Songwriters in the round

Image by Hugh MacLeod, Gapingvoid.com
CC BY-NC-SA 3.0

I wasn't sure I wanted to go.

Duncan Stitt, a fellow songwriter and keyboardist, had invited me to something called "Songwriters in the Round." The format: A bunch of songwriters meet somewhere—this time at somebody's house. Three get up on stage at a time, taking turns performing their original songs. You can bring a set list if you want, but to really have fun with it, you're encouraged to decide what to play on the fly, based on what the performer before you sings.

I love everything about this kind of gathering. I love hearing other people's songs, finding out what inspired those songs, and sharing my own. It's just ... I was tired. I'd come home from rehearsal, cooked a meal, and felt like I was done for the night. The best going-out option I could imagine was to see a movie with friends. The only thing I'd be required to do is sit and stare at the screen.

I was more in the mood to consume than perform.

But gatherings like this don't happen often—especially ones in which somebody else brings the keyboard—so I sucked it up and dragged myself over. And within five minutes of arriving, I forgot about ever feeling tired or antisocial. Good times were upon us.

The experience of the small group varied widely, from a guy who'd never played in public before to professional songwriters who'd successfully sold their tunes in Nashville. But everybody was interesting and friendly and good to talk to. Everybody had songs that were worth listening to.

I'm glad I went. Passive entertainment will always be there if I want it. Collaborative entertainment is better for the soul.

* * *

If you're a songwriter who lives in or around Tucson, you can get in on the next Songwriters in the Round. Go to www.meetup.com/songwriters-tucson and join the Meetup group. Don't worry if you're not an experienced performer. The guy who'd never played in public before almost didn't show up due to nerves, but afterword said this was probably the most fun he'd ever had with his clothes on.

Are you alive?

A week or so ago in Songwriting Scene, Sharon Goldman talked about why she writes songs, and she invited her audience of songwriters to do the same. Responses included:

To emulate other great musicians.

To process and express emotions.

To heal.

To make people listen.

My answer was, To say things in a way I couldn’t in any other medium. To make connections. To make sense of things.

All true. All important. Yet, taken together they felt incomplete.

Today, while catching up on old blog posts, I ran across this from Hugh MacLeod of GapingVoid.com:


Yeah.

When I write, I make something exist that didn't before. Noticing that a thought or idea could become a song, finding words and melodies and building on them, piece by tiny piece ... nothing else in the world feels like that feels.

Though I hadn't thought of it exactly this way before seeing Hugh's cartoon, bringing a song into being proves I'm alive.

What do you do to prove you're alive?

The source

Songwriter Jeff Shattuck has an interesting post up about creativity and atheism. Specifically, he takes issue with artists who claim that God is responsible for all of their creations.

... claiming that some god wrote your song is not the height of humility, it’s the height of arrogance. After all, you’re basically saying that of all the people on earth, the god you believe in chose to give you a particular song.

(Full post here. Hat tip: Tom Slatter.)

Up to a point, I'm right there with Shattuck. I am also an unbeliever. I am also comfortable with my lack of belief.

Comfortable for the most part, anyway. When it comes to songwriting, it gets a little awkward.

See, I never intended to become a songwriter. One day, while musing about some hard-won insights, I sang three words. They were sort of related to my musings, but I hadn't been thinking those particular words, or about music. I hadn't realized I was about to sing. It was as though the words hadn't come from me at all.

Nothing quite that surreal ever happened again. When I wrote the rest of that song, and the others that followed, my efforts primarily involved ... well ... effort. Crafting a song meant rolling up my sleeves, going to work, and thinking up stuff with my own brain. Still, every now and again I'd get a flash of insight. As if someone or something outside of me had put the words in my head.

Again, I don't subscribe to a belief system in which a god or the universe gets personally involved in human affairs. I don't believe in muses either. But damn, they make pretty good metaphors for the way it feels when ideas come out of nowhere. And silly as it sounds coming from an atheist, I don't feel right claiming credit for the out-of-nowhere bits.

Unfortunately, I have no clue what to give credit to.

