Got fast fingers?

...and an insatiable urge to razzle dazzle?

Well here's an idea for the New Year: be selective and think variety.

When you listen to others perform music, how long do you stay interested and engaged when you're presented with a wall of sound?

There have been many times when I've been initially impressed with someone's dexterity and nimbleness only to quickly become bored. How does that happen?

Well, my theory is this: music needs variety to be interesting.Similar to a bad painting that overwhelms with colors too bold or indiscriminately placed, music can be made bad with too many notes played too often.

The ear craves the precious spaces between notes as much as the notes themselves.

Too much can be, well, too much.

More isn't always better.

In songwriting, musical improvisation, painting, cooking, and life itself, just because you can doesn't mean you should.

What do you think?

For more blogging On Songwriting, please visit
www.onsongwriting.com

'

Tis the season to give thanks for all that has led to the present moment, express hope for the future and extend the best to one and all.

As I wish you a Merry Christmas and joyful holidays, I also thank you for...

...sharing the gift of music, as a songwriter, listener,supporter or enthusiast...

...pausing for a few moments here as a new or returning visitor

...bringing a bit of yourself to that which you express, experience, observe and care about

...believing, if not in Santa, than certainly in the Muse

...being part of the tapestry that weaves together the paths, passions and pursuits of so many through the mysteries and blessing of music

May the New Year bring you abundant creative inspiration, satisfaction and peace in your heart, and more original music... always more music.

For more blogging On Songwriting, please visit
www.onsongwriting.com

Is your every song extraordinary, every performance brilliant?

Long before the first well-meaning 'other' helps you understand what you could have done better, there's probably a voice in your own head that has already noticed many of the ways you need or want to improve.

For some of us the 'inner critic' can be a helpful consultant, for there is almost always room for improvement. With the pursuits one takes most seriously, that inner voice actually becomes an essential contributor to growth and progress.

A discerning eye, a discriminating ear, an educated palate. The more you know about your craft, the more refined your distinctions become.

The ability to notice and correct flaws, to edit one's work -- to set one's ego aside enough to be able to look at your work objectively -- all are fundamental to continuous improvement.

Balance, however, is also important.

When you cook a really good meal, it is considered bad form to be the first to declare 'Hey, this is really delicious!' Fair enough. No one enjoys a braggart, so we learn to keep those comments to ourselves.

But songwriting isn't cooking. A meal comes and goes. Songs have a shelf life and want an enduring audience. Plus, there's that external, 'objective' score card by which we measure ourselves: has my song been picked up by Alison Krauss or Keith Urban? No? Then maybe it really isn't all that great (or maybe they've just never had an opportunity to hear it).

If you take yourself to task nine times out of ten but do something really well on the tenth, do you pause, take a breath and let it in? Do you give equal time to savoring the good as well as attending to the 'needs improvement?'

To be sure, there's no shortage of folks who are perfectly content exactly as they are. Nothing wrong with that (as long as they don't become too boorish, oblivious or otherwise insufferable).

But for those who take the craft of songwriting seriously enough to want to do it really well, the idea of balance is probably an important one. And given that there are way more songwriters than songs that make it to the hit parade, the ability to recognize those creations truly worthy of notice is a critical survival skill, even if it's just to pause long enough to enjoy the sound of your own two hands clapping.

Don't be too quick to accept whatever comes to mind just because you thought of it. Good or bad, human beings aren't renowned for our ability to be objective with ourselves. But also don't be so hard on yourself that you miss the joy when you reach for, and hit, the sweet spot.

Stay tuned...

For more blogging On Songwriting, please visit
www.onsongwriting.com

For those of you who have been following this blog for a while, you've no doubt noticed a theme in these posts: We are artists as well as a songwriters.

We're people with a tendency to connect dots and notice parallels in different domains. Fine wine and good music. Intimate prose and well-crafted lyrics. Bistro cooking (fresh and minimally altered) and uncontrived composition (fresh and naturally flowing).

Shakespeare and Cirque du Soleil.

It's cool to consider that musical scales typically have but eight intervals (and two of those are the same, just an octave apart). Every song ever written starts with the same rather limited palette of possibilities, yet the possibilities are expansive and endless.

The painter has three primary colors (plus white), yet infinite hues, values, potential. Every painting ever painted began with the three primaries and a limited number of optional pigments, yet the variety is spectacularly endless.

The English language has 26 letters (the Armenian language has 38). Since a bunch of those basic 26 letters are hard to use in Scrabble games, we could probably do just fine with fewer. Read any good books lately? If it was in English, well... you get the idea.

The human body has 206 bones. More than half of those are found in your hands and feet.Pick a tune with your hands. Keep time with your feet.

Play on!

(and stay tuned)

For more blogging On Songwriting, please visit
www.onsongwriting.com

As I was laying around last weekend working on a Sunday crossword puzzle, I encountered a clue that said Hired Gun. Sometimes a simple word or phrase is all it takes to set the mind awanderin'.

