Message to the Future: Hidden Wisdom in Your Songs

James Keelaghan has a song called “Message to the Future” that lists a number of ways people write time-capsule messages to themselves, including by becoming parents. I believe that as artists, we send out messages to our future selves all the time.

In the same way that dreams send out coded messages from our unconscious to our conscious minds, our songs carry particular signals meant for us and us alone, in addition to any other audiences they reach.

With a little practice, you can learn to discover layers of meaning in your songs that you didn’t even know were there, and that can guide you in your life’s journey. In other words, a song might become a psychic “hit” for you—even if it never earns a penny!

Here’s where to look for those hidden messages:

Words that have more than one meaning

A song of mine is called “I Would Recognize You Anywhere”. When I wrote it, I meant the word “recognize” to mean “to identify someone by sight”, specifically a family member. However, one fan of the song “misunderstood” the word to mean “to affirm, honour or validate”— an alternate meaning I had never even considered. Since then, I have come to understand that the theme of “recognition-as-validation” is central to my life story and family history. As a result, my understanding of the song has become deeper and more nuanced, as have my performances of it.

Recurring symbols

The first time I ever used a house key as a symbol in my writing, I was about six years old. As an adolescent, I had trouble over lost keys…then, in my marriage, a house key became the central image in a story told and re-told to describe recurring conflict. As a musician, I even have a chronic insecurity about not knowing what “key” I’m in! It’s not surprising that one of my personal favourite original songs is called “Keys”. Meditating on that symbol and how it’s manifested itself in my life leads me to new insights. Playing the song is part of that meditation.

Songs you rarely play

Look carefully at any song that embarrasses you or that you never felt was “good enough” to play in public, any song that reveals something about you that you’d rather others not know, any song you rarely (or never) play in public that is alive for you privately. These songs may hold clues to areas of growth or understanding you may be avoiding. When you embrace these songs (whether or not you decide to play them in public) you also embrace parts of yourself that have been disowned.


A song from your long-ago past

If you have been writing songs for some time, you may discover that a song written a long time ago was a symbolic representation of circumstances you didn’t fully understand at the time. Propelled by our unconscious, the songs we write send us messages that our conscious minds cannot—and sometimes it takes years to decode them!

Recently, when I realized that a painful adult situation is a mirror of an unhealed aspect of my childhood, I suddenly remembered a song I had written as a teenager. Without consciously knowing what I was doing, I had described in poetic language the predicament I was in then and that I now find myself in as an adult. Even though I had been a precocious writer as a child, I didn’t have the maturity to consciously understand my situation—but my unconscious mind wrote a song that now sheds light on my life story and helps guide my growth.

If you find yourself in a time of personal challenge or discernment, look to the spiritual and subconscious dimensions of your songs as additional sources of wisdom.

Subscribers & Community

The other day I decided to "unsubscribe" from a music industry-related newsletter. To my surprise, its owner wrote to me immediately, dismayed that I wanted to exit.

I ended up staying on, partly for the information and partly because I had learned that my presence was important to the writer.

In our exchange, he expressed his belief that we are part of a community. I like that idea...and at the same time, I often wonder if true community is possible online.

How well do we know each other, if we only know each other by online profiles and emails? How likely are we to truly support each other when the going gets tough?

Which is more supportive: letting someone unsubscribe without fanfare, or following up...and if so, how?

I've always had a "no questions asked" policy, but after this experience I reconnected with someone who had recently left my list...someone I consider to be part of my genuine, real-life community, even though we've never met. I was very glad I did.

In order to build true community, people on both sides of the equation have to stay very conscious of the needs of others...the need for privacy, need for connection, need for readership...and see how we might best meet those needs.

Creating community is time-consuming and it's hard work...which is the exact opposite of what we often expect online connection to be.

8 Ways to Keep Your Music Alive

Bob Baker writes about email marketing and branding for musicians. His article 7 Ways to Destroy Your Music Career is very witty and insightful…but it also struck me as a tad cynical and possibly dismissive of artists who may be genuinely struggling. Bob's tongue-in-cheek humour speaks to serious issues that affect many of today's independent musicians. I wondered if it would be worthwhile to re-frame his points in a positive way, maybe looking a little deeper at what's really going on in some musicians' "failing careers".

1) Bob writes, tongue-in-cheek: Give Away Your Personal Power

The first step to destroying your music career is to realize that your destiny is in the hands of other people and circumstances beyond your control. Fully embrace the fact that you need to be in the right place at the right time to get your "lucky break" and be "discovered." Industry people and music critics must deem you worthy of success for you to have value as a musician.

