As an artist it's easy to get hung up on perfection and quality. Excellence is good, but not if it silences all creative flow and shuts down all productivity. Sometimes the best thing we can do for our creativity is to let it flow uncensored. Pursuing quantity over quality this year will force me to consistently encounter and grow in my craft and will hopefully force me to draw from a deeper well. My 111songsintwenty11 do not have to be epic, great or even good. They just have to be finished. I’m so excited about the possibilities.

I read of a pottery teacher who divided his class into two groups for a semester. The students of the first group were challenged to each produce a single pot of the highest quality. The students of the second group were challenged to produce as many pots as they possibly could in the same amount of time with no regard to quality. Every pot was brought in at the end of the challenge to be counted and inspected. The surprise was that the pots created by the “quantity group” were far superior in quality when compared to the pots created by the “quality group”. Their pursuit of quantity caused them to excel in quality simply because they spent so much time with their craft.

So I'm in. I'm rolling up my sleeves, sitting down at the wheel, and I'm ready to sling some clay. I'm getting my hands on my craft and I'm hoping by the end of this year, my pursuit of quantity will make me a better songwriter. I'm hoping some quality songs will emerge from the piles of forgettable ones.

This blog is to chronicle my adventures in songwriting this year and to invite you to join me. I’m gonna post what I learn about songwriting and videos of each song as I finish them so that you can comment and join in the fun.

Friday, December 10, 2010

no idea left behind

only 22 days til 2011! then the songwriting frenzy will begin! i am becoming more and more energized as i think about and prepare for all the songs that are soon to be born. i bought a tiny new notepad to keep with me for capturing ideas as they come. i usually use my iphone voice recorder, which syncs into a folder on my itunes. it works great to record lyrics and melodies but there are still some public places where it is weird to sing into your phone. another fun way to record on your iphone is with the simple songwriter app.

this year i need to stay prepared with whatever will keep an idea from getting away. i always say that i won’t forget, but i usually do unless i get it recorded. i have the most hilariously bad recordings of me singing into my phone in the middle of the night. i wake up (kind of) and record what i believe to be a truly brilliant song idea. the next day i discover that it was actually comic brilliance and it will never be heard by another human.

either way, i’m gonna need every single song idea i can find for this project.

how do you capture your ideas?
Posted by at

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)