An Impactful Year & More Ahead: Introducing Dollars for Dissonance

By Hyedi Nelson

Give to the Max Day is probably my favorite holiday. I love the energy and excitement that’s focused on Minnesota nonprofits for an entire day, and I’m really excited about my first Give to the Max Day as a Dissonance board member. 

When I joined the board, I was somewhat familiar with the important work the organization had been doing for more than five years. But getting more intimately involved over these past eight months, I’ve gotten to see the impact of Dissonance firsthand—both in individual lives and in the community.

Dissonance Year in Review

In 2022, thanks to generous donations from our supporters, Dissonance launched its Sessions series, releasing episodes one and two featuring Charlie Parr and Chastity Brown, respectively. And a third installment is on the way.

We’ve also seen our monthly StoryWell series evolve. After converting the format to virtual throughout 2020 and 2021, we’ve been able to resume some in-person meet-ups, bringing back an important component of connection and support.

To kick off the year, we contributed to the Star Tribune’s multimedia project challenging community members to give up drinking or cut back, and supporting them in that effort, during Dry January. Throughout 2022, we spread our mission and reached more people through interviews with various media (i.e. MPR, Fox 9, MinnPost, Star Tribune, Mostly MN Music, Adventures in Americana, Duluth News Tribune) as well as content shared via our own website and social media channels (Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter).

In February, we amplified and gratefully accepted proceeds from Twin Cities music legend Cindy Lawson’s touching song and tribute to her friend, the late beloved singer/songwriter Lori Wray. We also sponsored the Morningside After Dark event series, featuring amazing Minnesota artists, from January through April.

In May, we participated in MTV’s second annual Mental Health Action Day, joining others around the country in sharing resources with our community. We also had the opportunity to host the very talented Chris Koza for a house concert. Chris played an intimate set for those in attendance and also sat down with Dissonance co-founder Sarah Souder Johnson for a conversation about wellness in the music industry and his personal experiences, challenges and successes. 

We were happy to sponsor music for an event in July at Jinx Tea in Minneapolis, featuring the mobile Sans Bar from Austin, Texas, which provided an alcohol-free night full of spirit. And it was an honor to lead a mental health workshop for BETA , a nonprofit that supports the founders of Minnesota-based tech startups.

Next up was a screening of the The Creative High, an award-winning film profiles nine artists in recovery from addiction who are transformed by creativity in the search for identity and freedom. Dissonance, along with Passenger Recovery and The SIMS Foundation, three nonprofits separated by thousands of miles but connected by the mission of supporting wellness in and through the arts, came together to host an exclusive online screening and discussion of the documentary.

And last, but not least, we held our 2nd annual Ghost Notes Fall Block Party on September 17. The day was full of music, art literature, activities, N/A drinks, food, and fun. So many awesome folks came together to make it happen as volunteers, vendors, organizers, sponsors, and guests. But we’re especially thankful to the musicians who embraced the concept of a sober performance space and brought their all to the stage.

And 2022 isn’t over yet: On Friday, December 9, Unhappy Holidays is BACK. Join us for a stellar panel and of course, delicious N/A beverages and be around others in a laid-back, low-key atmosphere as a bit of respite from the usual holiday hectic-ness.

Dollars for Dissonance

OK, so back to Give to the Max Day. This year, we’re introducing Dollars for Dissonance, a focused fundraising campaign with the goal of raising $5,000 (with a stretch goal of $10,000) to help fund Dissonance’s major initiatives in 2023 (including Season 2 of Sessions!) with the following goals:

• Continue to fairly compensate artists who participate in our events, such as Sessions and Ghost Notes

• Make our events accessible to as many as possible – without the barriers of cost or the presence of alcohol

• Keep our Get Help Directory available at no cost

• Engage more youth in our programming and activities

Early giving for Give to the Max Day is officially underway – so join us by making a donation now and/or creating your own fundraising page, or wait until Nov. 17 and join in the fun that day! Watch our website and social media channels for more.

Hyedi Nelson is a Dissonance board member.

(L to R) Dissonance board members Sarah Souder Johnson, Hyedi Nelson, Katy Vernon, Jeremiah Gardner, Jen Gilhoi and Manual Garcia.

Thoughts on Thinking

By Luke LeBlanc

There’s something about playing a concert that feels good. I could just accept this fact, feel good, and move on, but for some reason I am compelled to analyze why it feels good. Of course, performing with a band of friends to a loving audience carries with it an insurmountable level of joy. More important, though, is the other half of this “why,” because it applies to performers and non-performers alike: when I am performing, I can’t think.

More accurately, performing is one of those activities where you think about one thing and one thing only. I can’t ruminate on whether the phrasing of my email is the reason that the one radio host didn’t get back to me; I need to be sure I go to the B-flat following this chorus. I can’t add “order a new external hard-drive so you don’t lose all your files again” to my to-do list; the quick switch from the one chord to the four chord is coming up before I hit that G-minor walk-down. I can’t check my wifi-enabled cat-cam to ensure Houdini and Minnie haven’t embarked on a feline adventure and escaped my apartment; my phone is on the stage with the Set-timer app running and I need to adjust my Vox AC115 amplifier before the next song. When I perform, I don’t worry about a thing. It’s not through some kind of super-human willpower that I’m able to free myself from the shackles of overflowing thought; I’m simply too distracted by the good time I’m having.

The idea of productively distracting yourself from excessive fretting is not a novel one. As author, private pilot, and piano-technician Thomas S. Sterner writes in The Practicing Mind, “I not only loved to practice and learn anything but found the total immersion of myself into an activity to be an escape from the daily pressures of life.” If you haven’t read Sterner’s book, I highly recommend it, as it centers around the pure joy and fulfillment that practicing a skill or passion can bring. The process itself is so encompassing and produces such a strong sense of accomplishment that an overactive mind is forced to sit down for a moment, ease in, and enjoy the ride.

Luckily, playing a concert isn’t the only way to achieve this state of bliss (otherwise, I’d only have peace-of-mind once a month). As beautifully enriching as it is to develop skills in a profession, an instrument, or craft, I would add that it’s equally as important to funnel these efforts into immersive periods of relaxation as well. Find those non-toxic things that you can immerse yourself in so much that you temporarily lose sight of everything else. They don’t need to be serious. In fact, I think it’s time we get serious about not being so damn serious. 

For me, performing gives my mind a break from thinking, but so does getting lost in the worlds of TV and movie franchises (hello, The Watcher), queuing up a two-hour podcast while I clean the apartment, or getting lost at 1 AM in a trail of Wikipedia articles that consider time as the fourth dimension. By no means have I perfected the art of fully immersing myself in things that let my mind go, but the process of working on it has allowed me to become better at it. So allow yourself to get lost. And have fun doing it. 

Luke LeBlanc is a Minneapolis-based singer-songwriter whose new album, Fugue State, was released on Oct. 28, 2022.