Writing with elements

Yo!

Doggone it, I'm behind on my blog! Geeze. I'm in the process of composing answers to some really good (and hard) questions folks have emailed me about ear training. Stay tuned, y'all.

And I've got another thing that's buggin' me. This is a non-partisan call for Sarah Palin to shut up, because she's ruining my writing style. She's depleting the world supply of apostrophes to replace the letter G. Gosh, now I've lost my style, and I'm havin' to watch what I'm sayin'. "Sir, there is an apostrophe shortage, so please watch your P's and Q's."

But here's something to think on in the meantime: I went out to see the leaves this weekend. Besides paying $11 for a sub, and chatting with a very nice police officer about the effectiveness of the tune up on my red Camaro (we both came to the conclusion that new spark plugs definitely make a difference,) I got a neat idea:

The next time you're stuck with songwriting, try writing about an element, such as wind. Music is delightfully non-specific, and to me, more effective than words when communicating about vague ideas or feelings. Or something as big as the wind.

I was walking through the autumn forest, and thinking about what the wind was. It has a stirring way of creeping up the mountainside, rustling your hair, and gently removing the ashes from your soul.

Or at least that's how I look at it. (I'm lucky that I didn't get busted for thinking weird thoughts.)

The wind is currently gusting across an inspiring sky, and trying to pry it's way into my studio. It rattles the signs down on the street, and is playing tennis with a piece of siding. It's also trying to rip the mullet poster off the wall, but that ain't gonna happen.

So now I'm off to try to put that into notes. Hey, one picture is worth a thousand words, but how many notes does it take to convey the idea of the Appalachian wind?

Try doing something like that next time you hit a wall with your songwritin'. Darn it, that was my last apostrophe!

- Josh