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."

On the Value of the Original Song

Yesterday I received this link to a beautiful film based on the song
"Stand by Me".

The filmmakers took on-the-street performances of this inspiring classic from all over the world and combined them to make one larger performance, creating a visual metaphor for how popular music connects people of every race and circumstance.

Meanwhile, at an open mic I attend semi-regularly, the number of original songs has declined. Twenty years ago, many people sang their own material, but now they're more likely to sing standards by Johnny Cash, Hank Williams, Jimmy Webb and James Taylor. Speaking of James Taylor, he recently put out an album of covers.

In a troubled world that needs to bring people together, excellent songs loved by all are immensely valuable. Songs that are, um, not so excellent, aren't so important. Value Village bins are overflowing with independent recordings of original songs...songs that are often immensely valuable to the person who wrote them, but not worth much to others.

That is, not unless they contain the same stuff as "Stand by Me".

What stuff is that? What's in that song that makes it so valuable?

By now, its near-universal brand recognition adds to its value, for sure. But from the beginning, it contained some essential ingredients: a universal theme, an uplifting melody, a simple and clear message of truth, beauty and reassurance.

Like gold, that stuff holds its value in any economic climate. It's always in high demand. Old songs may contain them. New songs can too.

And when they do, they offer something else that's especially valuable today: empowerment.

We empower ourselves and our communities when we respond creatively to the world as it unfolds...when we bring to light new joy, new insight, new strength...and when we do it in real time.

It can happen in a song, in a blog, in a film, in a speech.

It's the creative response that brought "Stand by Me" to us in the first place.

Happy writing!

Song as Teacher

Over the last few days, I've been taking inventory. Looking at my song catalogue, counting CDs...assessing next steps.

It's quiet around the house right now, and yet my mind is busy with anxious thoughts. Should I book more gigs...or fewer? Intensify my music endeavors...or quit them? Did I do the right thing, making all those recordings? Maybe if I write a few more, better songs...send them to a few more, more influential people?

The house is tidy, but the mind is cluttered with maybes, ifs and whens.

Tomorrow morning though, I'll be singing a song in a church. It's not a religious song, but it's a spiritual one. It's called "Room to Love".

Quiet days, they seem to fill up in so many ways...
With all my worries and my power plays...
When I just need room to love.

Did I actually write that...that I just need "room to love"? Really, me, the one so apt to worry?

It seems that when I write songs--good ones, anyway--I understand what I completely miss at other times. There's something about the form of the song--the fact that it needs to express something truthful and valuable--that leads me to understandings I would not have arrived at otherwise.

In this case, the thing I keep missing is the need to preserve space in my life and in my mind...space away from the anxious worries that seem never to be solved.

Of the many million things we wish for, we only need a precious few.

I'm singing that at church tomorrow because the sermon is about finding meaning in non-material things: a good message for a pared-down holiday season in a time of economic distress.

But what do I "wish for"? In addition to material things, perhaps I also wish for a sense of "where this music career is going", a promise of recognition or a lasting feeling of accomplishment. A confirmation that my efforts are not for nothing, that the songs and recordings are in some way valuable.

Those may be the things I wish for. They may not be the things I need.

The things I need, in fact, are the things I already have. A loving family. Supportive friends. Good health. Food and shelter. Creative work and the joy it brings. Strength and willingness to help others. The song knows what I need, even if sometimes I don't.

When a song is the soul speaking to itself, it can teach the lessons the writer needs to hear.

All too often, I get distracted by the commercial dimension of songwriting. Is the song making me any money? Gaining me any recognition?

I might want the song to do that. But I don't need it to.

I need it to teach me. And it does.

Nowhere is the New Somewhere

“Teach us to care and not to care.
Teach us to sit still.”
- From “Ash Wednesday”, T.S. Eliot

For a couple of years, I worked semi-regularly on the Toronto subway system as a busker. I played my songs with my guitar case open, while people streamed by. Sometimes they offered a few coins or words of encouragement, but for the most part it was a non-paying gig. It was also a “fish-out-of-water” experience: I was deliberately placing myself in a situation where my music would most likely be ignored, to see if I could make peace with that experience.

It was my belief then, as it is now, that most individual singer-songwriters (if not most artists of any kind) will do their work outside the commercial marketplace and will, as a result, need to find a different way to assess the value of their work. We will need to “make peace with” in two ways: become reconciled to any level of success or lack of it we achieve, while creating peace in the world at the same time.

