In the early, exploratory stage of finding my way with a possible new song, I try not to bring too much judgement to what I’m doing. I try to let things flow as freely as possible until something catches my ear.
But of course, on some level, underneath, there’s a monologue going on… ‘That’s lame… that’s kind of interesting… maybe? No, it’s bad… but what if I did… No; even worse… How about?… Hmm… Maybe…’ Etc. There’s some kind of thought process going on, even if it’s not too conscious.
And that process, like everything I do, is guided to a large extent by what my comfort zone is, going in. A lot of food tastes good to me because I’m familiar with it; I already know I like it… the taste confirms it. Same with music. Something can sound ‘good’ to me because either it sounds like something by someone else that I like, or it sounds like something I’ve already written that I like.
There’s nothing so bad about this, at least much of the time. Traveling a well-trod road can lead me to some new paths that branch off from it. I don’t necessarily have to end up on overly familiar territory. I try not to.
But sometimes I do. And this is where I’ll go back to where I started: Sometimes it’s worth messing around with something because it sounds, say, ‘interesting’ to me… maybe not ‘good’ (yet). With food, it would be giving my taste buds a chance to get used to a new taste; not rejecting it out of hand. It’s the same with sounds.
There are times when it’s worth trying something that may sound a little weird, playing it a bunch of times, to see if my ear can get used to it, and even learn to like it. This can apply to a chord progression, a melody, word sounds, choice of words, rhyming/not rhyming, even an unfamiliar structure… any aspect of a song.
When I think of the music I most love, some of it I loved the minute I heard it. But some of it I had to be exposed to more than once for my ears to turn its seeming strangeness into beauty.
And so it goes, sometimes, with my own writing.
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I love this article and the open mindedness that drives it.
Thanks a lot, Elise!
Tony
Hi Tony,
Another great blog post. Elise nailed it with “open mindedness” which harkens to your judgement free tactic. When I hear those “interesting, but not quite there” ideas, I record them right away if I can. Sometimes the big lie, “I’ll remember it later/in the morning”, still kills off some good ideas, but not as much thankfully. If I record or right them down, I can go back at a later time and see if there’s more there. Just 2 weeks ago, I started fleshing out the barest sketch of an idea from more than a year ago. I had even listened to it several times prior and thought very little of it. Why was it different this most recent time? Some combination of patience, open mindedness and song craft came together to nudge it into something that was more than just “interesting”. It’s all a process and when I remember that, I’m much better off. Great ideas seldom come fully formed, they need time, hard work and often other sets of educated ears to bring them forth.
Rich,
Thanks for that! Well put.
TC
Thank you for this blog post, Tony. Oh definitely. It takes me awhile to “get stuff”. I won’t say now who I am finally “getting”, as I am decades behind everyone else in my appreciation for artists who everybody knows are iconic and extraordinary, who back in the day everyone would be raving about, and I would be going, “huh? wha? I don’t get it.” I used to get frustrated with my inability to appreciate the strangeness my friends immediately and totally “got”. But my slow to catch on tendencies have now made enormous amounts of music finally accessible to me, and I am having the time of my life, listening is so fun, for there are always new discoveries. (New for me anyway). And of course, there are artists now I am as usual going, “huh? wha?” and twenty years from now I’ll be excitedly talking about my “new discovery”.
Julia,
As you can see above, I relate! Thanks for the positive (but realistic) take on it.
Tony