May252012
My mum used to say this to me on rainy days when I was moping around the house as a small child. I remember being bored was part of growing up. I wonder when the last time was when you were bored? What seems to be apparent to researchers on creativity and innovation is that boredom is good for you. I’ve been reading a book called ‘Imagination –How Creativity Works’ by Jonah Lehrer and it’s well worth a read if you’re interested in where inspiration and ideas come from.
There are way more many distractions in the world we live in than the one I grew up in. When I was young there was no internet, no mobile phones, half-day closing on Wednesday and all of Sunday? Imagine that! Wow, no wonder I have memories of staring out of my bedroom window tracing the raindrops running down it and trying to guess which would get to the bottom first. Compare this to the world we live in now, this constant background static in - this chatter- means that we experience less silence, solitude and space for ideas to germinate.
This is why that first quiet cup of coffee in the morning or a long bath (technology doesn’t like water), or a run, can spark ideas for me because my brain is empty and waiting to be filled with something from the outside. Whether you call it inspiration, the muse or divine intervention, the genesis of a melody or lyrical idea often depends on these moments of calm. For some people this is traditional meditation, for others it’s a quiet walk somewhere (Dickens used to walk 8 hours a night and he was pretty creative, as well as being an insomniac). Burt Bacharach used to drive in silence to let those synapses loosen a little. However you plan it, try and make time in your day to have nothing to do.
According to research, and also anecdotal evidence from the many song-writers I’ve worked with, the wheels of the unconscious are always turning but often our conscious isn’t aware of this. This might be because we’re busy playing Angry Birds, Facebooking, Tweeting, Texting, calling people or frantically rechecking our emails for the fifteenth time. Sound familiar? It does to me.
So it seems that if you want to feed creativity don’t starve yourself of boredom. Those fifteen minutes of staring out of a window might just save you three hours of slaving away trying to make an uninspired idea sound better. Perhaps my mum’s quote could be re-written as ‘boredom is the father of the most interesting ideas’. I hope this wasn’t too boring to read, no, actually- i hope it was and you drifted off into a more creative place.
March252012
I’ve been doing some guest lectures on songwriting recently. One lecture was on ‘writing to pitch sheets’. Pitch sheets are kind of ‘who is looking for songs lists’ that are circulated by the major publishers. it is frowned upon if songwriters pass these around and especially give them to unsigned writers. The elephant in the room at these lectures is the audience thinking and sometimes saying ‘it’s alright for you with your publishing deal but how do we get into this industry? The doors are shut and i’m tired of being ignored’.
Ah yes, the frustration of the unsigned writer. I know it well and I sympathise. I thought long and hard and thought about this conundrum and came up with this answer.
firstly, i wanted to get this chip off everyone’s shoulder. I explained that there was a very good reason that publishers don’t circulate the who’s looking lists to unsigned writers. Unsigned writers are unknown. The publisher has no guarantee that a song sent in by an unsigned writer is available, or even written by them. By that, I mean that if you send in a song that’s perfect for One Direction and by some longshot the publisher thinks it would be great for that artist, the publisher would want to hear you have other amazing songs before making you an offer of a deal, and then you’d probably approach other publishers to get a better offer and then 6 months has passed….. Why would a publisher need this? They already have a roster of writers writing great songs that are available. so what’s the answer?
The answer is to write with up and coming artists. I pointed out to all the students in my lecture that a couple years ago Ed Sheeran most likely played in a pub to 30 people within 20 miles of where they lived (he was playing 200 shows a year). At this point he was talented and unsigned and may have been open to a co-write if approached by a great writer with a good showreel of songs or by a talented fellow performer. Some time in the next 3 months, the newest great unsigned artist will be playing a venue near them and they should be going to see as many gigs as they can to network and discover new talent. If not playing at a venue, these new artists will be on youtube covering songs and trying to make inroads that way.
But that’s the A&R person’s job I hear you cry. It’s your job too. As a songwriter in today’s industry you have to be a songwriter, producer, A&R and hustler sometimes. There may be other skills you can bring to the table to help you get in on the ground floor. I know many songwriters who started off playing guitar, keys or singing (often for free) with new artists. I know other writers that would spend their evenings being the sound engineer at local venues (getting paid to discover new artists!).
It’s all very well turning up to Wembley in your England kit, standing by the tunnel and hoping someone will give you a game, but it’s much more likely you’ll get a Sunday league game and work through the ranks that way. The music industry is no different. This lack of interest in your songs isn’t because you’re not a great writer-the bottom line is that banging on the locked door of the music industry is a waste of time. What you have to realise is you come through the floor.
February292012
But the shitty stuff seems to turn up almost straight away….
I’m paraphrasing the very funny Rich Hall here but i think it is true that most of the people i know who are having any kind of success in music (or in anything artistic) have struggled along the way and many times have wondered how long it was going to take before they got some somewhere. It seems to me that no one who got there ever wondered If they were going to get there though. They were all single-minded enough to overcome rejection.
It always takes longer than you think to get anywhere worth going to. The obstacles appear at the first corner and this can be disheartening. If you’re having a hard time realising your dream then I hope you find solace that almost anyone who has embarked on that perilous journey has had dark days too.
Jezx
3PM
It’s a little known fact that some guitars have lots of songs in them and some don’t. It isn’t based on how much the guitar costs or how old it is (some vintage guitars have had all their songs milked already) it just depends on what mood it puts the player in when strummed. I’m pleased to say my new Duesenberg Mike Campbell Starplayer TV is full of songs ready to come out. I’ll put a picture up. It’s gorgeous
Footnote: Midi keyboards only come with one song and i’m sorry to say it’s Axel F by Harald Faltermeyer. They do come loaded with the keyboard solo from Van Halen’s Jump though.
