The Story of The Eye and the Hand or: How to turn your weakness into a strength

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After almost 20 years of struggling with being unable to sing, finding fellow musicians and getting any music published, I suddenly knocked out a finished song, complete with vocals and all. I enjoyed it so much that I made an entire album and released it as a CD. It was just  a matter of hours. How did that happen?

The Highs and Lows of the solo musician

Many musicians know the tragedy of being highly motivated but never finding fellow musicians who share your vision and passion for music. Many of us end up quitting the endless search for the right band and confine ourselves to the home studio to work on “projects”. Since we can’t play all the necessary instruments, we start playing around with plugins and programmed drums. But in the end, what is often missing is a singer. Again, many of us have such a particular vision of the end result that we just can’t accomplish it all by ourselves. And then we may quit making music altogether. How can we avoid that?

That was me as well. I had my ups and downs with music but never gave up completely. In January 2013 I experienced another High and wrote the wonderful Vivid Colours, an instrumental track. I loved it so much that my motivation to continue playing skyrocketed. More, for me, meant something with vocals, though.

How to sing when you can’t sing?

This time I started looking for a vocal coach. Why not learn myself what I had been missing for so long? It did no longer matter to me whether my voice was suited to be among the best singers. I just wanted to be as good as I could be. Looking for a vocal coach is hard, though. It quickly turned out that this would take some time (I did not know, then, that it would take a year and seven coaches to find the right one to even start).

Now should I just give up for the moment and wait? No.

Singing without singing

At that time I rediscovered Six Feet Under’s “Feasting on the Blood of the Insane”. A Death Metal track that somehow struck a chord with me, even though I usually don’t like that genre. Not only did this track inspire a riff that I used for The Eye and the Hand, it also convinced me that some grunting (instead of actual singing) might be fun. I could do that. And I did. And it was fun. Lots. So much so that writing and recording the song took just a few hours. All my energy and inspiration was unleashed.

Yet again I enjoyed the result so much that I continuted writing, playing and singing the whole year, culminating in my first released album “Blood and Souls”. Never ever before had I imagined I would write, play or record this kind of music. On top of that it is also unique in terms of style. Listening to it you will rarely be able to guess by whom I have been influenced. This album is highly concentrated passion. It changed my life and set all sorts of things in motion.

Turn your weakness into a strength

Instead of bemoaning my inability to sing, I conquered this obstacle by not singing.

Instead of singing I grunted.

I finished songs, kept my motivation up, finished my first album (which I am not afraid to say still keeps blowing my mind) lived my dream.

Thus ends the story of The Eye and the Hand.

And thus began the story of me learning how to sing properly, how to sing in public and how to achieve my music-related dreams.


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