I've often heard songwriter friends talk about the way that their songwriting process changes as they get older. Most of the time it seems like things get more difficult, in a way--there are bad habits to avoid and to ultimately overcome, and there are those natural tendencies that we all have that may have worked well ten years ago, but that now maybe seem a little hackneyed, or simply boring. Songwriting--making music in general--is a set of muscles, some of which work great when you're 18 and cramp up when you're 40, or vice versa. In my experience, whenever I make a record and have to regroup and figure out what comes next, it's all about trying out different muscles and not only seeing what works and what doesn't, but also what brings you a sort of creative joy. That's what it's all about.
Looking back on the things I have worked on over the last year or so, there are some things that I still enjoy, and some that I don't. I've decided to prep some things for release as singles, and also to begin working on something much grander in scale. So far this new thing that I am working on seems like it has a lot of fruit to bear. But we'll see.
We live in a house that we own, for the first time. It's wonderful and stressful in many ways I imagined and some that I didn't. I've been settling into my new office/recording space, and things here are going well. But now, as always, I find the field shifting. Maybe the things that I am making can be made here, but only some of them, or only to a certain point. Maybe the grandest things I can think of right now are the ones that I should be preparing to make, against the odds. I'm learning to code in a couple languages now, and it feels like such an ostentatious project rather than the very practical one it is on its face. Being able to program is like a superpower, much like being able to compose.