Feldenkrais! Learning to learn.

This is not Missy Mazzoli.

Milestone: I have started composition lessons.

One assumption that I made young is that a songwriter cannot be taught, a songwriter is either born or not. One can go to school to learn to play pro football, but to write songs a person has to just know how to do it. To be a natural. Because who taught Paul Simon? Who taught Stevie Wonder? Who taught Joni Mitchell? Sufjan Stevens? Nobody, right? Right??

Wrong. Or right. It doesn't matter. It's totally unrealistic! I don't care how they did it anymore. This is how I'm doing it. I am learning to learn. In a conversation with singer/songwriter/composer Sasha Siem last Friday, she referenced the Feldenkrais Method. I'd never heard of it but she followed up by sending me a fascinating article from Feldenkrais' Learn to Learn booklet, and I've excerpted some curious bullet points here.

• Do everything very slowly
• Look for a pleasant sensation
• Do not “try” to do well
• Do not try to do “nicely”
• Do not concentrate
• We do not say at the start what the final stage will be
• Do a little less than you can

 And then there's this. See? Looks like even Yoda took some lessons...

"Learn to do well, but do not try. The countenance of trying hard betrays the inner conviction of being unable or of not being good enough." - Moshe Feldenkrais

So I have my manuscript paper. I have some new exercises to help me forward. Some listening assignments. Some tactics. I'm going in, folks. I'm going in. And I'm not trying to do anything.

Progress Report. Or the effects of 3 acts of God on 1 active songwriter.

To quote Heavy D & The Boyz: "Now that we found [F6] what are we going to do / with it?"

Well, I don't know.

I've been playing around with that upper range a bit since discovering it but I've also been busy digesting new music and writing press releases for projects that I'm promoting this Fall. I mainly went back just to make sure the whole F6 thing wasn't a fluke and that it was/is still there. It is. So strange.

At this point, my super upper range, as with my chest voice, has two volumes: ON and OFF. Fine. I can work with that. Mark Baxter gave me some interesting exercises to build strength in volumes pp p mf f ff:

one          two               three               four               five

I've been working on "you're an old man" such that it ends appropriately on a D-minor arpeggio from D5 up to D6. So there's that.

Otherwise, I feel like I've hit a bit of a lull. I was working on combining two of my songs (january ballet song and la plus belle but I haven't been able to find a suitable transition from one to the other (one as verse, the other as chorus). For that song, I also wanted to visit and possibly record a class at a ballet studio but, after asking around and emailing Dance New Amsterdam, I've waited for weeks with no reply. I did find a potential translator/collaborator for the French lyrics and collaborating sounds like fun. This feels broader in scope than other songs I've recorded so far, and I'm feeling like I need to equip myself with some composition lessons in order to actualize what I'm envisioning. The same goes for the 4-part hymn "i will grow old and grow apart from all that's dear to me." I got my first copy of Sibelius and started learning it but an earthquake outside of my home county happened in the middle of my tutoring session, then my dad had a bunch of surgeries, then there was a hurricane, then my fall PR projects started. I'm feeling like I could use some guidance. [HELP ME.]

Meanwhile, I've circled back to "laundry" and "you're an old man" because they are more straightforward -- me + guitar or me + ukulele. That'll do for homemade demos, at least.

If I record both of those, that'll be 6 completed demos with about 13 songs still to finish/demo, and about 13 beyond that that I think I'll just let go of. My vocal coach says about 30-50 songs are typically written for each album of music, only 12-ish make the cut. 10 core songs + 2 novelties.

Also worth noting, watching Season 1 of Mad Men is so much easier than writing music.

I'm a lyrics girl.

Two things:

1. Alaska and I listened to this This American Life segment on our most recent drive to my sweet Virginia homeland. Phil Collins talks about the divorce behind his break-out solo album and its role in his songwriting. (Yet Taylor Swift got a lot of flack for writing songs about her exes. Hmm.)

(I'm sorry about the messy embed. Something's screwy with the code.)

