Re: Loss of the initial song idea

["Stephen Goodman" <spgoodman@earthlight.net>]

I had a dream a while ago that illustrated something along these lines.

I was standing next to a stream similar to those approaching Niagara Falls, 
near the falls themselves.  On the opposite bank were trees, but instead of 
leaves they had golden spheres.  Occasionally when a sphere-leaf would fall 
to the ground, the breaking revealed that the things were musical 
tones/notes.  The trees were songs.  Towards the end of the dream I was 
watching a few of them fall into the stream and cascade over the edge of the 
falls, the breaking sphere-leaves making the last hints of the songs 
themselves.  In the dream I realized I was watching what happens when the 
unwritten / unrecorded songs are neglected for too long... but they're not 
lost after all.  Pieces of them end up in new trees, in new songs.

My life in a lot of ways has been on hold since I got married and moved to 
the UK.  It is through the kind efforts of people on LD that I was pulled 
into the world of online performing, and later video performance.  This has 
kept my musical mind alive, and enabled me to execute the music that would 
otherwise be wandering round my head as mere memories, entertaining only to 
myself.  And lost when I am finally off this planet, whenever that may be.

I recently had a loss online at Ustream, where three shows from a collection 
of Christmas Carol variations were playable but not downloadable for 
archiving.  Thankfully I downloaded the majority of the shows, which is a 
lot since 2009!  The system they used had apparently developed an indexing 
error, and from around Tuesday this past week, was executing an index 
rebuilding.  The three shows in question went from a state of 
playable-but-not-downloadable, to visible-but-not-playable, and then only a 
thumbnail from one of the shows in the Off-Air screen; last of all, no shows 
appear in the channel at all.  One contact at Ustream went so far as to say 
I had deleted them before the situation was resolved!  End result though, 
three shows containing around 10 variations were lost forever.  I didn't 
keep notes back then, and counted on the archival ability of their system a 
bit more than I should have.

So don't rely on other peoples' systems to save your ideas!  And make 
multiple backups.  Media is fallable.

I return to what used to be a joke of sorts in my early days in the 
computer/software business.
The three rules of MIS:
1. Backup
2. Backup
3. Backup.

I look forward to my new life post-divorce, when I am finally settled again 
with a space to perform and record.  Back in the last of my LA days I had 
such a thing, so that when I woke up in the middle of the night with a music 
idea, I could execute and record/archive it for future work.  The English 
legal system is a pain in the ass and is not made to be used by anyone but 
the powerful, efficiently.  So I am stuck here for now, awaiting the decree 
nisi (and the relative kindness of the judge-in-question, since this is 
amicable) and the decree absolute, which effectively ends the marriage. 
Bah!  I will always have my music, and people like you folks. :)


-----Original Message----- 
From: k3zz21@gmail.com
Sent: Saturday, February 18, 2012 5:38 PM
To: Loopers-Delight@loopers-delight.com
Subject: Re: Loss of the initial song idea

wow amazingly put Richard! Here's another approach I think can also work. 
Having multiple projects or pieces to work on. That way you arent forced to 
convey a certain mood in a single piece because you most likely have another 
one you can work on instead that fits your mood just right at the moment. I 
think I will start to try both methods. They seem inspiring just by thinking 
about it.
-----Original Message-----
Date: Saturday, February 18, 2012 9:07:38 am
To: Loopers-Delight@loopers-delight.com
From: "richard sales" <richard@glasswing.com>
Subject: Re: Loss of the initial song idea

Distraction is a serious foe of inspiration.  Sometimes ideas are like 
butterflies.  My experience is I have to move very fast.  So sometimes I 
have a digital recorder always handy and I will hum or sing or describe the 
idea within seconds.  Sometimes ideas evaporate in less than seconds. 
Sometimes the sound of someone walking by will distract you, someone walking 
into the room telling you it's dinner time.

We have a policy at our house that, when someone is in the creative moment, 
we tiptoe, we close doors quietly, we are very respectful of the presence of 
the Muse - that lightning fast butterfly.  When we accidentally barge in, we 
dont' make conversation and apologize etc.  Everyone is trained.  I suggest 
you do that with whoever you live with, share a dorm with etc.

Sometimes the idea just evaporates because it wasnt' that strong in the 
first place.  I can't tell you how many times, in the old days, the software 
would freak out and lose the entire work.  I was always furious when I had 
to start over, but every time the second effort was much better than the one 
that evaporated.  That applies to writing language or music.

So, sometimes the Muse guides you with a rough hand, a slap on the face, a 
scattering of the dominoes so you have to start over... because what comes 
next will exceed what you THOUGHT would be great.

All the other advice is great - setting it aside for a rainy day etc.

The key is to not get too worked up about the lost inspiration.  The goal is 
to stay fluid and open to the Muse - to not shut down because a concept or 
effort evaporated or didn't turn out as you'd dreamed it would.  Sometimes, 
it just wasn't meant to be.

Art is like boxing or martial art.  You can't let your opponent knock you 
off balance.  Stay on your feet, stay limber, be very quick.  As long as 
your still standing in the boxing ring, you could win the match.

Have faith.  You ARE still standing!

richard sales
www.glasswing.com
www.richardsales.com
www.hayleysales.com
www.goodnaturefarms.com











On Feb 17, 2012, at 7:26 PM, k3zz21@gmail.com wrote:

> Im currently writing a piano piece for my music class. I originally 
> started out feeling really connected with the idea. My intention was to to 
> make the piece somewhat sound like a rain storm. And I was definitely 
> feeling the connection between what I had made so far and the vision that 
> I had in my head which was simply rain. Now I seem to have lost that 
> initial feeling. Ism wondering if it is due to me being distracted from 
> that feeling and trying harder to make the song sound "Good" maybe?