One of the most powerful elements of the subway experience, for me, was the sensation of standing still, when the rest of the world was moving fast, headed somewhere. I, by contrast, was going nowhere, both literally and figuratively. In fact, I appeared to many observers to occupy the lowest rung of going nowhere, because to them I looked like a beggar. The truth is that in Toronto, subway musicians are selected through a formal audition process and receive official licenses; the vast majority of performers have other sources of income and are not busking for financial survival. But I could tell that many passers-by didn’t know that, because even though I was well-dressed, attractive and professional, I often received looks of pity—and sometimes even donations of food! It sometimes seemed that the open guitar case, with its connotations of desperation or hopelessness, made more of an impression than the music itself.

Because of that public perception, busking became an opportunity to practice letting go of status and importance…to play with the idea that I was both important and unimportant at the same time, that I was both visible and invisible, and that my songs were both very loud (thanks to the natural amplification of the tiled corridors) and virtually unheard. I was experimenting with—in fact, challenging—my own perceptions of status and value in society, improvising ways to adjust to a situation where I was not valued as highly as I wanted to be, while playing my instrument. (When I felt comfortable and relaxed while busking, I could also say that I was feeling playful and having fun, but I have to admit, those times were rare.)

In the past, when I saw my songs as vehicles to “get me somewhere” or to attract attention, I was unable to play with—to dance with—the fact of my songs’ unimportance. I wanted “official” performance settings, prestigious stages, stamps of approval from influential people in the entertainment industry. I saw songwriting and performance as a transaction: I write the song and sing it for you; you applaud and pay me! If the applause and payment weren’t forthcoming, perhaps I just had to write a little differently or sing a little better. Or connect more regularly with more fans, or get played on a different radio show, or fix up my MySpace page, or…the list went on.

When I was busking, I saw it as a transaction at first, too. I expected there to be a clear relationship between the song I sang and the amount of money dropped into the case. For much of the time, I was engaged in a continual adjustment of myself to attract more of those elusive coins. Every once in awhile, though, the sheer joy of playing (as a child plays) would lift me out of my constant state of evaluation and expectation, to simply be in the moment and offer up my song. Sometimes that effervescence would attract someone’s attention and gratitude and sometimes it wouldn’t; the point, though, was that the lighter and less-attached offering was truly bigger and more valuable than the reward offered by the economic currency of that moment. The heart-expanding experience of allowing a song to fill an empty space without expectation of reward made the reward itself virtually insignificant.

If you are an artist, you don’t have to work as a busker to understand the feeling of “going nowhere” in our society’s eyes. As artists, we often find ourselves in situations that seem low-status in an economically-driven world. Some of these situations are very well-described, in works of art that reflect their own creators’ quest for meaning and desire to be valued. For example, we can all picture the musician playing to the near-empty bar in Billy Joel’s classic song “Piano Man”—the artist so fine, everyone wonders why he isn’t famous.

But there are other places, too, less stereotyped and familiar, where artists experience this “going nowhere”. Formal rejections and un-won contests can trigger feelings of immobility and isolation, as can countless other more personal experiences. It’s easy to feel you’re going nowhere when you’re singing at a family gathering and a relative turns away and starts checking his email. Or when you volunteer at a local library and one person shows up for your performance…by mistake! Or even when you offer to sing for a seriously ill friend, and she cannot accept your gift because she is too uncomfortable and sensitive to sound to listen.

These are “going nowhere” situations. No matter how “good” we get at what we do—how proficient we become at our craft, how skilled we become at networking—we will keep finding ourselves in that state of uncomfortable nowhere. It’s not only the artist’s life, it’s the human one. We tend not to get to where we think we’re going…to where we think we want to go. We tend to end up somewhere else. Inevitably, despite all of our efforts, we end up exactly where we are: inside our own skin. Until we really inhabit that place, the ordinariness that has nothing to do with glamour or praise or fame or money, we will neither be fulfilled as songwriters nor will we write meaningful songs.

Meditation practice can help us learn to be at peace in the “nowhere”—in the persistent lack of whatever “somewhere” we seek. When we sit still, focusing on our breathing, we learn to remain in lack of movement, in stillness. The world passes by, thoughts come and go (as do people and events) and we sit, in acceptance, taking up a limited but distinct space within the world. In one guided meditation I learned recently, the teacher invited us to imagine ourselves surrounded by a bell shape, and to fill that space with our breath. For me, the metaphor of a bell was especially powerful, because I could envision a song within that did not extend beyond borders, one that was perfectly balanced and full and resonant yet still.

If we learn let go of the constant quest to “get somewhere” with our music, we can relax into our present experience and let feelings of disappointment and failure fall away. When that happens, we might notice that the overlay of constant striving, the continual evaluation of where we are on some kind of imaginary map, distracts us from simply observing and experiencing the life that we have: a life that would, if we let it, inspire songs rich in meaning and depth.

