I Hate Mornings

I was in a quandary. I had less than two weeks left in the 50/90 Song Challenge, and 30 songs left to write. Times were tough. I needed a short cut, but I couldn’t bring myself to cheat. So I did something in between…

Limitations are your friend

Creative people often talk about the benefits of boundaries and limitations to your creativity. No designer will start a project without a well defined brief. A blank sheet of paper is a useless way to start writing. That’s one of the reasons why I took on the 50/90 Challenge in the first place.

I really enjoyed writing the 12seconds.tv song, and it got a good reception when I played it at the Oxford Geek Night. A 12-second song has to rely on humour, simplicity, clarity and great words. And when you need to write loads of songs quickly it’s a godsend!

A micro-songwriting process

I only had about 4 hours to write, film and upload 12 songs, so I had to be brutally pragmatic. Armed with a 10×10″ sketch pad, a Moleskine full of title ideas and a 2B pencil, I set to work.

I have had a title suggestion form on my website for a few weeks, so I had about 30 potential titles copied into the notebook along with ideas I have captured in the wild. It’s always useful to have starting points on hand when you’re pressed for time.

Because my mind works best with systems and structures I divided a page of the sketchbook neatly into 16 equal squares, room for 12 tiny songs and 4 bad ideas. That way I could afford to spew out ideas quickly safe in the knowledge that the crap ones wouldn’t make the cut. It’s never good to be worrying about the final quality when you’re trying to create. Nothing’s good until you make it good.

It didn’t take long to fill the grid with lyrics. Some came from the title book, some were picked out of the air. 4 of them were crap. ;o)

12seconds.tv

I recorded a song in iMovie, exported it as a MOV, uploaded it to 12seconds.tv, and recorded the next one. The music was made up on the spot – I would work out a good setting for a particular line, record it and move on. The whole recording process took about 90 minutes, by which time I had an entire 144-second album online. A couple of people were even watching the videos go up as they were recorded!

YouTube

That was almost a week ago, and although they have been online for a while (and viewable in the 12seconds.tv widget on my website) I know more people will see them if they are on YouTube (especially after the Twitter song shenanigans;o). So today I edited them all together into a 2″54′ video and uploaded it to YouTube.

And here it is – the shortest album I’ve ever made!

Thanks for the titles!

• Kenneth Okumura for “Zipper flies make me cry” (via Facebook)
• Lloyd Davis for inspiring “Mr Ukelele”
• Greg Lucas for cowriting “Walking down the middle of the road” in the late 90s
• Nick Gill for inspiring “Saw”
• Laurie Nevay for “Oranges or Carrots”
• Anna Speddy for “Not My Forte”
• Ellie’s boyfriend Steve for “Virgin Trains”

“Nick”:http://www.nickfuckinggill.com is drawing graphs to keep track of how many words he’s written each day. That smacks of meta-productivity and procrastination to me, but I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt. Either way, his admission prompted me to calculate my song rate so far in the “50/90 Challenge”:http://5090.fawm.org.

50 songs in 90 days means 0.556 songs each day. That’s a pretty heavy songwriting schedule. So far I’ve managed “five”:http://5090.fawm.org/writers.php?id=1747 in 26 days, which gives me a rather disappointing rate of 0.192 song/day. That’s no good. I’m running at just over 1/3 of the minimum rate. I need to write 45 songs in the remaining 64 days (a rate of 0.7 songs/day). That’s insane. I need to run some kind of songwriting “dash”:http://www.43folders.com/2005/09/08/kick-procrastinations-ass-run-a-dash.

So from now on, no more Mr Nice Guy. I’m going to spew out a song every single day. Even if it means I don’t eat, sleep or leave the house. I’m afraid we’re talking communication blackout (apart from “Twitter”:http://twitter.com/ihatemornings, of course ;o) until October 1st. Don’t expect me to answer the phone or read email. Facebook is definitely out. If I have a really productive day (ie. write two songs) I may resume contact long enough to shoot out a few 1-liners.

A song a day wouldn’t be too bad if I had nothing else to do but life gets real sometimes, and I’m taking on some web development projects to pay the rent. Speaking of which, if you need any XHTML/CSS/PHP coding done, I’m your man. ;o)

Wish me luck. I may be some time.

Tomorrow I embark upon my greatest musical adventure to date: to write 50 songs in 90 days. “The 50/90 Challenge”:http://5090.fawm.org/ has been running for a few years, and is hosted by the “FAWM(February Album Writing Month)”:http://www.fawm.org/ guys. So far 1700 songwriters have signed up to the open challenge, which runs from tomorrow to the beginning of October.

h3. Why would I do this?

I was settling in for a 3-month writing session this summer anyway, and the 50/90 Challenge coincides exactly with that. More importantly it offers me a structure for my writing, on many levels. The 50-song target means that I will have to aim to write a song a day for at least 4 days each week. That forces me to imagine, write, rewrite and demo each song in less than 8 hours (much less if I want to earn any money over the summer ;o). So I also get a daily structure out of it. More of that later.

