As a parent, if you’re like me, you often feel like you’re failing. When you don’t feel like you’re failing you feel like you could be doing a lot better. And then in the blink of an eye, your kids get older. You know you’ve made so many mistakes. Are you too late? Is the damage […]
Does the name Roald Amundsen ring a bell? He was an explorer from Norway. I hadn’t heard of him either until recently. He was known as “the Last Viking.” In 1911, no one had ever reached the South Pole. Amundsen decided to take on Captain Robert Falcon Scott of Great Britain to see who would
How to Make Steady Progress: A Lesson from the Last Viking Read More »
I was on my way to meet my friend Claire for our cowriting session one day when I drove past a billboard for Grey Goose vodka. The sign said, “Fly beyond.” Before I go any further, did you know titles are not copyrighted? Copyright law sees titles as too short and vague to be copyrighted.
A Lesson in Copyright Law from Grey Goose Vodka Read More »
Most attendees at the Aster Cafe in Minneapolis that night likely thought he was a drunk, oblivious stranger passing by. They weren’t far off. It was my slightly inebriated cousin Erik, doing a dare by his slightly more sober brother Karl. They were only sorry that the shenanigans just so happened to be during my
How My Cousins Pranked Me at My Own Concert Read More »
You might think the best day of my life would be the day I got married or the birth of any of my kids. You might even think it was the day I signed my first publishing deal or recording contract. Don’t get me wrong, those days were fine and everything. But they simply cannot
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Prioritizing songwriting is hard, especially when your to-do list is eight miles long and work has you exhausted. Scheduling songwriting on your calendar is a great first step in taking your craft more seriously and improving your chances of actually writing. But you’ll still run into what Steven Pressfield, in his book The War of
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For Gavin and Holly For those of us in the U.S., it’s Memorial Day weekend. Every year at this time, I’m reminded of the musician I respect the most. It’s not the guitar player. It’s not the drummer or the bassist. It’s not even the first-chair violinist in a philharmonic orchestra. These musicians are fine
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In 2018, I hit a songwriting slump. I had trouble finishing work and felt the songs I actually completed were mediocre. The long-term solution, I would later realize, was a long rest. I had been writing nonstop for six years. Plus, our family was growing. With the added parenting demands, it was unrealistic to sustain
“Do you ever worry about burnout?” Theo S. Hi, Theo. That’s a great question. Burnout is something I think about a lot because I’ve had to deal with it over the course of my career, especially during my early days here in Nashville. In 2012, when I signed my first publishing deal, my calendar began
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One thing I love about songwriting is that everyone has their own perspective. It’s the Anaïs Nin quote: “We don’t see things as they are, we see them as we are.” A tree isn’t just a tree. It’s your relationship to it. You might see an old birch along the boulevard, and someone else sees
Songwriting Prompt: Mother’s Day Read More »