Performance as Leadership

Lots of people are talking about leadership these days. Maybe it's all because of Barack Obama...or maybe it's that the world's problems are so significant we know we need leaders right now.

Let's be honest. Little-known singer-songwriters are seldom thought of as leaders.

But it seems to me that if we want to get better at what we do -- to truly offer something of value -- we'd better get better at leadership.

That doesn't mean we have to turn into singing politicians. But it does mean we have to accept the leadership responsibility that's conferred on us the minute we step on stage.

I notice that a lot of aspiring performers seem to have no idea they're leaders. In fact, some of them seem to make the audience their leader: depending on applause or a certain level of quiet in the room, or worrying about what people might think of them. (I used to do that a lot.) Some performers close their eyes while they're singing, appearing to sing only for themselves.

Maybe we think that because we're not financially successful or famous, we're not entitled to be leaders? And yet, the minute we step on a stage, even if it's at a humble open mic, that's exactly what we become. We're all lit up, people are watching and listening. They're hoping that we will lead.

So...what do leaders do?

First, they make a respectful connection with the audience, in a sense inviting them to go on a shared journey. Next, they communicate stuff that matters to people. In other words, the songs may arise out of personal experience (there's a place for personal anecdotes even in presidential speeches) but they need to address universal human needs.

Songwriters who are effective leaders provide messages of empowerment ( "you can make it", "change is possible" ), inspiration ("be uplifted with me", "join me on this journey" ), reassurance ( "you are not alone" and ultra-leader Bob Marley's "everything's gonna be alright" ), identification ( "I've been where you are" )...the list goes on. Every element of a song can be put to the leadership test. Does it (the lyric, melody, chord structure) challenge? Or wake up? Or motivate?

The leadership does not have to be limited to the song itself. Between songs, leader-songwriters offer truthful insight about themselves and their life experience. "My teenage nephew is going through a hard time. This song is hopeful and I'm thinking of him right now". (The messages might be "don't lose hope" or "care for each other" . The song doesn't have to be about the specific circumstances and it could even be a cover tune.) Or "I wrote this at a time in my life when my priorities weren't really straight. I dunno if they're any straighter now, but I still like the song!" (Message: "I'm still striving to become a better person." )

A good performer takes the audience by the hand, says "I'll take you where you want to go" and leads them there...or as close as she can get. That requires both confidence and humility.

The confidence comes, I think, from going to that "place we want to go" ourselves. From finding beauty, energy, truth, inspiration through the songs and then offering that back to others in a spirit of community.

The humility comes from knowing that no song can take people where they want to go forever and that our songs may fall short of offering everything we hoped they would.

Still, with confidence and humility, we can lead. ( "Yes we can!" )

If we do, our songs will get better, people will listen, and we will know our songs have a place in the world.

Life is a Song: Overcommitted

I started to write a song yesterday called "Overcommitted". I didn't get very far, because I was pulled into several other directions. As it turned out, the song wasn't the only personal priority that went un-met that day. Ultimately I went to bed early, feeling frustrated that couldn't keep anything on-course.

If yesterday were a song, it would have been unfocused and under-confident, lurching along in stops and starts. An idea started in one lyric line would be abandoned in the next. It would be riddled with non-rhymes. It would be neither singable, nor memorable! No wonder I went to bed early.

I know how to keep my songs from being overcommitted, from trying to do many things at once and trying to be all things to all people. So how can I apply that knowledge to my life?

In a song, it's important to:

1) Commit to one idea at a time. The song about trying to connect with my daughter is not the same song as the one expressing optimism because of the changing political landscape. Each song is about one clear idea, the simpler and more specific the better. Life lesson: Tackle one project at a time. Multi-tasking leads to unfocused, anxious activity.

2) Go deeper. To write a good song, I need to really care about the subject: to dig into it deeply, get to know it, mine the emotional depth of it. If I'm not going deep, the song doesn't go anywhere. In life, this idea is expressed by the Outward Bound slogan, "If you can't get out of it, get into it". The only way out of a situation is "in" and "through". Surface attempts don't work, and neither does avoidance. If I find myself in the midst of any problem (even the problem of overcommitment itself), I need to fully commit to understanding it in order to sort it out. (That's why I'm writing this blog, I guess, and could now finish the song!)

3) Commit to Harmony. One of the most important elements of a successful song, in my view, is harmony. The chords have to complement the melody, and the melody itself has to be pleasing. I find that when I listen to music, I'm attracted to harmony, and that's what I want to offer in my own songs. By the same token, harmony matters in life . If activities are jarring and dissonant, I have to choose which ones truly create harmony.

