Working on a Song
I think of a song as something you build. It’s not something that you do, it’s not something that comes out of your gut. It’s like you have bricks, you have mortar, you have a trowel – You don’t have a building plan yet, you just have all the raw materials and you just start building it and you hope to god you get something good.
magnoliaelectricco • Faster Times interview
A century after Virginia Woolf was staggered in her garden into her timelessly stunning insight that “behind the cotton wool is hidden a pattern… the whole world is a work of art… there is no Shakespeare… no Beethoven… no God; we are the words; we are the music; we are the thing itself” — Hodges considers the elemental truth pulsating beneath our e... See more
Maria Popova • We Are Made of Music, We Are Made of Time: Violinist Natalie Hodges on the Poetic Science of Sound and Feeling
And I think the third way is, it’s a collaboration between a human being’s labors and the mysteries of inspiration. And that’s the most interesting dance that I think you can be involved in, but you are very much an agent in that story. You’re not just a passive receptacle. And also, it’s not entirely in your hands. And standing comfortably within ... See more
Elizabeth Gilbert • Elizabeth Gilbert — Choosing Curiosity Over Fear
Artists are ultimately craftspeople. Sometimes our ideas come through bolts of lightning. Other times only through effort, experiment, and craft. As we work, we may notice connections and become surprised by the wonder of what’s revealed through the doing itself. In a way, these small a-ha! moments are also bolts of lightning. Less vivid, they stil
... See moreRick Rubin • The Creative Act: A Way of Being
All that work, those meetings, phone calls, letters, the favors I cashed in, the crap I took from Howie Stoker, from Victor French, from everyone—all to get Paradise recorded and released, all turning to shit… Shut up and listen. The greatest jazz pianist in the world is playing ten yards away.