Can you hear me now?

As I clicked ‘Submit’, my chest felt hot and my heart hammered in my ears – how do hearts manage to beat the loudest in places they don’t belong? Because I have alexithymia and and often don’t know how to recognise my own emotions, I couldn’t tell if it was indigestion, or if it was because I’d just submitted my very first single to a distribution company, and put it on the track to be released to 150 streaming services worldwide.

It’s often strange, the way we work towards something, put our hearts and souls and the proverbial blood, sweat and tears into something, dream of something, plan for something, sometimes for weeks, months or years, and yet when we’re on the verge of it happening, our heart screams, “I’m not ready! Slow down! Give me more time to think about this!”

I started working on recording my single, Wheelchair Babe, early this year. I was linked up with Pluto Inclusive Entertainment, a disability organisation that provides support and entertainment for people with all kinds of disabilities. One of the frontmen of the organisation, Hamish, worked as a mainstream music producer for many years, before finding that the work just didn’t satisfy his soul. Working in disability, he often helps people fulfill their dreams of making music, giving them a space to express themselves.

For me, it was as much about work experience and skill building as it was about making music. The NDIS is big on supporting people to become independent, and they support people in learning the skills they need to pursue their ideal careers. My ideal career is making music, and getting the skills of being in the studio and working with a producer and studio musician was fundamental.

I received the final cut of the single a couple of months ago, but I knew I wanted to have some proper photos done to update my website and social media and to set up a Spotify page, and I wanted to do a short promo video for the single. That was a journey (and a blog post) in and of itself. Then came making a single cover, and signing up for a music distributor, and jumping through the hoops.

And as much as I’d double and triple checked everything, I’d checked that I had the right audio file, that the single cover was the right size and format, that I’d entered the right information into the right fields, I could barely click ‘Submit’ without feeling like I must have made at least twelve grievous and mortifying mistakes.

I’d heard horror stories of distributors taking weeks or months to release music. The distributor itself recommended uploading the song four weeks prior to your ideal release date – I wanted it done in a week, before my performance at a local music festival. I wasn’t hopeful.

And yet, there it was, on my chosen release date, four days after application, ‘Wheelchair Babe’ was live on Spotify. Nell Tyler has an actual artist account, with music people can listen to.

I don’t really know what to think. People have asked me before, “have you got a CD? Have you recorded anything?” And the answer has always had to be, “not yet, but it’s coming soon!” It’s strange to know that I can now say, “just search my name on Spotify, and there I am!”

It’s what I wanted, what I planned for, but it’s strange.

Now I have two equal fears. Either no one will listen to my song – or everyone will. Not sure which is more terrifying.

Bless.

Nell