How 'Woo-Woo' Are You About Songwriting? (and is it helping?)
In his book, The Practice, Seth Godin mentions a story of how Bob Dylan wondered if his inspiration for songs came through some sort of ghost or supernatural circumstance. Seth goes into detail on how this sort of thinking is complete nonsense.
Inspiration is fleeting. And oftentimes the best art and songs come out of just exercising our practice.
But I'd be remiss if I didn't mention how often I've felt that same way as Dylan, especially when I was first starting to write songs.
When we have that first moment of genius, we often are confused how we attained this gift. It's hard to wrap our heads around all the intuitive, conscious and subconscious thoughts pouring through our brains that allowed us to take our knowledge of melody, rhythm and chord progressions, and then create something that wasn't there.
It feels like magic.
And I love magic, I mean who doesn't. But making music and creating songs is a discipline that you get better and better at the more you do it.
Sure you'll have some days where you're in the flow, and songs fall into your DAW as smooth as butter. But waiting around for this to happen is crazy!
Your capacity to write new music and create brilliance is so much bigger than you realize. And by practicing your craft weekly, if not daily, you are constantly in that flow.
Sure it's hard sometimes. But that's why few people do it so regularly.
It's time you joined us this Saturday for another game of On the Hook. This week we are going to be producing a fusion track that's a mix of latin and electronic genre. It's going to be crazy fun, and probably really challenging.
.... this could be exactly what you need.
We are the crazies. The ones disciplining ourselves to The Practice of making music.
And while most artists and songwriters are waiting for the Universe to speak into their brain directly, we will be busy writing and producing dozens of new songs.
You should consider being a crazy person like us. ðĪŠ
Zion
Join us!
Stop Looking For a Producer.
I'm willing to bet you have some great recording gear, effects and tools already at your disposal. I can help you learn to make the most of them right away so you can start producing your own music. You are way more capable of this than you might realize. And with a little practice you could move away from trying to find a producer who "gets you" to making great sounding music whenever you have an idea. I've created a whole class with over 120 videos and exercise routines to show you the skills I've learned over the last 15 years. Also, you'll get access to a Facebook community full of people just like you that are learning and growing their skills. And I've made it extremely affordable so you can invest in more equipment or other classes as well.
So, you in?
Tool For Tracking Your Song Metadata
Ditch the spreadsheet, and start using a real database tool. I want to show you how I use Airtable to manage all the songs I write, produce, mix, master, or have ownership on. You can easily start with my template (which I named GIZMO) and then customize and scale it to suit your specific needs.
Red Zone Production Timeline
Check out the tool that has transformed my songs into fantastic productions in half the time. I never realized how much time and money I was wasting until I started using this.
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