Sometimes it's what you almost hear that's just as important.

It's amazing what you find on the internet.

I came across an article by John Tunney on the Muses Muse website regarding a new way to gather songwriting ideas. Immediately, my sences pricked up, I had to have a look.....

What I found was an amazing article on 'a new method for writing songs' based on a technique I like to call 'peripheral hearing'.

It's based on the premise that is similar to chinese whispers (or walking in halfway through a conversation I suppose) where the interpretation of a piece of an aural idea by the listener can produce new ideas.

The article outlines how you can turn your creative space into an environment where the barriers for clear hearing is similar to say a noisy nightclub and how you can manipulate that space to get the desired result.

When I read the article I got excited. The title was 'A new method for writing songs' which pricked up my curiosity straight away. After I read it I emailed John straight away to gain his permission to link to his article (and to let him know that I really enjoyed reading it).

A few times in the past I have had similar experiences to what John relates to where I have had the radio on in the background with the volume turned right down. In my attempts to try and work out what song was being played at that time an new melodic idea had jumped out and grabbed my attention. I hadn't connected up all of the dots until I read John's article.

I suggest that you read the article "A new method for writing songs" and try the techniques out.

Let me know how you go with it as I would be most interested in other songwriters experiences with this rather different way of generating new songwriting ideas.

Until next time, happy writing,

Corey Stewart
Singer/Songwriter/Musician

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