May I be excused? My brain is full!

Or maybe I should say it’s empty – whatever…I just spent the evening with a group of middle-school kids, making a guest appearance as a songwriter. In real life, I teach many of these kids, but not anything remotely connected to music. Oh, I bill my 8th grade health class as “sex, drugs and rock and roll”, but we don’t get to do as much of the “rock and roll” as I’d like

So anyway, this group of budding authors/poets/songwriters was participating in a young writers’ retreat up in the nearby mountains. They had written some poetry/lyrics, and my job was to help them put their words to  music. Over the course of a few hours, I managed to help create five pretty solid songs, from rap to folk to a pseudo-B52’s piece. One song, the last one we worked on, was a sweet ballad, and ended up being a collaborative effort between a former student who was volunteering at the retreat, and myself. By the time we finished that one, we were both done. I forgot how exhausting creativity can be.

Exhausting or not, it was just what the doctor ordered. I’ve been trying to get back into writing music, something I’ve dabbled in over the years, and this gave me a kick in the butt in the right direction