To the source of all those ideas, words, and notes: If you ever feel like divulging your identity, you know where to find me. I'll be happy to share royalties with you. 'til then, all I can offer is my undying gratitude.

The realm of infinite possibility

When I was in college, I imagined something I called the realm of infinite possibility. It contained every word, every note, every everything, in every possible combination. I liked to think about this when I needed to write a paper for class. Writing was always a struggle, but somewhere in the realm of infinite possibility, the ideal paper already existed. I just needed to discover it.

I found this idea comforting.

It didn't occur to me until years later that, if the possibilities are truly infinite, there's more than one version of whatever it is you're trying to create. I realized this after I started writing songs. The process is so random.

For instance. The song I'm currently working on has a melody and a basic sense of what it will be about, but almost nothing in the way of actual lyrics. Tonight, while taking a shower, I thought of a few lines for the last verse. They involved hiding from the world by locking myself in the bathroom and taking a bath.

Obviously, my immediate environment inspired the lines. If I had been somewhere else, or if I hadn't been thinking about the song at that moment, the last lines would have turned out completely different.

Some physicists believe there are alternate universes for every potential happening. In this universe I stopped at Trader Joe's after rehearsal, but in some alternate universe I went straight home. If it were possible to observe myself in the alternates, I'd spend half my time thinking, "Wait, the song isn't supposed to go like that," or, "Shoot, that's better than the way I wrote it."

I find this idea disconcerting.

When I write a song, I try to chase down the best lyrics possible. If some other me could think of something better, or even just as good, how do I know when to declare myself satisfied with what I've done?

This is the point where I decide not to think about it anymore.

The true artist

A quote from George Bernard Shaw, which I stumbled upon in a comment on Word Garden:

The true artist will let his wife starve, his children go barefoot, his mother drudge for his living at seventy, sooner than work at anything but his art.

What do you think? Must an artist renounce all other responsibilities to be a real artist?

Sex and cash

Years ago I met a fantasy/science fiction writer who had recently published a Star Trek novel. I watched Star Trek: Next Generation faithfully, and I'd met my share of hardcore Trekkies, so my first assumption was that he must be a big fan.

No, he said, not particularly.

At the beginning of his career, the writer explained, he decided that he would support himself by writing books. No day jobs for him. Just books. The money he earned from Star Trek novels and the like allowed him to write the stories he really wanted to write.

I was incredibly impressed that he'd been able to pull this off. Making a living as a novelist is well-nigh impossible.

Still, I wondered if I would make the same decision in his shoes.

* * *

A month or so ago, I read a short book that came highly recommended by Derek Sivers, the original founder of CD Baby. The book, Ignore Everybody by Hugh MacLeod, contained unconventional advice to those of us who pursue creative endeavors.

I found most of his tips insightful, but one of my favorites was "keep your day job."

The creative person basically has two kinds of jobs: One is the sexy, creative kind. Second is the kind that pays the bills. Sometimes the task at hand covers both bases, but not often. This tense duality will always play center stage. It will never be transcended.

MacLeod calls this his "sex and cash" theory: one way or another, you'll always have to balance your need to support yourself (cash) with your desire to do the creative stuff you like (sex).

Reading this made me feel better about myself and my life.

Because eventually I did find myself in my writer friend's shoes. I started writing songs, bought a keyboard, joined a band ... and kept my day job. Why kill myself trying to find work as a lounge pianist, or as a member of a cover band, playing songs I didn't care for, when I already had a way to support myself?

In the end, keeping the day job didn't mean I was selling out somehow. It meant the opposite. It meant I could focus on the music I wanted to make rather than singing the equivalent of Star Trek novels.

In progress

Browsing a Billy Joel fan site, I came across a May 2009 interview in which he talks about what he's doing creatively these days.

Well, I never stopped writing music. I'm just writing a different kind of music now. I'm writing instrumental music and thematic music ... I stopped writing songs back in the early '90s. I'm not really interested in songwriting these days ...

I think I can understand where Joel is coming from. He wrote lyrics prolifically for around three decades. At some point, maybe you run out of new ideas. Maybe you feel you've said everything you needed to say.

