To begin at the beginning: visual art is one thing. It uses specific senses and parts of the brain. Music or auditory art is another thing. It uses other senses and parts of the brain. When you paint, you use your sight and your touch.You think in terms of composition, shapes, colours, texture, light, lines.When … Continue reading When music merges with art, something different happens
Whenever I'm stuck in a rut and don't know what to write about, or whether I should write a song about something, I remember what Nick Cave wrote in his Red Hand Files. He was responding to the controversy about ChatGPT, but his words define what it is to be an artist, and what it … Continue reading What to write a song about?
personal in Every way Songwriting involves two things that I had never given much thought to: Firstly, it is a very personal thing, which, if the song is not good, or if you are not successful, makes you feel very much like a personal failure. This is not a failure of your co-writers, or producers, … Continue reading The quiet despair (and hope) of a songwriter
https://wp.me/p2dW69-7T1 This is a blog post I wrote on my literature site, Seven Circumstances, about why artists produce art.
The melody of Swagger & Swing started as notes on the fourth option on the “Paint with Music” platform, the “Street” canvas, which looks like a granite wall or pavement (shown below, left). This canvas has a more atonal sound than the others, and includes effects like scratching and hissing, which give a more grunge-like … Continue reading “Swagger & Swing” – Track 4 on “Painting Music
I make music in ways that interest me, and in ways that I can get my head around - bad grammar, but what it means in practice is that with every song I produce I make a bunch of mistakes, and learn something about myself or about music, or about the creative process. And then … Continue reading My New album “Painting Music” has dropped
Everyone has to start somewhere, when you create things. Something cannot come from nothing. I have learned this rather late in my life. You have to DO something: take a step, make a move, decide something, in order to create that thing you have in your mind. Or that thing that's been bothering you and … Continue reading From hesitant beginnings to happiness
People tell me that you can get inspiration from anywhere - in your imagination, from what you know, from what's around you, or people. David Byrne (he of Talking Heads) writes in the opening lines of his book How Music Works, that, actually, the music we create does not necessarily come from some internal source … Continue reading Contending with the challenge of creating music in context
Carlos Santana makes a very important point in his masterclass course: “Look at any poem by anyone that you love and, then, try... putting notes to it.” "When writing a melody for guitar, Carlos uses a technique he calls playing a poem, wherein he reads a piece of poetry (it can be any kind) and … Continue reading “Run to Me” – Playing the poem, like Carlos Santana says
