I feel the same way, but it’s not easy. Once you get to a certain point in life, you realize loving is scary – it takes courage and an acceptance of risk. But it’s still the best thing we can do in this world.
Got a new phone, and this app won’t transfer the old photo drafts I had on my old phone to the new one. 🤷🏻♂️ Here are just a few of them. Possible future album cover? #albumcover #grid #everything #userexperience #austin via Instagram https://instagr.am/p/Cu4S-BKuB-P/
T-shirt factory (walked by and heard this song playing) 🎵 #factory #music #summer #atx #storefront @eslabonarmadooficial via Instagram https://instagr.am/p/CuHRgA9OSso/
The little, square book Show Your Work has changed they way I think about blogging, processing my ideas, and has even helped me see my own music playlists differently.
Okay, it’s actually my second snippet – I just didn’t realize that the first one (also from this book) was a snippet when I wrote it.
This book says that creative people should embrace collecting as part of the creation process.
There’s not as big of a difference between collecting and creating as you might think.
Show Your Work
Great musicians, writers, and artists tend to collect and appreciate other people’s work. “The reading feeds the writing, which feeds the reading,” the book says. Or to put it another way:
To that end, here is my ever-growing list of new songs I like, built up gradually over the last few years, thanks to Shazam and a few coffee shops with their own great playlists. As of this writing, this playlist is over 49 hours long and could double as its own radio station.
My friend and I have been working on a song called Sad Moon Above for a while now. It started with just some lyrics (hers), then a few guitar chords (mine), culminating in a very rough outdoors acoustic demo, recorded on my iPhone and featuring a metronome and a barking dog. 🤷🏻♂️
Yeah, it was that rough. But it was just a proof of concept.
The was three years ago.
We got a little stuck, so to move things along, I made a really basic “karaoke” version of the song. I even sang on one cut, even though I’m not a singer, to demonstrate the timing.
That was two years ago.
Now I’m trying to get to a fairly “good” version of this song. Or maybe 2-3 good versions. 🤷🏻♂️ In my head, I hear a New Wave version, a grunge version, and a dream pop version of this song.
So I just bought a keyboard, even though I’m not a keyboard player.
Aspirations keep us moving forward.
Here is a playlist of sounds that I want Sad Moon Above to feel like when it’s eventually done.
Mental Break Town 