creative spelunking
It's the post-"beautiful weekend with family and now I gotta go back to work" morning. The rest of the house sleeps away the 80 degree weekend... I'm contemplating what to pack for lunch (and dinner, it's gonna be a long day) while I avoid emptying the dishwasher by typing... this. In all honesty, it's been a great 3 days of playing with the kids, connecting with the wife, and doing a lot of overdue maintenance on the house. Everything here is still so fresh... I worked on the roof and the yard and there's still parts of the lot that I haven't walked in. Probably because they're filled with brush. But still... exciting and new. Come aboard. With a grub hoe.
What's the point? Oh yes. Yesterday I was explaining to someone what the feeling of songwriting is like (for me, anyway) and compared it to a paleotologist discovering a new species. The looked at me like my head had cracked open like an egg and a chocolate donkey had sprung out. Not one to accept defeat with my ideas, I went on about how a scientist is probably digging and digging in some spot in the middle of a barren Montana wasteland, watching all the other scientists jump up and down as they discover new fossil after new fossil over and over again. Of course, the get to name it "Heyjulieasaurs" and "Circlingthesunatops" and it will last forever in the cannon of great melodic discoveries. Meanwhile our intrepid scientist keeps digging in the hot sun, drinking tepid water from a dirty bottle, wiping the dirt off weird rocks with a shaving brush. Then one day, he finds a strange tooth... then part of the spine... a hip bone, a skull... Eureka! He fits all the pieces together as best he can (sometimes the fossil record is incomplete and he has to guess a bit) and ta-da! A Sleepingwiththeemily Rex!
At this point the listener blinked a few times and went over to the veggie tray.
I sure can thrill them with my bizarre analogies. Anywoo, that's the feeling. Music writing is more the thrill of discovery than inventing. As a visual artist I'm additive (adding layers and layers of paint on the canvas until it's "done"), as a musician I'm subtractive (taking away all the tonal and melodic possibilities until you've discovered the perfect core melody and arrangement). As a lyricist I depend too much on a rhyming dictionary. As a bloggist I've got to go make a cheese sandwich for later. Or maybe I'll indugle myself in some ravioli? What would the scientist in the desert do?
Dave
What's the point? Oh yes. Yesterday I was explaining to someone what the feeling of songwriting is like (for me, anyway) and compared it to a paleotologist discovering a new species. The looked at me like my head had cracked open like an egg and a chocolate donkey had sprung out. Not one to accept defeat with my ideas, I went on about how a scientist is probably digging and digging in some spot in the middle of a barren Montana wasteland, watching all the other scientists jump up and down as they discover new fossil after new fossil over and over again. Of course, the get to name it "Heyjulieasaurs" and "Circlingthesunatops" and it will last forever in the cannon of great melodic discoveries. Meanwhile our intrepid scientist keeps digging in the hot sun, drinking tepid water from a dirty bottle, wiping the dirt off weird rocks with a shaving brush. Then one day, he finds a strange tooth... then part of the spine... a hip bone, a skull... Eureka! He fits all the pieces together as best he can (sometimes the fossil record is incomplete and he has to guess a bit) and ta-da! A Sleepingwiththeemily Rex!
At this point the listener blinked a few times and went over to the veggie tray.
I sure can thrill them with my bizarre analogies. Anywoo, that's the feeling. Music writing is more the thrill of discovery than inventing. As a visual artist I'm additive (adding layers and layers of paint on the canvas until it's "done"), as a musician I'm subtractive (taking away all the tonal and melodic possibilities until you've discovered the perfect core melody and arrangement). As a lyricist I depend too much on a rhyming dictionary. As a bloggist I've got to go make a cheese sandwich for later. Or maybe I'll indugle myself in some ravioli? What would the scientist in the desert do?
Dave
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