Wine, A Watercolor Kit, and September by Earth, Wind & Fire

Kiddies...this is what happens when you drink wine, open up a new watercolor kit, and listen to September by my beloved Earth, Wind & Fire. .

I've always seen gold, orange, red, and yellow when I've heard that song. This is what I got tonight.

Yeah, I'm Dumb...In A Good Way

Songwriting is one of those things for me where I get so nervous about it sometimes that I could easily talk myself out of doing it - permanently. 

I still don't know as much about songwriting as I hoped I would by now. I'm not nearly as advanced as I wanted to be.

And that can make my brain get on my case. My brain can cook up all kinds of criticism about it. It's trying to "protect" me by putting up "warning signs," like "STOP NOW. You don't know what you're doing." It's trying to be "smart."

Well, Brain...I don't want you to be "smart" about this anymore. I want you to be DUMB.

Many times in my life, I've succeeded at something because I was "dumb enough to do it." I didn't rationalize, overthink it, criticize myself, or care what anyone else thought. I put my prefrontal cortex on the back burner and let my reptilian brain take over. I just did it. 

I didn't need "confidence" because I didn't know I needed it. I didn't do even that much thinking.

So, dear Brain...go away. For a little while, anyway. Just let me be dumb enough to do this.

You can come back when I need to give my Grammy speech for Song Of The Year.

Silly Semantics...Or Maybe Not

I have what I think is a very silly problem. But, hey, it's my blog and I can be silly if I want.

I don't like the word "feedback" being used in relation to evaluating a song. Something about that just bugs me.

And I think I figured it out: "feedback" sounds like it's associated with a job. 

It sounds to me like something your boss would say about your performance evaluation at work - a concept I abhor anyway: "I'm going to give you 'feedback' about your performance in the last twelve months." (I had a "performance evaluation" on one job that was so weird that I resigned almost immediately.)

I think I like the words "ideas" and "suggestions" better. Now, I'm not overly sensitive. You can tell me if you don't like something. That's fine. But the word "feedback" feels to me like the person giving it thinks their opinion is superior to yours. 

I once met a local musician for the first time who tried to "offer feedback" on my songs. I hadn't asked for her opinion, or anything like that. It struck me as a bit arrogant. I would have liked it better if she had said something like "Maybe we could trade ideas on songs, and how we can make each of ours better." Something that felt like more of a give-and-take between equals.

So, yes, this is my silly little problem. But I'll take responsibility for that. Just humor me...and use another word besides "feedback."

Got A Song I Can't STAND - But My Wallet Might Like It

I've got a song about encouraging yourself to do more with your life, pushing yourself to be better, etc.

And I can't STAND this song.

"WHAT? You don't like your own SONG???"

No, I don't. 

But that's okay.

See, I learned as a photographer that not everybody would like my pictures. And even I didn't like all of them. 

I'd shoot something I thought would be really cool...and then I'd see it, in print or digitally, and think, "Meh, not that great."

That happened often enough that I learned not to take it personally. I realized that not everything I shot was good. 

And that was wonderful. It was very humbling - and refreshing. If I liked everything I shot, I wouldn't have learned anything new - and I wouldn't have been honest with myself about how to improve my pictures.

So I'm like that with my songs. Some excite me from the get-go, and they become my "classics." Others excite me at first, but not so much later. And I hate some of them right from the start.

But I learn by analyzing why I hate them. Is it a melody I can't fix because the song just wants that melody? Are the lyrics "blah"? Can I work with them, or not? It depends on each song.

But...would somebody else like the song? 

I figured out that I hated the song about "doing more" because it sounds like it belongs in a life insurance commercial. 

Then I heard KA-CHING!!!💲💵💸💰🤑

I have a business degree, I've run a business, and my name is Fortune. So I clearly have no problem with commerce.

I'm going to keep working on "this song I hate," because maybe somebody can use it in a life insurance commercial, or a lifestyle show, or...whatever.

I just needed to realize why I hated it...and why somebody else might like it. 

Who am I to keep them from using it??

A Frame Of Mind

My love of music and my visual skills have intersected so often in my life that it's mind blowing. 

I was good at drawing when I was growing up, and my family steered me toward the visual arts. I studied commercial art in my early twenties. A rock musician I had a crush on got me into photography. I'm doing my graphics work for my album Evolve myself, and that's reignited my love for graphic design, so I've decided to get a bachelor's degree in it starting next year.

But I'm obviously not the only songwriter who "thinks visually."

Carole King once said she envisions a song like a picture in a frame. Joni Mitchell was an art student before she became a musician, and has often used her own paintings for her album artwork, like on her Court & Spark album. She wrote about being "a lonely painter" in A Case Of You on her Blue album. A fan once told Joni that she saw pictures when she heard Joni's songs, and Joni loved that. 

I don't know who did the graphic work on Brandi Carlile's video for You And Me On The Rock, but it's very Joni Mitchell-ish. No surprise there, since Brandi and Joni are good friends. Graham Nash has been a photographer since he was a child. And I discovered last year that Bob Dylan is an excellent painter. I didn't know that! 

