It's great when you play to an audience that knows the words to all your songs, and sings them back to you.
Chris CornellRead
Oftentimes, especially in the context of an acoustic song, I'm motivated to write by some amount of melancholy.
Interpretation
Melancholy can inspire deep creativity, especially in music.
Chris Cornell expresses how feelings of sadness or melancholy can serve as powerful motivation for his songwriting. In the context of acoustic music, this emotional state allows him to channel his experiences into art, showcasing the connection between emotions and creativity.
In practice
A musician discussing their creative process at a songwriting workshop.
It's great when you play to an audience that knows the words to all your songs, and sings them back to you.
To me, music shouldn't be ego-driven. When you go out on stage and play songs, it is. But when you're sitting in a room, writing songs, it's a completely different process. It's a completely different place. It's a creative place, a musical place. It has nothing to do with who likes what.
When you become a parent, you leave a lot of things behind and refocus, maybe on how simple life really is and what few things there really are to worry about. And everything else can go by the wayside.
Being solo really lends itself to different interpretations - and everything is in the moment and on a whim. I never realised how far out you can go when you are by yourself.
A true musician, like Johnny Cash, should be able to walk into a room with nothing but an instrument and capture people's attention for two hours.
There's something about losing friends, particularly young people, where it's not something that you get over. I don't believe there's a healing process.
Ah, steeds, steeds, what steeds! Has the whirlwind a home in your manes? Is there a sensitive ear, alert as a flame, in your every fiber? Hearing the familiar song from above, all in one accord you strain your bronze chests and, hooves barely touching the ground, turn into straight lines cleaving the air, and all inspired by God it rushes on!
Jazz is what I play for a living.
We are the sons of Sorrow; we are the poets and the prophets and the musicians.
The safest genre is the horror film. But the most unsafe - the most dangerous - is comedy. Because even if your horror film isn't very good, you'll get a few screams and you're okay. With a comedy, if they don't laugh, you're dead.
I try to read a lot and listen to a lot of good songwriters, and I try to actually work on the craft of writing a song rather than just leaving it up to inspiration.
People like Dick Gregory, Paul Robeson, Harry Belafonte and Nina Simone show me what the definition of an artist is - it isn't just to make art but to speak truth to what's happening, speak beauty into the world, speak love into the world and also... get involved.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.