It’s a New Day!
Welcome to the new Songwriters Playground website, a joyful spot where you can get into your crazy mind without actually going crazy!
Why do you think creative people throughout the ages have been either:
1. Crazy, unstable, neurotic, bi-polar, etc etc…whatever state of illness you want to call it.
2. Users of addictive natural or chemical substances to “get them in the mood” for their art.
Or…
3. Well adjusted, organized artists who write both when they’re inspired and when they aren’t?
I’ve been studying creativity and doing some form of writing most of my life and I have concluded that you can either do your art in an anxious, chaotic and unhappy manner or you can give those same creative muscles an exercise program that regularly strengthens and works them out.
It is a FICTION that you must suffer to create great art. It is a LIE that you have to be drunk or high to get past the superego gatekeeper that says “You’re not good enough. Don’t quit your day job”.
I was blocked and I decided to do something about it many years ago. I had friends and co-writers who got blocked from time to time, or who went through long stretches when their writing wasn’t vital, and they didn’t enjoy the process as much as they used to. The air just wasn’t pushing their songwriting sails. They felt stagnant.
Back at that time I hosted a weekly songwriters group called Heavy Hitters, in which we did fun, and I mean REALLY FUN stuff that got us all juiced up. We weren’t Heavy Hitters at the time, but I wanted to think big. Within a very short period of time, we WERE Heavy Hitters, and many of us had to drop out of the group from time to time because we had to come up with songs for various artists, tv shows and films in a hurry. And it was mostly because our songs had gotten so much better from doing the exercises that we were now in demand by the industry. Frankly, it was amazing, and I look back on that time as one of the most exciting and fruitful periods of my life.
The exercises made us feel high, and that energy propelled us to create sizzling songs. We achieved what’s called “wild mind” by just doing the exercises in a certain sequence designed to enliven the senses and generate a lot of scrap material from which to pick and choose elements that would become a finished song.
This workshop became the foundation of the Songwriters Playground book. It’s not magic; it’s just a somewhat magical method. My new website goes beyond simply telling you about the book – it is the embodiment of the Songwriters Playground workshop. It affirmatively welcomes you home to your best creative self, the place in your heart where everything is possible. You know you can sometimes feel it, but just when you want to anchor it, it wriggles away from you.
Well, hold on and let me lead you to a place where you can regularly and reliably tap into that source WHENEVER YOU WANT TO. You’ll safely relax your resistance so you can ultimately take control of your creativity. And you won’t have to actually BE crazy to do so. You’ll just look and feel like you are.
Okay, buddies. Get ready for some rich and rewarding Song Playing, and enjoy the ride!
See ya later!