1) Translation: Reclaim Your Personal Power

If you feel angry, sad or anxious that you haven’t been recognized by the “powers that be” (whether you see them as industry people, music critics, influential musicians in your community or others), acknowledge your disappointment, but then reclaim your power by doing your best work for the people who appreciate it--whomever and wherever they are. Return to the people who do value you and your work, even if they are few in number and in places that are not part of the recognized music scene.

2. Turn Marketing, Promotion and Sales Into a Huge Burden

…Start referring to marketing as a "necessary evil" quick. Realize that you don't have what it takes to "sell yourself" and reach more fans. In fact, there's probably a biological reason you hate promotion: you were born without the critical marketing gene that all those "gift of gab" people have. Therefore, you are destined to live a lifetime of hardship as you struggle with having to engage in the ugly chore of self-promotion.

2) Maintain a Gentle and Steady Pace with Marketing

It may be true that you find marketing yourself uncomfortable. You may be an introvert, or you may have internalized judgmental messages that “promoting yourself” is self-centered or narcissistic. Get those messages out into the open, realize that they are false, and affirm that what you have to offer is valuable. Strive to communicate well and consistently with the people who want to hear your news, even if this requires you to stretch beyond your comfort zone at times. Reframe the activity as “communication” and “invitation” (or other words that are helpful to you) instead of “marketing” or “promotion”, if those have negative associations for you.

3) Be Fearful of Being Perceived as a Greedy, Capitalist Pig

It would be best not to even make people aware that you have things for sale. Just wait till they come to you. If they're interested, they'll ask. And if you want to score extra points, when they do ask, tell them you left all your CDs and T-shirts at home.

3) Affirm the Value of Your Work

If you have difficulty seeing your work as a commodity, notice your own buying patterns and how happily you spend money on music, books and art that you love. If spoken affirmations work for you, use them to reinforce your belief in the products you have created. Listen to your own work (either the recordings or the songs) and notice how much you love them and how much they have been worth to you. Take pride in these beautiful things you have made.

4) Use a Lack of Time, Money and Connections as Your Biggest Excuse

Have convenient scapegoats based on scarcity. Tell anyone who asks (as well as a lot of people who don't ask or care) how lousy your career is because of all the lack in your life. Frequently use phrases such as "There aren't enough hours in the day," "If I had that kind of money, I'd be a rock star too," and "It's not what you know, it's who you know."

4) Do What You Can With What You Have

Despite the particular challenges you face, make a decision to do your best. Circumstances do vary. Some artists do have more time or money or connections than others. Do not compare yourself to anyone. Instead, ask yourself if you are doing the best you can, today, with what you have. When (not “if”) you feel frustrated by difficult circumstances, use them to deepen your understanding of all human struggle—which in turn will deepen your artistic work.

5) Market Yourself to the Faceless Masses Using Traditional Big Media

Realize that it takes big bucks spent on radio promotion, retail placement, billboards, and paid display ads in national magazines to succeed. This mass media mindset is your ticket to success ... at hitting the fast track to failure.

5) Choose the Vehicle That's Right for You

If you have made the mistake of spending large amounts of money on traditional marketing vehicles that didn’t pay off, chalk it up to experience and don’t do it again. Question your faith in these vehicles. Notice how you, as a consumer, have been influenced by them. Gently acknowledge that, because you have been raised in a commercial consumer culture, you wanted major media attention (or for that matter, alternative media attention) for your work. Forgive your work, and yourself, if it didn't come your way. Protect your financial resources for your own ongoing stability and well-being.

Bonus tip: Never answer your email from fans, and rarely -- if ever -- log into your Facebook, MySpace or Twitter accounts. Better yet, don't even start these accounts.

In the absence of major marketing vehicles, communicate as well as you can with your fans, in the time that is available to you. If your fans are too numerous for you to maintain personal contact with (personally I think the limit is about 100), accept that fact and give yourself permission to stay kindly detached. Use social networking tools consciously and judiciously. Protect your "real life" time, especially time in nature, and be mindful of the addictive quality of electronic communication. Log off when necessary and for as long as necessary. Hans Selye (the Canadian stress researcher, now deceased) wrote: “The great art is to express one’s vitality through the particular channels and at the particular speed Nature foresaw for us.” Protect yourself against stress.

6) Promote Yourself Sporadically and Only When It's Urgent

If you have a mailing list (and with sucky email delivery and open rates these days, why bother?), be sure the fans on your list don't hear from you very often.

6) Keep in Touch

Maintain consistent and kind communication with the people on your list. Keep them informed about events and new music that’s likely to interest them. If your “open rates” are low, add more value to your mailings with relevant links and recommendations, inspirational quotes and other appropriate value-adds.

7) Know That Everyone Owes You Something Simply Because You Exist

Simply know that everyone will care as much about you and your music as you do. Understand that complete strangers will indeed listen to every note of your 70-minute concept album and read every word of your 10-page bio. Be sure to send long, in-depth emails and leave lengthy, rambling voice mail messages for the imbeciles who don't recognize your greatness. Also, be sure to insult anyone who doesn't get back to you within 10 minutes.

