Songs of Love

June 29, 2008

Welcome, new visitor! My name is Ari, the man behind Aries9. Here I share my thoughts on music and life, so you can get to know me and my music. Thanks for visiting!

There is a charity organization called Songs of Love.

It’s an organization who enlists songwriters, and invite children struggling with major illnesses to commission a song. Written personally and specifically for them.

For free.

I thought it was a stroke of genius of its founder, John Beltzer. He realized that songs can make a great impact in people’s lives. Particularly, kids are open to it, letting it affect them and uplifting them.

A couple of years back, I was one of their songwriters. I would get a song request sheet from them, and from that point on, I would have 3 weeks to write a completely original song from scratch and record it in a professional manner (not just strumming acoustic guitar and singing into a single mic!).

I loved it.

I loved the challenge of creating something within a limited time. I loved the challenge of writing songs for specific person/kid. They would often request the type of music they wanted — some loved Disney songs, others wanted upbeat stuff.

I’m a firm believer that limitation, not limitless options, inspires creativity.

Now, these kids all have major illnesses. My heart would go out to every one of them, and to their families. This feeling was also instrumental in giving me the drive and motivation to write good songs for them.

I think I spent between 10-12 hours on each song, from writing to mixing. Recently, I dug the songs out and listened to them again.

Because of the time limit imposed (and I was doing that on top of a full-time job and a baby in the house), many of the recordings contain little details that I wished we had time to fix or redo. But they were all execution problems. In most of the instances, I thought the songs were top notch. My songwriting didn’t suffer at all. I wouldn’t be ashamed to release any of them. And this is from a person who’s never written a children’s song before. I discovered a new side of me.

I wish I could share these songs with you, but actually, those songs were written specifically for those kids, and nobody else. I gave the songs to the kids and to Songs of Love, so I no longer have ownership.

It’s worth it, though, because sometimes, we get to hear back from the kids and the families who received the song. It always brings a smile on my face, and fills me up inside. I’m so fortunate to be able to do this. One family sent me a video of their kids jumping up and down to my blues rock song. I think the young boy had leukemia.

Truly priceless. I think I cried watching it.

Anyway, this experience was responsible for leading me to the whole song blog business idea that I shared in the last post. I know I can consistently produce good songs, some of them great. And I enjoy doing it, too.

I hope to write for Songs of Love again, but also am toying around my own spin on their system and offering opportunities from my fans to commission songs or pitch song ideas.

I am indebted to Songs of Love. For helping me discover this way of working, for giving me opportunities to use my gifts for service of others, and inspiring other ideas based on their vision.

If you are a music lover and looking for worthy charities to contribute to, I would recommend you check out Songs of Love.

Because a gift of music can make a big difference.

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