/karen/

Songs in the making

Monday, 31 March, 2008

I meant to blog this last week but you know the drill ...

The New York Times reached a new level of awesomeness last week with the launch of their Measure for Measure blog—a blog about “How to Write a Song and Other Mysteries”. It's a group effort featuring the stylings of Darrell Brown, Rosanne Cash, Suzanne Vega and the delightful Andrew Bird.

Bird kicked off with the first post and already there's plenty of gems to glean, including—

Solitude, boredom, and the desperate need to entertain oneself are ideal stimuli for songwriting.

and

Almost every breath contains some fragments of an escaping melody. If I shape my lips so as to whistle, my breath will take on a musical shape like sonic vapor. Words are much trickier. I would forgo words altogether if I didn't love singing them so much. My choice of words and my voice betray so much and that's what's so terrifying and attractive about it.

The rest is well worth a read ...

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