After I return to LA, I’ll be participating in a very special “pop-up concert” as part of LA’s own version of the Play Me, I’m Yours installation. The one I’m participating in is called “Love Letters to LA: Pianos Live” and we’ll be playing at the piano outside the famed Egyptian Theater in Hollywood. It’s going to be so much fun, and I hope you all will come down and sing along!

My mom tells me I was obsessed with Michael Jackson when I was about 3 (I would walk around the house pretending to be him, wearing one white sock on my hand). But I was so young, I don’t really remember. Whitney, I remember. Listening to her sing was learning what a voice could, and should, sound like. At the age of 5 or 6 I loved all her songs, ate up all her videos. I’d look at the way she moved and sang and then dance around my room singing “How Will I Know.”

And she really was everyone’s darling at that time. At my kindergarten graduation, we sang “The Greatest Love of All.” I thought that my music teacher was pretty awesome for having picked that song. I was very shy and a few years away from my first solo, but I have vivid memories of just belting that song out in the choir room under protective cover of the other voices (it must have been hilarious: a 5-year-old deciding long ago never to walk in anyone’s shadow. Inspired by Whitney, I felt it fervently – I might not have gotten the concept, but I could hear her conviction).

In first grade, I participated in the “Book-It” program. I’d get stickers for each book I read until it filled up this button, then I’d take that button to Pizza Hut and get a free “personal pan pizza.” I don’t think my mom had to buy me a pizza until that program ended some years later, because I loved pizza AND books with equal passion. But what I loved the most about those outings was that the Pizza Hut was the only place I ever went that had a jukebox, and that meant that I could get some change from my mom and play Whitney Houston songs. To this day when I hear the first notes of “I Wanna Dance With Somebody” I feel the exact same 6-year-old joy that I felt when I heard them come through that jukebox. My song.

My heart just aches for Whitney and her family. And I really don’t care how good or bad she sounded when she sang the night before she died (not gonna watch that video) or for however many years before that. I don’t think anyone’s come close to Whitney at her best. Certainly not in my heart. Good-bye, Whitney – I can never thank you enough.

Recently, every time I’ve sat down with my guitar I start writing. Which is great, it’s not getting me any closer to having my live set together. Today I had to kick my butt into gear, so I rented a rehearsal space for a couple hours at nearby Exposition Studios (which I recommend – nice guys over there!).

I’m getting ready for a crazy springtime combination of NACA conferences, college shows, and then shows at clubs and churches and coffeehouses. Not to say that my shows in the past have been thrown together, but before I started using a looper pedal it was a bit simpler to put together a set. It’s, you know, don’t do three ballads in a row (or even two, really). Don’t play a bunch of songs in the same key or with the exact same rhythmic feel.

Now that I have the looper as a resource, there are more and somehow fewer possibilities. On the one hand, I can do an a cappella song with a whole bunch of harmonies (yay, working on this) but I also need to vary the way I create the background for each song so it doesn’t get monotonous. I might want to vary looper and non-looper songs, so the order has to be really set in advance. Some shows I need to do lots of covers, some none. Suffice it to say I’m putting a lot of thought into each iteration of my set, but that feels good. I have a ways to go, but I really feel like I will not just be playing songs now, I’ll be putting on a show!

On the way home, I got some additional, unexpected inspiration from boxer Tyriesha Douglas. Her story is intense, and I teared up when she talked so earnestly about how she wants to show everyone that you really can overcome anything. Whatever I feel I have to overcome, I can’t imagine the hardships she’s endured.

I LOVED it when she said, “People tell me, don’t wear that t-shirt, you look too strong…it’s against the rules to have as many muscles as I have.”

Show your muscles. Don’t fit whatever mold you’re told you should. And be a monster for what you want, in any ring you may find yourself fighting.

The looper allows me to create vocal lines, record them, and harmonize with them on the spot. This particular song – a baby song, I suppose, in its infancy – didn’t begin with a heavy vocal focus, but Mike really liked the harmonies I created and suggested I bring them forward a bit more. He offered up a couple different examples of vocal layering, including Elliott Smith’s “I Didn’t Understand.” Even though I don’t want to make this song a cappella, that was a really helpful point of inspiration, and after listening and thinking a bit, I started messing around with some vocal layering in GarageBand. From here I’ll keep working on more of a demo, getting a good skeleton of the song together until possibly doing a studio recording of it.

Today was spent more on personal things (read: doctor’s office visits) and other “extracurricular” activity. I went to see my dear friend Craig Ramsay speak about his book, The Anatomy of Muscle Building, at the Authors@Google series in Venice. And I’m shortly on my way to a volunteer/staff party for 826LA, an organization that I’m part of as a volunteer tutor. I usually try to take weekends off, at least when I’m not traveling or playing shows, but I’m on my own at home for a good chunk of tomorrow, so I’m hoping to make it a productive writing and/or demoing day. More to come then!

I’m going to keep writing and recording (I’m getting to be ok at this whole GarageBand thing, finally!) all month and see where it goes, and I’ll try to post some snippets on the way. But I know that what I WILL do for sure is blog every day about this month’s musical journey. I’m inspired by my friend David Garcia (whom I’m going to see speak at Whole Foods tonight, check it out!). He blogs every day about his ongoing weight loss and fitness journey. It keeps him accountable to his readers, of which there are now many. And in turn they’ve come to count on him for advice and inspiration. (Including me – East Paris wrote this song about him!)

I wouldn’t presume to give anyone advice, really, but my motivation is similar to what David’s was when he started his blog – I want to be kept accountable. I’m very lucky to be able to do music full-time now, but for an indie artist there’s always so much to do that it’s hard to even know where to start some days. I’m also dealing with some health issues that can be discouraging, but I think that if I share my story – no matter how many or few people are reading it! – I will be less likely to shirk practice because I’m tired, or get frustrated with the progress of some new song or another.

Day 1 of February has passed, so for a quick recap: yesterday I worked with my friend Kim DiVine on a new cover, and we’ll be polishing it up and then making a video for it next week. Of all the songwriters I’ve been lucky enough to meet, Kim is truly among the sweetest. We just bonded right away (we already have a funny habit of saying the same thing sometimes), so of course we had a great time singing and playing (is there anything better than harmonizing? It just feels great). In my typical clumsy style, I started the practice by sliding right out of the rolling chair she’d given me, onto her floor. I was holding Kim’s acoustic guitar so my instinct was to fall backwards – SAVE THE GUITAR! I bounced back, sore butt and all, to have a great session. I will, of course, share the video with you next week!

P.S. In the meantime, check out Kim’s new EP – it sounds incredible!

In the meantime, in case you’re looking to round out your Christmas playlist, please check out my song “This Christmas,” released in 2010. It’s dedicated to the memory of my friend Brian Grimm, and since it’s about the importance of love, and of trying to be a better person with each passing year, I think it will always be applicable. I truly hope that during this holiday season, you have loved ones around you, and that you are warm and happy – whether it’s among the palm trees like me and my family in Florida or huddled by a fire up in Michigan or other points north. And then onward to 2012!