2. The Fleet Foxes album and its title song, "Helplessness Blues," just stopped me dead in my tracks. Had to back it up and listen again:

I was raised up believing I was somehow unique
Like a snowflake distinct among snowflakes, unique in each way you can see
And now after some thinking, I'd say I'd rather be
A functioning cog in some great machinery serving something beyond me

The lesson from Phil Collins? Don't try to be too clever. The best songs are simple and honest. And the lesson from Fleet Foxes (and, by the way, Mumford and Sons)? Ask your questions. Everyone else has them to.

So, in response to my previous blog post, I've spoken with some trusted friends/mentors (some in the music industry), consulted Phil Collins, inferred from the Fleet Foxes, and I've come to some conclusions:

• Not everyone listens to lyrics, so many won't even notice if I'm saying intimate things.
• Those who do pay attention to lyrics will not care that these words represent my feelings. They will attach the lyrics to their own lives and make the words about their feelings.
• The music business is full of people who have varying levels of skill as performers, promoters, writers, presenters, listeners. A great curator is a mild composer. A great record producer is a mediocre guitar player, etc. A music critic who writes bland songs. There's room for me in all this. It's really no big deal.

On Doing "It"

Again, speaking with my biz partner (who henceforth will be known by his NPR name, Stenven Rheinsberg) after an event, (this an intimate gathering hosted by Sō Percussion with Tristan Perich's glorious and sonically brilliant number for crotales and electronics (Observations), Daniel Wohl's graceful and lyrical St. Arc — I heard Bach Cello Suites infused with Webern — played by the darling Ashley Bathgate, and Sō Percussion's thumping Extremes, which only renewed my commitment to incorporate drumline elements into my own songwriting) we were talking about the generous composer commentary on my previous blog post, especially Matt Marks's brutal but liberating philosophy.

I always thought that songwriters, composers, and professional musicians were so because they were either born with marks on their foreheads or because, at some point between the ages of 6 and 16, someone had emphatically dubbed them so. And since neither seemed to be the case with me, I subconsciously surmised around the age of 17 that I was not one of them and that my only option, as a music lover, was to teach music.

But in past months, as I've made the decision to take my music-making seriously, I have discovered a miraculous truth: there is no mark or naming — songwriters are self-appointed. They take their own ideas seriously. And the real dividing line, the absolutely critical distinction between those who are songwriters/composers/performers and those who are not is this:

Those Who Are Doing It / Those Who Are Not

(Just like high school. (Nevermind.))

Because, if you are doing it then you are taking it seriously.  You may be overwhelmed but you are getting your questions answered. You are racing, and pacing, and plotting the course, fighting, and biting, and riding on your horse. You are setting up whatever lessons, performances, networks, framework, studio space, funds necessary in order to make the music you want to be making at the highest caliber possible/necessary to succeed. Maybe that means studying composition formally, maybe that means vocal coaching, maybe that means moving, maybe that means finding people who've put out a successful album and asking them how they fundraised, found a producer, dealt with the brass, etc.

And the amazing thing is, now that I have appointed myself a songwriter/performer, friends, acquaintances, critics, and fellow performers seem quick and happy to call me that as well.

I AM DOING IT.

Step Four: I Can Give You More

By the way, did anyone else see NKOTB on New Year's Eve and freak out? All six of the ladies at our castle were reliving their tween years of fake making out with posters.

Also it is the middle of winter now and I want to die until it's summer.

So instead of doing that I'm wearing bright colors, dying my hair red, buying insane lipstick, layering, like, six different kinds of awesome tights, going to the gym a hellalot and making lists of songs that I'm going to record despite myself.

