It’s been almost six months since my last blog entry. During these six months, I focused on This Time With You, Hangad’s eighth album, which we launched yesterday. In my opinion, This Time With You contains my most powerful works to date—six new full songs, one collaboration as lyricist, three collaborations as arranger—and the album itself (again, in my opinion) is also Hangad’s best to date. Without a doubt, my six month absence from this blog was worth it.
Today, I return to my blog; and to cap off my absence, my return entry is the reflection I delivered to Hangad right before yesterday’s launch concert. I hadn’t had time to write it down yesterday so I extemporized from an outline; but much of it is still so clear in my mind, that I might as well have been reading it from paper.
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Many times over the past few days, I have fantasized about dying.
For one thing, what a deliciously ironic Jonathan Larson-esque exit it would be, to go out a few hours before launching your best works yet.
More than that, in rare moments such as this when everything just fits into place so perfectly, you’re tempted to grab the opportunity for a perfect ending, rather than lingering on in this life and risking screwing it up. Stop now, while you're ahead, while family, career, love, life direction, and Hangad, with this album, all fall into place so perfectly.
But while we can easily think of this launch as the culmination of many months’ outpouring of energy, talent, effort, and time, the word “launch”, in itself, also reminds us that this is just the beginning. Besides, as Louis said in his reflection earlier this week, with this album we have chanced upon exactly the kind of project Hangad was meant to undertake—the songs and stories of ordinary people with barely any training in music or theology, who simply have an uncontainable need to share the Love they have experienced.
So, after six months of work—and 20 years of Hangad—we find ourselves at yet another beginning.
Personally, the creation of this album served as the backdrop against which much drama in my life unfolded. In the language of the album: six months of secret, sacred time.
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First, against the backdrop of this album, God revealed music’s place in my life.
At the time this album was just being planned, I was psyched to try out for Berklee College of Music, study film scoring and songwriting for two to four years, settle forever in the US, shift careers from marketer to musician, and become a Broadway hitmaker or (maybe even and) Oscar-winning film scorer.
I auditioned for Berklee in February; in March, the school told me I had made it. But Fate sent two twists. First, I was accepted into the January 2012 semester, rather than the August 2011 semester which I had applied for (and which would have meant missing the launch). Second, I didn’t get a scholarship, like I had hoped (and yes, this is the first time I'm announcing it broadly). With these circumstances, I got to see the whole album through from start to end; and also got to think harder about what I really wanted for myself.
During this time of reflection, I realized that as much as I love music, and as much as I want to learn more about it, it’s not simply the music that I love, but the purpose behind it. My joy and fulfillment do not lie in simply making music, but making music for a higher reason than myself: that is, not to earn, not to win awards, not to become famous, but to witness, to inspire, to enlighten, to share what I’ve seen.
With this, through the past six months, I’ve gone from impatience above moving to Boston; to choosing to scrap Berklee, telling myself I’m already blessed with an enviable blend of a comfortable career with P&G and enough music with Hangad; to realizing that though I may not want to be a professional musician, acceptance into Berklee is still a rare gift, and a learning and broadening experience I’ve dreamed about for a long time and which is still worth having.
Hence my plan, today—not to stay two years, but to just try it out for a semester or two; not to rush into it, but to start mid-2012 or later; not to shift careers, but simply to learn what I can; not to stay in the US for good, but to come back to the Philippines; and not to become a musician in search of fame, but to continue making the meaningful, purposeful music which fulfills me—which, incidentally, has made me the musician I am today.
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Second, against the backdrop of this album, God unfurled the story of my musicianship.
Those who have known me long enough know that one of my longest-running themes is chosen-ness. Through the years, the lines from Amy Grant’s “Breath of Heaven” have resonated tremendously with me: “I am frightened by the load I bear”; “do You wonder as You watch my face, if a wiser one should have had my place?” Why me?, I have asked year after year; Am I doing justice to this musical gift which I never even asked for in the first place?
At the same time, those who have known me long enough know that through my past 16 years with Hangad, I have always been the group’s hesitant, often apologetic, forever second-guessing, no-other-choice-naman-kasi resident songwriter. In the absence of a Fr Manoling in Hangad, I’ve felt compelled to write and arrange songs since Hangad’s first album in 1998. And while I’ve had some lucky output—mostly thanks to occasional strokes of inspiration—I’ve always found my music too cerebral, too calculated, to talkie. All I ever wanted to was to write a lyric that captured not just what was in my head, but which mirrored what was in my gut; and a melody that actually stuck; and I had pretty much given up.
With this album, though, God gave me the grace of YES. For the first time, fueled by my confidence from Biyaheng Hangad 2010 and the Berklee adventure He sent me on, I owned my musician-ship. As I said in this blog last February: “It was time for this hesitant, even apologetic musician, to put aside self-doubt and second-guessing, and to finally, finally embrace the gift and the calling that he had downplayed for much too long.”
For the first time, then, I stopped making lack of inspiration an excuse, and saw that with discipline and focus it was possible to make inspiration come instead of waiting for it to come. I forgot second-guessing, and allowed myself to become adventurous and daring. And I told myself, YES, I HAVE BEEN CHOSEN, and learned that it’s when you embrace your chosen-ness—forgetting whatever insecurities and inhibitions you might have—that your light shines brightest to those in need of your light.
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Lastly, against the backdrop of this album, I realized just what Hangad is. At the start of this reflection, I mentioned how we have finally chanced upon the music we were meant to make. But just as amazed as I am at our output, I am also in awe of how we put together.
The two times I attempted to give public “thank you” messages over this last week, I failed (to my own embarrassment) to include everyone who deserved thanks. The first time, I forgot Igo's playing; the second time, I forgot Eric’s photography. This just attests to how so many people, active and inactive members alike, poured so much of their time and energy into the project, going beyond rehearsing and recording and performing, to songwriting and arranging, to writing and design and photography, to directing and managing and coordinating, pitching in with an enthusiasm which I don’t remember so many people in the group ever pitching in before.
Many times in the past weeks, people in Hangad have congratulated me for the completion of this project. Each time, I’ve responded that this is not my project. It’s no one’s project. It’s Hangad’s project. And by that, I mean that Hangad is not any one person, or group of people, or batch of people. Rather, Hangad is the providence that has led us to cross paths with each other, and the love and craziness and selflessness that keeps us going—and in the case of some, coming back—and giving, in whatever way we can.
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With all this, I can’t help but feel that today is one of the biggest days of my life. It stands as the culmination of six months of secret, sacred time during which I learned about myself as a musician not for myself, but for a higher purpose; finally came to terms with my chosen-ness; and found myself in awe of an amazing group of people brought together by providence, and propelled by selflessness and love.
It doesn’t just go for me, but for each of us. We in Hangad each have our own stories of Hangad, our own secret, sacred times over the past six months. But without a doubt, these are gifts each of us have received: to have been called; to have been chosen; to have found each other.
Today is another beginning for us in Hangad.
