Today marks the first day of month two of this year-long project. I should probably write a bit of a reflection on month one, but I might do that as a separate post tomorrow when I have a some free time. Today I'll keep my writing about my composition, and I might get a little nerdy in today's post. If you're one of my non-musician friends you might want to skip through to the bit about the lyrics.
Read MoreThis one was recorded at about 1:30am, which is by far the latest I've stayed up writing and recording for this project so far. At about midnight when it was only half done I crashed, and was almost asleep at the piano. I didn't like the melody, I had holes in my lines of lyrics that I just couldn't fill, and I was annoyed that I hadn't captured the mood from my initial writing exercises either musically or lyrically. Basically, my inner critic was telling me everything was crap, and that I should just scrap it all and start again.
Read MoreSo far the most reliable source of inspiration for this project has been folklore. I'm not sure if it's because I feel comfortable working in that kind of lyrical and thematic realm, or if it's just what I'm interested in right now, but I turned there again for today's piece. I started with the word skin from yesterday, and the first Google search result for "skin folklore" was selkie, which proved a fertile place to start.
Read MoreI worked out today that I have been writing songs for about fifteen years, which sounds like an amazingly long time, and I feel I should be much better at it than I am by now. One chunk of that fifteen year period was plagued with horrible writers' block, which was largely due to not knowing how to write about things that were not highly and specifically personal. Learning how to separate myself from the songs and treat them more like works of fiction really helped me to get past that period, and now my writing tends to draw as much from my imagination as it does my own life experiences. Opening up space for my imagination means I can turn to books, films, mythology, poetry or art for stories and ideas, without having to wait for something in my own life to throw me a spark of inspiration.
Read MoreToday marks the end of week two, and I'm feeling awfully burnt out already. I'm mentally, physically and vocally exhausted from a six hour gig yesterday, and all I wanted today was to have a day off. I have to be kind to myself though. This project was never going to be easy, and will ebb and flow with my mental and physical energy levels, and it's something I have to learn to work with.
Read MoreToday is the first day I really didn't want to sit down and work. Really, really didn't want to. My schedule has been fairly light the past few weeks as most of my music teaching doesn't resume until the school term starts back again, but I am playing at a wedding tomorrow and spent most of today preparing for that. I had considered building rest days into this project - one day a month perhaps - but momentum is an easy thing to lose. One day off the wagon and you start to want another, and another and another. I have no idea when I'll fit tomorrow's song in, but that's a challenge for the morning.
Read MoreToday was hard, and it's only day three. I had about four hours sleep last night and spent most of the day as a zombie, but at about 11pm I pulled myself together enough to get this one out. These videos are the kind of thing I'd usually keep to myself, and not share them to become a public record of my experimentation. A huge part of this project, however, is about learning to put my inner critic on hold. Besides, tomorrow is another day and another chance to create something new.
Read More
