What Do You See?

Just curious…  if you’re not a songwriter, what do you envision when you think of one of us? Do you see in your mind’s eye someone scribbling into a notebook, bent over a guitar, plugging away at the creative process for hours on end?

Well, for this songwriter, most of that impression is true. Except for the last part. I do not spend hours on end in the songwriting process.

Shocked? Read on.

I write songs pretty much every day. And when I say “write”, that means I may finally nail a chord progression I had been musing on. Or I get down on paper two lines of a single verse. Or maybe a whole chorus and then some. Kinda depends. But the fact is, I spend only 20 to 60 minutes a day actively writing songs.

And yet, I have written about 250 songs to date, most of them since 2016. And 27 of my original songs (as of today) are out there online and on CDs for your enjoyment.

Not exactly a full time job, is it? Well, hold on. It kinda is! Because if I’m not writing songs, I am busy with other related activities such as:

Promotion

Social media posts (oh, and this blog)

Contacting venues about performing

Recording or getting songs ready to record

Drafting up set lists

Researching/purchasing new gear

Practicing all my instruments (and there’s a lot)

Creative play-time and “downtime” (super important, BTW)

And then there’s all the unrelated activities that need to get done:

Housework

Appointments

Volunteer work for an environmental nonprofit

Laundry

Exercise

Car and home maintenance

Taking care of my budgies (Taco and Schnitzel)

You get the idea. All those activities don’t leave a lot of time for actually writing of songs.

Now mind you, I may be an outlier when it comes to how much time I devote each day to songwriting. I betcha there are some professional songwriters out there who spend way more time than I do on composing. But I’ve got a feeling there are many amateur song crafters like myself who have jobs, kids, and other activities, and who have to prioritize these over songwriting on any given day.

Whaddaya gonna do, right?

Look, I am grateful that I now have the means and (some) time at all to do songwriting these days. That wasn’t always the case in years before. So, yeah, I may be a late-bloomer as a songwriter but that only gives me a perspective I wouldn’t have had before.

I’ll take a moment to reflect on that…