7) Respect Your Audience

You know what? I don’t believe that any artist--no matter how incompetent--is actually as ego-driven or self-centred as Bob suggests here. The joy of creative activity often blinds people to the fact that their work is inaccessible or unappealing to others; the impulse to share The 70-Minute Opus is, at heart, a generous and vital and deeply human act—and without that sharing, artists would never grow.

Remember the internalized negative judgments ("self-promoters are narcissists") mentioned in Point #2, that impede many artist's ability to promote themselves? They're implicit in Bob's last point. But I agree with what he's saying about respect, so I’d reframe his advice this way: Notice when your audience is engaged and enlivened vs. when they’re tuning out. Do what it takes to engage and enliven them. Make a conscious decision to treat the people listening to you with love and respect at all times, including when you send out emails, perform and seek gigs.

Bob's article contains two contradictory but true messages: 1) Go boldly forward and promote your work and 2) Few people may truly care about it.

Independent musicians today receive both of these heavily weighted messages, all the time. No wonder we're having trouble!

8). Embrace Paradox

The way I see it, in order to stay engaged and excited about any kind of public creative endeavor, we need to do two things at the same time: affirm the value of the creative work we do and offer it to people who can use it, and keep our work in perspective--a broader perspective today than ever before. Our songs are both very big (worth creating, worth sharing, worth selling, worth celebrating) and infinitesimally small ("your 70-song opus is one of millions in my inbox").

We have to embrace the "meaningful/not meaningful" paradox in order to keep our music alive, any way we can.

Thanks for reading.

The 100 Mile Artist Revisited

It's been over a year since I started tossing around this idea, and it's starting to catch on. I've also heard people talk about "Slow Music" (a la "Slow Food")...not to be confused with the tempo!

However you name it, the concept seeks to find new definitions for artistic & musical success by looking to the environmental movement for guidance instead of the commercial entertainment industry. I thought this might be a good time to re-post the "how-to" list. It is a work-in-progress.

"The great art is to express one's vitality through the particular channels and at the particular speed that Nature foresaw for us." - Hans Selye


How to be a 100-mile artist:

Primarily perform in your own hometown or geographic region.

Draw your inspiration primarily from that place, from your life and the lives of people you know.

Support local initiatives with your songs by performing at community events, sometimes on a volunteer basis.

Write excellent songs about people and initiatives in your community.

Apply a high level of craftsmanship to every song and performance, so that your songs are as meaningful and appealing as those of well-known artists.

Share your songs with others.

Become a more conscious and selective consumer of mass-produced cultural products.

Support other local artists by buying their products and attending their shows.

Reject messages such as “you have to be famous to matter” and “only mass distributed products are worthwhile”.

Reframe your assessment of your musical success, based on community-minded goals rather than commercially-minded ones: For example, “How can I bring people together?: is a better question than “How many people can I get to come out?”

Find complementary ways of earning income so that you can live sustainably and continue to grow and mature as an artist who enriches the lives of others.

The 10-Minute Restart

Sometimes a song gets stalled. Maybe you have a good title line or a hook, and you're excited about it for awhile, but suddenly...nothing.

Your enthusiasm vanishes, the song can't find a comfortable groove, the ideas are flat and muddled. Ick.

When this happens to me, I have to reboot.

That means I put the original idea aside, for at least a whole day. Instead of working diligently on it, I completely drop it.

Then, a day or so later, I devote ten minutes of creative "prime time" (for me, that's first thing in the morning, around 9 a.m.) to the song.

And here's the really important part.

I don't go back my original idea. I start completely fresh, with new chords and melody and rhythm. In fact, I try to make it as musically different from my original idea as I can. (Often I recycle lyric ideas, but usually just the title line.)

Usually in that "10 minute restart", a new song emerges that is much better than the first.

Try it next time you're stuck.

Picky, picky, picky

I wrote a song over the weekend and it's almost finished.

But I'm still fiddling with one line. It's an important line, right at the end of the song--and ideally it will sum up the point of the whole piece.

No wonder I'm being so picky.

I think it's worth going to this extra effort, to make sure the song is exactly right. Whenever I settle for something that's "close enough", I never shake off that unsatisfied feeling.

The truth is, I really care about what I say to my audience. I don't want to say something I don't mean (or something that doesn't make sense) so I work hard to be as precise as I can.

Sometimes it's really maddening process, because the precise words aren't quite conversational or don't fit the rhyme.

Sometimes I have to rewrite an entire verse to get it right.

I've read that Leonard Cohen has pages of unused verses for many of his songs. Needless to say, even his discarded lyrics are probably better than anything I've ever written.

