haitus

Right now I'm in the throes of the final week of high school, and songwriting is at the very bottom of my list. The great part of my creative energy is right now being directed towards "The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism" by Max Weber, upon which I have an essay to write. As you may have read at the motherblog (benbouwman@blogspot.com) I recently had a neat experience with some fireflies. They truly are some of the coolest things in God's creation, and I see a lot of symbolism in them. Hopefully I can capture some of this in a few songs maybe. I'm also moving to a new house next week, requiring me to say goodbye to my faithful Ibanez G10 electric, and my mom's CBS Masterworks acoustic guitar. I will still be able to play the masterworks on the weekend, but the electric is going back to my brother Derek, it's owner. I remember picking it up for the first time, feeding it back and starting into some Weezer tune or other. I also remember bringing it over to the Lodder's for the first time, plugging in, and learning rock music. It's with nothing but fondness and nostalgia that I remember this. An electric guitar is such a mysterious object, with so much stigma involved in strapping one on. Wearing one of these, musicians since the 50's have been pissing off their neighbours and abusing their listener's ears. Kurt Cobain, Jimi Hendrix, Eric Clapton, Robert Johnson, Bo Diddly, Buddy Holly, Mark Knopfler, all the legends played this instrument. I will miss "Elsie." But, Ryan, being the man that he is, is off to camp this summer and cannot use his black Epiphone SG. I'm keeping it company until he's back. I'm excited!

I'm a bit lame at writing good songs.

I wish I could find a way to write a three chord song that sounds good, like "What Light" by Wilco. Somehow I try to make things oh so complicated though. There's some neat chord progressions bouncing around Amitie-ville lately, but not many good lyrics. Hopefully something comes around soon-ish. Good night!

Pragmatism in Music.

I work with my brother Joel, who insists on listening to country music. When a certain song comes on that begins with a woman singing "right now, he's probably slow dancing", my brother turns it off, saying "this song is useless." The idea of pragmatism in music is interesting. Music is a good pass time, it is relaxing, and enjoyable, but the idea that music should be useful is a novel one for me. This idea indicates that in songwriting we musicians should strive to have useful music, music with a message that people can apply to their lives. Interesting business, and it's got me thinking. For one day I'd like to make a playlist on my iPod of songs that are useful, that impact my actions. I will see how long a playlist it is.