Singular Focus in a Multiple Input World

Why are so many people driven to create these days?

I wonder if it's because it's a natural way to focus on one thing at a time, and to engage deeply in it.

This type of activity may be especially important for introverts, who often experience sensory overload. The focused attention required to reproduce a landscape accurately in a painting, or to express a complex idea in the limited rhyming verses of a song, provides a kind of respite from a world that seems to lack focus.

Just the act of "ordering" itself, as was recently pointed out in an article called "Writing Through Adversity", written by Paula Guran and shared in Writers.com, can be therapeutic, either serving as a proxy for a disordered world or, perhaps, creating a blueprint for ordering the life we find ourselves in.

Art can offer a narrative, a cohesive story. When our lives don't seem to have that purpose and story and meaning, we create new ones, either as substitutes for the real thing or to teach ourselves how it's done.

I notice in my own life, I've used songwriting and performance as a way of enforced life simplification. When I'm singing on a stage, I can't do anything else. When I have to write a song on a deadline, I have to stay fully focused on it. Everything else falls away, which is good, because there's so much of that "everything else", I can't keep up with it anyway!

I'm happy to be writing songs, and I think they serve a purpose in the world. But I also suspect that if I lived in a slowed-down, simpler culture, I could live more comfortably without needing to escape into creative activity quite so often. As I write this, I feel it's a kind of heresy: isn't it good to be prolific? Yes, it's life-affirming and healing.

But maybe I can more often recognize the activity as a form of meditation, which is valuable in and of itself, without requiring a whole lot of other activities surrounding it which end up being clutter.

As in every song I write, the question remains: what is essential, and what can be let go?

In Tune and In Community

Is it possible for me to stay "in tune" at a busy music conference attended by hundreds of people?

Last weekend I checked in on that question again, after side-stepping it for the past few years by simply not attending. I couldn't help thinking of Ray Davies' comment that all performers are introverts as I joined with so many others gathering in the halls, having animated spontaneous conversations and eagerly giving out promo materials.

I kept pace pretty well, but felt a bit relieved that I had only one song to sing. (Here I am, singing it! Many thanks to Shirley Gibson for the photo.) Later, another musician pointed out something that I hadn't fully realized: "Bicycle Bell" is, itself, an affirmation of the "smaller voices" we hear, both in the world and inside ourselves. In the song, I affirm their potential to make positive changes...and yet, in life, I still find myself conflicted.

Did I want to stay up to participate in late-night showcases? No. But did I want to appear as though I was part of the crowd? Yes. Did I want to follow my own star, and express my own truth? Yes. But did I also want to fit in? Yep, that too.

Being an artist provides an opportunity to become aware of our sometimes opposing needs: to distinguish ourselves with our unique vision while also belonging to a larger whole.

Perhaps the thing that can bring both of these needs in tune with each other is the concept of community. If I stay in tune with my inner voice--even at those times when I feel out of step with the majority--I strengthen community by making it more inclusive and diversified.

As Parker Palmer writes in his book "Let Your Life Speak","When we live in the close-knit ecosystem called community, everyone follows and everyone leads."

Thank you to the Ontario Council of Folk Festivals for recognizing "Bicycle Bell" as a Songs From the Heart winner this year in the political category; for hosting a complex and multi-layered conference every year; and for seeking to build community with music and among musicians and presenters.

One Song

This weekend I'm heading to a music conference, where I'm very fortunate to be singing one of my songs in an official showcase setting.

The song is called "Bicycle Bell".

As things have turned out, it's likely to be the only song I sing at the conference...a place where singer-songwriters often try to perform as many songs as many times as possible, so that the highest possible number of professional opportunities might arise.

Playing this one song, once...will it be enough?

It will be, as long as I know that we only ever have "one song". One life, one breath and one moment. Right now.

The idea that one performance must lead to another, and another, and another...it takes us away from truly inhabiting the one song we have.

May I be happy to be singing one song now.

Optimistic Songs in Hard Times

This week I wrote a song in response to the recent Canadian election, for Take5 on CIUT. I billed it as an ironic love song to Stephen Harper. (For readers outside Canada, he's the frosty right-wing politician who will lead a minority government for the second time in a row. Sixty percent of us voted against him, but he remains our Prime Minister.)

The song (which contains the word "frosty") is called "Right Back Where We Started*. (Here's a live version from the radio show on Friday morning.) It's written in the voice of a woman reluctantly returning to a guy she knows isn't good for her. Depressing, right? Cynical? You'd think so, after an election like this.

But the song turned out to be generally happy-sounding. A cheerful little waltz in a major key. I had written an optimistic song, after a disappointing election outcome, during the worst economic crisis of my lifetime. What was I thinking?

