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I have this principle that I have found to be true in my life.
And it shows up in different ways.
When it comes to creativity, I often want to continue to get new ideas, write new songs, and come up with new projects.
But what I often find is that I already have lots of ideas that are ready to be used.
I just need to be diligent and disciplined enough to take those ideas and turn them into something.
And I find that a principle that seems to hold true in my life is that when I am disciplined with the small ideas that I have been given, I end up getting more.
Rather than pining away and trying to come up with more and more ideas, the more that I let that go and focus on executing on the ideas that I have already, the more the new ideas seem to flow as a result.
There is a bit of wisdom that surrounds this, a principle that if you are faithful with the little things, then you can be entrusted with bigger things.
Or to put it into a modern context – how you do the little things is how you do everything.
So this album project was me taking a series of songs that I had already written but never produced. Or ideas that were part way there, but not fully, and then bringing them across the finish line.
I wanted to be faithful with these song ideas.
To get them down and get them out.
And trust that as I did that, more ideas would start to flow for new things.
And so the journey began.
There is a bundle of songs in this album that are a personal part of my life.
There are 5 or 6 of the songs on the album that are songs that I wrote for people’s weddings (my sister’s, my brother’s, friends) and even a song to document a story of my parents starting out in life when they first got married (Biloxi Bound).
There’s a song at the end of the album that was about some friends that lost a child very early on (Will I Wake).
I find that a lot of times I hear things that people are walking through (tough times) or good things that are happening (weddings, anniversaries) inspire me to write. I think the story becomes tangible for me, and I can capture emotion or thoughts that I have around that.
I know who I’m writing to.
I know what I want to say to encourage them, or to try to capture some of the feeling that they may have.
It’s really just storytelling on a small scale.
You’re figuring out how to tell a story and capture the emotion both with words and music.
I find it a lot easier to write that way than to come up with a random story, which was what happened for the Pain in the Garden song. I had to take a moment that I had captured, and then figure out how to build a story around that.
Some fun things that happened on this album:
- I built a bass for the project, and got to use it for the first time
- My wife made her first recording cameo
- I realized that albums are not the way to go for an indie artist
- And I caught a vision for what the future should be for me with music
Thanks so much for taking the time to read a little bit of an intro about the album.
I hope that you enjoy it.
I hope that it encourages and inspires you.
And make sure that you throw your email in the box below so that you can get first looks and behind the scenes on the new things that I am working on.
Cheers,
JJ