Illuminate

Some people are sad,
Some people are angry,
Some others are joyful,
Some others are positively hopeful.

All we can do, in a world that's divided,
Is being kind to everybody.
Being kind to our neighbour,
Being kind to our enemy.

And if you really think love is the answer
Start practicing it now.
Stop dividing yourself from your environment,
Stop dividing your feelings for the humans around you.

Today, and every day from today on,
Be kind to everybody,
Be kind to anybody.
Behave,
Practice unconditional love,
For any of the candidates,
For any of your parents,
For any of your brothers,
For any of your friends and lovers,
For any of the passers-by that give you a smile,
For any of the passers-by that don't give you a smile,
For any of the cashiers at the supermarket,
For any driver that gives you the middle finger,
For anyone in a rush that jumps the queue,
For anyone.

Because if you don't like hate,
Then why do you hate?
Hate puts you in a stall,
It creates walls,
And it grows bigger and bigger around you and bigger and wider and bigger and wider and bigger and wider inside you and bigger and wider around you.

But if you're angry, anger makes you react.
And if love propels your anger,
Love will become bigger and bigger around you and bigger and wider and bigger and wider and bigger and wider inside you and bigger and brighter around you.

So today, don't hate, and never again from today.
Just love,
And believe that anybody can make the right choice.
Anybody has a light inside.
Your job is to look for that light and make it brighter with your own light.

Illuminate.

Ryan, A Song I Wrote About Justin, Whose Name Didn't Rhyme

My new single is finally out!

Watch the video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c_bO_65GShI

You can buy it on iTunes following this link:https://itunes.apple.com/gb/album/ryan-single/id1154418499

Or get a free download supporting me on Tradiio with as little as $1:https://tradiio.com/valerio-lysander

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I am so grateful to everybody who has made this possible and the people who are supporting me in this path <3 This is the first single of my new album and it's taken a lot of efforts and love from myself and the people around me.

For the track:
Huge thanks and shining gratitude go to: Gregorio Lucchese on drums,Ronald Maas on bass, Joanna Roberts on trumpet, and Leo Polchar on cello. This wouldn't have been possible without you guys <3
Mr Jonathan McMillan at Smokehouse Studios, an amazing sound engineer and human being who's given me precious advice that I treasure fondly.

For the video:
Massive doses of love and gratitude to: Go out of Tune for shooting, editing, creating, brainstorming, for devoting a lot of time to this project and putting up with my paranoid self, Max Bandicoot for making crêpes,Felice Zhukov for the beautiful colours of her studio and blowing bubbles at my face, Joanna Roberts again on trumpet, Fabiano blowing balloons, Clara, patiently waiting for a bus, Eddie Fahrenheit impatiently waiting for a bus, Brunella and Veronica juggling in the park, Carlos Pascual Martin, Airali, Bleed These Colours, ESTHER TURNER andJasmine Beth invading a guitarless song with their guitars. I am SO HONOURED to have your beautiful faces in my first video <3

Now people, it's your turn to be part of this and SHARE LIKE THERE'S NO TOMORROW!

Lots of love and hugs and peace <3

Ryan!

My new single "Ryan" will be released on 16th September 2016 on all major online music stores!!!

You can download it before the release date, subscribing to my Tradiio Circle for as little as $2: https://tradiio.com/valerio-lysander/posts/ryan

Is There Such A Thing As A Safe Place?

My mother has sent me a video showing my fathers house. Huge cracks on the walls, pieces of plaster cover tables, beds, floors, walls are cut open. I can't imagine how scary that has been for them who were sleeping peacefully, woken up by the noise of their home falling on their heads. My brother with his newborn son, I can't imagine the fear.

She's telling me of all the places I used to go when I was a child, that are no longer. Buildings without roofs and walls, towns without buildings and people. I hurt inside, thinking of all my memories, I have been there, and I will never be able to see the same landscape. I hurt, thinking about the fear all those people have, the earth still shaking under their feet, aftershocks still striking. My father can't sleep at night, with my mum and other 40 odd people, lying at night in the hall of a restaurant that has offered the space for the people without a home.

My mum's house is completely intact, but it's still not safe to use it. We are grateful for that. The home of many a summer holiday for the younger me.

My family has been lucky, they were far enough from the epicentre, their home was solid enough not to collapse over their heads. Many people haven't been as lucky, I grieve for them and I pray that when they'll have another chance they won't be angry for the way they had to quit this game. I hope they will come back, or go somewhere else, with the understanding that life is nothing but a warm flame that a simple gust of wind can extinguish and that we have, as humans, we have to cherish the warmth until we have it.

In the big city I live in, sometime fear takes over. Money, politics, violence, dreams and goals. There is many a thing about which we can worry.

Sometimes I fancy of a time in which I will go back to my grandfather's house in the mountains, the one my mum lives now, away from all the problems I see in the world around me. I would live a peaceful life among the trees and the foxes.

But then one day an earthquake comes and the trees fall.

Is there such a thing as a safe place?

No matter where you are the choice is yours.

