AuthorI'm a high school English teacher who hasn't quite given up his dream of being a rock star. Archives
October 2022
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Week 5: Collaborate and Listen3/30/2022 This week I was reminded of the need to embrace the words of a true poet of the late 20th century: Robert Matthew Van Winkle. You may know him better as Vanilla Ice. The first verse of "Ice Ice Baby" asks the listeners to "Stop, collaborate and listen," which is honestly solid advice for ensuring one's success in any kind of creative endeavor. The message of the song gets a bit muddied from there as Ice talks about his brand new invention and how "something takes a hold of [him] tightly," and for some reason that makes him "flow like a harpoon daily and nightly." Regardless, I decided to take some of the lessons at the core of this song to heart, particularly the benefits of collaboration. I'll talk more about the "listening" aspect next week, but for now, I've found that the most productive aspect of my week has come from me taking the time to collaborate and forcing myself to let others read my lyrics, listen to my melodies, and help me see and hear what I couldn't. "Will it ever stop? Yo, I don't know" Vanilla Ice This Week's Progress: SongwritingProbably the most progress I made on lyric writing this week came from spending a good hour in the "studio" with my wife and having her look over what I've written so far. I played her the melody idea I had for the chorus to "Dying Light" enough times for the notes to imprint. After that, I just kept playing the chord progression over again until we stumbled upon some lyrical variations that really seem like they're on the right track to capturing the overall theme of the song. As with much of the other progress I've been making with my writing, I don't love what we're working with 100% right now, but I do feel a lot better about the direction the song is going than I did a couple of weeks ago. Of course, the biggest issue is still time and the fact that I can't always seem to find that dedicated hour to brute force myself through the missing pieces of a song. Even still, I have found that since that really productive session that even when I can squeeze in five minutes or so to look at lyrics, I am finding that it is easier to get them drafted than it had been before. This Week's Progress: VocalsI actually did get a chance to sing this week. Granted, it was also in one of those hour-long sessions where I mostly did vocal warm ups and embarrassed myself singing and playing "Thunderstruck," but still. Progress is progress, or so they say. Now, I might have gotten a little overzealous and made it so I needed a couple days to rest my voice afterwards, but it was legitimately exciting despite me definitely not hitting every note I wanted to. I don't know how much of my singing will be featuring on my production drafts of songs, but I do feel at least a little better about the prospect. Some Stats
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