Ever hear the term, "keeping up with the Joneses?" This term has been responsible for much of the trouble we find ourselves going through in life. It's no wonder that this is the foundation of many self-help programs, and why covetousness is spoken against in the Bible and other religious writings. Here's how to have it not affect your songwriting.
YOU ARE THE ONLY ONE IN THE RACE
The only person you should be comparing yourself to is yourself. How did you do, songwriting-wise yesterday? Have you done as much or a little more today? Just like a runner tries to equal or increase sprint times each day, you should try to do tiny bits more and more each day. Sure, maybe you used to win contests and maybe are experiencing a lull-we all do-just see if you can do better on the mechanics end, like practice one more song, write one more line in your journal, or make one more phone call. All this will add up in the end, even if it doesn't at the moment.
YOU DON'T NEED THE NEWEST CRITTER
Just because all your pals are buying the self-tuning megabuck guitar that just came out doesn't mean you have to. If you really like your current axe, and need that money to get to that out of town gig and pay expenses in case you don't make that much money, by all means, go to the gig. No one there will care or notice what guitar you have if you are rehearsed and kick some serious butt with a good stage show you spent time developing, instead of spending time in a store. Remember that Nirvana became famous in spite of the guitarist's using a little-known name guitar, and that Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin was fond of occasionally using a guitar you could get out of the Sears catalog. I won my first two awards as a songwriter with a rented 4-track cassette recorder in my living room, and run a Casio keyboard through a Marshall half-stack and get a nice sound that has been easily adequate for all the live and studio situations I have gotten myself into up until now. Do you really need to spend the megabucks to go to some songwriter's seminar? Sometimes it's cheaper to just buy his book and read it to get the same information, or offer to take a buddy who is going out to dinner in exchange for a view of his notes from the event. We are creative sorts-we can find ways to do what we need with what we have, and are already rich in that respect-we just need to realize the riches we currently possess. Take an inventory, and you may even find you could use a house cleaning to get rid of your excess.
Go To Page: 1 2
