Vibing
I spent a lot of my Saturday enjoying the afterglow of the Knicks advancing over the Celtics to get to the Eastern Conference Finals for the first time in 25 years. Watching videos. listening to podcasts, that sort of thing.
But I’m also low key. . . delaying starting to do some recording on a song I’m in the process of writing.
This one has not yet come together as a more fleshed out composition. I have some ideas recorded on my phone as they come to me, but it’s really going to be written “in the studio” as it were, as I start with the opening beat and riff and then build out from there using multiple instruments to cross pollinate each other in my DAW (Digital Audio Workstation). It’s as if, virtually, I’m going to become different instrumentalists, kay out some ideas fro each, and let them collide.
I’m working on what amounts to a concept album, and during the last two months I put together the first track, which is all instrumental, no lyrics. The concept of the album is that it follows or expresses snapshots or chapters in a character story. The Wall by Pink Floyd did this, so that’s more or less the idea, artistically.
That first track started as a motif on the guitar and then I built it out with other elements and progressions that I developed in stages as they came to me. The next song will come right from it sonically (key of A minor into C) but have a very different character and energy. I have the opening motif in mind and I think I know more or less the chords and colors that will follow, but not exactly in what order, and I don’t know yet if I will want a real change of pace in the form of a bridge. The song, vibe, and story will tell me, but I need to find it musically as an iterative process.
I used to start songwriting with lyrics, but as I have become more musical, and as I have studied and learned from more musicians, I start now with musical phrases that function as seeds with a vibe and build out from there. Lyrics will come last. I saw a documentary about Gordon Lightfoot and he talked about this: 1) chords 2) melody 3) lyrics. I also watched a great documentary on Ennio Morricone and watching him compose by starting with motifs, more in the classical tradition, and then building arrangements in counterpoint. . . that also struck me.
So why am I delaying? I’m not sure. I need to have fresh, focused energy to start that creative process. Every song, once started, becomes a labor, a low key obsession, and as I only just last week finished the (unpublished) previous one, I’m feeling like I need to let this one percolate in my unconscious and get a good night’s rest to have a clean, fresh start “in the studio.” Maybe I will do that tomorrow, Sunday.
That’s the creative process. It has its own rhythms. You don’t control it, but rather try to get out of the way to let it flow and try to capture it, wrestle it, put it in a jar without killing it.