These 7 hints are for anyone's info... why you can benefit from keeping a bound book of notes that you carry with you. A future blog will show how to use your journal to efficiently write dozens of songs, if you want :)
JOURNAL DETAILS: Size and style depends on your special needs. I use an 8x10 fake-leather bound lined journal with 400 pages... The first and last 25 are for organizing NOTES and QUOTES. I fill up about 350 pages every 2-1/2 months.
There are currently about 190 original songs written and performed by me on DiDoReflections.com (last update: 12/31/2011) and I have journal notes WITH sketched out music for another 100 or so, written in only 3 years. I could not write so many songs if I didn't keep my journal WITH me almost always, and record ideas immediately. (I'm forgetful... as we all are when "Life happens.") If there are songs in you that you yearn to write, you can easily do the same!
REASONS TO JOURNAL
1. To feel better. Writing helps us to “work out” why we feel as we do, helps us learn who we really are. Seeing the causes for why we feel as we do often helps us to control our emotions and to see that feelings aren’t always logical – or, sometimes, even based on truth.
2. To learn from mistakes. When we record our mistakes, we’re more likely to remember them and learn....
3. To provide a place to record our insights. One day these might make great songs... like the humor of noticing a giant tail on a tiny squirrel, which led to my complete song WONDER.
4. For just plain fun sometimes, to go back and see how we thought or what we did years ago. (It’s good to be able to laugh at yourself:)
5. As a comfort to remember as you read about the bad things that happened to you that you pushed out of your memory, that you survived them... even if not in the ways that you wanted at the time. A cool Bible verse is 2nd Corinthians 1:4 observes that we can comfort other people with the comfort that helped us in the past. There's joy in helping other people. And we can see a bit of good come from whatever happened to us.
6. Journaling provides a data source - important for songwriters. We can record facts and ideas that we can later come back to. It’s especially useful to use margin symbols (like a moon for dreams and music note for song idea). These can help us teaching, recording songs or inventions or magazine article ideas, etc. Example: I recorded in my journal cool research on migratory studies; later I used them to write WHO TAUGHT BUTTERFLIES as a song full of both humor and actual scientific information.
7. Journals provide a good location for records. I jot down info from notes I send friends, and even staple or tape things like cards from people in mine for future enjoyment. And a journal makes a safe place for your Christmas Gift list:)
Much joy to you in preparing your resource journals for future songwriting!
©2011 DianaDee Osborne
Showing posts with label song inspiration. Show all posts
Showing posts with label song inspiration. Show all posts
Monday, September 19, 2011
Wednesday, August 17, 2011
Don't Lose Your SONG Ideas!
A marvelous song idea just came into your head! You're sitting at your computer hooked up to your instrument and microphone--- So you just instantly call up your recording program, play your instrument and sing your marvelous song. And now your wonderful song idea is preserved until you have time to really develop it. Right?
Nope. Maybe in some movie. But in real life, you're in heavy traffic, or balancing a child while you cook, or sweating as you exercise (which technically includes mowing the lawn), or struggling to meet a work deadline.... you get the picture. Great song ideas don't conveniently wait until you're ready to record them. And thus great song ideas are usually lost... unless you're ready.
1. NOTEBOOK and PEN. This is a well-known way to avoid losing song ideas: Keep these by your bedside, because you'll often awaken with song fragments or even complete song ideas.
2. CLIPBOARD and MARKER. Keeping these near you as you drive can come in handy for when you come to a STOP (Please! the other drivers cry!) and can quickly jot down notes. There's a kind of clipboard that is plastic with a clasp that opens a small container. It's a great way to keep a clean sheet always on top, without losing written-on sheets that you've been able to store until you can get your ideas to a computer.
3. CHILD'S KEYBOARD BOOK. I'm not kidding. There's a Somebody The Train book that has a little keyboard on top that's accurate except for the high C. Pretty convenient even for the subway or parking lot! Of course, you can always keep an old guitar in the back of your vehicle like I do also... that's really nice for good weather days for relaxing outdoors until the bugs start enjoying your music adventure.
4. VOICE RECORDER. Since the stop lights aren't so numerous and lengthy in the areas where I drive, I was finding myself pulling over to the side of the road a LOT to jot down notes. It takes only one really rude or dangerous driver to make a great idea fly out of the mind forever. So I was delighted to find that a very inexpensive voice recorder will save song ideas. What works for me:
a._____Keeping the VR in a cell phone container clipped to the top side of my driver-side visor. No fumbling around to find it.
b._____Playing with the VR until I can hit the Record and the Stop buttons WITHOUT LOOKING at the VR. Then I can keep my eyes on the road.
c. _____Keeping a sketch of idea locations if you start filling your VR folders. Otherwise you'll be ready to start developing a song that's on your Voice Recorder "somewhere."
d._____Remembering to "Safely Remove Hardware" if you hook the VR to your computer to copy files. The instructions for my VR didn't bother to mention that the VR will no longer be able to record until you completely re-format it (that is -- lose all the files, sometimes inconvenient even though they're on your computer).
HINT 1: In your computer directory, keep the VN number but edit the filename to add (at the end) a word or two reminding you which song this is.
HINT 2: It's helpful to later edit that filename to have the actual song title... otherwise as you write more and more songs, you'll forget that you "already used that one." Been there done that.