I've always enjoyed a good western. Lonesome Dove. Silverado. Unforgiven.The Wild Bunch. The Long Riders.

As I closed my eyes and tried to think of a six-letter word for Hired Gun, I wondered how and why someone would want to become one of those, and I thought about westerns and origins and unintended consequences, and then I came up with this...

Jack McGee was a ringer
A wannabe gunslinger
Audacious for a boy of seventeen
He was good at shootin' tin cans
Quite accurate with both hands
He saw himself as able, fast and mean

Young Jack thought he was ready
His hands were calm and steady
The time had come to greet his destiny
In his mind he looked amazing
Standing tall with guns ablazing
A legend of the West named Jack McGee

Chorus:

Jack McGee wanted to be
A legendary outlaw ridin' free
His downfall was the thing he couldn't see
Be careful what you ask for, Jack McGee

So trouble he went courtin'
With the six-guns he was sportin'
Looking for a shooter bold as he
A fight he soon createdGot a hothead agitated
That legend in the making, Jack McGee

His foe was mad and surly
Drew his gun prematurely
But his aim was straight and true as it could be
Jack said, 'Wait, I wasn't ready'
On legs no longer steady
No glory -- just the end of Jack McGee

Chorus:

Jack McGee wanted to be
A legendary outlaw ridin' free
His downfall was the thing he couldn't see
Be careful what you ask for, Jack McGee

Rest in peace, Jack McGee
Too bad you couldn't see
Tin cans are slow and their aim ain't up to snuff
When a boy's imagination
Leads to real-life confrontation
A wannabe ain't the same as good enough

It turns out that the answer to the Hired Gun clue had nothing at all to do with westerns or origins or unintended consequences.

But though the actual answer was HITMAN, the clue took me somewhere else altogether -- and that's one of my favorite parts of coming up with a new song.

For more blogging On Songwriting, please visit
www.onsongwriting.com

There you are, thinking abstract thoughts, humming catchy little melodies in your head, trying to be creative. Conjuring up a brand new song.

Back on planet earth, the world just keeps on turning.

Newspaper editors debate 'Do we call it a crash? Maybe it's more like a 'scary drop' or a 'runaway train of a sell-off.'

Meanwhile, 90-year-old Addie Polk shot herself in the chest before Akron deputies arrived to escort her out of her foreclosed home where she has resided for the past 38 years. Then there are the misguided souls who have begun shouting scary things at incendiary political rallies. Flip to the next page of the paper, and there's typically something still worse happening somewhere else. So how do we do it, this songwriting thing?

How do we stay connected enough to observe and participate, yet insulated enough to remain sane -- much less creative?

Blow up the TV
Throw away the paper
Move to the country
And buy us a home...

Mighty fine advice from songwriter John Prine, if it were only that easy.

Could it be that the answer to 'How do we do it?' is connected to something as basic as how we define ourselves?

Reflecting on the current state of the global economy, a dear friend recently wrote 'The very rich who have lost millions will just have to redefine themselves in other ways besides their money, cars, houses and clothing. The rest of us will just carry on perhaps with a few less bucks but 'who we are'  intact.'

As a songwriter, I've been thinking up new music for years with no hit records or fat royalty checks to keep me motivated. I actually write songs for the love of doing it. Whatever happens from there is a bonus -- and mostly out of my control anyway.

When I read those words from my friend, I paused to embrace how precious and fundamental the creative spirit is to 'who we are.'

As the world turns round and round, that's something to be truly grateful for, always.

---

PS: It turns out that Addie Polk survived her own bullet, and her cause fueled blogs on reckless lending practices rampant during the housing boom. Fannie Mae dropped the foreclosure, forgave her mortgage and said she could remain in the home. 'Sometimes you have to shoot yourself to get help,' lamented a neighbor.

For more blogging On Songwriting, please visit www.onsongwriting.com

Tell me something interesting.
Something true.

Tell me something I've never thought about before,
Or haven't remembered in a very long time.

Take me away.
Show me something new, or misplaced, or forgotten.

Bring me up.
Or sometimes down, or to a mellow, easy place.

My eyes are closed.
My ears and heart are open.

Sing me a song.
Whisper wisdom, but let me fill in the blanks.

Tell me a story...


For more blogging On Songwriting, please visit
www.onsongwriting.com

Songs are the product of one person's imagination, the creative synergy of co-writers... or sometimes the collective inspiration of large groups.

Such is the case with the Three-Color Blues, a 12-bar blues song spontaneously written by a group of painters seven years ago that continues to unfold year after year. In fact, it's a song that will probably never be completely finished.

The song started out one night in front of a fireplace in a rustic log building up in Big Sandy, Wyoming. Scott Christensen, a totally awesome painter, mentor and friend, was leading a plein air painting workshop for a group of artists who had traveled from all over the country to study with him.

Big Sandy is remote, up in high country with no running water, no electricity and no TV. Each morning, the artists packed brushes, easels and gear to hike into some really beautiful country for a full and precious day of painting. In the evening, after a big family-style meal and with nothing else to do, the group gathered around the fireplace as I told stories and played songs on my guitar.