Well, first of all, I wasn't really "thinking". Instead I was writing a song, and that's a whole other thing. When you're fully engaged in the creative process, your heart (or soul, or unconscious) is doing most of the heavy lifting, while your brain (intellect, conscious mind) just navigates the process. "Just a few steps more (one more verse, please)...don't bump into the wall (that line has too many syllables)..." That sort of thing.

Once songwriters become truly proficient, they write what they need to hear. Not only what they want to express, but what they need to hear. It's the unconscious mind, the soul, that midwifes into being the needed song, as opposed to the expected or "supposed-to-write" song.

After a week like this, I can tell you that I needed some good news, more than I needed a re-hashing of everything bad. I didn't want to deny what has happened or hide from reality, but I needed to frame that reality in a way that helps me stay sane and productive. Thankfully, the unconscious mind knew exactly what to do.

I'm glad that, without thinking, I wrote a happy song this week.

Its very existence tells me that optimism is still possible.

* A few notes on the lyrics, for anyone not familiar with the Canadian political system. The Prime Minister (Mr. Harper) presides over the deeply divided House of Commons ("...waltzing round the House again"). The space in between opposing parties is called the floor. Members of Parliament often behave badly in the House. ("Hurling names across the floor...") The Leader of the Opposition (only recently installed and likely to step down now) is named Stephane, and though a man of substance and integrity, he has turned out to be very unpopular. I think the rest of the lyrics are self-explanatory. - lh

Stephen Harper: Failed Musician

"Picking up the pieces of my sweet, shattered dream..."

So goes the opening line of Gordon Lightfoot's classic, "Carefree Highway", one of a couple of familiar tunes Stephen Harper played on the piano for the television cameras, to prove that he loves music even as he slashes funding for the arts.

We dismissed his performance as mere media theatrics. But what if it was something else? What if it was actually a longed-for performance opportunity?

Maybe Stephen Harper hates professional artists because he's just jealous.

Let's remember former Ontario Premier Mike Harris for a minute. Harper's sneering at artists has been compared to Mike Harris's contempt for teachers, and his subsequent decimating of education budgets. Now, recall what Mike Harris did as a very young adult (before he became a golf professional and then a politician). Indeed, he went to teacher's college, and then became briefly (that is to say, unsuccessfully) an elementary school teacher.

Writing in her influential book "The Artist's Way" (1992), Julia Cameron calls adults with repressed artistic dreams "shadow artists". She writes "All too often the artistic urges of the artist child are ignored or suppressed. Often with the best intentions, parents try to foster a different, more sensible self for the child...Baby artists are urged to think and act like baby doctors or lawyers [or economists]. ...If encouraged at all, the children are urged into thinking of the arts as hobbies, creative fluff around the edges of real life. For many families, a career in the arts exists outside of their social and economic reality."

Sound familiar? When Stephen Harper talks about "the lives of artists not resonating with ordinary Canadians", what he means is, "that's not how my life worked out". When he imagines artists' lives as a stream of glamourous cocktail parties and television appearances, he's fantastizing about what his life might have been.

His fantasy would be inaccurate, of course. In reality, with a miniscule number of artists actually making a living (or earning any income at all) from their creative life (even if they do get the occasional grant), most of them spend their days as accountants, civil servants, cab drivers, computer programmers and advertising copywriters. In short, their lives are quite ordinary, just like Stephen Harper may secretly believe his to be.

Think of how Stephen Harper looked when he sat down at the airport lounge piano. He displayed that boyishly self-conscious pride we see at open mics, when shy adult songwriters take the stage after years of denying they play.

Wasn't it touching what he said, for the record, for the whole country to hear?

"I had a little bit of talent. I never had enough talent to be a professional, but..."

There it is! The regret! The might-have-beens! And there, too, is the feeling of personal loss and shame. "If only I had been more talented, my music might have amounted to something."

In the Globe and Mail interview, which you can listen to here, he says "I am a shadow of my former self". In fact, that shadow artist still haunts him--and now threatens the cultural sovereignty of our country.

Harper goes on to reflect (with a poignant lack of self-awareness), on how his artistic calling is alive today despite his attempts to banish it. (Note to Mr. Harper: some artists also support themselves as psychotherapists!)

"I've always been torn on music and piano in a way, because I actually get a great deal of satisfaction out of when I do it," he says. "But I get so wrapped up in it. I've always had that problem with the artistic things I've enjoyed doing. [Note the past tense.] You know, I played piano, I've sung a bit, I used to write poetry... [It's as if he's writing his artist c.v.!] ...but I've always found with these kinds of things that they really draw me in and I can't let them go. I find it difficult to do it just a little bit on the side, just a little bit here and now...that's always been my struggle."