His perfectionism may be extreme...but having high standards is a good thing. As the old saying goes, "Shoot for the moon and you might land in the stars."

When I feel a niggling feeling of dissatisfaction, sometimes I do shrug it off...but sometimes I ask myself, "What would Leonard do?"

And then I take another look at that verse.

The Jukebox in Your Head

Want to try an experiment?

Take a moment to notice if a song is going through your head.

(I have a theory that songwriters have a perpetual jukebox in their brain, all the time. But maybe everybody does! Is this true? Let me know!)

So...pause...and check which song is playing now. It might be one of your own, or it might be somebody else's.

Your brain is constantly on "shuffle". But I don't think it's random.

You see, the song that was playing in my head just now was Cyndi Lauper's "True Colours". Coincidentally (not!), it offers specific insight on how I need to approach a current challenge.

Earlier in the day, another "random" song in my head related directly to another task. I was mailing promo packages...and the song was one of mine called "Safe Arrival".

[Hmmm...I just realized something. Now those songs might be playing in your head...or at least Cyndi's because you're more likely to know it. If I re-programmed your jukebox just now, wait a little while until it naturally resets.]

Now, take a moment to notice the song playing in your head...and see if it's what you need to hear.

Maybe your songs know the way

I just read another on-target blog by Derek Sivers, the indie music guru and founder of CD Baby. Today his thought-provoking article is called "Listen to my music and let me know what I should do."

It reminded me of something a friend told me years ago (no doubt when I was puzzling over what I should do).

She said: "All you have to do is listen to your songs."

To clarify: I don't think she meant that anybody else should listen to my songs to figure out their personal direction. She just meant that I should.

She was reminding me to look within to find direction, to trust my inner voice.

If you're a songwriter, chances are your inner voice will step out from time to time, onto a stage or onto a CD. (It can hide in those places too...and false selves do love the limelight. Maybe the inner voice is in a notebook, or a dream.)

When we tune into our inner wisdom, we'll be able to create work that's authentic and meaningful more often...and if we maintain our connection to that true voice within, we'll be able to more easily recognize an authentic path and follow it.

We'll be able to figure out what we're called to do next...

Without asking Derek Sivers.

Dave Carroll: A Songwriter Not Without Options

Here's a David vs. Goliath story that will get you cheering for the little guy and humming a catchy tune.

After Dave Carroll's $3,500 Taylor Guitar was mangled by United Airlines baggage handlers, at first he tried to solve the problem through the official channels. After getting nowhere for the better part of a year, he realized that "As a songwriter and traveling musician, I was not without options". (Here's the whole story.)

I love that. "As a songwriter...I was not without options."

Realizing that he had power--and a lot of it, actually--he exercised his option to write the song "United Breaks Guitars" and produce it as a video. (He says it's the first of a trilogy! As I've always said, anger is a great tool for writing songs!)

The song has now gone viral, his band Sons of Maxwell has attracted press coverage all over the world...and we can only hope that Dave gets a brand new guitar from United out of it, plus an apology, in addition to the well-deserved career boost he's getting now.

Meanwhile, may his lemons-into-lemonade story be a lesson to us all:

As songwriters, we are not without options!

Songs as Seeds

Right now, a number of my friends are job-hunting. At the same time, I've been seeking good homes for my songs. We've all been surveying the landscape, bravely seeking out new opportunities.

Meanwhile, I've been gardening.

If I think of songs as seeds, I notice that the more I share them (releasing them freely into the world without expectation) the more chance they have to take root and do some good.

Of course, sometimes they fall in places that can't nourish them, just as many perfectly good seeds land on concrete every summer day.

But at other times, and often when I least expect it, a song-seed will find its way to fertile ground and immediately bear fruit! Just the other day, for instance, I came upon a perfect new place to play, a ten-minute walk from my home. A welcome patch of green.

I'm a big fan of local gardens, but it's also amazing how far the gusty wind of the internet can carry a song. Write something original and truthful and beautiful, and you're likely to get an unexpected thank-you from thousands of miles away.

Who knows where these seeds will grow?

The small "i" on the iPod

Yesterday a friend wrote to tell me that her 9 year-old is busily loading up her iPod with some of her favourite music: Disney, Michael Jackson, Lynn Harrison!

I'm truly honoured.

(I wonder which songs will come up on "shuffle". Will Disney's "High School Musical" miraculously follow my "First Day of School"?)

I'm so glad that my music brings joy to this delightful girl--and I'm grateful it does so without all the entertainment-business machinery that surrounds my playlist companions.

After all, that machinery created "Michael Jackson", the brand, but it helped destroy Michael Jackson, the human being.

This is a good time to notice the benefits of being a lesser-known artist and to celebrate the wonders of small-scale production. It's wonderful that, in our time, we can create music that is easily reproduced and enjoyed on iPods everywhere. Imagine!

