When you were a child, you were probably taught to say please when asking for something and thank you after receiving it.

In fact, please and thank you are such basic human expressions, that they can be applied to a wide variety of situations, both as a songwriter and as a listener:

Please and thank you can be used simply as meditations or prayers:
Try starting your day by asking for exactly what you want and ending it with a moment of gratitude for everything you received. Notice how doing so affects the flow of your creativity.

Please and thank you can serve as songwriting guidelines:
Write a quick draft of a song expressing dissatisfaction or desire (based on the emotion of please) or a song of gratitude or celebration (based on the emotion of thank you).

Please and thank you can also serve as filters through which you can get at the heart of what others are trying to say through their words or music:
Listen to random song. Is the basic emotion, underneath the specific lyrics and melody, some version of either the artist’s unfulfilled desire or their thankfulness for what they have? Can you hear how much of what is expressed through music often boils down to some form of asking for something that’s missing or celebrating what is already there?

Listen to this SOS podcast to get the skinny on slimming down your musical (and personal) communication style to the bare essentials–thereby allowing you to connect with your audience more quickly and deeply.

 

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Have you ever had one of those dreams where you need to scream, but no sound comes out?

Do you know what it’s like to be in a phase where you need to deconstruct your self-expression in order to grow and change what it is you have to say and how you say it?

Music and creativity are chock full of paradoxes and opposites:

• You need to empty yourself of preconceptions in order to be filled with fresh new ideas.
• The more silences you leave, the more the sound comes through.
• The nearer your destination the more you’re slip sliding away…

Perhaps nothing challenges an artist more than losing their voice, whether physically or metaphorically. But, truth be told, it’s important sometimes, to lose touch with who you are, what you have to say, and how you are going to say it, in order to stay fresh and in the flow of becoming the next version of yourself–to stay in the “creative pocket.”

So how do you do it and, in a world usually focused on building yourself up (in addition to your music, career, possessions…), how can you let things break down with grace and dignity?

Listen in on this podcast as JP muses upon the art of losing your voice in service of expanding your Voice.

(By the way, Joshua recorded this podcast while suffering from laryngitis–listen now to hear him literally find his voice while losing it!)

 

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Writing original music isn’t for the faint of heart. Somehow, you have to find the vulnerable parts of yourself that allow you to bare your deep feelings and thoughts while still keeping it together enough to contain the musical execution–the structure and form of the piece.

Although many artists may take this balancing act for granted, the marriage of vulnerability and strength is not a matter of luck, talent, or character. It is a skill that can be developed and expanded upon. So how do we do it and who teaches this skill?

In my years of teaching music, I have found that songwriters, performing musicians, and recording artists can model the way that actors are trained in their approach to making music. Take Al Pacino, for example. He has the ability to simultaneously express strength of character in his body while exposing tremendous vulnerability and human frailty on his face. Have you ever felt the freedom of mastering the mechanics of a song performance while surrendering to the emotional content at the same time?

Marrying personal dignity and artistic vulnerability is more than just posturing or wearing your heart on your sleeve. Embodying these two poles of the human experience involves emotional surrender and mental focus.

Listen to this SOS podcast as the craft of musical expression and execution is explored from a fresh perspective.

 

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I love music, you love music, who doesn’t love music?

But what is music? Is it sound? Is it emotion? Is it a kind of thinking without words?

We live in an age where we can dial up almost any musical experience (and
therefore almost any emotion or state of mind)–on demand…iPods, Pandora.com, iTunes, terrestrial and satellite radio–hundreds of thousands of songs are floating through the airways, at our fingertips, and in our earbuds.

It occurred to me recently–if we can invent ways to provide such wide access to songs and sounds, perhaps we can also discover ways to access any musical emotion or state of mind–with or without music–on demand as well. Perhaps we can even skip the medium (in this case, the sound), and go right to the feeling or thought that the music inspires…

John Cage invented methods of composition that result in “musical happenings”–events that invite listeners to open up their ears, take pause, and allow the sounds of each moment to penetrate their minds. He was interested in the transformative power of conscious listening–much more than the particular content of the music or sound.

In 1993, I was fortunate to spend an afternoon with Cage and asked him question after question. One particular question I remember asking was, “If all sounds, natural or artificial, have the same potential to transform people as music does, why listen to human-made music at all? In fact, why should I bother listening to your music?” I asked.

His response was elegant: “There is no reason.”

In my experience, music provides a sort of portal–leading to changes of mental, emotional, even physical states. But once we have accessed, practiced, and mastered any given musical state-of-mind, we can call it up again with or without the music that originally created it, either by imagining and feeling the music in our mind, or by just activating the feeling directly.

Listen to this unusually philosophical SOS episode and explore the relationships between sound, vibration, emotion, and thought.

 

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