Strap On Your Boots

I sat down tonight with some free, home-alone time in which I thought I might make some good progress on some songwriting.  *fail buzzer*  This whole process continues to take me back to the old songwriting days.  In this case, I'm reexperiencing the struggle to finish something I've started, which wouldn't be so hard to struggle through if I didn't recognize that this is a theme that pervades my life.

Over the years, I've come to adopt many hobbies from being so curious about learning about so many different things.  Music was probably a first, having adopted it early on in grammar school, then sports, drawing and painting, learning languages, computer geeking, learning programming languages, to reading up on a variety of subjects of interest.  Blah.  College is where I really started to dig in to these things, and my interest in learning continued to grow.  The problem, however, that I've come to see over and over again is that instead of finishing, for example, Kierkegaard's "Fear and Loathing", I get too quickly interested in starting Tolkein's "The Two Towers", and the Kierkegaard just sits on my nightstand collecting dust.  ...and then shortly after, I choose to spend my time doing something other than finishing "The Two Towers", and then that book just sits on my nightstand collecting dust.  [continue pattern]

I've recently thought that this whole problem revolves around me not having enough time to do all these things that I want to do, but I've even more recently realized that the problem is not that I don't have the time, it's that I need to make the time.  So in the past couple of months, I've been trying to remind myself of this fact, and do something about my self-inflicted time problem. 

[enter problem as it relates to music] 
I've been taking at least one night a week and devoting it to songwriting; this has been quite fruitful, up until tonight.  I've got two songs mapped out about 3/4 of the way through, with multiple parts recorded and roughly mixed (although the mixing isn't necessary since the recordings are for composition's sake only)--two songs that I've been excited about for more than a day or two, which is rare (usually these songs fall prey to the aforementioned problem: losing interest and moving to something else).  The time I had tonight was a rare few hours that I get alone before the neighbors go to sleep, which means I can actually concentrate on playing parts and not worrying about playing too loud and pissing them off.  Awesome.  Except that only about 3 creative notes came out of my fingers all night long.

I sat down with new piece #2, which has this really simple & rhythmic piano line, with another simple bluesy/Irish guitar line over it, then some Bonhamesque drum sample (seriously, it sounds like I ripped it straight off "When the Levee Breaks"--I love it), plus some other knickknacks to spice it up.  Last session, I'd left the piece in a sort of ambiguous end where parts just sort of end here and there, but that the piece needs to keep driving and growing.  So, where better place to pick up?  I did some listening of this end part, of which I'd threw in some other samples just go get the idea out there of where I wanted to song to go, but just got annoyed at where this left the song.  So instead of fixing that, I spent my time re-recording the first guitar part, and hence blurped out those 3 creative notes of the night.  From there, I tried adding to the end (instead of pulling out the crap samples that don't really fit) and just got frustrated that I couldn't come up with anything.  At that point, it was about 9:45 and thought that I should just move on to something else, yet I didn't really have time to immerse in to another piece.

So I decided to pack up for the night.  I then again listened to the current state of the product and couldn't help but get more frustrated that I had no idea where to take this thing.  I feel like I've written myself in to a corner.  Gah.  I think the solution is to just wipe out all that excess crap that I don't like and start from scratch...?  Whatever the case, I get really disheartened when the "right" stuff just doesn't pour out.  It makes me want to just ditch it all and go pick up that Kierkegaard.  Or just go to sleep.

Let It Go
I suppose this is all part of the process, but sometimes I wish I could just birth the child, so to speak, without having to have that rise of inspiration inside.  I don't want to have to rely only on those rare times where I have time and am feeling that music inside ready to just pour itself out--those times are just way too hard to come by.

So I guess it's just one of those nights where you have to pick yourself up and know that the workbench is still laden with tools and half a product, waiting for you to come back to work and put the pieces together.  *sigh*  I guess we'll see.  It really is such a challenge for me to come back to it though.  I guess that's just what one has to do...

The "Front Man" Complex

First off, I think I've decided that I need to dispense with comments on how I go on blog-post-hiatus.  I realize now that while I love blogging on this whole music thing, I get so caught up in life that music (and consequently this blog) gets pushed aside.  ...which is a total bummer when I stop and think about it, as refraining from music--my main creative outlet--and this blog--a catalyst for me to do music--mean I don't end up enjoying a huge part of my life that I potentially could.  And such is my personal history that carries over to other life aspects.  I digress.

In going with the theme of this blog, my catharsis here is about my recent music ventures.  I've recently been challenged with getting a new band together, which has meant coming up with new music--one thing which I've never done, and the other which I haven't done in quite a long time.  Both are causing me to think and grow, and I like it.  I'm hoping that by writing this post, I'll figure some stuff out.

The Band
So I've been getting together with a couple of buddies for some months now with the idea that we can finally do something that we've never done before and always wanted to do.  This process has been a number of things:

1. Exciting.  The thought that I finally have a forum to explore music that I've always wanted to make is pretty darn great.
   
2. Confusing.  When we initially got together, we talked about concepts and styles that we wanted to explore, and found that we were all on similar pages, but I'm finding that with the structure of practicing & writing that we've been using leaves us all over the place and essentially not having moved forward in any direction.
   
