Life does not stop when you become an entrepreneur, and I nearly let life keep me from getting to the Sandbox session this past Thursday night. Class was in Lawrence, and I was having a not so great day. I was moody. I had been sick on and off for the past month and hadn’t slept…
Category: career
Perfect Pitch
Last night was the much anticipated, anxiety inducing Mid-Pitch for the Merrimack Valley Sandbox Winter Accelerator Program. I spent the better part of the day and week before reflecting and revising my pitch outline. A challenge with selling songwriting products is finding ways to describe something that can be rather abstract and difficult to explain…
Singing the songs of the people.
I grew up in a small town in eastern Massachusetts on the south shore. Throughout my childhood and into college, music was my identity. I played and performed classical piano; I was first chair for the clarinet in the school band; I listened to any and all music I could find. I started plucking around…
Pitch and Pivot and Pitch—Repeat!
I stood up last night in front of a group of entrepreneurs and pitched my business. I had just come up with a new idea for a way to package my product the night before. This shift is what I have heard referred to in my class as a pivot—a change in business plan, product,…
Art takes work
I am fairly certain I have told you before that patience is not a virtue that comes easily for me. I want results, and I want them quickly. In this modern world of social networking, I am thankful to receive a nearly immediate outpouring of love and support from friends, family, and Story-to-Song fans each…
Bless and Release
During my time in the Sandbox, my emotions seem to shift as capriciously as the sand in the metaphorical box. At times, I feel like a 10 on the scale of possibility. Just as easily, I can crash to a 3 or 4 and feel completely overwhelmed. “You are competing against the world,” Sandbox guide…
Symbiosis and Songwriting
A story. It has meaning, layers of meaning. It has a face, depth, and personality. It has a life. A song from a story is all these elements with the added dimension of music and the heart, soul, and spirit of a life. This morning, a friend from my childhood came to Lowell. In his…
Examples of Story-to-Song(s)
To try to shed a little more musical light on Story-to-Song, which I typically refer to in short as STS, I thought I would share a few examples of different kinds of StorytoSong(s) that I have written. Example #1: A short song I wrote with a friend when I was learning how to write a song…
Getting to know Story-to-Song
Songwriting can be a challenge to describe in words only, particularly a method like Story-to-Song. So, I thought it might be helpful to share a couple of informational videos I put together. In the first video, I offer a definition of Story-to-Song: In the second video, I describe how I discovered Story-to-Song: The third video…
Who is Story-to-Song?
When I begin working with a participant on their Story-to-Song, I hear a few comments on a regular basis: I have a terrible voice. I am not an artist. I am not creative. I do not have any stories that are interesting. This is where I come in and assure you that your stories are…
Guiding Song 