Exactly. As a musician at heart, he will always be drawn back to that transporting and transformative creative experience, that place where he feels most alive. "Carefree Highway, got to see you my old flame...let me slip away, slip away on you." Both in his bewildered musing about his abandoned musical life, and in the songs he chooses to play, he expresses an artistic call that has not yet been answered.

(By contrast, another former Ontario Premier, Bob Rae, has always demonstrated a healthy self-awareness of his own artistic interests and abilities. He comfortably and competently plays piano in public from time to time, and speaks on arts issues with knowledge and depth. It should be noted that he does not display contempt for artists--neither does he express inner conflict over his own creative life and career.)

But, back to Stephen Harper, Failed Musician.

What was the other song he chose to sing? Just as revealing as the Lightfoot standard, it was George Harrison's "While My Guitar Gently Weeps".

"I look at you all, see the love that lies sleeping...
While my guitar gently weeps."

Harper admits that it's his son's interest in the guitar that has re-kindled his own interest in music. Yep, that would stir up those old dreams, for sure--dreams that Stephen's father (not a musician, but an expert on jazz) and his grandmother and uncle (both accomplished musicians) must have shared. Jung wrote "Nothing has a stronger influence psychologically on their environment, and especially on their children, than the unlived life of the parent." Is it possible that nothing has a stronger influence on a country than the unlived life of the politician?

If Harper's cuts to the arts are best understood by reading between the lines--the ledger lines, if you will--it's appropriate, then, to end this essay with the little-known final verse that George Harrison wrote but seldom sang. (You can bet that Stephen Harper didn't sing this one in the airport lounge.)

"I look from the wings at the play you are staging
While my guitar gently weeps...
As I'm sitting here doing nothing but aging
Still my guitar gently weeps."

Okay, Stephen. Stop weeping and feeling sorry for yourself. Stop feeling jealous of your son (who you say plays by ear, as you never could), and contemptuous of the professional artists who had enough courage to follow their artistic passions. Start practicing for your Grade 10 Conservatory exam. Write a poem about your father. Then write a song about work, about purpose, about dreams and disappointments.

Take a deep breath and play. Whether your hands are shaking, or not.

Play like an ordinary person.

Like an artist.

There's still time.

What I Learned From Writing a Song a Week

I'm coming to the end of a nearly two-year project, writing a new song most weeks for a current events program on community radio. Take5 has a "can-do" spirit and its executive producer was open to the idea of having a songwriter write something every week, inspired by a story on the show. Ultimately I wrote 69 songs for the program, before I felt an inner signal that it was time to move on. I have a special affection for all of those Songs of the Week (unexpected gifts, each and every one) and I'm grateful for the lessons I learned while writing them. Here are some of them.

1. If you can write one song a week, you can write a dozen. Creativity fuels itself, and there is no limit to how many ideas one can have in any period of time. The limitations we place on ourselves are arbitrary. In most cases the "song" of the week was actually two or three or four, sometimes different approaches to the same topic but sometimes new songs altogether. I just picked the one that I found the most inspiring.

2. Nothing lasts. The Japanese concept of wabi-sabi is: Nothing is perfect, nothing is finished, nothing lasts. As each song was written, each song immediately passed into "last week". The practice of letting go, week after week, was healthy. Even when a song garnered further attention, it only did so for a limited period of time, because I had to keep writing.

3. I am deeply and continually influenced by others. In writing a song a week, I was constantly aware of the work of other songwriters, but instead of letting that get in the way (through comparisons, jealousy or worry over plagiarism) I decided to consciously invite the other writers in, as if to help. So I felt I was guided by a lot of invisible, experienced hands.

4. Each song matters, and doesn't. You have to imagine it could change the world and have momentous impact, while being aware at the same time that it likely will not. This awareness of two apparent opposites allows one to write something that neither lacks substance nor gets bogged down in a sense of self-importance.

5. It's okay to work every which way. Use every and any tool or method you can to accomplish your goal. Don't get locked into pre-defined methods of working. What worked last week might not be appropriate for this week. Stay flexible.

6. It's not a competition. I have a tendency to rank stuff and pick winners and losers. I noticed the inclination to do this with the Song of the Week, and I saw that all that ranking didn't matter at all. I could let go of trying to pick the winning horse or predict which song might "go somewhere". None of them could, and all of them already had.

