Here is a doozy, folks. You’ll thank me… I found it on Facebook, and am grateful to Doreen Ringer-Ross, for posting it. You’ll want to frame it and hang it where you can see it daily. You’ll definitely want to send it to your artist-friends.

It’s a speech… not too long … It is:

Dr. Karl Paulnack, pianist and director of music division at The Boston Conservatory, gave this fantastic welcome address to the  parents of the incoming students at The Boston Conservatory on September 1, 2004:

Karl Paulnack

“One of my parents’ deepest fears, I suspect, is that society would not properly value me as a musician, that I wouldn’t be appreciated. I had very good grades in high school, I was good in science and math, and they imagined that as a doctor or a research chemist or an engineer, I might be more appreciated than I would be as a musician. I still remember my mother’s remark when I announced my decision to apply to music school-she said, “you’re wasting your SAT scores!” On some level, I think, my parents were not sure themselves what the value of music was, what its purpose was. And they loved music: they listened to classical music all the time. They just weren’t really clear about its function. So let me talk about that a little bit, because we live in a society that puts music in the “arts and entertainment” section of the newspaper, and serious music, the kind your kids are about to engage in, has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with entertainment, in fact it’s the opposite of entertainment. Let me talk a little bit about music, and how it works.   Click here to READ MORE …

There are several things I love in this article… like how “group-think” doesn’t always work, and why (we are so eager to PLEASE rather than do the right thing) … how ‘follow the leader’ is always more comfortable than breaking rank (to be more creative) … but mostly, finally, this article points out that PLACE has a lot to do with creativity. I’ve always believed this… that there are some places that are more stimulating to be in… but then, it’s about our powers of observation too. Most importantly, this article says it, “Get out of your rut.”

So, here’s the link plus a photo of me getting out of my rut … after all, we live in Los Angeles, which is mostly bright and warm. Here I am, in the snow, a rare event… when we crossed over Mingus Mountain, recently, going from Jerome, Arizona, to Prescott, on our way back to LA.

CREATIVE THINKING ISN’T JUST BORN – IT’S BRED, by David Ginter, March 2010.

I'm delighted with snow, near Prescott, Arizona, Feb. 2010

For those of you who just can’t get enough (ok, I’m one too), here is the mother of all mind-mapping maps…  it’s fascinating!

The mega-map of over 80 of the best mind-mapping resources. Each link is a gem.

Start with the article here: MindMappingSoftwareBlog.com

Relating visually…. I took this photo, Dec. 2009, because it reminded me of Mind-Mapping, bringing our bright ideas into organized, useful shapes! You can find these luscious dishes at Bauer Pottery.

Bauer Pottery, Los Angeles

You know when you want to learn something, you should tell others that you want to do it. It’s kind of like an affirmation.

So, here I sit on this rainy-sunny-rainy-sunny Saturday in Los Angeles, reading a little admonition that I thought I’d share with YOU today, but it’s really ME telling ME to do it… and why.

Click here: You Should Blog Every Day.

Photo below is from the NSAI Songposium (Nashville Songwriters Assn. International), which takes place every September in Nashville, Tennessee. It’s a week-long educational marathon… teachers from everywhere, classes/workshops on every topic you’d ever want that concerns music & the business. Great fun, and a great opportunity to mingle too! (Remember these big records with the little holes?)

Me teaching Creativity classes at Warner Bros. Records, Nashville, Sept. 2009.

I’m having a good day… this article, by Bruna Matinuzzi  is definitely worth checking out and passing along.

Maybe some of you will remember the wonderful book, Flow, by Mihali Csikszentmihalyi. (cheek-sent-me-high-ee)  so, this will be a continuation for you…

Monkey in State of Bliss, Calabasas, California, 2010

Frog & Kitty in State of Bliss, Calabasas, California 2010

Click here: Ten Tips for Harnessing This Psychic Energy

Below is an excerpt from the kind of article we’ve all seen before, but need to pay more attention to (says “Mama JoAnn”). It’s posted by: Mark McGuinness.

Click here: What Daily Meditation Can Do for Your Creativity.