The second main benefit of the 50/90 is that it offers me community involvement and feedback. The 50/90 “forums”:http://5090.fawm.org/forum.php are hyperactive, with hundreds of songwriters posting daily on their progress, frustrations and adventures. And because I will upload a demo of every song I write to the 50/90 site, other writers can give me feedback on my work, which is always invaluable. I will also be posting here on ihatemornings.com with songwriting stories for the creative crowd and tall tales of my time locked up in the barn for family and friends. ;o)

I’m also looking forward to cowriting a few of the 50! I’ve talked to Rob Stevenson (“A Silent Film”:http://www.myspace.com/asilentfilm front man and songwriter) about trying some cowriting sessions over the summer, and Ben Salmon has already pitched me his vision for a “Hinton-in-the-Hedges”:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hinton-in-the-Hedges,_Northamptonshire concept album of folk-country comedy songs. I can’t wait!

h3. The routine

To meet the challenge I will need to run a pretty tight ship, with early mornings and some serious concentration. This is my plan (which will undoubtably change):

• 10 song ideas before breakfast. I find sitting on the lawn with a cup of tea is ideal for this.
• Hearty breakfast (probably porridge, with some sort of banana, blueberry and maple syrup combo), while picking 2 or 3 ideas and storming the brain.
• “Berkleemusic”:http://www.berkleemusic.com songwriting assignments (1 hour).
• Short walk
• Write the song. 2 hour limit. Rewrite and craft as much as possible, but try to get at least 2 verses and a chorus.
• Lunch
• Demo (simple piano/vocal or guitar/vocal)
• Email, feeds, etc.
• Listen back. Re-record if necessary.
• Upload. Blog, forums.

I usually spend days working on a demo but for the 50/90, that’s not possible. I’ve fired up the old laptop with Pro Tools, which means two things: that I have a permanent recording setup, which is super-conducive to creative flow, and that I don’t have all the usual MIDI instruments and loops that I usually tinker with in Logic. It’s going to be simple and pure. No click. No MIDI. No options. ;o)

h3. Prolificacy is underrated.

I overheard some random dullard shouting about art in a café this afternoon, saying that true artists should never be forced to create, that they should be allowed the freedom to create only when inspiration strikes. “Balls to that!”, I shouted across the room. “Waiting for inspiration is just a pathetic excuse for not understanding your creative process!” Well, that’s what I might have shouted had I been the kind of random dullard who shouts in cafés. ;o)

I’m a convert to the Jack London school of creative thinking: “You can’t wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club.” (via “fawm.org”:http://www.fawm.org/). And I’m not the only one. If you’re interested in examining your own creative process, here are a few resources for you:

Check out Joshua Pearl’s podcast, “Hear and Now: Debunking the Myth of Inspiration“:http://www.soulofsongwriting.com/sos-episode-25-hear-and-now-debunking-the-myth-of-inspiration-part-4-of-7/ for a healthy discussion of inspiration and songwriting.

Steve Lawson posted today on the very topic of teaching creativity over at the “Creative Choices site”:http://www.creative-choices.co.uk/server.php?show=ConBlogEntry.134, saying that “the act of creativity as a musician begins with playing two musical phrases, choosing which one you like and playing it again – that’s the root of composition and improvisation.” Sod inspiration!

Andrea Stolpe also posted today on “kick starting your creative process”:http://andreastolpe.berkleemusicblogs.com/2008/07/03/time-for-change-expanding-your-writing-process/:

bq. Every few months it can be a great idea to change up our process. Not only do we realize greater depths of skill, but we consistently knock down the tower of hesitation that keeps us bound within our typical melodic, harmonic, and lyrical styles.

And one of my favourite art movements, “Crap Art”:http://crapart.spacebar.org/, sums it up perfectly in their 4th Principle of Crap Art:

bq. That which is created rapidly and in high quantities contains more variety and is more likely to be successful/innovative. Applying the 80%/20% “rule”: If only 20% of the effort is needed to get 80% of the quality, then spending by spending only 20% of the effort, we can create five times as many artifacts at 80% quality!

h3. Wish me luck!

It’s going to be an amazing adventure full of rural drinking songs, lofi demos, massive creativity, hearty breakfasts and maybe even time-lapse photography (“Oooh! Aaah!”). If you want to be involved in the adventure, read this blog! Subscribe to the RSS or just check back whenever you’re bored at work, and watch me create an entire catalog of legendary songs in 3 months! For free!

If you’re down with the technology, check the “cash and cake post”:http://www.ihatemornings.com/blog/cash-and-cake-a-call-to-arms for details of how to watch me on Twitter, Youtube, etc.

And be sure to tell your friends. ;o)

• Christine Rosen “agrees (The New Atlantis » The Myth of Multitasking)”:http://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/the-myth-of-multitasking with my notion that successful multitasking doesn’t exist. It’s all about “the zone” (ie. attention).

• Victor “responds (Getting Ready to Get Ready and Singletasking. | Adventures in Songwriting)”:http://adventuresinsongwriting.com/?p=29 to the The Myth Of Multitasking from a songwriting perspective.

• Justin “speculates (How music consumption is going to change – Vox)”:http://justin751.vox.com/library/post/my-prediction-on-how-music-consumption-is-going-to-change.html on the future of music, where tunes will be as customisable as Starbucks coffee. ;o(

• Bruce “argues (Digital music can’t be marketed, it can only be found. – Music Think Tank)”:http://www.musicthinktank.com/blog/digital-music-cant-be-marketed-it-can-only-be-found.html that the nakedness of digital music throws the traditional turd-polishing model out the window…

• Peter Holsapple “muses (Catch and Release – Measure for Measure – Opinion – New York Times Blog)”:http://measureformeasure.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/06/24/catch-and-release/ about using the TV (with the sound off) as a songwriting tool!

• Just in time, I discovered the “50/90 challenge (50/90 :: The 50 Song Challenge)”:http://5090.fawm.org/ to write 50 songs in 90 days starting on the 4th July. I’m in! And it looks like “Cory’s in”:http://www.songwritingzen.com/?p=158#comment-266 too!

• “Better Than The Van”:http://betterthanthevan.com/ is a new site offering a directory of people willing to open up their house to bands. Keep an eye on this one.