Muse’s Clues from Feb.09

I will be posting my monthly article regularly from the Muse’s Muse here after its publication in the newsletter. The Muse’s Muse is a huge songwriting community created by Jodi Krangle, and I have written for the newsletter since the early days. If you’ve never visited Jodi’s site, you’ve been missing out!

The article is meant to point out websites that might inspire you as a songwriter, whether from a creative or technical standpoint, or just to give you an idea of who else is out there.

Here is the article from the Feb.09 issue:

M u s e ‘ s C l u e s : by Irene Jackson
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This past Christmas season, my husband and I attended an event
which has become an annual tradition for many Canadians. Stuart
McLean is a broadcaster with the CBC (Canadian Broadcasting
Corporation) and every Sunday we tune into his “Vinyl Café” on
CBC Radio. He often tours the country with the show, and during
the month of December he has a live Christmas show that he brings
to many cities across the country. His show is also broadcast on
NPR in the US and can be heard online through a podcast:

http://www.cbc.ca/vinylcafe/home.php

The Vinyl Café is a collection of “stories, essays and music
(both live and recorded)” and Stuart McLean is a wonderful
storyteller. Not only does he read his own writings on air, but
he encourages listeners to submit their own stories and he will
usually read one or two of them each week as part of the show. A
song usually follows the story, and often the song relates to the
story topic. The show is folksy in nature and always fun to
listen to and Stuart McLean is a distinctive voice who never
fails to entertain.

Whatever style you write in, however you think of your
songwriting, you are always telling a story. The story might
only be about a moment in time or painting an emotional
landscape, but the best songs have a great beginning, middle and
end, just like a great story. Storytelling itself has become
almost a lost art in our technically-obsessed world, but it is
something every songwriter should think about when penning
lyrics, and the Vinyl Café is a great re-introduction to the
world of telling stories.

You can get the latest podcast from the website by either
subscribing or downloading straight on to your computer. Listen
to just one of these shows and I guarantee you’ll be inspired!

IJ

Songwriting Exercise

There has been an interesting challenge on Facebook in the last while, one that I participated in myself and found kind of fun.  And as I did it, I thought that with a couple of moderations, it would make a good songwriting exercise to stir up your creative juices.

The challenge involved going to websites like Wikipedia and the Quotations Page and then Flickr to pick random names and quotes and photos to create an album cover.

So I’m going to put in a twist.  Here’s what you do:

1. Go to Wikipedia and hit random, here The first random Wikipedia article you get is the name of your song

2. Go to Random quotations page, click here. The last four or five words of the very last quote of the page is a phrase that has to appear in your song

Now here’s my addition:

3. Go to the HotFrets Chord Progression Generator. Pick a key, a progression and a style and generate a chord progression to try out on your guitar or piano

And that’s it!  See what you come up with. 
IJ

The Power of Observation

You’ll get the same advice everywhere (and you’ve gotten it from me too) about finding inspiration in reading or people watching…or by just planting yourself in a new place you’ve never been before.

This time, however, I want to take you one step further.

When police officers are trained, they learn a lot about developing their observational skills, remembering little details about events or people so that they can apply them later.  We take a lot for granted when we are out and about…we look past everything because we’re distracted by our own thoughts or inner conversations.  It isn’t until something significant catches our eye or our ear that we are jolted back into the present.

Buddhists practice something called “mindfulness” which can be an excellent tool for working on your powers of observation.  You don’t even have to be Buddhist to use it :-).  Simply put, it is about focusing in on the present…focusing your ears and eyes, all of your senses so that everything that happens, as minute as it may appear, is consciously observed.  But it is not easy to do!  Set an alarm for five or ten minutes and for that amount of time, try to stay completely in the present, giving your complete attention to whatever you are hearing or seeing, but ignoring any distracting thoughts at the same time.  It takes some work to do!

Once you have tried the 5 minute experiment, take it a step further.

Go for a walk with the intention of remembering as much as you can about everything you see and hear on your 15 or 20-minute walk.  The test will be when you get home…because you are then going to make a list of everything you can remember from your excursion, every observation you made.

Why am I giving you this exercise?  Simply put, you will realize how much you miss, many little bits and pieces of daily life that you may actually be able to use in your lyrics.  Exercise isn’t just for working your muscles, it is also for working your mind and your mind is a pretty powerful writing tool.  Once you have tried the walk, take it a step even further and put yourself in a place with a lot of people activity, like a mall or a park.  This time, do the same thing as your walk…try not to allow yourself to be distracted by your own thoughts and simply observe as much as you can.  Later, when you get home, pull out a piece of paper (or your laptop) and make a list of everything you remember.

This practice will help you to develop your powers of observation, just like the cop who’s in training.  A songwriter is always “in training” because we are always on the look-out for a new idea or something to stimulate our creative consciousness.

If this exercise works for you…let me know right here!

And keep your eyes and ears open…

IJ