Do you ever jump the gun in your musical projects? Do you give the early stages of the creative process (such as fleshing out all of the subtle or hidden musical and lyric ideas bouncing around in your head) the same respect and investment that you give to the later stages (such as tracking, performing, mixing and mastering)?

If you stop to think about it, every recording or performance project has its seasons, its life cycles, its stages. Every song, performance, or record has a time of gestation, a time of development, a season of birth, and a season of harvest.

When it comes to project planning, many musicians would do well to take a cue from the way that film directors schedule their work in the early stages of making a movie. Given the complexity of putting together a film, there has to be an in-depth preproduction process. Scripts need to be read around a table, multiple rewrites have to be drafted, actors need to be cast, locations need to be scouted…

All too often, musicians skip this phase and go from rehearsal to production to performance, inadvertently shortchanging the amount of time and focus required for such steps as:

* unique sound exploration,
* crafting vivid arrangements, and
* musical “casting” (wherein the supporting musicians are chosen for the specific chemistry they bring to the music, not only if they are good players)

Listen to this SOS episode as JP takes a Whole Musician perspective on measuring twice and cutting once and celebrates the mysteries and wonders that can occur once you surrender to a thorough preproduction phase.

 

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Think about DOING.

What do you do? How do you do? Do you do that voodoo that you do so well?

Actions of all kinds can be opportunities to develop your musicianship. By employing your sense of rhythm, pitch, phrasing, melody, harmony, and composition (as well as the many other innate musical sensibilities that you already use to make your music), you can live a more musical life and bridge the gap between the inspired and the ordinary.

When you allow your music to infuse the rest of your life, even mundane tasks such as tying your shoes or brushing your teeth can become musical (See Mel Brooks in High Anxiety for the most musical tooth brushing scene to ever grace the silver screen.).

Join this SOS episode and explore ways to bring more music into your life (and more life into your music).

This is part four of a four-part series of “Musical Lifestyle” podcasts.

 

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Do you ever find yourself spontaneously creating something and having no idea whether it is any good? What do you do? Do you ignore the impulse? Do you follow your original thought? Do you try to transform an imperfect seed into a viable work? Do you stop the flow of ideas, waiting for something “good” to come along? 

In this unique SOS episode, the discussion about how the process of improvisation can turn into a composition takes a sudden turn when JP stops talking and starts playing…taking the closest instrument to where he is sitting (in this case, a ukulele) and exemplifying in-the-moment the very process he addresses in words. The result is both raw and revealing. 

 

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