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?

A Little Fast

Raindrops tick on the window

Making this day wander off.

Clear rivers on the sidewalks

Have dragged little precious cobblestones

And we beat on

We're just like little boats against the current,

Hither and yon

We're getting soaked to the skin.

And all we feel is this ardent openness

And all we need is the consent

To do everything we can before it is too late

To do everything we want,

Just not so fast.

Because it feels a little fast

Reflections of this skyline 
bravely spur inhibitions

These clouds seem to be waiting 
for us to dive into the breeze

So we fly off,

We are like coloured moths towards the sunlight

Can we move on 
without the fire burning our scales?

Born This Way

I love my life because I'm free to be what I am, and one aspect of my whole as a human and my persona is being homosexual.

I'm lucky, because I can be this, say this, live this.

It's not always been like that. I've suffered, hidden, been ashamed. Because people made me think I was a freak, an unnatural being, a mistake, wrong.
It's been a frustrating and hurtful path but I'm able now to be proud of what I am.

And I'm lucky, because I can be this, say this, live this.

But nobody is as lucky.

So please, stop being assholes.

‪#‎IDAHOBiT‬ (17th May is the International Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia and Biphobia)

2 Years

Exactly two years ago I took a plane and moved to London, full of hope and love for my future. I imagined everything would change and I would get everything I wanted just because my residence would change. I would find myself, and a lover, and a deal with a label and millions of fan, and I would produce the best music, and be inspired in every moment, and solve all my issues, and be an adult, and reach some kind of Nirvana I would abide with for ever.
It doesn't work like that.

I'm still looking for completeness, I still haven't found love, I still don't have a deal or a one billion dollar record coming out, my music is evolving, inspiration comes and goes, I solve issues and more arise, and I haven't seen any door leading to Nirvana.

But many things have changed, and I've learnt so much. I'm discovering myself and I'm so proud of having made that choice, and my life is beautiful even though imperfect.

There's a lot to do, the path is long and arduous, but the hope and love for my future are still there. 

Just, I also love my present now. 

Celebrate, Cherish, Bless, Try, Deserve, Be Yourself, Be Happy

I've been through change and development and sadness and joy and excitement and tiredness and despair and hope and saudade and depletion and inadequacy and abundance this year.

Just like everyone else.

Walked on cobblestones and soil and grass and concrete and bridges and towers. 

Set my feet on mattresses and pedals and altars and staircases and rainwater and planes and trains.

I've been confident and I've doubted in myself.

Just like everyone else.

I've learnt new words, of which my favourite ones are aghast, bereft, dalliance, shoal, forsake, repentance, cease, dregs, poised, sleet, fickle.

I've followed new styles and discovered new parts of the world and of me with them. 

I've completed and made resolutions.

A year in which I've (re)built my foundations.

It's all set now.

A proper list of resolutions is not ready yet, but it's going to be soon.

2014 has left me listening to this, throwing myself into the new year with a continuous line. I don't feel the ridges between the borders of December and January. I'm just the same person I was yesterday. (Or am I not? Are we really the same person we were yesterday? The person who we were yesterday hadn't lived today. We have. So are we still the same person?)

There is no cliff dividing 23.59 from 00.00, so I keep following my wake, impelled by the beautiful things I knew in this segment of time that we divided in 365 days of 24 hours.

And by beautiful I mean each and every thing I have lived.

Including these songs, soundtracking my life in the last months, that I invite you to listen to if you haven't already:

These two books I've read:
Through the Language Glass,  Guy Deutscher, about the alleged different way people think depending on their language (or do they not?);
and Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close, Jonathan Safran Foer, captivating novel about a special kid investigating about his father's secret after his death, just beautiful.