You can worry about the end.
You can long to the safe immutable past.
Or you can live the present fully, finding the happiness that latently lies inside you in every single moment.

Is there such a thing as a safe place?

Yes, look inside.

My Inner Circle

In the last few months, I've been asking myself how I could make music my job. I've studied for years, I have stayed at home on Saturday nights practicing and writing songs, while my friends would go out and enjoy themselves, I've put music in front of everything else. I've played in my room for years, slowly coming out of it and performing in front of more and more people.

Then, three years ago, I decided the time had come to do something big. To finally walk towards my dream and put it into effect. I took my guitar (easier to carry than a piano!), got on a plane and moved to London, where I found a job that allowed me to buy a piano, record my first EP and promote myself. But with a full time job, there is little time left for music, and it's hard to work, practice, write, perform, record, and have a life at the same time.

And then Tradiio one day sends me an email and tells me that maybe there is some hope, called the Circle.

Tradiio is helping artists to receive what they deserve.

Only because you can download your music for free or listen to it on Spotify (which gives me and all the other artists breadcrumbs!), it doesn't mean that making music is free.

People study to make fridges, then they start making fridges, then they sell them. Because a fridge is a material, touchable item, and people understand it takes time and money to make it.

People study to make music, then they start making music. Then... they need to find another job to survive. Because music is not touchable, maybe people don't understand the whole long process that lies behind it.

And they probably will stop making music at some point, because everybody has a limited stamina!

Would you download a fridge for free if you could? If you did, and everybody else did too, nobody would make fridges any longer, and you couldn't keep your beer cold. No more cool beers for anybody, folks!

Same applies to music. If you don't support an artist you like, they might stop making music at some point, and all you're going to listen to will be the umpteenth Nicky-Minaj-feat-somebody-else's song (which we might all like, but is that really the only thing you want to listen to?).

So why do you only listen to music for free?

Now it's the time to help and support the artists you like, now it's the time to give music a chance.

Because it makes you happy. Because music gives you a lot. And you should give music what it deserves. Give it the value it has.

So this Tradiio Inner Circle I was talking about allows you to become a part of my team and support my music. With a monthly subscription of the amount that you choose you will be part of my Circle (you can select how much you want to support me with each month. This could be £1, €2, $5 or more. £5 is £1.25 per week. That’s one coffee per week!) and in return you get access to my music, videos and other contents before they are released to everyone else or other rewards.

If you have liked my music and you still do, why don't you give up one coffee per month and support me with $1 per month? That wouldn't make a big difference for you, but it would make it for me, and I will be able to produce more of the music you like.

And the cool thing about this Tradiio Circle is that once you start supporting me, you will be able to be part of this circle and directly interact with me, giving me advice, suggestions, requests. It will be a big family, and my music will be more beautiful also thanks to you. You will be part of it.

I hope to see you lovely people in the Circle!

https://tradiio.com/valerio-lysander/circle

Rethink Music

I have paid my ‪#‎Spotify‬ subscription for years but I canceled it today. 

Because:

1) The money artists receive from Spotify is shit.

2) Experiencing music on Spotify or on your iPod/CD player is much different.
This is what has been happening to me:
-in an ocean of music to choose from, rather than enjoying the moment and the song I am listening to, I've started thinking about what I am missing out and it's really easy to get bored and quickly go from one song to another before the first one is finished.
-if I don't particularly like a song in an album the first time I listen to it I tend to very easily skip it. Before, the songs I wouldn't like the first time I listened to them often became my favourite ones in the album, after a proper listen. Acquired taste, they call it. And now we just eat fast food.
-when I only had my CD library to choose from, I never went blank when I had to choose what to listen. Now it takes me a couple of minutes to choose.

3) The stream quality of the music can't be always good (when you're not on wifi or if you have a bad connection). That takes A LOT from the songs, even if you don't realise. Why do artists pay shitloads of money to get good studios and instruments, and mixing and all that shit, if at the end of the game you're going to listen to 96 kbps mp3 because you don't want to go over the data allowance of your phone?

4) The fact that we give for granted that that music is just there and we can have it whenever we want and as much as we want is harmful for both the listeners and the makers.
For the listeners because music becomes obvious and is given for granted. As a result, we don't feel as much as we did before, when it was a choice: we chose to listen, we chose what to listen, and it wasn't an easy choice, because we didn't have all the money in the world to buy all the albums in the world. That way, when we could buy one, we would treasure it, the whole experience of going to the shop, opening the case, reading the booklet, listening to the songs for the first time, just us. Me and the music. It was a magic moment, that rarely happens now.
It is harmful for the makers too, because they are not given the proper rewards and recognitions. But I'm going to leave this here, because I'm a maker and I don't want to make a biased speech.

Call me nostalgic, but I miss all that, and with that £10 I was giving to Spotify I'd rather buy even only one record per month. That will give me less choice, but a better quality. I won't rely on a system that doesn't recognise the massive emotional, intellectual and magical power music has.
I think we need to rethink all this and rediscover what music truly means, to give it the importance it deserves in our lives and in society.

Now, what do YOU think?