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August 06, 2009
Bitten Again by the Songwriting Bug
I started to get serious about songwriting again when Sheryl and I began attending writers’ night every Thursday at Nolan’s in Cocoa Beach.
Sheryl has been using this weekly event as motivation to write a new song every week, and she has largely succeeded, getting her creative fires burning again in the process. It seems that when she gets one song finished, an idea for a new one appears. Sometimes she finds herself with several song ideas rolling around in her mind, all fighting to get out.
I, or course, as the PSG, have the privilege of recording her “work tapes” (we still call them work tapes even though we use CDs now…) and helping her get these new songs “up on their feet."
Sheryl’s rebirth as a songwriter has been an exciting process to witness, and the sheer joy of creativity and the sense of accomplishment that she has experienced have played a major role in her continual recovery.
As I watched her find great delight and pleasure in pursuing her craft and her passion, I began to think about my own creative endeavors.
I wrote a lot of songs and instrumental music back in the eighties and early nineties, have seen many of my works recorded and published, and have even written a “hit” song (If you want to know more about that, just “Google” my name [Leon Olguin] and see what pops up!).
But as I worked in the early nineties to build our studio business, I largely left songwriting behind. I believed that I was being resolutely and laudably pragmatic. I had to do what people were willing to immediately pay me for (record and produce their songs), and while I certainly enjoyed receiving my royalty checks (or “mailbox money” as they call it in Nashville), I could not consider this a reliable source of income.
So I attempted to completely suppress my desire to be creative, convincing myself that it was not a viable activity. Perhaps this mind set came partially as a result of my upbringing, which stressed gaining a skill and getting a job. Creativity was seen as a self-indulgent and somewhat narcissistic activity at best.
Now of course, my work as an arranger and producer certainly involved, and continues to involve, a tremendous amount of creativity. No one could ever accuse Sir George Martin (who produced the Beatles, and many other artists…) of not being creative! But this was creativity applied towards enhancing the initial creations of others, a very different “animal,” so to speak. While I find vast satisfaction in this work, and believe it to be something I was meant to do, I have also begun to realize that if I don’t continue to create my own things, I run the risk of getting burnt out.
The desire within me to be creative, to come up with an idea and bring it to fruition, has never died, despite my half hearted efforts to kill it.
Posted by leonolguin at August 6, 2009 10:33 AM