After at least five years of not being able to complete a single song of my own (but collaboration w/ others hasn't been a challenge), out of desperation I have used the spirit of the new year and tradition of resolutions as motivation to launch myself into this. Today is day two.

I bought The Artist's Way a few months ago and found myself saying "what an order! I can't go through with it!" Homework has been terrible for me. Not having the discipline or attention span to really bear down and practice my instruments well has kept me plateaued for literally decades now going all the way back to being a child taking piano lessons. Now trying to launch into it. My hand was already cramped from The Morning Pages after halfway through page one.

So yeah, definitely intimidated and daunted by the amount of work involved, but already can feel myself thinking about music and trying to reframe things differently. One of the things that I think of is a phrase I've actually repeated a lot myself that in English you don't say to people "getting together w/ friends to work music this weekend." The word "play" is very intentionally used and I think is very accurate. Music should be fun - it should be a reprieve from the day job and drudgery, right?

12 weeks. I might start weekly beats after this if I still need to continue.

Anyone else gone through this? What say you?

I haven't completed the full 12 week prescription any time, but, but the morning pages exercise has been very ... useful? to me at several points, including when I was drafting and editing each of my dissertations. I should go back to this book.

I was unfamiliar, and I won't argue with whatever works but color me skeptical:

Correlation and emphasis is used by the author to show a connection between artistic creativity and a spiritual connection with God.

Not that I'm one to talk lately, but I really do feel like you just have to commit the time to doing something, mostly for its own sake, and good stuff will come from that eventually. Even if 95% of it is crap, 5% of not crap adds up over time.

penningtron wrote:God

Oh sure, I heard about this too. For what it's worth, I haven't found this to be the case at hardly at all having read through week one, but I'll probably report back as it progresses. There are a lot of quotes on the side-bars pulled from a lot of sources, some spiritual texts, some just famous thinkers. I can say any of the spiritual side of things feels more of the new-agey variety than it does the long bearded white dude in the clouds variety which tracks since it was originally written in and of its time (early 90s) (that may make it even more of a non-starter for some though lol).

The author also does not shy away from having long term sobriety in a program of recovery which is a spiritual program and on a personal note, I am also in a program of recovery so this doesn't scare me off. I still consider myself very much atheist/agnostic but have plenty of experience wrangling with the mental/philosophical gymnastics needed to make those sorts of spiritual sources work for me in a way that makes sense and gets me moving forward vs bogged down in "the god thing." Honestly the biggest bulk of dealing w/ that has been just "take what I can use, leave the rest" and if that's the case for this too, I won't feel too put out.

That being said, I can understand why it'd be a turn-off. If it was god god god out of the gate, I'd be done. I have talked to lots of other folks that have done this and that has never been part of their discussion when talking about their almost universally positive experience. Also I'm desperate enough to try about any weird hippie crackpot whatever if it breathes new life into a side of me that has felt dried up and dead for years. I gotta be careful I don't end up in a cult.

This though:

penningtron wrote: Not that I'm one to talk lately, but I really do feel like you just have to commit the time to doing something, mostly for its own sake, and good stuff will come from that eventually. Even if 95% of it is crap, 5% of not crap adds up over time.

If it were even 1% for me, I'd probably not resort to the book. I've really struggled even just to complete one shitty song I don't want to share with anyone and somehow cannot. I've been insanely jealous of all my friends who did entire albums during lockdown etc. I'd get down, hunker and fuck around or even really try to focus and just cannot, I'd get frustrated, bored, whatever and call it after an hour or two and after doing this for days I'd just give it a rest and that would yawn into weeks or months but I still have this gnawing desire to do this for whatever reason. Riffs? Ideas? Less of an issue. Completion? Totally fucked. This is kinda my last ditch effort I guess before having a fire sale.

threw in an edit for clarity on a couple points

My wife loves the book The Artist's Way, she swears by it, says it really helps her creativity and attitude. She does morning pages daily, not sure what else. That's all I got.

penningtron wrote: Mon Jan 08, 2024 1:27 pm I really do feel like you just have to commit the time to doing something, mostly for its own sake, and good stuff will come from that eventually. Even if 95% of it is crap, 5% of not crap adds up over time.

This.

Garth wrote: Mon Jan 08, 2024 11:05 am What say you?

I say you've expanded your horizons plenty enough, allowing 2 voting options in a binary poll.

NC for the book by the way. The God bit is explained around for non-believers early on, as I recall. If you struggle to just plough a furrow then it provides the tools to do it.

I guess one observation from that (then I'll step aside for more book/process-specific discussion) is to worry less about outcome. I'd have thrown the guitar into the street by now if I expected a non-shitty song to come out every time I take it out. I almost always get something out of playing though: whether it's bare mechanical stuff, or throwaway fun, or sometimes I'll come up with something way out of character.. until realizing "well why can't I do that? There truly are no rules. And besides, no one is keeping score anyway." I guess if the process is truly that boring and grueling, I'd question why I was doing it at all and try something different (which I actually did for a particular style of guitar: a case of "I have to be this one thing" vs just going with what feels right at the moment).

Even knowing all that, so many days I'm "too tired" or jaded to even try at all. So a bit of a different battle.

My Grandmother gave me this book when I was 12 after she saw I had artistic talent. I cant say I was disciplined in following the text completely but I did do a decent amount for a 12 year old, but I always felt this book helped my brain. It never made me not want to do art like some classes or books do, it felt like good work. Like when you realize exercise actually works and feels good when you do it (and inside you are like god damn it).

I haven`t read the book but in an interview I heard Rivers Cuomo from Weezer talk about it. He said it made him steal the chorus of Walk Away Renee from The Left Banke and make it into his song Summer Elaine And Drunk Dori.

Garth wrote: Mon Jan 08, 2024 11:05 am "what an order! I can't go through with it!"

hold on, man.

Are you being fearless and thorough?