So here we are at the start of this, you know, so really in a nutshell, if you wanted it, it’s kind of be good in the room. Be a nice person. now, easier said than done. This is not the most natural of environments when you, start, each new day with someone else. Any day that you start with a, a new person, now they can evolve into the best days, of your lives, and they can also be, pretty sticky and difficult.
So in to, to weather all storms and all weathers, and all glorious sunny days, remember that empathy is your ally. Empathy really is your friend. Understanding others is, the gold dust here. It’s just the key to all, well, I suppose all relationships really, isn’t it? If we could jump over ourselves and, and, and have that be our guiding light, then really empathy is your ally. Ego is the enemy.
If we go into a scenario and we are pumped up and ready, say, this is the best thing I’ve ever written, and you’ll be lucky to s you know, if that’s in our heads, they’ll love this and they’re gonna be lucky to sing this, and they’re gonna love my new idea. We are on a hiding to nothing. we are going to be, disappointed then. you know, I remember being told, expectation is resentment waiting to happen. So, you know, that kind of going in, thinking they’re gonna have our egos all pumped, and then they go, oh, yeah.
Anyway, I was hoping we would work on something a bit more, and then boom, you know, your day is just, turned sour. So, that really is, this is the, the, the start of this. You know, it, but it really is key. It’s, as you’ll notice, really we’re talking our way around, in and out and in between this as our guiding principle. Empathy is your ally. Ego is the enemy. So before your session, let’s jump straight into, actually, you know, you’ve all, anyone’s heard me talk before.
You will know my thinking on writing from the heart, you know, and making sure, your authentic and true to yourself. So we, we will brush on that throughout this, because that’s part of how we reach that point that we’re comfortable to do so. But there are things we can do before our sessions. This is where we are planning to write with other people. obviously at the moment, a lot. This is on Zoom. It all applies to whether it’s Zoom or in a room.
so before your session, agree, a start and stop time. This has been completely transformative to me as a writer, Parkinson’s law, that the work expands to the time allotted. again, many of you, some of you I’m currently working with on this, you know, it’s so important when you, it, it works in so many different ways. Knowing that you are going to stop, perhaps having a reward in mind, that kind of, Oh, I’m gonna really enjoy that coffee.
I wanna watch that thing on Netflix, or having a stop time means that we can leapfrog doubt with time limits. It just condenses decision making. It means we have to trust your musical mind. You know, we really have to trust our musical mind, and that makes us decide. And do, you know, we can really zone in decide, quickly. And, you know, when we, when we trust our musical mind in this respect, it’s extraordinary how much we notice time has been getting taken up with indecision and fear.
We’re gonna get into more of that later. But, so working backwards from that, agree, a start and stop time, be on time. There’s nothing like by the time, you know, I remember Steve Mack talking about this, and I thought, God, Steve Mack, who’s sitting there on his, you know, mountain of platinum discs, gets annoyed, if someone’s 10 minutes late and by 20 minutes late, he’s wondering if they’re coming.
And the idea that you had in mind is already starting to kind of wither on the vine. And by half past he’s texting their manager or their label or them saying, are you still coming? And then they show up 40 minutes late. And when he was all primed and ready and had some nice thoughts, you know, to share and was, you know, ready for a good day, had that’s passed, that energy has passed and it’s still, it needs to be re evoked. So that’s not a good way to start a session. Just be on, it’s not cool.
It’s not kind of like, oh, I don’t wanna be seem too keen. I remember Steve Mack also talking about Ed Sheeran, driving him nuts. ’cause he would show up two hours early. Now that’s Ed at the peak of his game, and that’s not Ed. You know, when he was, delighted to be, getting the opportunity to work with Steve Mack, this is when he’d already sold hundreds and hundreds of millions of albums, and he was showing up, two hours early. so, beyond time and agree, a stop time, the stop time, I now work in three hour sessions.
And when I first started doing it, I remember talking to my management at the time and they were like, whoa. Right, okay. three hours. That’s quite short. Second, if someone’s traveled, do you know if someone’s, I remember one of the first sessions I had after I’d, started working at this was with a, a couple of, guys who were coming over from Norway to do the session, and they were literally coming in and out an overnighter. and I, because I’d laid that out, and the reason for me doing it was that I was writing better that way.
It wasn’t to do with convenience or time limits. It was, I was writing better songs in these short sessions, and it included all the talk and the conviviality and all the bonding and all of that stuff. It’s just, I wrote better in these sessions. So we did, and we wrote a great song that did really well out in, Norway, Sweden, and everything. So, it was a good start for this system. I got to it for a variety of reasons, but I can just pass on to you that the, the limiting time thing really works.
Try it in your own writing. shorter sessions, I call it time chunking, so do lots of other people. I put in small short blocks of time and I, and it just works for me. I get so much more done. it helps me just to leapfrog doubt and, and quieten that, mind that wants me to stop and procrastinate and, and, you know, and then that eats into not having a, a another life either as well. So it really does work on all, on every level.
This, so, really do agree to start the stock time. It’s transformational. So secondly, before your session, prepare ideas that you really love. So you can start with an inspired seed. I wanna talk about this later, but just for now, let’s, take it as red that you should really be going in with 3, 4, 5 ideas that you love. This could be a chord progression, it could be a riff, it could be a title, it could be a chorus, melody, a hook.
It can be any part that you really resonate to. and I wanna discuss this later, but just, that’s hard to say. It’s also preparation in a way that if things are tough, then you have something that you can trust that you know, you liked, when you weren’t, you know, in a difficult situation. So, and, and when I talk about, you know, that difficult situation, I’m talking about the fear of a sticky session.
You know, a difficult session. Someone says, no, I don’t like that. Oh, I don’t like this, don’t like that. Whatever it is. You know, sessions can be tough. They can be awkward environments. They can also be, like I said, the most glorious, conjoining of minds. It’s just incredible. But if there is a stickiness, it’s not to do with not being pals or anything like that. It can just be, lack of ideas. Having ideas there that you had when you were free from that fear of not having any ideas. it means you can trust them. You’ve written something from the heart beforehand.
You’ve had a core progression and you’ve said a title. You know, you’ve sung one line. You’ve got, oh man, I feel that. Right? That means, you know, you’ve written something from the heart before the session, and yes, you might not feel, heart to fool in that moment that you’re a little bit nervous and, and you feel doubted. Maybe the person’s not listening. You feel they’re not kinda getting your ideas. You know, that this idea resonated with you and you can play it. It doesn’t need to feel good, it just needs to happen. You can play it in the room.
and that for me is that, you know, I can craft in a room under the spotlight and, you know, fear, it’s a little bit harder to really connect deeply, until we’re in flow together as collaborators. So this just gets me that kind of, from my art, you know, and I, I might be using craft in the room, but I know that art is there ’cause I made something Earlier. So prepare it is, it’s not as simple as just saying, oh, well, I, you know, I, I wrote down these five phrases, and I think they might be good in a song that won’t get you through the, the, the, the little, you know, difficulty of feeling stuck in a session.
They’re, they will, they will read as words. They will just, they won’t resonate. You know, you have to have felt something. And it’s the feeling that will come back to you in that moment. You can trust it. You can trust it might not come back to you, but you know, you felt it. Whereas if it’s just some words, they will still be cold words. So really go in with some things that you really, really like.
Have them in the back pocket. These are not just to be, immediately delivered.