Produced on relatively small budgets, it may be "imperfect" by some standards...but it can also be meaningful, beautiful and whole. In the end, what else matters?

Alongside Michael Jackson's, our songs can live on, independent of us. Meanwhile, if we're lucky, we can create balanced lives that make sense of our various occupations. We can keep our egos in check and our expectations reasonable.

Hopefully we can accept ourselves as we are, and appreciate the miraculous days that we have.

Here's to the small "i"s on iPods everywhere...surviving just fine beside the big names.

The Toronto We Know

A few months ago I started reading about a song contest being hosted by the City of Toronto. In honour of the city's 175th anniversary, a call went out for new songs that honour this place we call home.

Now that's a difficult challenge, I thought.

The word "Toronto" is hard to rhyme with, for one thing. And every song starts with a story... What kind of story could I tell about Toronto, in a song?

On a walk home from a friend's house in Cabbagetown, I started thinking about how other people in Canada sometimes say disparaging things about Toronto...how from time to time I've heard Toronto portrayed as a less-than-friendly, closed sort of place, and one that's somewhat large and frightening.

But that's not the Toronto I know.

I know a friendly city of diverse people who are open and generous and kind. ("It's not such a big and scary place, with so many different smiling faces.")

I know a city made up of smaller neighbourhoods ("growing strong, doing good") where people help each other out, every day, in large and small ways.

In such warm and caring neighbourhoods, difficult times can be overcome. ("Some see storms ahead, but we see the rainbow.")

The Toronto I know is also a place where people work together, and so it's fitting that in order to complete and produce this song, I needed to call on David Leask , a gifted songwriter and singer who hails originally from Edinburgh, Scotland.

By working together, we made a stronger song...one that has landed in the Top 10 of the City of Toronto's 175th Anniversary Song Contest. (Starting June 18th you can vote for it here .)

We hope you enjoy "The Toronto We Know" !

To Gig or Not to Gig, That is the Question

If you’re a songwriter, you’re likely a songwriter for life.

That will be true whether or not you make songwriting your public occupation.

In fact, many people find that songwriting occupies a “professional” place in their lives at some times and an “amateur” place at others. Although it seems natural to want to label our songwriting lives in neatly-defined boxes of “hobby vs. career”, or “private vs. public”, it’s often not necessary to do that, and those boxes can be a distraction from the more important goal of creating a life that’s manageable and sane.

Life circumstances have a funny way of changing. If you love writing songs, that fact will not deter you from writing: in fact, it’s likely to provide you with more inspiration. The challenge it creates for you is one of priorities. When do you perform and record? How often? For whom? Why?

To help explore these questions, I present a short debate between two sides of the “to gig or not to gig” question.

Argument #1: Get Out and Play

It’s very important for every songwriter to get out and play in front of people as often as possible. When you play your songs for others, they start serving a greater good…greater, that is, than the good they’ve already served by influencing you and how your own life will unfold.

Playing your songs in public is a way to validate their effectiveness. When people listen intently and applaud enthusiastically, you know you’ve connected with them. A song is sent out into the world, and when it connects with an audience it has fulfilled its promise, or started to. The interchange of experience and emotion that comes when songs are played for others is an essential part of the songwriting process; without it, songs are like diary entries: valuable and maybe even extremely well-written, but destined to remain private, even secret, acts of creativity.

So get out and play your songs wherever you can: in “official” venues like cafes, bars and clubs, and “unofficial” ones like homes, community halls, shopping malls, street corners and anyplace you can set up and play.

Not only will you find listeners, but you’ll have an opportunity to practice your songs…and when somebody is listening, you’re likely to practice with more discipline and energy than you might at home by yourself. With more practice, your songs will become better known, not only by the community at large, but by you. Their messages will become more clear to you with repeated playings, and you’ll emphasize the right parts—and deliver the song more effectively to every audience. You’ll also memorize the words and the chords, and your playing and singing will improve.

So, make sure you play your songs in front of as many people as possible, as often as possible.


Argument #2: Stay In and Deepen

It’s not very important that you get out and gig all the time.

Other people will tell you that you should: in fact, that you must if you want to “get anywhere” in music or “get your songs into the world”.

They say that if nobody ever hears your songs but you, they won’t do a whole lot of good…and if you rarely play for others, it’s harder to stay in practice when it comes to playing and singing. If you don’t play out very often, you might actually forget the songs you’ve written, which would be a terrible thing, because your songs are commodities and the key thing is to get them moving in the marketplace and in the flow of contemporary ideas and culture. It’s very important to gig as often as possible.

Except that in the big picture, it’s not important at all.

A song that is heard only by its writer is still a song, and its beauty, truth and meaning is not diminished by the fact that it has not found a wider audience.

