Malcolm and I have entered our third week of work in proximity in Prescott, Arizona. This time of transition has been a bit tumultuous, but I imagine it is to be expected when each person is learning how to create in a space and way that honors their individual needs. Being creative can already be…
Tag: songwriting
Semaine no. 2: Tension and Transition
Week number two of in proximity entrepreneurship dawned sunnier and warmer than week number one. One of Malcolm’s first comments upon arriving in Arizona the week before was that he had not expected to be cold. Just as this expectation was different than the reality, so too has been our time together. There is certain…
Carte Postale nos. 3 & 4: The Limbo Zone
Driving through the middle of these United States, Malcolm sent me a text with a photo that has become my favorite thus far. Malcolm: This is the canal lock in La Salle, Illinois. Had to drive down and inspect the past? Love the engineering of raising and lowering water level by locking it in for…
Will you join us?
Malcolm and I have spent a lot of time trying to clearly communicate what makes the Story-to-Song method different than other songwriting out there. Having been trained as scholars in the Prescott College Sustainability Education program, we have learned firsthand how important it is to be able to offer a clear and concise response to…
It’s getting serious!
For the past couple of years, Malcolm and I have been meeting once or twice a week via Google Hangout or Skype to talk about getting our songwriting business going or to work on compositions. In the past month, we started meeting every day. We would check in and discuss business strategies, potential products, who…
A song for Kino Bay
I have been learning how to write songs from stories for the past several years. Sometimes, I share my own stories, but most often I work with another person as a kind of musical guide. They share a story, and I ask them questions to try to learn more about where the emotion is coming…
Two steps forward
There was a Paula Abdul song that was particularly popular when I was growing up. The chorus went something like, “Two steps forward; two steps back. We go together cuz opposites attract.” And so on, and so forth. Thinking on these lines now, I find myself puzzled. I thought the term was two steps forward,…
North of the border
It is the final day of April, and I am sitting in a third floor room typing away as the rain falls in a cold, wet blanket outside my window. These past two weeks, I have traveled under the auspice of Story-to-Song to two very different locations, cities, and climes in Canada. Last week, I…
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…
In the light of justice
I have been incorporating songwriting into my day job in every and any way that I can this past year and a half. Recently, the word went out through the National Park Service for park sites to find creative ways to commemorate the 1963 March on Washington for the 50th anniversary. In a conversation with…
Guiding Song 