shape

Rehearsals, rehearsals. The band has another concert date on the horizon (November 5th!) and so we are hard at work bringing the music together. This time is an even bigger musical variety than last time, and Uberguitarist has once again pulled seemingly disparate elements like Grieg and the Beatles together into what will be a fun music lineup.

 'Blank Page' will debut there, too. My new song born out of a friend telling me to be creative by starting with a blank page. I think I took it more figuratively than she meant, but hey, I'll take the inspiration I can get.

The process of taking a song from the bare words and chords and getting it performance-ready is like going from a blueprint to an actual building. The page gives the outline, the craft and execution makes it real and multi-dimensional. We worked through it last week to get the band familiar, but I still have ideas and fine-tuning that will make it be what I want. Ideas that make sense in my head don't always sound quite right when I actually hear them, and hearing something gives new ideas. It's a very organic process as it grows, changes, and adapts to itself.

It's been good to discipline myself to finish the songs that have been floating around, half-done. As I've encouraged our girls to bring their short stories to completion, I'm reminded that while I don't write stories, these song fragments are my equivalent. Giving them shape and structure lets them finally get out of my head. And really, there's enough clutter in there already...