Decreasing output

[Cornflake]

A few years back, a friend who's a very good songwriter commented that she no longer wrote songs except when she had to.

I'm beginning to understand what she meant. In the past few months I've started a number of songs that weren't bad. After a while I found myself thinking: who needs another song that's not bad? Ten years ago, I would have finished the song and thought it was pretty good. Those not-bad songs from ten years ago sit in a notebook and don't get played anymore.

This isn't a lament. On the plus side, the stuff I do finish these days tends to be better.

Anybody else run into this kind of phase?

[Marshall]

I'm more in the lament realm. I don't seem to have time (nor the burning desire) to see anything musical through anymore. I hardly pick up a guitar during the week. I play on Thursday night band practise and Sunday morning church. Then I don't touch a guitar till the next cycle.

It's bothering me. I still have "ideas" but not the (gargantuan) time (or simple joy) it takes me to bring anything to fruition.

It's slipping away. And I don't like it.

The rest of life seems to have swallowed me up at the moment. Probably just a phase I'm going through.

Blah.

[Marshall]

I do like her "had to" comment. It takes a real strong burning image/desire/concept to keep me motivated. I think I wrote one good song in the last 12 months.

But it's a good one. I like it a lot. (Kinda quirky, but sort of secretly meaningful on many levels. And fun too).

[[Postscript - I worked late last evening. But I got done with what I was doing about a half an hour before the next train. So, I picked up Ernie, my office guitar, and took a couple trips through a couple tunes. Very enjoyable. - Thanks, Don. ]]

[[[PS2 - Plunked around in DADGAD again this morning and found a cool new drama-rock pattern that has great possibilities. That's pretty much how I write. It starts with noodling around and trying out musical things. When something clicks I just wear it out over and over again, like beating a glowing iron on the anvil, until it gives up what it wants to be. Sort of like interogating a prisoner.

If I don't have a guitar in my hands, I don't write anything. . . , thanks again, Donny-boy]]]

[sekhmet]

Lars has these sorts of slumps in song-writing too. If someone asks him, or better still, pays him to write a song he seems to be able to do so at the drop of a hat. Some of his best songs were written to order. Or for a particular occasion. Homeless, for instance, was written for a benefit concert for several homeless people in Owen Sound. (The city was horrified to find that several people were actually living under a bridge! imagine! and no one knew! - I'm glad to say I live here.)

Dry spells are always distressing to him. He gets really messed up about them.

[Deleted]

Anybody else run into this kind of phase?

Yes. More than once. One such lasted years. Then I sobered up again.

But it's more of a habit, and like most good habits, you hope practice makes perfect. Or at least better. Arpropos the work-out thread in the cafe, songwriting needs its gym-time and rest-and-recuperation time, too. But like the man at Nike said: "Just do it".