3. Frustrating.  In the 2 bands that I've played in, I've basically played other people's music, leaving me to do something that I really enjoy: figure out how to make a part work within a given framework.  We're starting from scratch with this group, which means that if I'm going to contribute to the writing part of songs, I have to switch gears back to big-picture writing, which I haven't really done much of in probably 7 years.
   

In the past few weeks, we've talked about how we haven't made much real progress in term of "product" (finished songs), which has led to discussions about the lack of one of us possessing that "front man" personality (AKA who's gonna be the "a-hole" of the band).  We need someone to keep driving us forward.  We need someone to hold the reins and yank us back when we've spent too much time jacking around or overworking musical ideas.  We need someone to provide some structure for the music we're going to do--and that music should be within certain bounds, yet push those boundaries at the same time. 

I've been elected to be that guy.

The Writing
So what does that mean for me?  I've thought about it, and I think that means that I finally get to bring ideas to the table (and hopefully to the public) that have been looming in my head for years upon years.  And while that's exciting, that's a bit of pressure--something that when it comes to writing, for me, can have a negative impact.

When I was studying music in college, I wasn't the guy that had been playing the piano for years and years--I was just capable enough to learn college level stuff, but didn't have the experience of playing music for people.  At the time, I absolutely loved playing, but I just didn't get why I needed to share the stuff that I'd learned for a bunch of people that I didn't know (à la recitals).  It was my music.  I wanted to play it for me and only me.  And that meant practicing when no one was around; it also meant that if I was going to write my own stuff, it had to be when no one was around.  After all, I was putting my own personal emotions and thoughts and feelings in to this stuff... why should I share my musical diary with strangers?  It took me quite a few nerve-racking recitals and probably both of the 2 years that led up to my senior recital to realize that, whether I liked to admit it or not, I had some level of talent--talent that others didn't have (I say that with all possible humility)--that translated in to enjoyment and pleasure for others that only listening to music can bring.  I realized that I had the chance to stimulate other minds and hearts and should do so--I mean, where would I be without all of the music that had shaped my life?  What if aaaall of those writers and composers had selfishly kept their music for themselves?  I'd surely be a different person and I'm immensely grateful for that music that has made an impact on my life.  With as much narcisism aside as possible, I hope that I can use the gifts I've been given to do the same for others.

Cut back to the present... So I decided that in order to get this song-writing ball rolling, I needed two things: 1) time, 2) inspiration.  I realized that I've got time--I just need to organize it more efficiently.  I've recently made an attempt to apply some GTD (Getting Things Done) principles to track all of my responsibilities, blah blah blah... that's boring though, so I won't talk about that.  Let's just say that I've made some improvements there.  Now to the inspiration...

I grew up listening to "oldies", Blues, Classical music, Christian Sacred music, and a whole lot of Folk music.  I studied Classical piano in college, sang bass in the choir, and found myself highly interested in 20th Century stuff, despite the not-so-aurally pleasing result of a lot of it.  Part of this interest was founded in my frustration while taking Music Theory classes--learning formulas for music got me to realize that everything that I'd sit down to write was really just like something else that someone had already written.  The 20th Century stuff spurred me to get in to Jazz.  The choral stuff got me hooked on the phenomenal ability of big groups of voices to pull off really gnarly dissonances and make them sound, well, pretty.  When I got in to the SW industry, I got turned on to Electronic music--which spurred the idea that I had the ability to orchestrate a large number of instruments on my own; I didn't need to have an arsenal of players at my disposal to pull something off.  All of this got me thinking that if I could just put it all together, I might have the chance to come up with something "new".

Fail.  You don't write something and go, "Wow, no one's ever done this before!"  Well, OK, lots of people say that, but come on guys... We're all just building on our past--and I'm just now realizing this--not realizing like acknowledging, but realizing like accepting and taking to heart.

So in trying to do music that I've always wanted to do (putting all of my influences together) and knowing that it's not really going to be "new", I've decided that I'm going to unabashedly rip people off.  I've decided that my first rip-off goal is going to be Godspeed You Black Emperor (you choose where you want to put the "!"--they keep changing their minds on that dumb punctuation mark.  Silly Canucks.).  I've been working on a piece for a few weeks now, and am actually encouraged that I just might have something here.  On the flip side, I've also come to remember the rollercoaster ride it is in writing music: I love it, then hate it, then love it again, then get totally disinterested...

Putting It Together
I realize that I've got an opportunity and actually have some things to say musically.  Putting on this "front man" hat is going to be a new challenge for me--kinda like how it was signing up for a management job when I knew I sucked at (partially because I didn't know how, partially because I thought it was dumb) managing people in a job scenario.  I signed up because I knew it would challenge me by exposing weak areas of my personality--and while I've grown immensely, it's still doing that four years later.

Doing this front man thing, for me, will surely be an unconventional way of doing such, but if I can force myself to stick to my guns, I think I'll be really excited to be able to share some new pieces of Steve (and Chris and John) to whoever will take a listen.  Right now, I just have to force myself to put the pieces together and make it happen.  Good thing I like rollercoasters...