If more gigs, bigger gigs, and better gigs are not forthcoming for the songwriter, it’s essential that he not start feeling inadequate and sad…a state-of-being which kills creativity.

It’s very easy to start measuring our worth by the number of performances on our websites, whether or not we actually need those gigs to earn a living.

Instead of judging ourselves by external standards, we can start to ask ourselves if we’re living our lives in a healthy and responsible way, and whether our songwriting is helping us to do that.

Despite our limited human perceptions, and the messages of our culture, life is actually not a competition!

It's an opportunity for growth, an invitation to act in more conscious and compassionate ways…to come to understand ourselves and our world, and to get better at caring for each other.

That stuff, the real stuff of living, has less to do with “getting your songs out there” and more to do with “getting your songs in here”—into a deeper and more meaningful place.

Are your songs trying to tell you something?

Over the past week, I've been dealing with the recurrance of lower back problems. They haven't bothered me for several years, but at one point in my life they caused me a lot of pain and limited my activities.

This recent back strain (which seems to be less serious and is healing well) came about completely unexpectedly, with no warning.

Or had it?

I always have a few songs on the go, but most of them will never be finished nor played in public. These drafts tend to be forgotten and eventually discarded.

In the days leading up to my recent back problem, I had been steadily working on a new song called "Get Back to Me". A mildly interesting coincidence...which seems more interesting when I realize that the previous song I'd been working on was called "Gotta Cut Back on That" and another recent song from a few months ago was called "Right Back Where We Started".

Judging from that pattern, it's not surprising that my back issues would recur...that they would, in effect, "Get Back to Me".

Would I be dealing with vision problems if I'd been writing songs called "See You Later" or "Something I Can't See"? Skin ailments for "On the Surface"? Now that I think about it, why hadn't I been writing songs using vision metaphors...or songs relating to breathing, taste, hearing or speech?

Is it possible that my choice of lyrics programmed my illness? Perhaps...but I have another theory.

I think it's more likely that my intuition was speaking to me through my songs-in-progress, to try to get my attention.

I believe my intuition was trying to signal me that my back needed attending to...because that inner wisdom, something I access through songwriting, was more tuned in to my body than my conscious mind was.

With that in mind, I might see my half-written songs a bit differently. I might start watching them for coded messages...viewing them as signposts.

This way of seeing songwriting practice has more in common with dream analysis than it does with approaching songs as products to be marketed or as accomplishments. If we recognize the importance of personal growth and healing, it's a perspective that could be significantly more valuable than any commercially-minded approach, especially over the course of a lifetime of creative work.

If artistic expression has the power to allow inner wisdom to speak to the conscious mind and to the body, we may be able to steer a healthier course for ourselves by simply paying better attention to these "notes" we write ourselves.

Consult Your Inner Manager

As an independent artist, sometimes I wish I had a manager.

I imagine her as a kind, wise, competent and courageous person, who always has my best interests at heart. She'd be a whiz at the administrative tasks I hate, and she'd intuitively know which projects and decisions are most important right now.

Most of all, she'd believe in me and the value of my work, even when nothing particularly successful seems to be going on. My manager would be patient, hopeful and matter-of-fact. She'd definitely have a good sense of humour.

From time-to-time, I ask people to help out with various tasks...and I truly appreciate their assistance. Still, nobody has emerged yet as that perfect take-care-of-everything sort of person.

Fortunately, I already have an Inner Manager.

Lately I've been checking in with her more often. I find that she's highly reliable and always on-task...which is even more apparent when I've been worried and distracted. My Inner Manager is humming along, calm and smiling, unperturbed by my anxious thoughts.

My Inner Manager knows which gigs are most appropriate for me. She confidently lines those up, while gracefully turning others down.

My Inner Manager is unconcerned with competitions, ranking or status.

My Inner Manager celebrates achievements, large and small, and shrugs off setbacks.

My Inner Manager believes in the value of regular practice.

My Inner Manager knows which songs are most important that I sing, and when I should sing them, and why.

My Inner Manager is always listening.

When I listen to her, I find that I'm calmer about my music activities, and they seem to take on a more meaningful and cohesive shape.

Not every artist is fortunate enough to have an agent, but each of us has an Inner Manager.

She's always there, ready for our call.

Karl Paulnack's Speech to Boston Conservatory

I'm posting this speech in its entirety because it's one of the strongest affirmations of the value of music I've ever read! These are words to live by, and they couldn't come at a better time.


