In my experience, the best place to meet musicians who have access to that hidden well of melodic muses is to go to an eccentric bar off the beaten path. Musicians flock to underrated and unknown bars hosting their music like midnight moths hurl themselves into open flames. Scientists tell us that the moth’s motivation to burn comes from confusion in their navigation system. But have scientists ever sat down with a moth to ask why? If they did they would know that moths real motivation for such hara-kiri is to feel, if only for a fleeting instant, what it’s like to be immersed in a blanket of bleating brightness. This sort of passion is the “it” that one recognizes in the true troubadours whose minds can’t help but fill up with bursting melodies. If you don’t know what I am talking about, then you never will, and it’s not your fault, and don’t worry, the world needs engineers and mathematicians too.

This passion was what initially attracted me to the music of Concetta Abbate when I heard her at the now closed (sad face) Goodbye Blue Monday in Bushwick, Brooklyn. This is the passion I hear in her latest project, Falling In Time: Pocket Sized Songs. She is a musician in a brave new world of music, when the true troubadours aren’t seeking stardom; just a stage, a jam session—any moment when their melodies can connect with ears that understand the message of the muse.

In her song Thought Thieving Hen, Concetta carols, “Sing a simple melody / For the road is long / Let your heart fill openly / With a sacred song.” Her songs sing about the beauty of finding joy in the mundane things of the world. “I only have time for little things,” Concetta sings. Concetta has composed soundscapes with guiding melodies that bring a listener on a lovely melodic journey through a lovely way of interacting with the world. She sings to fireflies, telling them “The night is kind to you.” There is music here. There is poetry here. There is something alive bursting from this music. The project was funded by Kickstarter supporters and the result is the world has a lovely album of pocket sized songs. Take a listen and hear for yourself—everywhere you turn, there are troubadours among us, and they have songs to share and we best push the pause button of our busy lives and listen.