I've trolled some of the archives and decided on these. Of course, this is absolutely going to change but it gives me something useful to do.

songs in line for recording:

ask seek knock (1999)
boats and snow (2010)
one two/january ballet song (2010)
microbiology (2010)
laundry (2009)
la plus belle (2008)
when it rains (2002)
ft. lauderdale first date song (2003)
you're a rescue (2010)
my momma says (2009)
i am a projector (2010)
god only knows (2004)
naked/good man (2004)
regret robot/defense chicken (2010)
red leaf falls on old virginia (1998)

second string songs i don't think i'll do anything with:

pale blue horizon (2002)
raindance (2000)
birds (2008)
red sky (2001)
pluto (2000)
no reason to doubt (2000)
sinking (1994)
another round (2002)
shu-sha (2000)
rita's song (2005)
dandelion (1998)
blessed is the man (2005)
lay you down (1998)
feel the breeze (1998)
red sky (2002)
oh see thats fine (2001)
she flies (2002)
uncle Sam (2004)
crepe myrtle (2000)

In Which My Feelings Are Best Expressed by One Abigail Breslin

Yesterday, the generously talented Matt Gelfer (of The New Students) slogged down Slope with fiddle in hand, to do the unbelievable. For the first time in my whole life, I heard one of my songs actualized, played by the instruments that have been swirling around only in my imagination all of these years.

For the first time my music was . . . outside . . . of me. All of this said, my feelings are best expressed in a scene from Little Miss Sunshine, played by Abigail Breslin.

Little Miss Sunshine - I Won  |  Movies & TV  |  SPIKE.com

Song Alert! "i am a projector"

OK, so I've written a song. Mostly it wrote itself on April 12th, but then I fiddled with parts of it through May and then again tonight. I may still make some changes but in the spirit of making pie then giving people pie, here's some pie:

a noodgy mother in Canada sets her son upon the world
the birds go wild
a natural disaster when she wakes up every day
another story is filed

i am a projector
writing life all over you
be blank be beautiful
whatever else you do

i want the overground life of an affluent New Yorker
a place up in the sky
so I see grand design not brick and mortar
my clothes pressed and dry

i am a projector
showing life all over you
be free be beautiful
whatever else you do

i'll pay good money for a band to set me free
to break my rules, to sing and dance for me
be my dreams and my sexuality
all for a life lived audaciously

i am a projector
i've got my life all over you
be what i'm looking for
whatever else you do

1. Slice it up, give pieces to other people, stick it on your fridge, post it on your wall, or whatever you like. But if you do, be kind and please HYPERLINK!

2. Also, extra blogger points to anyone who identifies the two celebrities referenced in the first four lines of the song.

Thanks for stopping by!
Virginia

Ceci n'est pas une pipe

I've been thinking a lot today.

It may seem from recent posts that I've had my head up my horn's bell but I've been advancing on the singing/songwriting front as well. A new song has mostly written itself, though I'm cajoling the third verse into existence. And I've secured a lesson with a vocal coach later this month. One of the questions on his extensive intake forms is "What style of music do you sing?"

Well, good question. And a timely one, too. There's a pretty interesting discussion on The New York Times Arts Beat blog between pop music critic Jon Parales and classical music critic (and opera specialist) Tony Tommasini, regarding Renée Fleming's "this is not a crossover" album. What I find most interesting is that the rules for a singer are completely different from the rules for an instrumentalist.

As a marketer, I completely understand the need to create a brand identity for an artist or band. Faces, fashion, a sonic signature imprinted in the voice. Artists who "cross over" genres are at risk of diluting their brand, confusing the message, or becoming New Shimmer. (It's floor wax AND a dessert topping!)

But as a musician, the implication that a person must choose and commit to one genre description (or "genre-bending!/busting!/defying!" description) for their entire career is absurd. Don't we all come of age in a world full of varying musical styles for different times and occasions? Why should an artist have to pick one? Tons of instrumentalists don't. Mark Stewart, for example, is a founding member of "new music" group Bang On A Can All Stars, and has played with Paul Simon. Is he a (GASP) Crossover Artist?

No, he's a musician. And isn't the voice, like any other instrument, able to be played in any style or genre?

Hypothetically speaking, what if I write a song for bluegrass band and the next song I write happens to be for jazz quintet? (OK, this may not be hypothetical.) Do I have to pick just one musical style to perform? And what if the musical styles pick me?

Because I consider Paul Simon's Rhythm of the Saints and Graceland albums to be the 5th and 9th symphonies of songwriting, I'll go back to him. Instrumentation changes, sonic imprint changes, but somehow his brand became stronger through his explorations. And I don't think anyone associates him with "crossover."