Welcome address to freshman class at Boston Conservatory given by Karl Paulnack, pianist and director of music division at Boston Conservatory:


"One of my parents' deepest fears, I suspect, is that society would not properly value me as a musician, that I wouldn't be appreciated. I had very good grades in high school, I was good in science and math, and they imagined that as a doctor or a research chemist or an engineer, I might be more appreciated than I would be as a musician. I still remember my mother's remark when I announced my decision to apply to music school-she said, "You're WASTING your SAT scores." On some level, I think, my parents were not sure themselves what the value of music was, what its purpose was. And they LOVED music, they listened to classical music all the time. They just weren't really clear about its function. So let me talk about that a little bit, because we live in a society that puts music in the "arts and entertainment" section of the newspaper, and serious music, the kind your kids are about to engage in, has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with entertainment, in fact it's the opposite of entertainment. Let me talk a little bit about music, and how it works.


The first people to understand how music really works were the ancient Greeks. And this is going to fascinate you; the Greeks said that music and astronomy were two sides of the same coin. Astronomy was seen as the study of relationships between observable, permanent, external objects, and music was seen as the study of relationships between invisible, internal, hidden objects. Music has a way of finding the big, invisible moving pieces inside our hearts and souls and helping us figure out the position of things inside us. Let me give you some examples of how this works.


One of the most profound musical compositions of all time is the Quartet for the End of Time written by French composer Olivier Messiaen in 1940. Messiaen was 31 years old when France entered the war against Nazi Germany. He was captured by the Germans in June of 1940, sent across Germany in a cattle car and imprisoned in a concentration camp.


He was fortunate to find a sympathetic prison guard who gave him paper and a place to compose. There were three other musicians in the camp, a cellist, a violinist, and a clarinetist, and Messiaen wrote his quartet with these specific players in mind. It was performed in January 1941 for four thousand prisoners and guards in the prison camp. Today it is one of the most famous masterworks in the repertoire.


Given what we have since learned about life in the concentration camps, why would anyone in his right mind waste time and energy writing or playing music? There was barely enough energy on a good day to find food and water, to avoid a beating, to stay warm, to escape torture-why would anyone bother with music? And yet-from the camps, we have poetry, we have music, we have visual art; it wasn't just this one fanatic Messiaen; many, many people created art. Why? Well, in a place where people are only focused on survival, on the bare necessities, the obvious conclusion is that art must be, somehow, essential for life. The camps were without money, without hope, without commerce, without recreation, without basic respect, but they were not without art. Art is part of survival; art is part of the human spirit, an unquenchable expression of who we are. Art is one of the ways in which we say, "I am alive, and my life has meaning."

On September 12, 2001 I was a resident of Manhattan. That morning I reached a new understanding of my art and its relationship to the world. I sat down at the piano that morning at 10 AM to practice as was my daily routine; I did it by force of habit, without thinking about it. I lifted the cover on the keyboard, and opened my music, and put my hands on the keys and took my hands off the keys. And I sat there and thought, does this even matter? Isn't this completely irrelevant? Playing the piano right now, given what happened in this city yesterday, seems silly, absurd, irreverent, pointless. Why am I here? What place has a musician in this moment in time? Who needs a piano player right now? I was completely lost.


And then I, along with the rest of New York, went through the journey of getting through that week. I did not play the piano that day, and in fact I contemplated briefly whether I would ever want to play the piano again. And then I observed how we got through the day.


At least in my neighborhood, we didn't shoot hoops or play Scrabble. We didn't play cards to pass the time, we didn't watch TV, we didn't shop, we most certainly did not go to the mall. The first organized activity that I saw in New York, that same day, was singing. People sang. People sang around fire houses, people sang "We Shall Overcome". Lots of people sang America the Beautiful. The first organized public event that I remember was the Brahms Requiem, later that week, at Lincoln Center, with the New York Philharmonic. The first organized public expression of grief, our first communal response to that historic event, was a concert. That was the beginning of a sense that life might go on. The US Military secured the airspace, but recovery was led by the arts, and by music in particular, that very night.


From these two experiences, I have come to understand that music is not part of "arts and entertainment" as the newspaper section would have us believe. It's not a luxury, a lavish thing that we fund from leftovers of our budgets, not a plaything or an amusement or a pass time. Music is a basic need of human survival. Music is one of the ways we make sense of our lives, one of the ways in which we express feelings when we have no words, a way for us to understand things with our hearts when we can't with our minds.


Some of you may know Samuel Barber's heartwrenchingly beautiful piece Adagio for Strings. If you don't know it by that name, then some of you may know it as the background music which accompanied the Oliver Stone movie Platoon, a film about the Vietnam War. If you know that piece of music either way, you know it has the ability to crack your heart open like a walnut; it can make you cry over sadness you didn't know you had. Music can slip beneath our conscious reality to get at what's really going on inside us the way a good therapist does.