6. Honour the seed. No matter how "polished" or "finished" I wanted the songs to be, they stubbornly remained exactly what they were: fresh, small, fragile things...each of which held the potential to gain confidence and strength with repeated playings. If I had gotten caught up in perfection and full-fledged-ness at the start, I would have stopped the project after a few weeks, realizing that the timeframe and my own limitations would never permit polished, concert-level performance. I remember the point at which I realized that. I'm glad I decided to continue...to honour the seed. In life, there are many such seeds.

7. If you believe in it, it will come. The most valuable technique I used was the belief that the song was meant to be, and that it already existed...and only need my midwifery to bring it to the world. That outlook was, I think, just as important as a wide range of guitar chords, a taste for novelty, a good work ethic, a willingness to experiment and to potentially fail, and a lifelong fascination with songs and the creative process--all of which were essential too.

The 100 Mile Artist

Lately I've been thinking a lot about the 100-Mile Diet: eating locally to make a positive change for the planet. It's an important idea. I'm really excited about reducing the amount of time and money I spend in big chain grocery stores, and walking instead to a farmer's market where I can buy locally grown food.

It got me thinking: how can songwriters apply the principles of "think globally, eat locally" to our music life? Is there value in being a 100-Mile Artist and writing a 100-Mile Song?

I think there is, even though we live in the Internet Age. Our music is now available at the touch of a button, as conveniently as our food and more cheaply than ever before. We consume music like we consume food and other products and entertainment: voraciously, often without any personal connection to how or where it's made.

As songwriters who want to be successful by our culture's standards, we tend to think that our music has to travel far in order to matter. We need to tour widely, or at least be heard beyond our local communities, via radio or the Net. We tend to believe (sometimes it's an unconscious thing) that a non-touring local musician, especially one who hasn't recorded his or her work, is less important than one whose product is shipped a greater distance.

But if we actually start living as environmental leaders recommend, getting more of our food closer to home, and choosing to buy and consume less, we might also start to value local artists in new ways. Local songwriters might feel more empowered to write songs grown organically in a real time and place...and we might not feel badly anymore if those songs (or if we as individuals) don't travel so much.

This re-framing might encourage songwriters to respond in a more particular, specific way about what's going on in their neighbourhoods, and to consciously sing the songs for the people there. The aim of writing a great song would be not to have it recorded by a big Nashville star, but to help actual people, right here and now. That kind of song, like that kind of great-tasting organic food, is nourishing to the soul. If songs are like food, maybe we can grow our own.

Of course, for anyone to buy the song (locally or otherwise), it had better be GOOD! Nobody, anywhere, wants a song that has no melody or whose lyrics are meaningless. Nobody will enjoy a tasteless or bland song that's supposed to be good for you just because it's local. That's why it's essential that those of us who are 100-Mile Songwriters create truly high-quality songs: songs that are on par with the widely-distributed "hits" of our times. There's no reason the next "Imagine" (or "The Rose" or "Blowing in the Wind" or "Heart of Gold", or...) couldn't be written in your town. It's just that in our commercially-driven culture, it's unlikely to be recognized. It's time we got better at that recognition process.

First of all, we can start appreciating the ways that excellent locally-grown entertainment enriches us. We can take pride in it, and be appreciative and grateful for it, without immediately thinking it should be exported. Instead of hearing a great song and saying "Wow, you should get Celebrity So-and-So to sing that" or "you should get it promoted to radio" or "get it used in a movie", we could learn to say, "Your song helped me get through my day" or "I always feel good when I hear you play" or simply, "thank you". That's enough. That, and a fair price to hear that musician perform, and a fair amount to purchase his or her recording--which was produced on a sustainable budget.

[As I write this, the rest of my family is hungrily devouring the MMVA's...the Much Music Video Awards...which features many celebrity artists who are the equivalent of the Oreo cookies in our cupboard. I find I often crave them, too. We are products of our culture. But as the priorities of our culture change, in response to urgent environmental and social needs, local artists could become valuable sources of direction, hope and wisdom. May we grow the best food we can.]

Let's Applaud the Amateurs: Bill Ivey

I just read a piece in the Utne Reader that I'd like to share with you.

It's an interview with Bill Ivey , former chair of the National Endowment for the Arts in the United States, and the author of a book called Arts, Inc.: How Greed and Neglect have Destroyed our Cultural Rights.

In the article, Ivey comments on the failure of public policy, reflecting society as a whole, to recognize artists who are not considered professionals. He writes: "while we understand that amateur basketball players are not going to be as good as a superstar, there's no sense that they shouldn't be doing what they're doing. But in the arts...we tend to denigrate the amateur. The NEA participated in this by concentrating so much of its work on professionals: using the term excellence as a kind of euphemism for professional art-making, concentrating on elevating the top pros and the organizations that they work with, and pretty much leaving the amateur unincorporated art-making piece of the American scene off to the side."

