I’ve learned to practice myself in little things. A good night's sleep: 7-8 hoursThe morning walk: 90 minutesA slow drink of room temperature water: 1 hourWarming the voice, stretching the range: 30 minutes (Humming and yawn-sighs, 20 minutes. Tongue twisters, facial exercises and sung scales, 10.)Finger stretches: hold for 30 to 60 seconds and then …
Category: art
alone
Being a songwriter was never my ambition. It was and remains my way of being alone. It's an essential place if you want to make some meaning. It's where masks come off, truth is unveiled and you encounter the unforeseen. I love how Nick Cave put it : Like Jesus praying alone in the garden, …
beautiful days
Who’s to say the bicycle did not die of heartbreak from not being taken anywhere? Where will I go with my new songs? What is their meaning beyond the consolation they brought to me in writing them? Who are they for anyway? Does it matter if no one else gets to hear them? It does …
rooms
All of my songs are little rooms. One- to two-minute spaces made of memory and life. My job as a songwriter is to build them nice enough the spirit of music will come and live in them. The new record of demos and first-takes is called courts. This is rooms:
creative work
Creative work is not a selfish act or a bid for attention on the part of the actor. It's a gift to the world and every being in it. Don't cheat us of your contribution. Give us what you've got. ― Steven Pressfield, The War of Art
far away
Winter arrives early and takes its place at the window. The sky this afternoon has filled the air with snowflakes. There’s just a little light now in my upstairs studio, pale and lonesome as faraway music. I’m dying to take a break from the songs I’ve been writing, but seem to be unable to. I’m afraid to fall out of the groove. …
gold dust
Everybody in the crowd last night was beautiful and young and covered with a kind of gold dust. My guitar was a bit out of tune, but I’m glad that wasn’t fixed. A twist of the knob and, you know, the dissonance would have gone away. But I left it alone. I left things on …
water + bread
Live performance is writing in pencil on a small postcard. It’s transient and something that the audience may not remember exactly but may talk about for some time to come. It comes with surprises and no guarantees. It’s an entirely different way of being in the world. The worst seat in the house belongs to the singer: on stage, I am as a mockingbird alone …
making up
Everything eternal happens in a spare room after 1 a.m. I've come downstairs from the loft after working all night, trying to find a new song. The one from the last few days doesn't seem to be coming to anything. I can't stand it suddenly. So we're not speaking to each other, for now. (Songwriting …
otherly beauty
I have long drawn strength from the reverence with which I approach my art. As a child I was touched by the otherly beauty of liturgical hymn and speech that I heard in the chambers of churches, where everything sounded (and was) important. At five or six I lived for songs my grandmother sang while she prepared the ritual food made …
