well as october comes to an end, I have reached a creative boiling point where I need to branch out and try other musical avenues.  the irony is that i am embarking on a path that is both new and old - old in the sense that I am familiar with Beatles music more than any other, and new in that it will still be a new approach with new horizons and new collaboration.

I needed this departure because of my struggle to complete what I think is my best composition - an R&B song, in fact.  it's been in existence for about 3 years, and remains a cursed song because it keeps on getting delayed and delayed and delayed.  one day, God will see it through, but now wasn't the time.

I'm not sure if fame/fortune in music is the watermark for a successful career.  But what I do feel is important is musical relevance.  I have achieved that numerous times in my life, but every few years I enter a trough from which it is hard to emerge.  I suppose i'm in such a trough right now.

The big question that I always seem to have to answer every few years:  how do i get to the point from having to beg people to listen to my music, to making people beg me to make more music?  It's not as simple as "just make good music."  the hardest people to impress in this artform, are friends.  Usually it takes an outsider to make the dream a reality.

For instance, one of my songs that a few of you know called "if i can move the mountains" was criticized for being melodramatic and long, after I first wrote it.  I didn't change a note nor lyric of the song when I entered it in a songwriting contest.  that song, when heard in the spotlight, won the songwriting competition over some very good competitors.  yet another song I produced actually hit the radiowaves back in 2002.

so that's where it is - it's all about God's perfect timing, mostly.  but I do want my music to be relevant and vital, and worth listening to.  that's a dream many musicians have, but few find a way to achieve.  but i have two things:  talent and motivation - let me use both in harmony with each other to find the path to musical relevance.  it can happen , it will happen.

--David Wu