voice reflects my insecurities, my shyness, the fear of letting my full potential to be expelled out of me. The fear of growing my inner power and shining through my gifts.

My music is not by far ready to be shared. I did it, regardless.

I still have a long way to go to be where I want to be as a musician. Music can be a life-time learning journey. There’s lots about it that’s still a mystery and it’s there waiting for me to dive deeper. If I wait until I am a hundred percent ready, my life can pass before my eyes and my dreams would never be fulfilled. I needed to take the leap and share what I’ve got, no matter how unripe it is. That’s why at the start of 2021 I decided not to delay any longer the process of recording my music. I’ve written lots of songs in the course of the past two years and they deserve to be heard and shared. I decided not to care about being perfect anymore, because in order to build my confidence, I need to keep exposing myself along the way.

Growth can only happen when we put ourselves out there and decide to share our unique gifts with others.

Now that it’s done, I cannot help to enjoy the feeling of satisfaction that arises after you’ve manifested something you’ve visualised in your mind for so long. It’s not the sort of satisfaction that feeds the ego; the one that enjoys the attention and the recognition. It’s a satisfaction with myself for having dared to do something so scary as releasing my first song, even when it still has so many things that could be improved. It’s the satisfaction of having had the courage of exposing myself in all its splendour. The courage of sharing the emotional meaning of a song that symbolises the difficult process of letting go and rebuilding myself from the ashes of abandonment. It’s satisfactory, because if I dared to show that part of me, what’s there to fear when I sing in front of people?

How the song was born.

I’ve been sharing on my IG posts snaps of this article. It was important to acknowledge how other people were involved in the emergence of this idea and what moved me to manifest it into the physical reality. If you’ve already read this though my social media, I encourage you to keep reading as I have updated some of the information.

Last summer on my way back home, I bumped with my fellow musician Jimi Cantera (@jimi_can) at the park.

We played music for a while, and he proposed me to write a song out of some chords he was playing. I told him to send me the chords, and he prompted me to title the song “A Song to Heal the Past”. Within 5 minutes of receiving the prompt, the lyrics  fell out of me, like if the song was already written. It was magical. Unfortunately, Jimi and I didn’t continue to collaborate together so I asked him if I could use the chords that gave me the idea for the initial melody. He agreed, so I used those chords as an inspiration for what then became my own version of the song, adapted to my finger picking style, my own abilities and my voice range. I transformed those initial chords onto my own chords, which then became what A Song to Heal the Past is today.

It’s funny how the creative process can evolve into something unique when you put your whole soul into a project you deeply believe will be beautiful.

I’m really grateful that Jimi prompted me with that title because that’s what brought me to share the first single of my EP and to make a video that came out of a cathartic healing I’ve been going through since the start of this year. When I wrote the song in the summer, I never imagined that I’d be using it in the future to heal my own past. But that’s how music works. Sometimes we write things we don’t realise what we’ll be using them for, until very later on in the creative process.

The idea behind the video.

I used A Song to Heal the Past as a catalyst to heal from a very painful breakup I recently had, but at the same time, the breakup was the catalyst that helped me to release things I hadn’t heal from my past.

All of our relationships, whether romantic or friendships, mirror something that we learnt  from the people we shared our upbringing with. Romantic relationships are the first ones that trigger these patterns we’ve learnt, because they are the ones where we develop deeper closeness and intimacy. My breakup triggered the awareness of how I’ve been sustaining and repeating these patterns over and over, so I decided to let them go. They no longer serve me and making the video pushed me to come out to the other side of the tunnel, where there’s always light.

Creative expression is there to aid our healing.

I used a black balloon on the video to symbolise this baggage I’ve carried my whole life. The black balloon represents the darkness within, the wounded part that was being reflected back at me on my romantic relationships.

Choosing myself above all else required the courage of letting go of the wounded part I had sustained over the years. This wasn't the easiest part of the process. There's familiarity, there's attachment to what we've always known. There's addiction and there's the acceptance of toxic behaviours that we've always thought were acceptable because nobody taught us otherwise.

Deciding to let go of all of this required strength. The fear of being just with myself was perpetuating stagnation and was preventing me from achieving my full potential.

What I learnt from this process is that when we trust a greater force will hold us throughout our transformation, and when we trust that it is safe to cut the strings that are delaying our growth, an incredible amount of creativity starts pouring out of our being, seeking for Self-expression. When we allow creativity to express through us, we step into a higher version of ourselves that will always be focused on strengthening the creative energy.

Trusting that letting go is safe is all that is required.

Music has always been my life saviour. I share it with you to bridge the gaps of our individual pains and to tell you, you're not alone. Every ending is a new beginning and music is always there to support us along the way. We can always learn from each other.

Reach for support, reach out to people around you. Now more than ever we need to be there for one another. Your creativity is waiting to be awoken and your voice needs to be heard. We all have something important to share with others. What you have to say is valid and it may help another person to find their voice.

Having fun is the key.

Not everything have to be dramatic to make an impact in our development. The most important thing on a creative process is to have fun and enjoy what we’re doing, detaching ourselves as much as we can from the result.

I’ve always been a very goal-oriented person, and this has brought me lots of suffering. I’ve been trapped in this rat-race wheel, doing everything I can to achieve something that made me feel good about myself, when actually, everything I’ll ever need is within me.

Music has taught me this. I cannot force myself to go faster than what I can. I cannot force myself to have a finished product without fully undertaking the transformation it entails.

Ultimately, all it takes is to enjoy the process and accept where we’re at with it. Easing the pressure of ourselves allows laughter and gratification to glow through us.

If you haven’t watched my video yet, I invite you to. I hope you like it! Please share with others to spread the love.

Here’s the link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=itbCuD_CUE4

May your voice be blessed and your creative growth gleams your path and the ones around you.

Sources:

My heart opening at 4 am. No filters.