These two movies I've loved:

Hoje Eu Quero Voltar Sozinho,


Kill Your Darlings

And these two poems I've loved, the latter I've just met and it's going to be my motto for this wonderful year that is here and shiny and malleable:

A Fragment, George Gordon Byron

When, to their airy hall, my father’s voice
Shall call my spirit, joyful in their choice;
When, poised upon the gale, my form shall ride,
Or, dark in mist, descend the mountains side;
Oh! may my shade behold no sculptured urns,
To mark the spot where earth to earth returns!
No lengthen’d scroll, no praise-encumber’d stone;
My epitaph shall be my name alone:
If that with honour fail to crown my clay,
Oh! may no other fame my deeds repay!
That, only that, shall single out the spot;
By that remember’d, or with that forgot.

Footnote to Howl, Allen Ginsberg

Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy!
The world is holy! The soul is holy! The skin is holy! The nose is holy! The tongue and cock and hand and asshole holy!
Everything is holy! everybody’s holy! everywhere is holy! everyday is in eternity! Everyman’s an angel!
The bum’s as holy as the seraphim! the madman is holy as you my soul are holy!
The typewriter is holy the poem is holy the voice is holy the hearers are holy the ecstasy is holy!
Holy Peter holy Allen holy Solomon holy Lucien holy Kerouac holy Huncke holy Burroughs holy Cassady holy the unknown buggered and suffering beggars holy the hideous human angels!
Holy my mother in the insane asylum! Holy the cocks of the grandfathers of Kansas!
Holy the groaning saxophone! Holy the bop apocalypse! Holy the jazzbands marijuana hipsters peace peyote pipes & drums!
Holy the solitudes of skyscrapers and pavements! Holy the cafeterias filled with the millions! Holy the mysterious rivers of tears under the streets!
Holy the lone juggernaut! Holy the vast lamb of the middleclass! Holy the crazy shepherds of rebellion! Who digs Los Angeles IS Los Angeles!
Holy New York Holy San Francisco Holy Peoria & Seattle Holy Paris Holy Tangiers Holy Moscow Holy Istanbul!
Holy time in eternity holy eternity in time holy the clocks in space holy the fourth dimension holy the fifth International holy the Angel in Moloch!
Holy the sea holy the desert holy the railroad holy the locomotive holy the visions holy the hallucinations holy the miracles holy the eyeball holy the abyss!
Holy forgiveness! mercy! charity! faith! Holy! Ours! bodies! suffering! magnanimity!
Holy the supernatural extra brilliant intelligent kindness of the soul!

This is to remember and celebrate the ashes of this 2014, a year that gave me a lot but I want more, and to cherish this bliss that time has given me, I bless the holiness that surrounds me, I'm ready to knead this year, and with it I'll be the form I really am. I'll get the best I can from it, trying to deserve it, and you try to do it too.

Happy holy new year my fellows of the world!

:)

Rain, in London

Rain is a very important song for me, it exemplify why I love making music so much.

I started writing it on a bench in my hometown, it was raining, of course, and it wasn't a good day. It continued at my piano and there I eventually had what I thought it was a final version.
Then my friend Sofia Albanese played it with me once and tried to do a few different things on it with her guitar, a new chord in the chorus and a change in the way the final part was arranged. And oh, that was exactly what I was looking for, it made the song more complete. She read my mind and put into music what I didn't even know I wanted.
Then, I was reharsing new songs here in London with the beautiful cellist Andrea Rocha Music. She had heard a recording of a very rough version of it and practiced on her own. So when we met to practice I didn't know what to expect but she started playing her cello as if she perfectly knew about all the landscapes and colours and scents this song meant for me.
It's not easy to find people that can understand and develop another person own world, but when this happen it's just magic, and I'm so lucky to have experienced this many times.

So this is a live version of Rain, recorded (on my phone :/) last Thursday at the Dublin Castle in Camden, with my little lovely band (Rui Silva, Joanna Roberts, Andrea Rocha). I was listening to it this afternoon and it just gave me the chills, realising I love it so much because of and thanks to all the people that have been part of it. I am so grateful for all this.

Now if you like it, please give me a like and share it with your friends :)
http://youtu.be/jgdKYl-9Y1U

And maybe buy my EP on iTunes or Bandcamp?
https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/tidal-mental-head/id886371666
http://valeriolysander.bandcamp.com/album/tidal-mental-head 

Hugs for everyone :)