5. Learn a TEXT -based NOTATION METHOD. I created a method that is fully described at my website,
https://www.didoreflections.com/page/music-notation-method
where anyone who knows the note name and how to count to 8 can write out music on a plain sheet of paper. No special staff paper is needed. No knowledge of the foreign language of music symbols is needed. Using your notebook and pen and Child's Keyboard,
you can easily write out any marvelous song idea that comes into your head.
....And the song ideas that you later realize the World isn't quite ready for:)
Much joy in song writing and the glory of music to you!
©2011 DianaDee Osborne
Nope. Maybe in some movie. But in real life, you're in heavy traffic, or balancing a child while you cook, or sweating as you exercise (which technically includes mowing the lawn), or struggling to meet a work deadline.... you get the picture. Great song ideas don't conveniently wait until you're ready to record them. And thus great song ideas are usually lost... unless you're ready.
1. NOTEBOOK and PEN. This is a well-known way to avoid losing song ideas: Keep these by your bedside, because you'll often awaken with song fragments or even complete song ideas.
2. CLIPBOARD and MARKER. Keeping these near you as you drive can come in handy for when you come to a STOP (Please! the other drivers cry!) and can quickly jot down notes. There's a kind of clipboard that is plastic with a clasp that opens a small container. It's a great way to keep a clean sheet always on top, without losing written-on sheets that you've been able to store until you can get your ideas to a computer.
3. CHILD'S KEYBOARD BOOK. I'm not kidding. There's a Somebody The Train book that has a little keyboard on top that's accurate except for the high C. Pretty convenient even for the subway or parking lot! Of course, you can always keep an old guitar in the back of your vehicle like I do also... that's really nice for good weather days for relaxing outdoors until the bugs start enjoying your music adventure.
4. VOICE RECORDER. Since the stop lights aren't so numerous and lengthy in the areas where I drive, I was finding myself pulling over to the side of the road a LOT to jot down notes. It takes only one really rude or dangerous driver to make a great idea fly out of the mind forever. So I was delighted to find that a very inexpensive voice recorder will save song ideas. What works for me:
a._____Keeping the VR in a cell phone container clipped to the top side of my driver-side visor. No fumbling around to find it.
b._____Playing with the VR until I can hit the Record and the Stop buttons WITHOUT LOOKING at the VR. Then I can keep my eyes on the road.
c. _____Keeping a sketch of idea locations if you start filling your VR folders. Otherwise you'll be ready to start developing a song that's on your Voice Recorder "somewhere."
d._____Remembering to "Safely Remove Hardware" if you hook the VR to your computer to copy files. The instructions for my VR didn't bother to mention that the VR will no longer be able to record until you completely re-format it (that is -- lose all the files, sometimes inconvenient even though they're on your computer).
HINT 1: In your computer directory, keep the VN number but edit the filename to add (at the end) a word or two reminding you which song this is.
HINT 2: It's helpful to later edit that filename to have the actual song title... otherwise as you write more and more songs, you'll forget that you "already used that one." Been there done that.
5. Learn a TEXT -based NOTATION METHOD. I created a method that is fully described at my website,
https://www.didoreflections.com/page/music-notation-method
where anyone who knows the note name and how to count to 8 can write out music on a plain sheet of paper. No special staff paper is needed. No knowledge of the foreign language of music symbols is needed. Using your notebook and pen and Child's Keyboard,
you can easily write out any marvelous song idea that comes into your head.
....And the song ideas that you later realize the World isn't quite ready for:)
Much joy in song writing and the glory of music to you!
©2011 DianaDee Osborne
Sunday, June 6, 2010
Where can you find Song Inspiration?
Many people ask "how do you get the inspiration for a song?" The answer: pretty much anything can. Helpful ideas:
10-001. SONGWRITING INSPIRATION - journaling. If an idea comes, write it down! Many songs aren't written until months after the initial idea... which was re-found by flipping through a journal. Any notebook, including electronic ones, that works for you.....
10-002. SONGWRITING INSPIRATION - nature.
Just look around you for fun or for deep song ideas! The humor song HERE KITTY was inspired by calling two cats that were both crying for me: one came, the other didn't. Add some personal concept message, and you've got a great song foundation!
10-003 SONGWRITING INSPIRATION - Books of quotations
Books full of quotes can jog a lot of lyrics ideas. Be wary of recent authors; their material probably is copyrighted. Thomas Hardy's old poem inspired the autobiographic reflections that turned into the song using Hardy's title -- IMPERCIPIENT (Amazing Big Words 'n' Big God album, at www.DiDoReflections.com).
10-001. SONGWRITING INSPIRATION - journaling. If an idea comes, write it down! Many songs aren't written until months after the initial idea... which was re-found by flipping through a journal. Any notebook, including electronic ones, that works for you.....
10-002. SONGWRITING INSPIRATION - nature.
Just look around you for fun or for deep song ideas! The humor song HERE KITTY was inspired by calling two cats that were both crying for me: one came, the other didn't. Add some personal concept message, and you've got a great song foundation!
10-003 SONGWRITING INSPIRATION - Books of quotations
Books full of quotes can jog a lot of lyrics ideas. Be wary of recent authors; their material probably is copyrighted. Thomas Hardy's old poem inspired the autobiographic reflections that turned into the song using Hardy's title -- IMPERCIPIENT (Amazing Big Words 'n' Big God album, at www.DiDoReflections.com).
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