I bet that you have never been to a wedding where there was absolutely no music. There might have been only a little music, there might have been some really bad music, but I bet you there was some music. And something very predictable happens at weddings-people get all pent up with all kinds of emotions, and then there's some musical moment where the action of the wedding stops and someone sings or plays the flute or something. And even if the music is lame, even if the quality isn't good, predictably 30 or 40 percent of the people who are going to cry at a wedding cry a couple of moments after the music starts. Why? The Greeks. Music allows us to move around those big invisible pieces of ourselves and rearrange our insides so that we can express what we feel even when we can't talk about it. Can you imagine watching Indiana Jones or Superman or Star Wars with the dialogue but no music? What is it about the music swelling up at just the right moment in ET so that all the softies in the audience start crying at exactly the same moment? I guarantee you if you showed the movie with the music stripped out, it wouldn't happen that way. The Greeks: Music is the understanding of the relationship between invisible internal objects.


I'll give you one more example, the story of the most important concert of my life. I must tell you I have played a little less than a thousand concerts in my life so far. I have played in places that I thought were important. I like playing in Carnegie Hall; I enjoyed playing in Paris; it made me very happy to please the critics in St. Petersburg. I have played for people I thought were important; music critics of major newspapers, foreign heads of state. The most important concert of my entire life took place in a nursing home in Fargo, ND, about 4 years ago.


I was playing with a very dear friend of mine who is a violinist. We began, as we often do, with Aaron Copland's Sonata, which was written during World War II and dedicated to a young friend of Copland's, a young pilot who was shot down during the war. Now we often talk to our audiences about the pieces we are going to play rather than providing them with written program notes. But in this case, because we began the concert with this piece, we decided to talk about the piece later in the program and to just come out and play the music without explanation.


Midway through the piece, an elderly man seated in a wheelchair near the front of the concert hall began to weep. This man, whom I later met, was clearly a soldier-even in his 70's, it was clear from his buzz-cut hair, square jaw and general demeanor that he had spent a good deal of his life in the military. I thought it a little bit odd that someone would be moved to tears by that particular movement of that particular piece, but it wasn't the first time I've heard crying in a concert and we went on with the concert and finished the piece.


When we came out to play the next piece on the program, we decided to talk about both the first and second pieces, and we described the circumstances in which the Copland was written and mentioned its dedication to a downed pilot. The man in the front of the audience became so disturbed that he had to leave the auditorium. I honestly figured that we would not see him again, but he did come backstage afterwards, tears and all, to explain himself.


What he told us was this: "During World War II, I was a pilot, and I was in an aerial combat situation where one of my team's planes was hit. I watched my friend bail out, and watched his parachute open, but the Japanese planes which had engaged us returned and machine gunned across the parachute chords so as to separate the parachute from the pilot, and I watched my friend drop away into the ocean, realizing that he was lost. I have not thought about this for many years, but during that first piece of music you played, this memory returned to me so vividly that it was as though I was reliving it. I didn't understand why this was happening, why now, but then when you came out to explain that this piece of music was written to commemorate a lost pilot, it was a little more than I could handle. How does the music do that? How did it find those feelings and those memories in me?


Remember the Greeks: music is the study of invisible relationships between internal objects. This concert in Fargo was the most important work I have ever done. For me to play for this old soldier and help him connect, somehow, with Aaron Copland, and to connect their memories of their lost friends, to help him remember and mourn his friend, this is my work. This is why music matters.


What follows is part of the talk I will give to this year's freshman class when I welcome them a few days from now. The responsibility I will charge your sons and daughters with is this:


"If we were a medical school, and you were here as a med student practicing appendectomies, you'd take your work very seriously because you would imagine that some night at two AM someone is going to waltz into your emergency room and you're going to have to save their life. Well, my friends, someday at 8 PM someone is going to walk into your concert hall and bring you a mind that is confused, a heart that is overwhelmed, a soul that is weary. Whether they go out whole again will depend partly on how well you do your craft.


You're not here to become an entertainer, and you don't have to sell yourself. The truth is you don't have anything to sell; being a musician isn't about dispensing a product, like selling used Chevies. I'm not an entertainer; I'm a lot closer to a paramedic, a firefighter, a rescue worker. You're here to become a sort of therapist for the human soul, a spiritual version of a chiropractor, physical therapist, someone who works with our insides to see if they get things to line up, to see if we can come into harmony with ourselves and be healthy and happy and well.


Frankly, ladies and gentlemen, I expect you not only to master music; I expect you to save the planet. If there is a future wave of wellness on this planet, of harmony, of peace, of an end to war, of mutual understanding, of equality, of fairness, I don't expect it will come from a government, a military force or a corporation. I no longer even expect it to come from the religions of the world, which together seem to have brought us as much war as they have peace. If there is a future of peace for humankind, if there is to be an understanding of how these invisible, internal things should fit together, I expect it will come from the artists, because that's what we do. As in the concentration camp and the evening of 9/11, the artists are the
ones who might be able to help us with our internal, invisible lives."