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Write a song everyday5/3/2014 I've gotten interested in the concept of writing a song every day. 365 days. 365 songs. I suppose that in some Utopian society it might be possible. But I'm struggling with the idea. Yes, you should write a lot. Prime the pump, so to speak. Have lots of ideas floating around. Lot's of material and good starts. I'm in general agreement with that. But, why would I want to take something that is my most favorite thing to do and make work out of it? People who love to bungee jump don't do it every day. It's not their JOB. Besides wouldn't it be boring if you HAD to bungee jump every day? Wouldn't you start to hate it after a while? This is my objection to the Philosophy of Write a Song Everyday. What I really want is to do what I love. Do it often. The goal, therefore, is not to make a job out of what I love to do but to make money doing what I love.
The idea of having thousands of songs to your credit does somehow legitimize what you're doing, but only to creepy bean-counting types who only think in terms of numbers. The more songs you have, the more likely that you might have one that's "a hit". Again, we're getting out of the realm of art and into the realm of creepiness: "We're Only in This For the Money". "Success is everything." Don't get me wrong. I want to be successful. But I don't want to sacrifice my happiness for it. To reference my previous post about Bob Dylan: he has thousands of songs, but how many of them that you want to hear twice? Anyway, I've been hearing this phrase "ten thousand hours" referring to the idea that to becoming an expert in something is just putting in ten thousand hours of practice. I tell my students this: the difference between you and say, Jimmy Page, Taylor Swift, Yo-Yo Ma or whoever is that they've done it a zillion times and you've done it twice. Simplistic, yes, and it flies in the face of our hero worship and desire to idolize people who just seem to "have talent". "That ain't working. Your money for nothing and your chicks for free." How we love the idea that maybe I could just have this hidden talent that could be discovered and I could just fall out of bed one day and be rich and famous! Ten thousand hours, folks. I think that's the key to being good at anything. Put in the time. If you must schedule it, okay, but love doing it in the process.
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