Jul 3, 2010

One At A Time, Please

It's nice when things get rolling creatively. I really can't complain. Sometimes I'll go months without writing down anything significant in my book or weeks without jamming out a riff on the guitar. But when the gates truly open, there tends to be a flood and I'm helpless to stop it.

In some ways the creative avalanche that rarely comes my way is just as bad as no idea coming at all, mostly because I can never lock anything down. I'll be lying in bed and a great melody comes bouncing through my brain for one song. The next day, the bridge for another song hits me like a ton of bricks and I have to get it down.

But no matter how much work I get done, the constant song hopping is always my downfall. Before I know it I have a lyric book full of a scribbled mess of pages (the scribbled part for me is good, it's means I've been writing and rewriting and putting down lots of thoughts) but also a GarageBand folder on the computer packed with random recordings which in the end, never make much sense.

So what's my problem? I think it's focus. At the songwriting stage that I'm in, I feel I should be able to sit down and work on a song (one at a time) and bust it out. I've done it before. But here especially, there's always a distraction. Whether it's the dog needs a walk, I get an email, the tv gets turned on (the World Cup has me hooked), I think of a blog post idea and feel guilty for not posting in a month (like right now) or I simply don't feel comfortable playing as loud as I want in my apartment building.  (I get a little self-conscious,  most definitely in the early stages of songs when half the time I'm screaming nonsense words and fumbling on the guitar to get melodies and rhythms down.)

I have some ideas of how to be able to focus more and concentrate on one song at a time so I actually accomplish something, the most notable being getting out of this apartment. But otherwise, I'm not sure what to do. I really want to get these songs rolling. Anyone have any suggestions pertaining to focus and concentration, whether it be for songwriting or any other project you need to get done?

Rock on!

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