The Benefits of Meditation Practice for Creatives

It’s important to note that there’s a lot more to meditation practice than simply “boosting your creativity.” If I were to promote meditation as some kind of creative thinking technique, the monks would be rightly appalled – or amused. So the benefits I’m going to describe, while very real, are really side effects of meditation – if you approach meditation looking to “get” any of these things, you’ll probably be disappointed. On the other hand, if you just practice it for its own sake, you may be pleasantly surprised…

http://the99percent.com/tips/6314/what-daily-meditation-can-do-for-your-creativity

Ohmmm, in Sedona, Arizona, Feb. 2010.

Hi there,

Don’t know who he is, yet, but I think he has one of the best book-lists I’ve seen in awhile, for those of us who LOVE books about the creative process. Check it out…

Click here — for David E. Bowman’s Creativity Blog.

More new books about the brain!

I promise I will get back to my series “Our Moving Adventure” (yes, we are still ‘between houses’ and we’re doing fine) … but just had to post this article written by Michelle V. Rafter, because it doesn’t just apply to editors/writers but to almost everyone I know in the music business too. Or in the entertainment business, in general. Maybe it just applies to everyone in business!

Click here to see:

25 Reasons Editors Don’t Get Back to Writers Faster

Enjoy!

Many of you asked us to write about our Big Moving Adventure of 2009, so I thought I’d better get started before the year is over.

It began in February of this year (09) when each one of our songwriting classes, workshops, seminars — one-by-one — canceled. We knew this was due to “the economy” or “the recession” because we’ve never had things get this quiet.

It was scary.

We realized the lease on our rental house in Canyon Country (just north of Los Angeles) was coming up for renewal in the Fall. [When we'd first moved in, only a couple years before, things were flowing, relatively, and we never would have predicted our business would slow down like this.]

So, John and I researched our options and decided we would MOVE OUT. PERIOD.

We decided to put things in storage … and not move in anywhere else for awhile. We hoped to stay with various friends around Los Angeles, until we could find another solution.

We rented 2 STORAGE LOCKERS (not far away, in Van Nuys) and stored all of our household belongings. And all the while, we didn’t know how long we’d be living without our ’stuff’ … it’s already been 4 months … which is why I’m writing this for you now.

The first thing we did was to have a yard sale. It was 107 degrees that day. No one could have predicted that. So, sales were not as brisk as we had wanted. Duh! But the process got us started.

John Braheny and I had years and years of accumulated stuff in the garage… books, record albums, CDs, cassettes, VHS’s, file folders, photos (in albums and not), artwork … we even found a couple wedding presents that we’d forgotten about. (We celebrated our 25th anniversary this year!)

We had office supplies (file cabinets, desks, chairs, shelving) and boxes of new Pendaflex folders — who uses those anymore? And we each had boxes from our 4 parents who have passed on, and left family artifacts and relics for each of us. We were overwhelmed … and made several trips (8 or 9)  to charity shops … with our car stuffed to the brim.

We sold a carpet and a guitar on Craigslist. We listed other things that didn’t sell. We sold several boxes of LPs to a collector … we donated songwriting & music business books to The Songwriting School of Los Angeles … and John is still donating organization archives (LASS & NAS) to USC … with more to dig through first.

We gave away furniture (not all, but a lot) to neighbors who helped us along the way … including donating all of my beloved plants … and linens, dishes, etc. …. to various friends and loved ones. It was wrenching … but we knew we had no choice. We had allowed ourselves the luxury of being pack rats for much too long.

So this was our first step. And the more we let go, the better we felt. Our Moving Adventure continues …

[Photos: Sorting through photos on the floor; sorting my mom's silver. Canyon Country house we left in August 09. Looks small but was 5 bedrooms & 2 baths.]

[Photo: Painting seen in window on Abbot Kinney in Venice, California... 2009]

Many of you know that John (Braheny) and I are out of town, driving from LA to Nashville and back again … over a couple months … doing songwriting & creativity classes for songwriters groups.

Our next stops include Austin, Texas, Albuquerque, New Mexico, Phoenix, Arizona, and maybe a side trip to Santa Fe, if we can fit it in before being back in Los Angeles for the annual Taxi.com Road Rally (Westin LAX hotel) during the first week of November ‘09.

Thank you for your emails and Facebook posts, etc.

I’ll be ‘blogging’ about the trip just as soon as I get time/energy/quiet, and putting up some photos as well.

But, in the meanwhile… I found this article, CLICK:

“21 Ways to Be More Creative” by Christine Kane — and agree with almost every point (difference is that some TV programs are superb) … so check out the article.

Let me know what you think!

Enjoy…