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followyourtruthandlove · 6 years

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Saturday, January 20th: Steve Tannen

(The Weepies)

What compelled him to begin in the first place:

1. Love of music

2. Wanting to write the music, or needing to write

Leonard Cohen lyric “You don’t really care for music do you?”

Not everyone Loves music

(*** Right, wow. So true. And also…Hallelujah)

Ecstatic moments

Memories connected to music

From those moments came what he was trying to connect with this whole time

Memories- related to music. With music. (**Yes. Yes. **)

Didn’t know option be singer songqriter musician

Bc not seen or given as option growing up

No one tells a kid they can be that

But everything was pointing to it always

(**again yes yes**)

Brothers old 5 string guitar out of tune was how his style came to be

Changing melody bc different voice

Poems to music

Trying to do what other people did that made me feel good, badly (music) that who he was emulating badly (((Yes. Yes.)))

(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentameter)

(((GOOGLE: “Deb Talan & Steve Tannen began writing together the night they met in 2001 at Club Passim in Cambridge. Their band's name, The Weepies, is inspired by the term used for old movies that are guaranteed to deliver a good cry, an effect that's certainly true of their subtly intoxicating folk-pop (though they're often tears of joy.) “... WOWWOW)))

4 chords from musician living in mom’s basement teaches him and then he realizes he can do in any way he wants

Revelatory (***oh this word right here***)

Collaborating together is trusting someone

Enough to bounce your ideas off of

Self-critical/ together

Good to have someone you trust

Collaborative process

(AH) Bravery it takes to put yourself out there like that

(((Googling Downtime: https://www.417mag.com/calendar/?search=&category=Music#event-listing ))) ((No other “luck”))

((Wait wait maybe American Beauty?))

(((AH had to get through the fear and moment of terror to get to the next step, had to go through that)))

Challenge he and his wife have for each other

Ex. Open thesaurus point to a word choose a near rhyme, that’s your chorus

Ex. Sit at piano while watching Ghandi opening scene with sound off and write

Edie Carey

(Love that she is doing hers outside)

(Group with AH “Live from New York” ended up being for singer-songwriters)

“Isn’t it funny how that can happen…there’s so many Blanks that have yet to be filled in”

Ani Difranco- That moment – in tears

Realizing she wanted to do this

Gateway artist was Shawn Colvin (saw at 15)

Then always listened to famous people, creating dance routines etc.

Seemed so far away, couldn’t see how to get to where they were

Then when seeing Ani, she was close-up and attainable

Amazing- far from her in terms of skill

But close in proximity- 3 feet a way

Alewaysd loved writing words

If able to work at it, figure out how to play instrument

Can marry singing (always had been a singer) with playing and writing

Was able to see self performing from there

(AH relating – saw WHITNEY HOUSTON ?!?!?! o.m.g. to the unth. Wow. Sync

Thought about how she could never do that)

Felt far like some other creature

(AH saw Indigo Girls liked what they wrote about, liked thinking about what they wrote about in own inner life can help others with their inner life)

Humanness to singer-songwriters

You hear them play this transcendent music

Blows your mind

Followed by humor and/or personal stories (ex. What they had for lunch that day)

Being up close and personal

Close to other human being

Sing magical

Duality

All at the same time

Allows to connect

Care about what those are writing about

( I ) can write about things that are meaningful to me

Singer songwriter music lets you in in an intimate way

Sees fearlessness in self as coming from lack of a filter

Cries when hits on Truth even in happy songs

At least at some point

If she doesn’t cry feels like job isn’t done

Cries= knowing that it’s true

(Emo pain can show up in body ex. Sinus infection-psych related)

( AH: Feeling in people are buried songs bring up and out

Can be scary- do I really want to feel this on the way out

Vs. just thinking picking old scab

Tool for healing)

Writing for selves (Freudian slip?) all of my selves

Has to be feeling it truly- whether reliving past or present

Always helpful

Often tend to be pressioned- (sp.)

Songs telling about things that are going to happen that she is not ready to deal with yet

Some direction or decision, the songs know before she does sometimes

(AH- Learns about self and own interiority through writing in a way that can’t be accessed elsewhere. Engaging in music draws it out of you)

Magic component

Music component can be unconscious in so many ways allows for it to be birthed out of you

In ways that can’t be done in convo with friend

“Mary Gauthier says cocktail conversation”

(“Songwriting: proceed with caution “- AH, “may accelerate person growth”)

Get out of the way bc things are happening before we even realize it

If a song is asking to be written you have to write it

Don’t have to play it

Even if for simply for exercise of writing it

Or experience of healing or revelation or whatever is going to come from it

Gets up really early to start day by writing

Quiet with clear mind to write, an accomplishment for the day

Did “Artist’s Way”- manifesting creativity in your life

Morning pages- before you even put your feet on the floor

Like Draino-ing all the stuff in your head

Loss being freeing

Painful but liberating

Ability to move on, move forward.

Advice: Write lots and lots and lots of songs

Even if meh

Keep digging

Just worry about writing great songs

The kind that make you fall apart in the most beautiful day

Work your butt off

Write true songs

Be true and real, can’t go wrong

People will be drawn bc people will see themselves in them

Has a cheese bar. As in puns etc. Vs. a sad bar (limit)

But write it anyway and then edit

Don’t be editor all the time, wants to open the door

Won’t edit words into metaphor

Lets go bc hasn’t tapped into Spiritual, Universal River that all artists swim in

Need to get there, can’t technical his way into it

So goes back to the river

Getting to the river…Writing, doing.

There’s a sense of connection sort of with have a Home life and kids that fills up some of the insane need for connection that fueled his early writing binges

Some of the fire has changed over time into a slower burning flame

(AH Hammering away…economy of language,

When collaborating and giving feedback-

More often they come from subconscious place

But some are conscious

Regrets more conscious choices

Don’t worry about what the world has to say about where you are or how you are doing it

Just do it, you know you have to do it anyway so just do it.

(“Horrible Failure- living on brothers couch, deb at starbucks)

William Carlos Williams greatest poet American ever produced- and it’s bc he wrote everyday

Being with a writer/ partner can’t imagine one who doesn’t do it- write all the time and see things in that way and in their head by being in the world that way- bc they get it they get eachother and eachother’s “zoning out” bc rhyming/writing in their head and/or finding scraps of paper everywhere.

(AH: Hotel New Hampshire get obsessed and stay obsessed. Great place to put obsessive qualities)

Persist in failure, persist in obscurity, persist in success, persist in failure, persist in obsurcity- Robert Fripp

Arc/art of the artist

Different advice depending on where you are:

If in the

Beginning- don’t be afraid to copy and find out exactly what they did

In singing along you will find your own voice- (who he is sneaks in…sometimes (((yes. Yes.))) )

Had quit writing, someone he dearly loved came over and told him why a failure because not like Cole porter or Robert Johnson writer…

Told he was too complicated, too wordy, too in love with himself, you think your experience is everybody else’s.

A lot of people who become actors or artists have someone in them says “oh yeh” where someone told them no …

(((Gosh I want to be like them. Like that, Love. How wonderful.)))

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