Inspiration is kind of a big deal...
written at Saturday, January 22, 2011
Check this out guys! A really good article! All you songwriters out there!
http://indigenousworship.com/?p=135
It’s been said (over and over) that songwriting is 10% inspiration and 90% perspiration, with the point being that songwriting is hard work. Anyone who has seriously given themselves to writing songs knows this to be true. Great songs rarely, if ever, just fall out of heaven, finished and complete – and ignorance or resistance to this fact has lead to lots of really (for the sake of generosity) “unrefined” songs being played on Sunday mornings. Songwriting is hard work. No argument here.
But here is where the axiom loses potency or accuracy – hard work alone won’t make anyone a great songwriter. I’m a huge proponent of grinding, but just grabbing a guitar and trying harder won’t yield a file cabinet of hits that your church just loves to sing. Don’t believe me? Just come and look through my file cabinet!
The truth is inspiration is important. If the old adage is true, that inspiration is only 10%, then it’s the most important 10% ever. Ever!
Inspiration is the raw-hunk-of-metal-idea that will animate our work, our action, and our grinding. Inspiration is the sudden inhale of a fresh thought, or raw emotion that must be exhaled. Inspiration that isn’t expressed is like holding one’s breath, not conducive to living and actually requires more effort to hold than to release. As songwriters, we were made to breathe. We were made inhale ideas, melodic musings and life experience and exhale songs. What we exhale in the form of songs is proportional to what we inhale in the way of inspiration, both in quantity and quality.
As songwriter for the local church we’ve gotta stay connected to the source of all inspiration – God.
In Genesis 1, God breathed the breath of life into Adam – His exhale became Adam’s first inhale. It was a face to face encounter that animated the rest of Adam’s days. It’s a picture of inspiration.
As songwriters for the local church we’ve gotta stay close to God, find his face, and breathe in His life. Personal experience with Him is life – life in such a complete and total way that it animates all of who we are, right down to our artistic expressions. I have noticed that a songwriting “dry spell” isn’t always a lack of hard work and craft on my part, but a lack of inspiration, a lack of ideas, a lack of the practices that keep me experiencing God and receiving his life.
Every song requires multiple inspirational inhales. We need ideas to write about, we need a melodic home for our ideas, and so on. When we see God, we breathe in and life is sparked in our hearts and minds allowing us to exhale a lyric or melody.
These inspirational inhales come in a thousand ways. When we receive the scriptures, we breathe in. When we quiet our hearts to pray, we breathe in. When we live in community, we breathe in. When we experience the beauty of creation, we breathe in. And when we breathe in we become inspired, though often times it is quiet and subtle. And when we are inspired we are pregnant, filled with something alive that must come out!
Peace!
Adam
Inspiration is kind of a big deal...
written at Saturday, January 22, 2011
Check this out guys! A really good article! All you songwriters out there!
http://indigenousworship.com/?p=135
It’s been said (over and over) that songwriting is 10% inspiration and 90% perspiration, with the point being that songwriting is hard work. Anyone who has seriously given themselves to writing songs knows this to be true. Great songs rarely, if ever, just fall out of heaven, finished and complete – and ignorance or resistance to this fact has lead to lots of really (for the sake of generosity) “unrefined” songs being played on Sunday mornings. Songwriting is hard work. No argument here.
But here is where the axiom loses potency or accuracy – hard work alone won’t make anyone a great songwriter. I’m a huge proponent of grinding, but just grabbing a guitar and trying harder won’t yield a file cabinet of hits that your church just loves to sing. Don’t believe me? Just come and look through my file cabinet!
The truth is inspiration is important. If the old adage is true, that inspiration is only 10%, then it’s the most important 10% ever. Ever!
Inspiration is the raw-hunk-of-metal-idea that will animate our work, our action, and our grinding. Inspiration is the sudden inhale of a fresh thought, or raw emotion that must be exhaled. Inspiration that isn’t expressed is like holding one’s breath, not conducive to living and actually requires more effort to hold than to release. As songwriters, we were made to breathe. We were made inhale ideas, melodic musings and life experience and exhale songs. What we exhale in the form of songs is proportional to what we inhale in the way of inspiration, both in quantity and quality.
As songwriter for the local church we’ve gotta stay connected to the source of all inspiration – God.
In Genesis 1, God breathed the breath of life into Adam – His exhale became Adam’s first inhale. It was a face to face encounter that animated the rest of Adam’s days. It’s a picture of inspiration.
As songwriters for the local church we’ve gotta stay close to God, find his face, and breathe in His life. Personal experience with Him is life – life in such a complete and total way that it animates all of who we are, right down to our artistic expressions. I have noticed that a songwriting “dry spell” isn’t always a lack of hard work and craft on my part, but a lack of inspiration, a lack of ideas, a lack of the practices that keep me experiencing God and receiving his life.
Every song requires multiple inspirational inhales. We need ideas to write about, we need a melodic home for our ideas, and so on. When we see God, we breathe in and life is sparked in our hearts and minds allowing us to exhale a lyric or melody.
These inspirational inhales come in a thousand ways. When we receive the scriptures, we breathe in. When we quiet our hearts to pray, we breathe in. When we live in community, we breathe in. When we experience the beauty of creation, we breathe in. And when we breathe in we become inspired, though often times it is quiet and subtle. And when we are inspired we are pregnant, filled with something alive that must come out!
Peace!
Adam
