I live in Los Angeles and we’ve been under a stay at home order for weeks now as I’m sure is the case for most of you. I’m starting to feel a little bit like I’m on Gilligan’s Island. We went out for a sightseeing trip and now are stuck eating coconut cream pies for who knows how long. At least there’s Mary Ann and Ginger to keep me company.
I have a studio in my house that I work out of so I figured for the most part it would be business as usual. Or so I thought. I guess right at about the two week mark out of nowhere I started getting pretty stressed. All the sudden I just wanted to get in my car and keep on driving. It’s the flight or fight response. That’s the flight part kicking in. From what I have read online it seems like a number of people went through this as well. In other words it’s a natural response to this type of situation and you’re not alone.
What I came to realize is that so much of my state of my mind I can control, and it’s a good idea to be proactive about it. In other words, don’t wait until you are stressing. Help yourself to not get to that point. For instance, if I watch the news retreading COVID-19 info for too long, I’m going to get stressed out. Count on it. So, now I’m checking in occasionally to make sure I haven’t missed any announcements and then it’s back to my day and my thoughts. The human race has been through all kinds of insanity and emerged on the other side. We will get through this.
Since we were kids we were taught not to go into dangerous areas at night. That way you don’t get hurt. Makes sense right? The same goes for taking your thoughts to a negative, stressful place in your mind. Especially at times like these. You don’t belong there, so don’t go there. You are responsible for your own happiness. So hold yourself accountable.
Besides mixing, I’ve been doing several things that helped me a lot. For one, practicing guitar and vocals, writing and recording music, catching up on some video games and movies, and of course Tiger King. For a real tension breaker watch some old Looney Tunes. Those always make me laugh and are a great distraction.
With a little re-framing of the situation, it’s easy to see how this is an awesome opportunity to get creative and push your music forward. If live music is delayed for the foreseeable future, preparing your next release is certainly the smart move. As a musician, it will also help your state of mind.
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Here’s a songwriting idea for you: use a ghost song. No, I don’t mean the band Ghost, I’m talking about a writing technique. Step one is to pick a song that you really like. Then figure out what the tempo is. I use the built tap metronome in Pro Tools to figure out the tempo. The easiest way to do this is lay the ghost song on a track. What you are going to do is copy the structure of the song. By that I mean the arrangement. So maybe it’s intro, verse, chorus, verse 2, chorus 2, bridge, breakdown, chorus 3. Something along those lines. Then the idea would be to figure out the tonality of the song (major or minor key, etc). Use these elements as a jumping off point. The goal is not to rip off the song, just to use its structure as inspiration. This works really great if you know you need a particular kind of song when you are writing for a record. It will help kick start your creativity. This is a technique I learned from a buddy who plays in a very big act. Since then I’ve learned that it is done a lot. Some artists will use old, classic hit songs for this.
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Also, in case you didn’t know, I mix singles, EPs, and Albums for Rock and Metal bands.