Photo by: @yura.melnikov
Reading time: 5 mins
This post intends to share with you while integrating my latest music experiences during my stay in Fethiye, Muğla, Turkey, and acting on writing my first personal blog post.
I like Fethiye more and more. Fethiye is a port city and district on Turkey's southwestern Turquoise Coast. It's known for its natural harbor, blue waters, and numerous rock tombs, including the 4th-century B.C. Tomb of Amyntas, carved into a bluff overlooking the city. Near-shore islands are famous for day trips by boat. The beach at Ölüdeniz is sheltered by a lagoon in the south, and Butterfly Valley is a designated nature reserve.
I performed my first acoustic concert last night in Turkey at GoGo, the venue where Ira Zabuga brought me as soon as we connected on my first days at Fethiye. After introducing me, she proposed to the admins, co-creating an ecstatic dance. They showed interest in her proposal. I remember Ira's word "I was waiting for you" on my arrival. I didn't understand this deeply until I saw her printed images for manifestation purposes.
I realized that the land of this place was not the right place for bringing you and connecting to mother earth during an ecstatic dance. This venue's beautiful outdoor areas were plenty of gravel, not suitable for your feet, right? I proposed doing a concert instead of ecstatic dance, so we shared that magic that was happening every time we met in the last days to sing together.
I'm letting go all the time. Letting go the perfectionism due to my overdeveloped ear, which I trained so much during my life. This is only one aspect of what I'm letting go of every day.
I invited her to perform with me at Beyond Festival, created at Babakamp, a beautiful echo ranch and retreat center in Fethiye. I played an ecstatic dance on the main stage at sunset time. What an epic performance. We combined my actual playlist with singing some songs we love. It was delightful to listen to the virtuous flute improvisations from Ege Kabalak to my left side. I met Ege in Antalya at Kozmic Festival, where I was not in the program, and my way of being opened the doors for a fantastic shamanic dance ritual around the fire. Beyond festival is one of these invitations I received after this performance.
We were exhausted on the day of our first acoustic concert because of coming back from Babacamp fest. We met so many beautiful souls who welcome our music and beings with small details that I take to my heart forever.
My mind and Ira's were on the idea of having the last rehearsal. Rehearsals have been so important because I consider rehearsals a space for creating a more significant impact on the audience by fine-tuning the performance. This could be, implementing harmonies when singing together, changing chords, determining structure, ideas for intros and outros, the general approach of each song, etc. I was so tired that I decided to listen to my body and rest. When I woke up, it was raining, and I was not rested; I needed to sleep at least four hours more. Ira was ready for a rehearsal.
I was hungry. So I told Ira to eat something before rehearsal, so I gained some energy from the food. She had already eaten. "You eat, I wait for you, and we do this rehearsal." She had prepared a delicious salad for sharing with me. After finishing washing my dishes came back to her and told her, "You know, when we had that rehearsal at Babakamp last night, I had something clear. We don't need to do another exhaustive rehearsal, so let's just revise tonalities and sections that need some attention". She agreed. It was raining. Doubt came into playing. We started doubting people's assistance because of the rain. I agree that the same came to my mind, but I was ready to show up and flow; we perform if there would be people. If there were no people, we wouldn't act.
Add this to the equation: I left my guitar in Mexico, so we had rehearsals with her traveler guitar, the one getting out of tune so frequently due to lack of quality on construction and my passionate way of playing. So I asked Ege if he knew someone who could lend me an excellent guitar to perform in a couple of hours. He told me he got a friend who was 80% confirmed to come and bring a guitar for me. That expression in percentage was triggering for my old control programing, so I just responded with a "Thank you, brother, for all your efforts." Performing an acoustic concert without a guitar, it's a chosen flow for challenging myself to surrender. I knew that everything would unfold perfectly.
They came to Gogo, the venue, with a Fender guitar and cable, and his friend offered me even a pick. I was so grateful and out of control. The advice I can give you it's this: travel with your own instruments, even if it is an extra effort to carry all of them from country to country. It's really frustrating to play an instrument that is getting out of tune on every song. I will start playing bowls, lol.
We are becoming a band. After playing and singing together, that was the perception of us realizing the easy flow and connection between us, with no rehearsals with additional musicians. When I talk about other musicians, I'm talking about a significant let go of control that I cannot still conquer. Ege is a fantastic musician; I admire him. His virtuous way of playing comes from thousands of hours of practicing mastering his instrument, as an outstanding musician should do. From the first time we jammed together in Antalya, I told him I would keep inviting him to play together.
The concert was a success. I define a successful performance as a natural and powerful momentum to connect with myself where people get involved. In the powerful energy you are emitting and flowing to the point of accessing higher energy realms. You beat the beatable sound source not coming from harmony with the universe.
The perfect rehearsal is an actual performance where you can grow your energy with someone who has experienced this connection before. This is where we can let go of control. Only there. It's essential to choose your allies to manifest the energy you want to gift to your audience.
I've been practicing letting go by composing, writing, and producing in places where my old self would consider uncomfortable. This has been my self-challenge game of the universe.
What are you letting go of? Leave it in the comments below or share it with me in a private message. I don't mean who are you letting go. Lower vibrational people relate letting go to romantic relationships when letting go is a personal practice not related only to an attachment to another human. What did you let go of? Sit with that. Maybe it's not there anymore, just because of believing that you are another self. Just saying.