Just in case the situation wasn't bad enough, my given last name is Giovachino. My whole life no one has been able to pronounce or spell my last name- not my teachers, my friends, no one. My given first name Lindsay was also repeatedly spelled Lindsey or Lyndsey or Linsey or any other bizarre combination of letters that you can come up with that aren't my name. Some people care about things like this- I don't. I'm so use to everyone not being able to spell or pronounce my name correctly that I've given up even correcting people. Even when I do correct people they won't remember next time so what is the point?
When I was getting ready to release my album, my friend from Italy was in town and giving his feedback. He said that the name Lindsay doesn't exist or have meaning in Italy. Hell, even the English meaning is almost non-existent. I looked it up and this is the origin: It is of Old English origin, and the meaning of Lindsay is "Lincoln's marsh; island of linden trees". Place name. The surname of some of the major Scottish and English noble families. linden tree island. I'm an island. All by myself and non-existent to the rest of the world unless of course you're a linden tree.
Anyway, so my Italian friend Cesare and his beautiful wife Danila (whom the iPhone has decided to refer to as Chester Rae and Vanilla) decided to give me the name Lucia. It sounded beautiful when they said it. The meaning of the name is light. Perfect. The opposite of being non-existent. Plus, the theme of my music has always been to help people see the light and open up to the universe's endless possibilities. I loved it.
I made the decision of not including a last name on the album release because Giovachino was just impossible. Back when it was released there were two other Lucia's making music and both used their last names. One was from Europe and sang industrial metal music (which my music would never get confused for). The other was a classical artist who also used a last name (again no risk for confusion). Little did I know that by not including a last name I would be lumped together with any and every artist who has the name Lucia regardless of whether or not they use a last name. If you run a search for me in any music search engine the odds are that you'll now come up with 1,000 other Lucia's- none of which will be me. The only way I'm able to find myself is if I search for Lucia and Studio 71 together, which most people don't know the name of the album before they search. Anyway, it seems like a lost cause to me.
Living in Miami, I have also now encountered issues with the name Lucia. In Italian it has a hard "ch" pronunciation as in Lu-che-a, but in Spanish it is a soft "c" as in Lu-see-a. I'm honestly not a fan of the softer pronunciation as my background is Italian and I think it sounds more beautiful and exotic with the hard "ch." At least I'm use to people messing up my name already, but it definitely adds an additional layer of confusion when people try to speak about me or search for me.
I put so much time and effort into making the album and it's really disappointing to know that people can't find me and my music. It's as if my music doesn't exist. I don't exist. I'm this obscure completely unknown phantom creating music that only a few select souls who cross my path will ever get to hear. I've been toying around with some last name ideas and since I'm also in the wine business and a big fan of contrasts and darkness I think that it's only fitting that my last name should be Noir. Lucia Noir. I will re-release my old album along with some new tracks in addition to the new album I'm working on.
In the end, maybe it's all just karma for me being terrible with names and never remembering anyone else's name. I'm great with faces, but terrible with names. To me a name is a word and words are just signs pointing at the truth. You can never really capture the true meaning of anything with a name or a word. In fact a lot of the time words are a distraction from the real truth. My album is everyone's album. The collective unconscious. Consciousness emerging into being. If you hear it then you're meant to hear it and hopefully it opens up your awareness and understanding of whatever situation you're in. If you don't know whose singing the song and you can't attach a face, a body, and an image to it then it just becomes part of you. After all, it's not me, Lucia, singing the songs. We are all connected so it's actually some other version of you in an altered time/space reality. A version of you that wanted to write songs, sing, connect the world, and have fun doing it.
Share comments of your experiences, insights, and ideas so we can connect and be a part of each others creations. Cheers!
@LiveLoveLucia
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