Follow Your Muse or Be True To Your School
Wednesday, November 25, 2009 at 10:31AM I have roughs of nine of the songs that I am working on for my next CD release, Backstage At the Resurrection. I brought them with me on the road so that I could listen to them critically and add or take away what I thought would make them better.
I am actually a proponent of the take away school. Your rewrite should be 10 percent less that it was before the rewrite, according to Stephen King in his book “On Writing” and I think he might be right.
I do it with EQ in a mix and I also do it with what I’ve recorded. I always ask myself what is the least I can present and deliver the groove. I will do a column on this idea next, but today is about something else.
As you know, I just did a showcase at the NERFA conference and I did it solo; just me, my guitar, my pedals and my quick wit. So when all these people hear my next CD (and due to the success of my showcase, there is a good chance that will be a lot of people), will they relate to it?
I ask that question, because as usual, I have gone into the studio and followed my muse; making the CD that I hear in my head. And this time what I am hearing in my head is more rocking, more jazz and more sophisticated than my previous recordings.
These songs are just different songs than I usually write and they feel different.
The past three or four albums have been totally acoustical guitar based, and while this CD does place the acoustic guitar front and center, there is some blistering lead guitar by my old Santa Cruz bandmate and pal, Lenny Collins.
I also have the wonderful Corky Siegel playing some great harmonica; Paul Barrere playing some wonderful slide guitar and all of my friends doing vocal parts all over the place. Lots of background vocals and on a few songs, me doing very close three part harmony.
As I am flying home, I am wondering how these recordings are going to be received by all these people, as I have experienced some airplay from this sector and wouldn’t want to lose it.
But in the final analysis, I realized that this is my musical journey and this is where it is taking me. I wouldn’t be true to myself, my gifts or my commitment if I wrote and recorded with this kind of consideration inside of me.
So that’s my advice today. Follow your muse, it’s your responsibility to yourself and your gift. Do the best work you can do; serve your dream and let the universe take care of finding a place for it.
That being said, you yourself must do all that you can do to expose your work to as many people in as many situations as you can.
The universe helps those who help themselves by living their commitment.
Wow, I sound like some kind of new age crystal guy…sorry.
Talk to you later, please have a wonderful and warm Thanksgiving weekend.
Reader Comments (3)
James,
You never cease to amaze me!
Cindi
Words of wisdom, for sure. To do anything else would be selling yourself short - To Thine Own Self Be True, sez here.
BTW - nice Amanitas. Be very careful with those puppies!
- M
I thank thee that I am none of the wheels of power but I am one with the living creatures that are crushed by it. eikysg eikysg - supra for kids.