There are too many examples of musicians who are involved in the visual arts to list here. It would two weeks just to think of them!

You And Me On The Rock - Brandi Carlile 

https://youtu.be/bN5JK1LPrnI 

Visuals have always been important to music, of course. No news flash there. But I get really excited when I find out a musician is a visual artist too, like Joni Mitchell, Graham Nash, and Bob Dylan, or thinks visually during the songwriting process, like Carole King.

I just love multitalented people like that...

My Go-To Songwriting Book

I like having "go-to" books when I sit down to write - those books I can count on to give me terrific ideas.

And my favorite one? The Complete Singer- Songwriter: A Troubador's Guide To Writing, Performing, Recording, and Business, Second Edition, by Jeffrey Pepper Rodgers.

It was a library book I checked out so often, I finally bought it. What makes it so good?

Jeffrey Pepper Rodgers writes like a songwriter thinks. And he's very encouraging to new songwriters. He says "If you can sing a song, you can write one." He simplifies the whole process without dumbing it down.

His book was also the first place I learned about chord progressions. I'd never actually heard of them before. His graphics and the text helped me start understanding how they work.

And the book is loaded with interviews with, admittedly, many of my songwriting influences, like James Taylor, Joni Mitchell, Jason Mraz, John Mayer, and Brandi Carlile. The pictures of these songwriters truly show them in their element, and the quotes from them sprinkled throughout the book let you get to know them and their songwriting styles even better than you did already.

The section on recording has solid advice for recording at your level, and on your budget, with the space you have.

Don't be like me, and check it out 25,716 times from the library. The sooner you buy it, the sooner you can highlight the hell out of it, and write in it to your heart's content. It will stay in your stack of go-to songwriting books.

Available directly from Jeffrey: 

https://www.jeffreypepperrodgers.com/the-complete-singer-songwriter

It's also on Amazon:

https://www.amazon.com/Complete-Singer-Songwriter-Troubadours-Performing-Recording/dp/1495019918/ref=mp_s_a_1_2?crid=2WGZ465Y70Z5Z&keywords=jeffrey+pepper+rodgers&qid=1670514018&sprefix=jeffrey+pepp%2Caps%2C175&sr=8-2

Letting Go

I'm sitting down tonight to work on my Evolve album. And I'm thinking about song ideas I've tossed out over time.

Some song ideas clearly needed to go. I had one song about a (fictional) breakup that occurred just before summer, and the girl in the song said "But it doesn't feel like summer, though, since we let each other go." The lyrics weren't too bad, for one of my first songs. But the tune was outright maudlin - and I couldn't have fixed it no matter how experienced I was as a songwriter. Ick!!!

Others were songs that I never seemed to finish because they didn't hook me - pun intended. And some songs were simply repeating a theme, like not letting narrow-minded people get you down.

Or some sounded really great when I first heard them in my head...but flew out of it later. And it didn't truly matter.

I email myself song ideas when I get them, and I do a guitar demo on my phone for the ones that seem the strongest. So I do keep track of them. But my feeling on any song, really, is that the good ideas will stick around, and the not-so-good ones will go visit somebody who can use them better.

So I've learned about letting go of song ideas. I don't need every single one that flies into my head.

Not every song idea will win you a Grammy. 

It's The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year...For Learning Songwriting

When people see me borrowing Christmas sheet music books from the library in the summer, naturally they assume I'm getting ready for playing music this time of year.

My real reason for doing that shocks them. 

You see, it's not so I can knock people off their feet with my wonderful rendition of O Come All Ye Faithful (my favorite Christmas song, by the way). 

It's to learn about songwriting.

I realized early on in my songwriting that Christmas music is an amazing way to learn how to write songs. 

Most Christmas music sounds great on a classical guitar, which I play, so it's good for learning guitar. The melodies lend themselves to the acoustic/soft rock/indie style I write in, and the lyrics, while a bit sappy at times, tell a story: the birth of Christ, people gathering together, falling in love around Christmastime, the heartbreak of not being with the ones you love, ripping into presents your materialistic little heart wanted, Grandma having a "vehicular incident" with reindeer...if you want to learn how to tell a story with lyrics, Christmas music is one-stop shopping.

And the vocals are usually gorgeous, so they make you step up your game vocally. O Holy Night? More like O Holy Cow in many cases, but it does make you try harder.

My taste in Christmas music tends to be songs from the mid-1800s to about the early 1950s. These songs have lasted, and proven to have a timeless appeal. Most modern Christmas songs make me all Scroogey, honestly. But if Mariah Carey singing "All I Want For Christmas Is You" fills your heart with holiday cheer, have at it.

I did have a little fun with Christmas music in 2011 - well before I got into songwriting. I had major surgery on my left foot right after Thanksgiving, so I was on crutches during the season. So "It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas" became "It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like Crutches..."

I know. I'm horrible. But it made people laugh! 

So there ya have it: my secret weapon for learning songwriting. If one of my songs sounds like Silent Night...well, the author can't come after me now!