My White Whale.

For a long time now, I have wanted to be creative. My friends and family usually say something like, "But you play musical instruments! And sing! And you've written a song!" And I hate it when they say that. Yes, in some sense, I am creative. But only an incredible small portion of my creativity is being used. Mostly when I'm playing an instrument (or even, to a certain extent, singing) and am interpreting someone else's idea or regurgitating it note-for-note. I'm pretty okay with this, though.

It's all the downtime.

When I have the time to write.

And don't.

CAN'T.

About a year ago, I purchased the book Writing Better Lyrics. The author, Pat Pattison, gives a lot of exercises and ideas and examples. I haven't been able to actually do any of the exercises (nor finish the book for that matter...it's kind of a "work-through-this-section-and-then move-on" kind of thing).

Back in May, I took some time to visit my friend and songwriter-extraordinaire Jon Weisberger (http://www.facebook.com/jonweisberger) and we set out on a three hour journey to write a song. In the end, we succeeded. We found a melody. Then outlined a basic idea of what we wanted to happen. Then we haggled over words (syllables are important, folks).

I learned from this experience two things:

1). Songwriting is much harder than people make it out to be. I think most people that give you that line, "It just came out of nowhere!" are either incredibly modest, intensely secretive, or the best bullshitter you've met that day. Song most certainly do not "come out of nowhere."

2). I also learned that it is MUCH easier to write when you have someone to write with. For a majority of the session (that's what the people in the biz call it when people get together to write...I just made that up) I threw out ideas and Jon was able to distill them into lines. THEN we would haggle over words.

Since that time in May, I haven't been able to be quite as focused when I attempt to sit down with the guitar and figure out a song. I feel that since I've experienced the process, I should be able to duplicate it. But alas, I am still without a song.

Thus, I am Captain Ahab and creative writing is my Moby Dick (a metaphor, and probably not executed properly).

But I will strive on.

I've got plenty of downtime coming this winter.

Get inspiration, then go...

Well, folks. I'm in a band. It's called Jerry Butler & The Blu-J's ( www.jerrybutlerandtheblujs.com ). We have spent the majority of the last three days in a studio in the mountains of East Tennessee laying down tracks for a new all-gospel project that we hope to have released before the end of September. It was my first time in the studio with this bunch and things went surprisingly well. The rhythm guitar, bass, and banjo tracks are DONE. We will continue to work on that in the coming weeks. Stay tuned.

In other news, I received a rather zen piece of advice today that I thought I would share with you all. I sent a text message to a friend who operates a blog asking for any advice they might have for blogging and got this reply: "Don't go to your blog and search for inspiration; get inspiration, then go to your blog."

Now. Did I have any inspiration  when I started this post? Nope. I'm going to try the old "keep-writing-and-something-will-come-out" routine. Hopefully something will come out. I'm sure I will have more deep and thought provoking posts before too much longer. Having thought about this recording project so much this week, my thoughts haven't been all that inspiring. But I've got about a week and a half of down time at home starting Tuesday. Plenty of time to think.

And watch my tomatoes grow.

The First Post (cue dramatic music).

Well, here it is: the obligatory first statement of my first blog post that states that this is my first blog post. Glad I finally got that out of the way.

I guess I should tell you what I hope to achieve. This blog is completely going to be for my own sanity: I want to get things out. Music reviews, musings, banjo-centric stuff, cooking stuff, and hopefully some insights into the English language. Basically, anything I feel like putting on here is going to get put on here. So take that Society!

And a small disclaimer: I am a professional musician that works in a touring band. The opinions expressed in this blog are my own and not necessarily those of the band I'm working with.

Now. I've been in the studio all day (more about that later) and I'm going bed.