“ALTERNATIVES TO SOLITUDE”

april 2025

Lovelies,

My summer of 2024 was creatively charmed. I had so much to do -- songs to write, albums to produce, most notably an app to complete. And I was doing it! I walked blossoming streets and felt my ideas crystallize. I approached my piano and notes delighted to meet me.

A true thing: I whispered to myself daily, "This is the summer of my life."

Then July 30th I woke to my apartment on fire.

Some questions I asked: "Where will I sleep tonight?" "What will I wear tomorrow?" "Can I afford the Bay Area without my rent controlled apartment?" But also, my idee fixe inverted: "Is this (still) the summer of my life?" 

Around 11:30am, walking a long block from the still-working firefighters, I took a breath and CHOSE that it was. I'm proud of myself for this. And for how, with each next step I took, I made it so. 

But.

A few weeks later leading a rehearsal I felt like I was on the wrong side of a pane of glass. I heard the music from a distance. I saw my friends smiling, laughing, strumming instruments from a distance.

And whenever I sat to write, my words were so muted they were inaudible. 

What is LOVELY, and what I want to share today, is that it's PEOPLE who have broken the glass. Historically I've accessed creativity in solitude: Door closed. Door LOCKED! But now it's an artist asking for help that reminds me I feel song structure in my toes and fingertips. Now it's a production company asking to produce my song that reminds me to source content from the awkward truths of my experience. Now it's a Grieg melody that's my breadcrumbs home.

This week, between Muzi and music, I had meetings with France, the UK, Ukraine, and the Netherlands. It's a chaos of accents. I don't understand what's being said in so many different ways!

I still think solitude is a precondition to creativity. But now I understand there are seasons solitude is occupied, and it must be people who rush in to take its place. 

All love,

Rachel

DOWNLOAD MUZI!

(But do make sure to download on your PHONE! She's a mobile app y'all!)

“RACHEL CHRONICLES”

march 2025

Lovelies,

A few years ago I didn't think much about these Newsletters. If anything, I dreaded them a little: the muscled extroversion, the embarrassed self-promotion. I sent them as rarely as possible -- whenever there was a project it would be irresponsible not to mention.

Then one day I did something different: I opened my computer and wrote something true. Not, like, the Whole Truth or anything as audacious as that. Just whatever garbled bite of human truth I'd experienced of late.

Who knew that was an option!

Since then I've done nothing else.

I've told you about my high school mentor and his obsession with bridges. I've told you about the rocker boots that carried me to the scariest stage. I've told you about my varied relationship with ambition, my wrestling relationship with my body. I've told you about my preference for the fantasticand my diagnosable obsession with the creative.

You've seen me through career growth, identity formation, identify reconsideration, fire survival, and some high-key spiritual reckoning.

And sure, I share my PROJECTS, but always below the fold. Because who can be bothered when I'm up here TELLING THE TRUTH!

I think you've had more fun, too. Because now you write me back with your truths. And oh I love them!

Well I decided these Newsletters are cute enough to warrant collection. You can now read every last (worthy) one whenever you'd like!

It is my great joy to write to you.

Rachel

“A DIFFERENT RELEASE”

february 2025

Lovelies,

At long, app-store-review-process last, MUZI IS LIVE!

For those who missed last month's newsletter, the gist: I spent the last two years making Muzi, an app that helps you access greater creativity. 

There are ways this release feels familiar:

I feel the squirmy transition from creative cocoon to public airing.

I feel the delight of imagining people's reactions; I feel the dread of imagining people's reactions.

I feel immortal potential reduced to a single mortal question: What the heck did I make?!

But this release also feels WHOLLY DIFFERENT.

Never have I released something so devoted to service. Whether or not this app helps anybody (I hope it does!), I chose every word, every function, every image with the winds of service beneath my wings.

Never have I released something that required so much of me. I don't mean effort. You know I leave it on the field every time I create. I do mean this app required me to use every aspect of myself. Even aspects of myself that didn't yet exist. I had to develop a discerning eye. I had to develop a business savvy. I had to develop the courage to insist on my vision.

Never have I released something unfinished. You release an album and hope to god you made good choices. But an app? You KNOW you didn't! Sharing Muzi is but step two of infinity in its becoming. And now is the interesting part where we get feedback -- and iterate.

I really hope you'll give it a try!

And tell me what you think so I can make it better 💓

With love,

Rachel

Muzi Launch Party!!

At the Muzi launch party I mentioned I was an introvert a grand total of too many times. 

But surrounded by friends, colleagues, and artists I've coached, I was so submerged in community I couldn't help but grasp at a sense of myself in this misting way.

So there I was, an introvert in love with her community, pulling it together just barely enough to present on what she'd made in deep service to her community.

It was a night for the ages and I shall not soon forget it!

Special shout out to Jay Clemens, teacher of bizness words, co-founder of pure-hearted dreams, and partner in song and other technologies. 

Deep thanks to 25th Street Recording for hosting us, Karishma Kumar and Collin Purdue for impossible seamlessness, Philip Gelb for converting 49 more people to veganism, and Sierra Alyse for destroying us in the length of two songs.

Thanks, too, to you who were there with me, and even more, to you who will be there with me in the missions and reflections and meditations of this app.

Photographs by the exceptional Cherlyn Wagner.