Springboards. Sparks. Influences and Inspirations. What are yours? What do you model your music after?

When it’s time to create your next song, you can always benefit from others’ works by extracting out the spirit, concept, or essence of the work and translating it through your own Voice and perspective.

As artists mature, they are still influenced by the music of their predecessors and contemporaries, but rather than copying, imitating, or emulating the styles of their heroes and teachers, they engage in the modeling process.

Just as researchers have methodologies, companies have business models, professionals have career tracks, and economists have schools of thought, musical artists can decide upon the approach they take to their craft, before composing any words or music. A consciously chosen approach can be based on a number of elements, including:

• timeless topics
• successful song-formulas
• proven assumptions behind song-crafting
• time-tested strategies for creativity and productivity
• undeniable grooves, moods, or vibes
• modes of storytelling
• a compelling perspective

Songwriters can extract the spirit, structure, or conceit of a great song and use it as a springboard for their own compositions. We can Song-Model.

A song-model is different from a genre, a sound, or a tradition in that it has nothing to do with how the music sounds or what it is made up of. It’s more like a mood encoded into the music and lyrics or a borrowed approach to the songwriting structure. A model exists apart from the actual content of the song.

Join the Song-Modeling discussion and JP explores three common qualities that have been modeled in countless songs: sex/passion, romance/imagination, and compassion/love.

 

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At a certain level, all creative endeavors share a common root structure–a well of creativity from which all are free to draw inspiration. By looking outside the language of your particular field, you may find hidden solutions to your artistic challenges and surprising breakthroughs in your ability to express yourself. Join JP as he explores how you can bring more music into your life and more life into your music by borrowing principles and practices from six other art forms, including cooking and sex, and applying them to your musical creativity.

 

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