MUSE OVER YAYRAVEN #1

YAYRAVEN

Hello, I’m YayRaven. That’s my Artist's name. To come up with that name I went a day or two, for a few hours each time, putting in names I thought of into Google and searching to see if the name was in use. I had to abandon quite a few name ideas until I hit on YayRaven. How did I even think of a name like YayRaven?

‘Yay’ is what we say when we’re happy about something or ‘Yay’ is the opposite of ‘Nay,’ the old and out-dated British way of saying yes and no. So, I was thinking, ‘Yay’ conveys excitement and positivity and Raven, well that’s an intelligent blackbird. Here in the United Kingdom, if you hear a guy talking to his mate using the word “bird” more than likely he is talking about a woman. Anyway, I was happy and relieved that YayRaven was available and I registered it successfully at bandname.com for a very reasonable price. By the way, registering your name at bandname.com is not the same protection as having a Trademark but the bandname registration is recognised worldwide, so they say.

I’m a songwriter. I wrote my first song at the age of 8 and sang it as a duet in church several times with my cousin. No one told me to go and write the song. One day, I just got a notebook and a pen and wrote the song completely out of the blue. How can I explain it? I just happened without any premeditation. I wrote it in the bathroom of all places, but, that day the bathroom was my quiet place away from the other children living in the two-story house. I wrote three verses and the chorus, plus a lovely melody in a short space of time. ‘Come Unto Me,’ was my very first song and now I can only remember the chorus which I think is fascinating. I guess it’s similar to never forgetting seeing the big red sun setting on the horizon. Yes, I will never forget that amazing event as my mother stopped along the road and we gazed for a while. I was 4 years old and I already had a love for nature. At even an earlier age I remember the headless chicken running around in the yard after my father chopped its head off. I hated it. I thought it was cruel and a very bad thing to do. I remember later seeing my paternal grandmother plucking the poor chicken’s feathers. I don’t remember eating it.

But, back to the writing of my first song, sometimes I think that was the day I received a gift. But, no one else, even my mother seemed to think of it as anything special. I wasn’t encouraged to write any more songs and I didn’t…at least not again in my childhood. Instead, I was busy being a mostly well-behaved A student, loving to learn and always doing my homework. I amused myself with books. I loved to read fairytales. I read the children’s encyclopaedia (over and over) and I enjoyed using my big imagination.

MUSIC

There was a piano in the house. My granny used to play it some Friday evenings. I sat down at the piano, also around the time I wrote my first song, and composed a short piano piece. The melody sounded a bit sad and I didn’t find it difficult to play. I loved my first piano composition so much so, that one day I told my aunt I would play her a song I “made up” on the piano. As I was playing it, my aunt accused me of being a liar as she didn’t believe me. I never played that song again to anyone, not even my mother. Incredibly, I still do have that piano composition in my head and I still know how to play it. Maybe, I should consider writing a song using the melody of what I composed that day on that piano. Of course, I wanted to learn how to play the piano and asked my mom to send me to piano lessons and I took a few. Really, it was only a few. I never learned how to really play the piano and embarrassed myself one day when I foolishly tried to play in front of an audience with a classmate on another instrument, a Steel Pan Drum

FOREVER

So, these experiences from my younger years, the song and the piano composition, though they were short-lived, they never left me. The next time I wrote a song was after I attended a Shaggy concert. I was 18 years old. A friend of mine got free tickets if I remember correctly. It was literally my first concert other than church concerts. I enjoyed listening to gospel choirs and quartets with their intricate harmonies but this was a whole different experience. Afterward, I felt a strong urge to write a song. I actually wrote a song for Shaggy because he was so amazing. I also dabbled in music production and I’m not that bad at it. I even have a keyboard and another piece of equipment sitting by my PC waiting for me to start doing my masterful productions. To be honest, they’ve been here collecting dust. What a shame on me!

So, it took me a whole 10 years to write another song and since then I haven’t stopped. Writing songs is what I do but I had no and still get no encouragement from my mother. I won’t stop. Songwriting brings me pleasure and improves my mood and brings a sense of accomplishment and satisfies my creativity and, and…..I’m sure I can add to that list but to top it off, I get great enjoyment when the process, from start to finish, is final and then ready for release.

In conclusion, the good thing is, songs still come to me out of the blue, just like that very first time. I’m YayRaven sharing one of my songs, ‘I Won’t Go Away’ featuring Mhyst. This album has the remixes to the original song that was released on 10th April 2020. You can find it on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/track/2ATdvV9PIXA5qMMnNPTlT4 and many other online stores or hear it first at my Bandcamp website, http://www.yayraven.co.uk/ where you can also stream it before purchase. Also, I would be happy if you would visit and like my page on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/yayravenuk-109784224032672/?ref=bookmarks.