Goosing Your Muse

Posted March 31, 2011 – Our very favorite teaching environment is songwriting retreats. About our retreats, songwriters say: (1) When we’re sequestered from our ‘regular routine,’ our mental and emotional senses are heightened. (2) We explore new ground, new info, new approaches to doing things, in a place where it’s OK to fail. (3) We [...]

Writers: You tell me you’re looking for a challenge. This one (based on Julia Cameron’s ‘Morning Pages’ exercise in The Artist’s Way) will take you to a whole new level. And yes, I’m thinking of doing it myself. Yeow! Read about the  750 Words Challenge … some folks write daily for a month, some write [...]

Congratulations to Jon Iger (devoted and beloved president) and the very, able staff of the Arizona Songwriters Association, on their 15th Annual Arizona Songwriters Gathering. It’s a great event! John Braheny & I have had the great fortune to participate in almost every one —–   And it’s FREE! —– Bonus: There will also be [...]

This article, This Year, Change Your Mind, is written by (physician, best-selling author, and professor of neurology and psychiatry at Columbia University Medical Center), Oliver Sacks, M.D., and appeared in the New York Times, on 1/1/11. He starts off by acknowledging that, at the New Year, many of us re-new our intentions to improve our [...]

This one is from The Art Institute of Vancouver … (A lovely place, if you decide to visit!) It’s a “creativity test” to find out if you use more (%) of your (click here) “Right Brain vs Left Brain.” It’s free to take the quiz and it determines the score for you. Then, read the [...]

Here’s a great article in Discovery News by Emily Sohn, 1/10/2011. Science finally confirms what most of us already intuit when we listen to music. “People love music for much the same reason they’re drawn to sex, drugs, gambling and delicious food, according to new research. When you listen to tunes that move you, the [...]

(Jan. 1, 2011) Happy New Year greetings! John Braheny and I have had such a magical year (2010), traveling around the United States, meeting and talking with songwriters and musicians and singers, all across the country, at schools, colleges, and in songwriters organizations … we consider ourselves very fortunate, and grateful to you all. So, [...]

I’ve been catching up on some reading, including a favorite blog: Zen Habits by Leo Babauta. One of his recent articles is NINE QUICK TIPS to IDENTIFY CLUTTER. We de-cluttered our garage a year ago, from obvious things like our college textbooks, photos (mostly duplicates from family), VHS tapes, ancient checkstubs, holiday cards we’d kept [...]

We traveled in the South a lot this year, doing songwriting & creativity workshops in Austin, Dallas & Houston, Texas … as well as traveling through Oklahoma City, Little Rock, Ark, Nashville, Tennessee… and beyond. One thing I love is taking photos of signs… and this one (I believe in/near Memphis, Tenn.) just made me [...]

Some of you know, John Braheny and I have been traveling (most of 2010), presenting songwriting & creativity workshops. Just recently, we stopped to see our good friend, Craig White, songwriter/studio maven, teacher, who’s teaching recording production at the new Academy of Contemporary Music, in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. Craig mentioned the school to John (and [...]