The Confused Muse - Thoughts About A Writing Life

Sep 23 2021

It must be progress...

OK. I confess -- this is no way to run a blog. Writing an entry once every couple of months, or even less frequently (alright, it's actually been just under four years)... that's just not how this whole blogging thing…

A Writing Life

You may notice that I have changed the title of this infrequent blog, from Thoughts About Songwriting, to "Thoughts about a Writing Life". I haven't stopped writing songs -- far from it. But I have been writing a number of…

Pow.

There is a moment, in the life of a great song, when the world gets to hear it for the first time. I've witnessed it a few times, and read about it too. Picture this: a songwriter (or an artist…

Refocus and restart ... Getting to progress

Wow ! Turns out, it's been months since I had anything new to say in this space. Well that isn't going to continue. In the intervening time, I've finished the first draft of a first novel, and gotten two thirds…Read more

Mar 1 2015

Songwriting workshop - moving ahead on March 21

I can't put it off any longer: I'm going ahead with the first of my own songwriting workshops. It's not the one I thought I would offer first, and for which I wrote a nifty little workbook -- currently sitting…Read more

Feb 8 2015

Time to Get Moving

I had two poems included in an art exhibition this weekend -- they'll be hanging in the gallery and hallway for another week or two -- and that's fine with me. It felt good to be doing something with those…Read more

Feb 1 2015

A Poem - Out Loud (Title: For Colleen Peterson)

So ... long before I was a lyricist, I wrote poetry. For most of my years in high school and university, that was what I expected to be: a poet.

This particular poem, titled For Colleen Peterson, with Thanks…Read more

Oct 12 2014

Narrowing the Funnel

The point of a funnel is ... the point. It's a big, wide (-ish) catching basin that narrows down to something that fits into the tiny bottle, or whatever. Funnels are about focus.

Oddly enough, so is songwriting. Big, long-reaching…Read more

Sep 18 2014

So ... what? - The Verse-Chorus pairing

There's a funny kind of relationship between a verse and a chorus, in my opinion. The idea is that a verse leads to the chorus, or alternatively, to the hook line at the end of the verse, in an AABA…Read more

Aug 31 2014

Get Yer Silly On !

I take songwriting seriously. Very seriously. Really, I do. But sometimes, you just have to get yer silly on. Or your whimsy. Cut loose. Sometimes, it's important to just ... lighten the heck up! A lot!

There we are, industriously…Read more

Aug 22 2014

Moving from Mood to Music

So. You're moody. That's strange. And you call yourself a musician. What kind of a mood is it? A songwriting mood? Well, most of them are.

What to do? Play something. Sing something. Write something. Listen to something. Any of…Read more

Jul 13 2014

Be Hard on the Song

When I was a workshop coordinator for the Nashville Songwriters Association International (NSAI) we used to organise "Publisher Critique Nights" in which a music publisher would come out and critique songs for our workshop participants. It was a rare and…Read more