Sunday, March 21, 2010

The Song On The Wind

Saturday was the first day of spring and the weather here has certainly been gearing up for it. This evening, I went outside just before dark and sat on the porch with my guitar. There was a nice, stiff breeze blowing in dark clouds from the west and the smell of rain danced through the air. It reminded me of that line from a Sister Hazel song..."Sometimes the song on the wind is the only warning before the storm."

So I sat outside and played whatever came to my fingers. I put my capo on the second fret, taking the tuning of the guitar up two steps, and just started strumming. In a small yellow legal pad I've been scribbling some thoughts on lyrics for a song I want to write. Writing music is a great deal more complicated than writing a short story or a novel. The music itself becomes a second voice behind the lyrics and the tune can completely change the meaning of the lyrics.

I've struggled trying to find that tune. Some of my struggle is based in the fact that I just don't have a mastery of the guitar. I'm still, at best, an advanced beginner. So finding the tune hasn't been an easy task.

This evening I made a lot of progress on it. Maybe it was just being outside, alone in the dying light of day and feeling the slight tension on the air as the rain moved in that finally helped me get a grip on what I'm trying to find musically. And I'll need the foundation of the music before I can stack the melody and then the lyrics on top of it. I think. I don't know. I've only ever written one song before and it was about as simple as you can get it. I did it for the final project of my guitar lessons last year.

I think I'm going to spend some time working on it this week and take a little break from Blood & Steel. I've made a tremendous amount of progress on that project and I need just a little bit of time to let my mind chew on some things before I continue on. I'm at a point where I can start really building toward the resolution, but I need to give some thought to whether or not I'm rushing things. I've even made some notes about the possibility of fleshing out certain scenes a little more in the second draft.

I haven't been in the gym since Thursday and I have plans to get back into the weights tomorrow. It should be a chest day, though it might be a leg day, I don't know. Bryan keeps the workout list in his office. Either way, exercising does help clear my head and let me think about things. Maybe it'll help me refine what I'm trying to play.

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