Songwriter's songwriter Nick Wilson and I had a much needed writing session on the acoustics this afternoon. I felt like we were challenging ourselves with the parts we were coming up with. I am looking forward to testing these out on the electrics at the Tetanus Rig jam tomorrow. The reason we prefer to write the guitar and bass parts acoustically is because it allows us to squeeze more musical arrangement out of a song's lyrics and melodies. Many times we have left a jam on the electrics unsure of the bogan riffs or arpeggiated chords that we have come up with. Anything that compromises the importance of structure or development over repetition will get junked.
Group writing and collaboration can also be a strange mix of the spontaneous and the deliberate. I often say that improvising in a group really exposes a musician's ability and breadth in listening. This is even more true for group composition because there is a higher level of mental engagement required. This is the essence of flow (which I mentioned in the previous post), where an individual's strengths are being used to overcome a challenging task. The sensation of losing track of time is one you often get from being in a state of flow [1]. Our writing session today suprisingly lasted roughly two hours.
Tonight I dedicated my 40 mins composing time to lyrics and it went better than I anticipated. I am trying to write a reflection of my grandfather's life and how much he means to all of his family. For a while I have had a vague idea of the verses describing different stages of life, where they all colour the refrain: "there's always something to leave behind" in different ways. I was happy with the ideas I came up with for two verses tonight, even though I didn't quite nail the word choices or the rhythm. One of the biggest things I've learnt is that it is important to get the ideas down first and then polish them later, rather than getting stuck and labouring over one line before giving up entirely [2].
Group writing and collaboration can also be a strange mix of the spontaneous and the deliberate. I often say that improvising in a group really exposes a musician's ability and breadth in listening. This is even more true for group composition because there is a higher level of mental engagement required. This is the essence of flow (which I mentioned in the previous post), where an individual's strengths are being used to overcome a challenging task. The sensation of losing track of time is one you often get from being in a state of flow [1]. Our writing session today suprisingly lasted roughly two hours.
Tonight I dedicated my 40 mins composing time to lyrics and it went better than I anticipated. I am trying to write a reflection of my grandfather's life and how much he means to all of his family. For a while I have had a vague idea of the verses describing different stages of life, where they all colour the refrain: "there's always something to leave behind" in different ways. I was happy with the ideas I came up with for two verses tonight, even though I didn't quite nail the word choices or the rhythm. One of the biggest things I've learnt is that it is important to get the ideas down first and then polish them later, rather than getting stuck and labouring over one line before giving up entirely [2].
I mentioned a couple of ideas that I must attribute to the following:
1. Sydney Psychologist Aleks Srbinoski's program Fulfilling Happiness (I composed the music in this program. Visit http://www.fulfillinghappiness.com/ and scroll down to the "Sample 1" link to hear some of it)
2. Pat Pattison's Writing Better Lyrics - http://www.patpattison.com/home/
1. Sydney Psychologist Aleks Srbinoski's program Fulfilling Happiness (I composed the music in this program. Visit http://www.fulfillinghappiness.com/ and scroll down to the "Sample 1" link to hear some of it)
2. Pat Pattison's Writing Better Lyrics - http://www.patpattison.com/home/
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