Protected: First Dibs on New 5×7 Paintings
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Get Some Rejection Under Your Belt
The problem with being a songwriter is you’re likely insecure and sensitive. That’s why you’ve chosen to spend hours alone expressing your feelings while your peers are at the football game. You might think this is a personality flaw, but it will be a superpower later in life. Do we really need songs written by
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What My Next Book Is About
What happens when your childhood dream kind of comes true? I’ve spent the last 20 years writing songs, recording albums, playing shows, licensing music for film and TV, and somehow paying the bills doing what I love. But this isn’t a fame story. (If you’ve ever tried to drop my name, you’ve likely gotten crickets.)
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Hang with Your High School Class
People often get to Nashville and think, “If I could just write with this person or that person, then I’d make it.” But the truth is, if you just hang with your high school class you’ll likely be fine. What do I mean by “high school class”? I like to think of each year in
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From College Dropout to Career Musician: A Letter to Worried Parents
I couldn’t concentrate in class. I kept thinking about my guitar, lyrics to songs I was working on. I’d daydream about performing in front of thousands. Old high school classmates in the crowd. My junior high crush apologizing for not noticing me: “If I could only go back, Aaron,” she’d say, “I’d do things differently.”
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Ode to Aunt Linda
I am 10 years old. My parents often can’t pick me up from hockey practice until later. I’m not terribly upset because Aunt Linda lives one block from the rink. She always seems happy to see me. Her kids have grown, so I have the place to myself. No surprise—she’s baked fresh bread. A thick
Confessions of an Introverted Marketer
The other day, I emailed 1,257 people, asking if 124 would volunteer to stream my song five times a day for five days on Spotify. I’ve been doing this long enough to know that everything is a percentage of a percentage. For example, I knew about 50 to 60 percent would open the email. I
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Commitment Issues
I was in a cowriting session the other day with a friend. She and I both presented some song ideas. We dissected each and looked at what was interesting, their strengths and weaknesses. The first one could go in this direction. It could be about this topic or that topic. The subtext would be about
Voice Memo: The Birth of “Different Way”
This is where it began. My mumbly and slow worktape. I also found some old emails. Before my Notes app, I used to email myself lyrics. So below the song are a few screenshots of how this song started. This might be interesting to some of you and it might not be. I hope, though,
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How I Write Melodies
I have this recurring dream. I’m on stage performing in front of a crowd, but I forget the words and melody. I start making up gibberish. Gibberish words over gibberish melodies while I strum my guitar. It’s like I’m scatting, but it’s not supposed to sound improvised. It’s supposed to sound like completed lyrics and
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