Definitives

I recently watched a TED talk on creativity led by Elizabeth Gilbert, recommended to me by Charlie. As part of this talk, Elizabeth (I hate referring to professionals by their last names) put forward an alternate perception of the creative process to take the pressure off creative individuals; she talked about how it often feels like a song (or a poem, or a piece of art, whatever your forté) just comes to you as if given by something external. She said that when you picture the source of your creativity as something outside of yourself, rather than something you’re always capable of yourself but only rarely able to access, you lose the constant feelings of frustration associated with the inability to tap into said muse. Elizabeth likes to think of creative ideas in the same way dream catchers approach dreams; that they will briefly breeze through you, able to be captured, but if let go will simply drift over to the next creative individual ready to play catch.

So it was, then, that having written the ten tracks for my album, I wrote an eleventh this afternoon, because the winds happened to be heading my way.

It’s called You And Me and I like it a lot – very Impossible Dreams, only without the emotional weight attached. In my track list, it comes third – between Georgia and The World Is Mine. I was inspired by a dreamy Evanescence song I recently rediscovered called ‘Anywhere‘ – I love the lyrics.

Anyway, I’ve started recording what I call my definitives – crappy recordings of the songs on my MacBook, the best I can do without assistance, but that capture the songs exactly as I intend them to sound, with all the pauses and melodic phrases in exactly the right places. I can then listen to these over and over in the build-up to my album recording, making sure I remember the song exactly the way I want to when it comes time to do it properly.

Incidentally, I’ve now booked my recording sessions for the album with my studio engineer Oli. The first session will take place on the 25th of January – the day after the recording of the 117% Complete EP – and then there will be four sessions in February, a four-day block from the 1st to the 4th of March, and a final two days on March 19th and 20th (giving us time in-between to reflect on what we’ve done up to that point and make necessary changes). That also leaves us time to book an additional session or two in April to finish everything off and make it really perfect.

A few people have been asking me lately how I can afford to do this – both the recordings, and the general living my life as a musician. The studio ain’t cheap, let me point out: Parrot Stories cost £550 to record, and The World Is Mine already looks like it’s gonna cost at least one thousand five hundred. I’ve just been very lucky, and very good with the money that’s come my way.

Chameleon Circuit, first of all, was recorded for free, and that continues to sell very well, such that I always get several hundred pounds a month from its sales. I don’t really go out drinking or partying, so most of that goes away in savings. That money paid for Parrot Stories, which has also sold well so far (and which I get a bigger cut of, because Chameleon Circuit has four members), and the money from them both will go towards The World Is Mine. Currently, I have £10,000 in my savings account, some of which I’ll be investing in an equity ISA (when did life become so boring?), the rest I’ll use to invest in things like album recordings and to spontaneously go to New York when Tom’s playing a gig there xD (I sold all my CDs in New York, though, so that helped pay that all back.)

Anyway; the money from Chameleon Circuit paid for Parrot Stories, and the money from that is gonna pay for The World Is Mine, which I’m purposely spending a lot more time on because I can afford to do so and think it’ll definitely be worth it as a result. =)

The best thing I recommend anybody do is, if you really wanna put out a CD, spend a month noting down every single penny you spend, and exactly what you spend it on. (I did it last October and called it K-TOMM – Keep Track Of Money Month.) At the end of it, you may notice you always buy the large meals from McDonalds but never finish them, in which case you can save by buying the mediums. Or you notice that you eat at McDonalds twice a week but could afford to cut back. I noticed that I’m always spending £3 at every Starbucks buying chai tea lattes when I could just buy a Capri-Sun for 70p. All that money adds up. And once you’re saving, just funnel all of it into the album. You don’t get anywhere without taking risks. It doesn’t matter how many subscribers you have – if you make a fucking great CD, it only takes one person to come across it for the ball to start rolling. And it’ll end up paying for itself anyway.

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