Amateur artists are denigrated at times. We've all felt it, even those of us who have achieved some degree of professional success, because few of us achieve enough of it to make a dent in the cultural firmament. I think we do feel "off to the side" as Ivey says, in a kind of no-man's land where we feel neither fully professional nor contentedly amateur. To get out of that uncomfortable, anxiety-producing place, we spend a fair bit of time and money creating an image and a product that might put us on the map, all the while suspecting that no map, or straightforward success path for artists, exists.

One of the reasons I'm encouraged by Ivey's interview is that he suggests a change in perception is possible, and that it might come about through public policy. It's certainly not going to come through the commercial entertainment industry, which on the surface may appear to encourage amateurism through Idol and related reality programming, but in fact divides the world of artists into winners and losers: winner take all.

More good could be done by more artists, if we invested in ALL artists' sense of worth.

Discovery: Art of the Song

I've been tuning in recently to Art of the Song which is one of the best songwriting websites and blogs I've encountered. It offers a refreshing change of perspective from most songwriting sites...focusing not only on technique (though it covers that beautifully) but on motivation and purpose...the spiritual dimension of creativity. Author and creativity coach Eric Maisel is also a contributor to the site. If you're an artist of any kind, I recommend that you explore his work. He seems to have a uniquely insightful perspective on the challenges faced by creative people.

In a recent interview on Art of the Song, songwriter Tom Kimmel talks about seeing his work as a form of service. This is a refreshing idea for songwriters, who too frequently are focused on audience-building and attracting attention from the media and music industry. I appreciated hearing his thoughts as I started developing the idea of the 100-Mile Artist.

Songwriting and Biomimicry

I recently watched The 11th Hour Leonardo di Caprio’s documentary. In the special features section at the end, where possible solutions to the urgent problem of climate change are discussed, Janine Benyus, author of Biomimicry: Innovation Inspired by Nature spoke about the concept of biomimicry.

She writes: “Biomimicry (from bios, meaning life, and mimesis, meaning to imitate) is a new discipline that studies nature's best ideas and then imitates these designs and processes to solve human problems. Studying a leaf to invent a better solar cell is an example. I think of it as ‘innovation inspired by nature.’"

It occurred to me today that we can also use those principles to write better songs...in fact, I'm pretty sure it's something some of us do intuitively. It's nice to have a name for it.

Today, my challenge was to write two linked songs which would be played consecutively (kind of like Queen’s “We Will Rock You”/”We Are the Champions”). One of the songs had to do with a bridge, and they both had to do with the relationship between land, water and sky. That really got me going on the idea of interconnectedness.

I’ve always viewed song elements as a series of connected elements, forming patterns within a larger structure. This seems in line with biomimicry. The stronger the connections between the elements of the song, the stronger the whole thing will be. In turn, that stronger song will contribute to a stronger connection between human beings, while mirroring and celebrating the natural world we need to protect. That's the kind of song that can help sustain life.

In The 11th Hour, Janine Benyus suggests that to find solutions to the world’s problems, we might ask ourselves: “What would nature do?” She points out that Nature’s methods have often proven to be stronger and more beautiful than the high tech solutions human beings have come up with so far.

So, how can I apply the principles of biomimicry to songwriting? Here are a few ideas:

- Build a web of interconnected elements
- Seek balance and harmony
- Make efficient use of all materials (every note & word counts)
- Create patterns…and patterns within patterns.
- Don’t overcomplicate
- Encourage growth (development of melody, of ideas) within a sustainable structure
- Take your time.

Breaking in the Lyrics

The other day I took my 13 year-old son out to buy shoes. Before finding the perfect pair, he tried on another that was almost right.

"Maybe these just need breaking in," I wondered. So we put them on hold with the saleslady, planning to come back for them if we didn't find anything better.

After looking around at several stores, we finally found a better pair: one that fit right away.

Even though the first pair might have done in a pinch (literally) and the breaking in might have helped, they still might have felt uncomfortable. That's the way it is with lyrics too.

Sometimes I write a line that looks really pretty on paper, but I try to sing it and it's just not comfortable. I stumble over it no matter how many times I sing it. When that happens, I know I have to keep looking for the phrase that truly fits, and sometimes that process (like shopping) can be maddeningly time-consuming.

But it's worth it in the end.

(This morning, my song-of-the-week for "Take5" on CIUT 89.5 fm is a historical song--a challenging form for me--about an old railway hotel being turned into a homeless shelter. Two of the lyrics, in particular, required a lot of "shopping".) Here's how the song came out! The New Edwin Hotel .