Nobody likes change.

In previous segments, I have mentioned change in various ways, but never made that the subject itself.

Change sucks. Why can't things stay the way they are? we ask. Why can't we just keep going the way we're going?

Without change there is no growth. If there is no growth, there is no discovery. If there is no discovery, there is only stagnation. If there is only stagnation, then there is rot. Where there is rot, there is decay. And where there is decay, there is death. To an artist, this is the worst thing that could ever happen.

So we accept that change, no matter how trying, painful, undesired, unwelcome, unimaginably difficult it may be, is going to occur in our lives. And we do our best to cope, adapt, embrace and welcome that change every time it happens.

While not all change is "good", all change can be learned from, and so made to be a good thing.

We've all noticed the sameness of some music, and even some trends in music. It all melts together and becomes this hodge-podge of mind numbing blandness, with no variety and flavour. Many bands suffer from this. Record companies tend to encourage this, to some degree, because it means a band is predictable. They won't lose their core audience, which can be substantial.

So an AC/DC grinds out their "brand" of Rock & Roll, and we all know what to expect on the next record. The band may take a "risk" on a song or two, but the bulk of the material is pretty predictably within the "signature" style. Guns N Roses, Oasis, Smashing Pumpkins, Coldplay and others all are guilty of a mediocrity of consistency. The music, taken song by song, is good. I know I'm angering some people here, but back away from your bias toward a given band and you will hear the sameness of their efforts album to album.

One of the greatest examples of this is the band Boston. Listening to their first three albums back to back, you hear an absolutely consistent sameness, and you have to ask, "Where does one album end and the next one begin?" Because the whole approach to writing and production are literally the same across all three albums, they suffer from being three parts of a singular idea. Are there good songs on the albums? You bet.

Then there is the trend that when a particular "style" or "sound" suddenly takes off, that all the other labels will seek out and produce their own version of the very same sound. And often, the original label will look for - or a producer will create - other examples of the same sound. It's selling, so capitalize on the trend while it's still hot.

And what pours out of the radio begins to take on that sameness from song to song. Emo boys sing with a whiney vulnerability, girls sing with that squeaky high girly voice, wall of distortion laden guitars belch out of the speakers... well, you get the picture by now.

Change in the currency of music occurs only when someone does something truly different, or just enough different to be "fresh"; perhaps an old sound becomes "new" again. The cycle repeats with the emergence of each new trendy sound. Interestingly, I have heard times when everything was different from everything else. That's when I like listening to radio the most, when nobody has the "market" cornered. Those brief periods expose us to many groups and many different sounds, all day long. It's a veritable feast for the ears. And that's when I really get excited, that perhaps the music industry isn't finished, that it hasn't finally reached a point of pointlessness!

Unfortunately, everything settles down and we go back to the way things were before the shake up. That's fine, really, in a way, because you cannot expect the trend of diverse sounding music to continue. Everything is cyclical, and that's why it is okay. At least someone comes along every few years and shakes things up, even today.

We tend to welcome that kind of change. Change that occurs outside our lives is almost always met with a certain ambivalence, a shrug of the shoulder. We may be happy for the change at first, but ultimately, it all just starts to run together and we are unaffected by it.

But when that external change reaches into our personal lives and does create a change - that's something to talk about!

Without change, life would be worse than predictable. It would be intolerable. Yes, I understand that constant change is not something we welcome. But at the same time, there will be occasions when we are in such a state, that things are changing every day. The patient heart will see that turmoil slowly settle down and things become more predictable.

But during such times of upheaval, for the creative mind, a song writer, they can be filled with great discoveries and epiphanies about life, music, personal growth and beyond. So do not be so upset when changes shake up your life in uncomfortable ways. See them for what they can be, times of breaking out of a doldrum or a period of stagnation.

You can even instigate a kind of upheaval in your own life by creating a period in which you willfully do things different than you might otherwise engage. For me it can be as simple as putting down the guitar (my primary tool) and moving over to the piano for a while, not even touching the guitar for days on end. I've even taken a break from music as a whole (when finances allowed) and simply lived my life and did things I hadn't had the time to do because music was so prevalent, so necessary to my survival, making a living.

I try to take a vacation every year now, putting my music down for a couple weeks to a month every year, maybe not all at once, but a week or two here and a week or two there can do wonders to revitalizing your creative juices.

See change as the good thing it usually is intended to be, even if the "source" is a negative one. When change happens, it is our attitude that makes it a living hell or an incredible opportunity.

You are the one that chooses which it will be. Nobody else can force a change in your life to be negative, even if that was their intention. As with everything else in life, it is how we respond to what comes our way, that determines the outcome.