I’ve been sharing with you my slow and painfully cautious journey back into making music like I used to. Last week’s letter revealed to you that I figured out why I’ve had a block: because the depths of my self, the erroneous religious prejudice against “secular” music still existed. Once I realized that, it disappeared.
So I bought a couple books on songwriting, pulled out my guitar a couple times, and am getting closer to actually making music again.
But this massive book of Zollo’s, a collection of interviews with singer-songwriters, is rather eye-opening.
Most of the songwriters so far claim that you can’t invent music. You discover it. Or, rather, it discovers you. Like Michelangelo claimed… he didn’t carve out David. Rather, he chiseled away the excess marble to expose the David who was already there.
These songwriters really believe these songs appear.
The difference is in their opinions of where they come from.
Many, like Lennon, Carole King, and so many more, claim they come from beyond… such as from God.
Many others, like Paul Simon, believe they arise from deep in the subconscious.
Here’s what I think—
Years ago when I first got introduced to the subconscious, via Carl Jung, etc., I came to believe that the “beyond” (God, etc.) and the depths of our unconscious selves, are the same thing. They are one. There is no in or out, up or down, here or beyond. It is all one. So that when we tap into the depths of ourselves and therefore the depths of humanness and therefore the depths of the universe, we are actually also reaching into the heights of all things.
It depends only on your perspective and the words you choose to articulate it.
But what was really interesting to me is that all of them agree on one thing: it requires raw honesty and brutal authenticity for good music to come out.
And I like that.
I think I can do this.
I think I’m ready.
