Creative inspiration can strike at any time making it important to be able to capture your thoughts quickly and efficiently whenever the metaphorical lightbulb appears above your head. I remember watching a Wynton Marsalis interview a long time ago when he was describing the depth of knowledge that is necessary to understand the language of jazz.
One phrase in particular stuck in my mind.
You don’t just roll out of bed and fall onto a flat nine chord.
Of course, he was correct, but what if inspiration strikes while you are asleep? What if you do roll out of bed with a head buzzing with ideas? Or, worse, what if you wake in the middle of the night, itching to get your thoughts down, terrified of the potential regret you will face if you fail to capture them?
The solution is old school. A fountain pen, Noodlers bulletproof ink and some index cards. I also add a diet coke to the list to help pry my eyes open.
That’s all you need to capture your thoughts and ideas before returning to your comfortable pillow.
Why Noodlers bulletproof ink? Because at four in the morning it is very easy to spill that coke.
Filed under Blow and tagged with Coke, Composition, Equipment, Fountain pen, Index cards, Inspiration, Noodlers, Wynton Marsalis
With ashleymorgan.com fully launched, traffic rising and record sales increasing steadily, now is the time to settle into the day to day, or week to week, business of maintaining this blog’s success and upward trajectory.
Given the nature of this blog, it’s purpose being to act as a focal point for my jazz career, documenting it’s progression, promoting and distributing my work, it’s update tempo will not need to be particularly fast.
Many people fall into the trap of thinking that they must update their blogs as often as possible, some many times a day, in order to be successful. This simply isn’t true. Your blogging rhythm has to reflect the nature of your blog, your tone and your style.
After all, there are only so many hours in the day, and many of the hours allocated to my jazz career are, quite rightly, taken up with practicing and composing.
And, let’s not forget, I have an album to write. The music has to come first.
Filed under Blow and tagged with Music, Time
Writing any kind of music requires concentration. Writing jazz, arguably music’s most cerebral genre, requires a level of commitment that necessitates solitude. As I use my recently discovered extra hours to transfer ideas from my head, through my mouthpiece, onto paper and then into Sibelius or Finale, whichever wins the battle for my attention, it’s important to create an air of solitude around my workspace.
The solitude that I need can only be achieved if I am comfortable and pain free. With more and more hours spent sitting in front of a computer, blogging, promoting, writing, composing or transcribing it’s time to get serious about the chair that supports me.
I need an ergonomic chair. And I need one now.
Filed under Blow and tagged with Blogging, Chair, Composition, Ergonomics, Finale, HAG Capisco, Hardware, Sibelius