Sometimes I wonder if I'll get to that point.

I hope not. Or if I do, I hope I find another outlet, as Joel has. Here's why.

I feel different when I'm writing. Life continues to dole out its usual frustrations, but there's a buffer between them and me. I have more compelling things to think about, like whether I should stick a certain phrase in the first or second verse, and what I can rhyme with "memorized."

I'm making it sound like songwriting is nothing more than an excellent distraction, and that's not quite right. It is an excellent distraction, but there's something else going on too.

When I write songs, I feel like I'm bigger than my problems.

Bigger. Better. Above.

It doesn't matter how many songs I've already brought into the world. I'm always happiest when I've got something in progress.

In praise of my inner critic

Last week I wrote a line for a song I'm working on. Honed it a bit. My inner editor said, It's OK. Could lead to something good if we add supporting lyrics elsewhere. Otherwise it doesn't quite connect.

Tonight I swapped out one word in that line for another one. Something that tied in more strongly with the surrounding words.

Yes, said my critic. Yes. That's it.

Some people say you shouldn't censor yourself when you create a first draft. Just go with the flow, edit later. The implication, I think, is that editing inhibits creativity. That you do yourself harm by badmouthing your creation while it's in progress.

Maybe they're right. Still, I'm loathe to silence my editor at any stage of the process. Yes, it slows me down. Yes, it tells me what I've done isn't good enough. But mostly it tells me I can do better.

And when I listen to it, I do better.

Works for me.

Creative connectivity

This is why I love the Internet.

On July 21, 2009, a blogger by the name of Laurel posted a poem she'd written several years ago. The poem, Waiting from Within, describes the inner life of someone who's become bedridden with ME/CFS.

One of her readers, Michelle, found the poem very moving. She set the words to background music and images. Then she contacted Laurel and asked for permission to post the video on YouTube.

Michelle's video on Dreams at Stake

Before the Internet, it's unlikely that Laurel would have been able to broadcast "Waiting from Within" to an international audience -- not because of the poem's quality, but because of the sheer number of poets competing for a tiny number of slots in a finite number of publications. On top of that, her health problems might have prevented her from submitting it.

But in July of 2009, posting the poem to her blog with a brief introduction was doable. Her readers could decide for themselves whether they liked it. When one of them did like it, she did something new with it. Added her own creative input.

Before the Internet, neither of these women would have known the other existed. Now they've collaborated on a video. Now other people who would never have heard of either of them will see it.

This is why I love the Internet.

Breathing room

Friday, the day before I was to leave for Chicago, was utter madness. At work there were a million tiny things to tie up before my week-long vacation began, and I had to stay late just to just to get to the most important ones. That left less time for the all of the tasks I needed to attend to at home. Suffice it to say that not everything got done.

At the airport the following day, I picked out a seat facing the window and marveled at how different everything felt. There was nothing more for me to do except sit there and wait for the plane that would carry me back to my hometown. As I stared out the window, more relaxed than I'd been in a long time, I realized there was a song going through my head: "Face in the Rain," whose lyrics I'd been writing on and off for over a year.

The thing is, I was so close to finishing. Just four little lines stood between me and completion. I'd made halfhearted attempts to write them in the last few weeks, but couldn't get into it. Now, I thought, would be a good time to try again. It wasn't like I had anything else competing for my time.

Maybe 20 minutes later, the song was done.

It's funny how something I'd struggled with before suddenly seemed so much easier. I think part of the breakthrough came because I was better able to connect with the subject matter. "Face in the Rain" is about having to be on the road, and desperately wanting to remain with the person left behind. The last lines are about anticipating the joyful reunion. Remembering my boyfriend's smile as he said goodbye to me that morning, and thinking of how it would be when I saw him again, the right words found their way to me.

The other thing that happened was that I finally had a little breathing room. I could think about the song and nothing else without feeling as though I was neglecting fifty other responsibilities.

So. The next time it seems like my creativity has dried up, I need to remember that it's temporary. As long as I keep digging, as long as I find a way to make the time I need to do it, I can still write. I am still a songwriter.

I knew this already. But somehow I have to keep learning it again and again.