Diary of a Music Producer
Lovelies,
Monday, June 15th — Sixteen days until July. That means three weeks until I start production on the new David Hobbes album. I open the David Hobbes folder on my desktop.
Tuesday, June 16th — I play two songs a few times each. I listen for my mind to offer up ideas and nothing happens. I wonder how I'm going to fit ten big songs in my one little head.
Wednesday, June 17th — I print charts and look at them. They're very quiet. It's existential.
Thursday, June 18th — I co-work in Pinole with my friend, Beth. Singing along to a metronome click on my phone I figure out what to do with three songs.
Friday, June 19th — I sit at the piano with Heart Says Yes — because I consider it the troublemaker and I consider myself brave. My mind says "Hozier" and nothing else. I listen through two Hozier albums before I realize which song my mind means. I play Dave's chords on top of a practically tribal beat. Oh, this one is going to be very cool.
Monday, June 22nd — I suggest to Dave that we get rid of two of his bridges. He says "Sure, no problem." I could have slept more last night.
Tuesday, June 23rd — I wake up to two words: "Imagine" and "Dragons." "What?," I say to my mind. (I don't like Imagine Dragons.) Brushing my teeth I understand. The sea chantey that wants to be more. Three hours later I'm playing Vancouver (E minor, 6/8 time) on top of Radioactive (B dorian, 4/4 time). It is an offense to both. My boyfriend sits unfazed working on his laptop ten feet away. I'm concerned he isn't concerned.
Friday, June 26th — I realize this album has a second sea chantey: Don't Mind Being Alone. My life's work is turning sea chanteys into radio hits. My mind flips through its rolodex of references and lands on... Billy Joel's Piano Man. I promise no one in particular that I won't put another Piano Man into the world. Then Simon and Garfunkel's America. I've heard America two thousand times but now I listen as a producer. What's going on with the drums is actually insane. I decide to emulate as much of it as possible.
Saturday, June 27th — I wake up to Dave's ballad, No Regrets, playing in my mind — with arpeggiated piano, fretless bass, and strings. It sounds terrible. "Thanks for nothing," I tell my mind.
Sunday, June 28th — I have no idea what to do with In Between.
Monday, June 29th — I work for three hours and figure out how to produce Miracles: edgy, live, the right amount of trashy.
Monday, June 29th (again) — I realize Miracles is playing in my head but now it's smooth and the quarter note subdivision has swapped for eighth note subdivision. It's better. "Ok fine, whatever," I say to no one.
Tuesday, June 30th — I still have no idea what to do with In Between. I wonder if I could make it uptempo bluegrass. I go for a walk. "Stupid," I think.
Wednesday, July 1st — I still have no idea what to do with In Between. I wonder if I could make it uptempo bluegrass. "Oh my god, that's it!" I think.
Friday, July 3rd — I calculate if I have enough history with my band to faceplant and they'd still respect me. I decide yes. I'll try producing Vancouver like Radioactive. I press send.
With love,
At the end of this month I'm headed to Greece to present at the Delphic Dreaming Conference, Prophecies and Precognition. My workshop is called Creativity is a Waking Dream: Writing Precognitive Songs and I will be showing attendees how to write song lyrics as a way of developing shared vocabulary with the subconscious. I've written before about the prescience of creativity — now I can't wait to unveil my dreamy methods.
Would you like to go to Greece with me? You can still sign up for this remarkable three-day event.
Speaking of David Hobbes, check out his new single, At The End of the Day.
This is a different sort of love song: Love with limitation. Love with boundary. Love with promised disappointment. It made me sad. It made me mad at my ex-boyfriends. Iterating until the protagonist became someone I could like was a catharsis.
Now I love the protagonist and the song.
For the Muzi-curious, your Discipline Mission if you choose to accept it:
Responsive Discipline
Engage creative ideas the moment they occur to you.
A pianist wakes at dawn and goes straight to the piano.
A playwright sets a timer for three hours and doesn’t look up from her script until she hears the bell.
A painter sets a recurring meeting to paint every day at 2pm and come 2pm, paint he does.
This, we think, is discipline. And indeed it is. Powerful, enviable, get-things-done discipline.
Elbow grease deserves all the hype.
But in the realm of creativity, it’s not the whole discipline story. In the realm of creativity we rely just as much — or more — on another kind of discipline:
RESPONSIVE DISCIPLINE.
The truth is, we don’t know when our next great idea will strike. Perhaps it will happen at 2:10pm and there we will be, in front of our easel. But also chances are pretty good it will happen at 8am. Or 1:15pm. Or 11:42pm. And what happens then? Busy people that we are, we may be inclined to say, “Oh what a great idea! I’ll be sure to engage it when I have time tomorrow!”
But never is an idea so vividly available to us as the moment we think it. Tomorrow is one hundred creative years away. We may still have a memory of the idea. But it won’t carry the same clarity. It won't offer the same urgency.
It won’t tell us the precise coordinates of our project's next step.
To wait until tomorrow is to send our idea back where it came from.
In RESPONSIVE DISCIPLINE you will practice the most important creative hygiene: tending to a creative idea the moment it occurs to you.
If you’re reading a book, put it down and grab a pen. If you're driving, pull over and record a voice memo. If you're in a meeting, jot notes in your notebook margins.
Or better yet, launch into a bona fide creative work session. This will almost certainly mean adjusting your plans. Don’t worry, that’s the point! In order to honor our ideas, we must be willing to bend for them.
Use this Mission to build camaraderie with your ideas: "I honor you with my attention! I meet you where you are!"
Explore exactly how far a first wave of inspiration can take you.
If it makes you late to an appointment, tell them Muzi made you do it.
To explore this and other Missions download Muzi for free in the Apple App Store