Developing a Voice

This is a large boot.

The fun thing about writing songs for other people is that you can skip genres from day to day. But the dangerous thing is that we can sometimes leave what we do best at the door. Write what you know, not what you think you know.

There was a point in my pursuit of a songwriting deal where, on my own, I began writing mostly country songs. I figured a Nashville publisher would expect nothing else. The problem was not so much the quality of the songs (they were awful) as the fact that I wasn’t being true to my own voice. As a piano player who grew up soaking in The Beatles' White Album, I was trying to operate in a genre where I had no real authority. I didn’t grow up wearing a cowboy hat on a ranch in Texas, but some other writer did. And they will naturally write a song about farm life way better than I ever will.

I would define a voice as "the style of one's message."

There is something that each of us brings to a song that we do better than anyone else in the world. It would boring if we all tried to have the same voice and write the same song (and thankfully, some publishers understand this reality). The last thing creativity should be described as is safe. If we are true to our own voice, we will create something fresh rather than safe.

Keep writing,

Ben

A Week on the Links of Utopia

The truth about pursuing a craft like songwriting or a game like golf is that inevitably there will be days that you feel like you come up short. But our identity as creators is not in the quality of our most recent song (whether good or bad) or how long it’s been since we’ve even finished one. We use the energy of our artistic potential to pursue the craft rather than an individual song. As a result, we can enjoy the process without becoming victims of the foul advice of our own “shoulder devils.”

That’s what I liked about reading Dr. David L. Cook’s book (not a cookbook), Golf’s Sacred Journey – Seven Days at the Links of Utopia. It’s written in novel form, and is currently slated to come out as a feature film in 2011 (starring Robert Duvall and Lucas Black). I highly recommend this book to anyone who:

a) loves golf,
b) loves Texas, or
c) struggles with finding their identity in significant and fulfilling places (all of us).

The book emphasizes the importance of stripping away interference in our lives so that we can learn how to trust and rely on our instinct. There’s so much noise in the world around us that we often don’t take any time to thoroughly reflect on life. Gandhi is quoted as saying, “There is more to life than increasing its speed.” Very true.

As in songwriting, Cook emphasizes the importance of a golfer swinging with rhythm, freedom, balance and patience. We create the best art when we are drawing from our most natural place. The goal of this book is to help the reader break out of the box of fears and doubts that restrict us from being who and what God creates us to be. And there is nothing more exciting than signing off on a song that truly feels like it came from a natural place of integrity. Those are the successful songs, whether or not they ever hit the Billboard charts.

Keep writing,

Ben