January | 10 Things Worth Sharing
The power of whispering, the evils of alphabetization, the antidote to resentment...and more!
Hi everyone :)
Welcome to all new subscribers! Thanks for being here :) This monthly(ish) newsletter is a quick guide to some glittering jewels of interest for those of the songwriterly persuasion. It’s also where I’ll let you know of any upcoming songwriting workshops.
Let’s jump in!
Upcoming Workshops
Beyond the Second Verse: Song Mapping
BOOK HERE (almost sold out, so please book asap if you’re interested!)
Wednesday Feb 23, 7-8.30pm AEST (Sydney time - *Note: we have some workshops coming up that are US timezone-friendly!)
Small Group Song Feedback Circle (5ppl max!)
Wednesday June 15, 6-8pm AEST
BOOK HERE (again, this sells out very quickly as it’s 5ppl max)
We’ve also got some great Workshops planned for the next few months - we’ll keep you posted! If you have suggestions of Workshops you’d be keen to attend, please let me know in the comments section below!
10 Things Worth Sharing
Quote I’ve been pondering: “Now is the new normal” - from marketing and leadership deep-thinker, Seth Godin (quite literally the only human I actually enjoy listening to talk about marketing…). There’s no ‘going back.’ We’re not ever really going to return to the way it was.
Speaking of Seth Godin, one of his main marketing ideas is essentially the idea that ‘whispering quietly to people who care’ is much more effective than shouting at strangers who don’t. This is one of the key ideas I talk about in a recent blog post, ‘How to Successfully Network as a Songwriter: My answer to a slightly petulant question on my YouTube Channel.’
Writing that blog post also reminded me of a recent radio show I listened to, explaining how gratitude is the antidote to resentment. I ended up feeling very grateful to afore-mentioned petulant YouTube commenter, for compelling me to write in depth about ideas on how to successfully ‘network.’ It can seem like such a mystery.
And in the land of ‘things that make you feel better,’ my mind was a little bit blown listening to the ‘Eudemonology’ episode of Ologies, and particularly by the idea that time affluence—the perception that you have some spare time in your day or week—is one of the key factors that divides those high on ratings of happiness from those lower on the scale.
If you’re into podcasts, this episode of 99% Invisible is a banger (especially for word nerds), in which you will learn that Samuel Taylor Coleridge hated alphabetisation (there’s a special delight in people who have strong feelings about things you never thought it was possible to feel strongly about). He believed it ordered the world in disconnected and nonsensical fragments...and Melvil Dewey (of the Dewey Decimal System) was a horrible racist and anti-semite. He devoted numbers 200-289 to Christianity, and a single number to Islam. He also put “Women” next to “Etiquette” in the system...ghagh.
For singers out there, I have been LOVING these Cheryl Porter vocal warm ups. I have absolutely terrible vocal habits (being a basically untrained singer), and have trying to up my game in vocal health. These are not just excellent, but also delightful.
My favourite book of 2021 was one I squeezed into the very last week of the year: ‘A Deadly Education’.
Moving from being ‘little-c creative’ to ‘Pro-C creative’ (which is a taxonomy of creativity established by psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi) as a songwriter often means being able to write and produce completely regardless of your level of inspiration. It’s one thing to write only when you feel like it; but venturing into the waters of professional songwriting means writing all the time, and often to a brief. Here are 4 ways to start a song, on any day, regardless of your level of inspiration.
One of those 4 ways is to do 10 minutes of ‘Sense Writing’. Here are some examples of Sense Writing, with another example that shows how I would take one of these more free-form pieces of prose, and translate it into lyrics.
One of the best ways to learn to write songs is to learn from other great songs. Paul McCartney said that in learning to write songs, “I emulated Buddy Holly, Little Richard, Jerry Lee Lewis, Elvis. We all did.”
Your songwriting project this week:
Learn a song! And learn something from that song. Emulate the songs form. Steal and reappropriate part of the chord progression. Adopt the ‘voice’ of the narrator, but tell a new story. If you want more specific ideas and inspiration on how to actively extract tools and techniques from other songs, I made a video about it here: