Why do we resist change – especially as we get older? Admit it. It seems to be the way of the world.
But the other way of the world is that a change is gonna come. It’s inevitable. Today, in this next hour, things will change in your and my life. My day will not go as planned. This year will not shake out the way I now want it to. Our company, Watchfire Music, will, of necessity, change its direction or fail. Yours will too.
Lately I’ve been feeling an inordinate amount of stress before vocal sessions in the recording studio. As a music producer, I have spent years in the NY studios producing thousands of sessions and producing vocal sessions is one of my fortes, so why this would now happen after all these years of experience was a mystery to me. (more…)
Part 3 – As an artist:
Perhaps this sub-heading needs further explanation before we start. On the Watchfire Music website an artist is someone or some group that makes records (CDs, songs). In this case I’m using the larger meaning of the word. In my case I am an artist with several hats. Stick around while I try them on. (more…)
A family pastor once said at a funeral. “Ed is like a cracked walnut, the shell is here and the nut is gone.”
I’m back to work on my new CD, Going Home, reflections on crossing over and beyond.
It’s a little tricky sometimes writing music about death. It’s a subject that I’m presently fascinated with, but I’m not looking at it in the usual ways – tragic, sad, devastating and final.
Rather, I’m trying to see the experience from different angles – trying to make some practical sense of it all.
I’m also trying to make the CD an inspiring piece about an experience that we all will face some day and probably don’t consider enough in our lives. Yes, there’s clearly a deep sadness attached to the experience. We usually don’t want to leave and hopefully, there are folks around us who don’t want us to go.
On Creative Writing
My first real adventure with creative writing began with a course I took back in high school with a tough, but inspirational teacher named Irma Erickson. This was one of the courses at my school that you didn’t miss if you were a creative kid.
We wrote a novel during the year – each chapter written in a different style of expression – first person prose, poetry, third person biography, lyrics, etc. It was a class that captured all our imaginations and we each would read our efforts each couple of weeks to the rest of the class amid gales of laughter or choruses of groans.
My efforts were fledgling to say the least, but the experience certainly got me hooked.
It used to be I would write a song and once it was finished – lyrics and music – then I would begin to look for someone to record it. Perhaps make a demo of it and put it out there. Wait months before someone might pick it up. Then wait again until they recorded it and the album came out. Even then, I might never get the feedback from it. After all, most people never check to see who wrote a song on an album.
In fact, I’ve often found that most people think the singer always writes the songs and they’re often shocked to hear that they often don’t.
As an example, Barry Manilow is a good, solid songwriter, but he did not write his hits. They were written by other guys. Among the hits, which he did not, write are “Mandy“, “Tryin’ to Get the Feeling Again“, “Weekend in New England“, “Looks Like We Made It“, “Can’t Smile Without You” and “Ready to Take a Chance Again“. Even “I Write The Songs,” for example, was not written by Barry, but was written by Bruce Johnston of The Beach Boys.
Barry did write “Copacabana.”
This is to take nothing away from Barry. He’s a great performer with a tremendous career. This is only to give a proper nod to the songwriters who often toil in obscurity.
Well, that said, now it’s a bit of a different world. It’s now the world of the Internet, of blogs and instant messaging and email and instant everything. It may be a lot more confusing, but it certainly is faster.
I am inspired by my work. For the past year writing this blog, I have gotten up nearly every night and sat here and thought and wrote about what inspires people, what inspires me and just what Inspiration is. I’ve mentioned before that the root definition of the word “Inspiration” is ‘to inspire, to breathe life into”. I’ve learned during the course of this that this is oh so true.
The building and development of Watchfire Music over these past 3 years has been extremely time consuming, to say the least. We’ve all worked our tails off to bring this idea to fruition. For me, it’s been a hugely creative process and I’ve learned more these past 3 years about business than in the previous total years of my life.
But the process has short-changed me as a composer – especially in the last 6 months. I’ve looked down that hallway in my apartment here into my dark and lonely studio and wondered if I’d ever get back in there again. In the course of the last year, until last week, I had written just one song all year. That’s the first time that has happened in many decades.
I like a song that tells a story. Songs have been doing this for over 5000 years. In fact, it is the song that carried the history of man on Earth for the great part of that time as troubadours passed their tales and cultures on to generation after generation.
Michael Jackson’s Ode To Billie Jean written by Bobbi Gentry is one of the more recent ones and one of my all-time favorites. Johnny Cash’s A Boy Named Sue is another. Some of my other’s I can think of are:
The Temptations, Papa Was A Rollin’ Stone
Joni Mitchell, The Last Time I Saw Richard
Jeannie C. Riley, Harper Valley PTA
Simon & Garfunkel, Save The Life Of My Child
Harry Chapin, Cat’s In The Cradle
Arlo Guthrie, Alice’s Restaurant
Jim Croce, Bad, Bad Leroy Brown
Lennon & McCartney, A Day In The Life
The Kingston Trio, Tom Dooley
The Who, Tommy
Of course this list can go on and on. As I look through the above lyrics, it’s noteworthy to me how different the forms and story telling styles of each of the songs are.
Some are simple and clear; some are illusive on purpose. All have a depth far beyond the typical pop song and all are dramatically revealing of the human condition. They each have one commonality however; they each tell a good story.
