Had another vocal coaching session this week with Brian Farrell – and I am finally getting around to writing about it now! This week I remembered to bring my guitar along, and Brian had me play several of my own tunes. I started off with “Frettin’ on This Guitar” – which I typically play really fast. Brian asked me what the song was about, and got me to slow it down a lot. I thought this would make the song sound dreary, but he liked it better that way. Interesting! Also, he had a neat lyrical idea for my newer song “Thank you for Stayin'” which I will have to incorporate (I’ll need to work out a few lumps in the pronouns get his idea to work). Today was less about vocal technique – I think he’s trying to get the overall angle of what I’m “about” as an artist….perhaps he is trying to help me find my niche! He also gave me an interesting assignment – I have to write a whole song in half an hour. I’ve done it the odd time when I’m on a roll, but it will definitely be interesting to try this from the get-go — I assume if it turns out like a piece of junk I can always rewrite it later?? Anyway!
In other news, I’ve been taking workshops in professional speaking – I think this will really help my show- and in tying the song messaging together into a better “show.” I am planning to tie together the ideas of strategic planning (which I do in my consulting work during the day) with songwriting (yes, the speaking seminars are for my consulting business as well). You see, strategic planning can be a very difficult concept for people to grasp – so I think if I use songwriting as a metaphor, it will help people understand the elements. There are very interesting similarities! I was going to use well-known songs as examples, but the people in the workshop thought I should write some sort of original song that could reinforce the strategic planning concepts. After screwing up my face with an expression that said, “Uh, like that would be a song anyone would want to hear,” I promised I would “try” – and then of course I got fried for that comment…so I said I “would” write the song – “no matter HOW BAD it is!” So, now I have TWO possibly impossible songwriting tasks to try to accomplish within the next couple weeks. Eek.
I’ll go with the assumption that this is all good for me- I’ve been too busy lately to really do much songwriting, so having a reason to write songs is a good thing. Stay tuned!