A couple nights into the ten-day workshop, the first pass at the Three-Color Blues began to emerge in the key of E...

Got a tube of yellow, got a tube of red
Got a tube of yellow, got a tube of red
Wish I had a tube of orange instead

Three color blues, three color blues,
Yellow, red and blue are all you use
To paint a rainbow of different hues
Yeah buddy I got the three color blues.

...and so it began.

The next thing ya know, Jim and Larry and Lee and Kay and Jason and a bunch of the other artists started singing 'testimony' of their own. Each time, when the song came back to the chorus, the whole room was alive with voices singin' the blues as everyone chuckled and laughed at the previous verse.

This painting's bad and I'm so blue
Wish Scott would help me change the hue.

Night after night, the song unfolded anew, and folks really seemed to look forward to it. Some made notes and jotted down lyrics during the day. Others got giddy in the moment and blurted out 'I got one, I got one!'

Compose it well, and it will sell
Just be a saint, and mix brains with paint.

When the workshop finally ended, the artists had many a canvas panel and many a good memory to take back home. They also had a song that they helped create to remember the experience by.

In future years, the Three-Color Blues would become a part of many of Scott's annual workshops. It's never been recorded (at least not yet) and the contributors now number too many to count.

One of the cool things is that the song never seems to lose its power to bring a smile of knowing to all who sing it. More than just a song, it's become a celebration of a shared experience.

The Three-Color Blues has also become a story with a moral: some original songs may be destined to go platinum while others never see the light of day. But songwriting is bigger than both ends of that spectrum. Sometimes it's just about camaraderie, good humor and the simple joy of making somethin' up.

For more blogging On Songwriting, please visit
www.onsongwriting.com

Songwriting -- like fishing, painting, riding a horse or falling down a flight of stairs -- is primarily a solo experience.

Sure, people can and do get together all the time to fish or write songs or talk philosophy.

And it's rare to see a plein air painter standing in a field with a canvas panel and portable easel, struggling to capture the fleeting light before it changes, without sighting another one or two kindred souls wrestling with the same challenge somewhere in the tall grass nearby.

But even when others are all around, the craft itself is primarily a solo deal. For songwriters and painters and all manner of artistic people, the essence of the art is fundamentally connected to the creative impulse, understanding and ability of the individual.

So it's really nice when an opportunity comes along to talk about the wonder and the nuance and the craziness of it all with another human being who actually has some idea of what you're talking about.

The common thread of a common interest thus forms the basis for building connections and friendships, AKA 'community.'

To that end, the technology world has spawned all manner of user groups. In neighborhoods, book clubs and dinner parties abound and, in cyberspace, there are online communities forming around just about any topic you can think of.

So I recently set up a community site as a companion to the On Songwriting blog to provide a social networking space for folks who want to join the conversation, share insights, exchange ideas and get to know others who share a common interest in writing, recording and/or performing original music.

The site is built on the Ning social media platform which, according to Ning, gives 'everyone the freedom to create their own social network for anything.'

The URL for the On Songwriting community website is http://onsongwriting.ning.com/

Check it out -- and please join the community if you're so inclined.

The world clearly doesn't need another My Space-Facebook-LinkedIn-Plaxo clone, but this site has the modest potential to simply revolve around a single topic and connect individuals who share songwriting as an interest (or obsession... or passtime... or reason for exisiting... or just plain fun... )

What happens next? I have no idea... and that's the beauty of the whole concept: the community decides!

Bookmark or subscribe: onsongwriting.ning.com

See you there!

Ideas are everywhere, but why is it that some folks find them everywhere -- and apparently effortlessly -- while others of us struggle? And sometimes, even the most creative among us have a 'dry spell' where nothing new, fresh, stimulating or hummable rolls along.

What changed... the person, or the world around them?

Holding a conscious intention to observe is the key to noticing. The intention to listen is an act of preparation. Like packing the right gear for a fishing trip (not too easy to catch a fish in the river without a rod), adopting a mindset that prepares you to 'catch' ideas when they come along is essential to landing the big ones.

Keen observation, sensitive listening and emotional insights are impossible, however, if one's mind is stuck in the past or worried about the future. And maybe that's why sometimes otherwise wildly creative folks experience 'wandering in the wilderness' periods from time to time, possibly abandoning one's present to rehash the joy or pain of yesterday, or the worry or anticipation of tomorrow. There's a lot of truth in the old saying, 'Today is the tomorrow we worried about yesterday.'

In one sense, the intention to be present is very simple to implement. You just have to be where you are and pay attention. And even on days when this approach to life catches no song-worthy ideas, it will enrich your day anyway.

The intention to listen is the opposite of walking through life oblivious to the details of the present -- the very things that make the journey so gratifying and precious. In that sense, maybe songwriters enjoy a more engaged and poetic life than most.

For more blogging On Songwriting, please visit www.onsongwriting.com