So first lines, say so much. Let’s dive in. Okay. Â The power, a great opening, the power of, I should say power of a great opening line and all the decisions it’s made for you.
you know, 15, 20 years ago, I thought there was a kind of chasm between the thoughts and the feelings inside my heart and mind, Â and songs that were out there that I was listening to on the radio and on television, on videos.
And, and there isn’t, you know, the, the chasm is just the creating, you know, taking them from our mind and putting them into reality.
And that’s what we’re here for tonight.
There is not anything stopping us other than the doing it.
Okay? I want you to know that the glue, it’s not sort of, oh, I’ve got to learn an entirely different, bro. We can learn lots about crafting songs, but as far as like, where are those initial thoughts and feelings, and hence first lines of songs that say so much  and decide so much for us in songs.  So much of that comes from a place that if I had known that it was the same little old me, rather than trying to  learn some other way of doing it, then I could have saved myself a lot of dead ends and, different avenues.
Okay? Â So what comes first, the words or the feeling? I want you to acknowledge that really what we’re searching for is rather than kind of writing from up here, you have heard me talk about a lot, Â a lot about this, you know, write from the heart, craft from the head tonight.
And first lines is so much about writing from the heart. It doesn’t just mean kind of, saying only what you want to say without any thought for the listener. It’s quite the opposite. It is just that we need to know what we want to say to say anything at all. Â We need to know what we want to say to say anything at all of meaning or a feeling. Â So it’s important that we don’t just set off and start writing and we don’t know what was up. Just words, right? Words without emotions are just tokens.
 We need to have the feeling first.  We need to access feelings first, okay? it’s right from the heart craft, from the head other way around there, jk. Okay? Right from the heart craft from the head. Okay? So, now the reason for this is it’s not as indulgent as you, as it might, you know, we often as writers, we go, oh, yay. You know, I can just, you know,  say whatever I want. No, it’s not say whatever you, what it kind of is.
But it’s, that would imply that, you know, it’s about saying something that means something to you and then saying it in a way that you actually get heard. Â Not, I’m not saying just commercially that comes after that. That’s of course a result of being heard, of connecting. Â But it’s about saying something in acknowledgement of the fact that you want someone to feel you. You want someone to get it. Okay? That’s a different thing from just, well, if you don’t understand it, you know, it does, doesn’t matter, you know, you just don’t get it. No. Let’s start from a place of I am feeling something.
And the reason for me wanting to express it is for it to land  for it to, for it to land with someone.  Okay?  So, your flashes of inspiration, the reason we start in this place, I’m gonna cover this more in a second. I do want to make sure that I push through this. ’cause I hope your penny drop moments are gonna be when you hear others first lines and you go,  I’ve got that in me. If I said about my life, about what’s worrying or concerning, or making me happy, or whatever it is that’s important to you, if you just put that into a first line of a song, it decides so much.
 And the reason that decisions are so important in writing is it closes so many doors, the freedom of limitations.  I did want to say, folks, that this  tonight’s masterclass would benefit hugely from you going back and watching, from seed to song. one of mine, and it, it covers the kind of practicalities of this, putting yourself in a putting yourself in inspirations way.
I’m not gonna cover all that tonight about that initial spark place. It’s about the result of that, a first line, okay? But we do want to go into that place where we find flashes of inspiration. They come from your unique melting pot, Â and then you can trust when your subconscious presents an idea. I was, you know, so, excited and I suppose initially surprised and then not surprised to hear Quincy Jones talk in his new book, which I highly recommend.
In Audible version, or in, in, in hardback. it’s called 12 Notes. and it’s Quincy’s, who’s 93 now. a lifetime of knowledge in the music, in music creation of all kinds. hugely successful, of course, but most importantly, hugely successful in expressing himself. Â And in 12 notes, he talks so much about similar stuff.
And, and as I said, I was so initially surprised that so much similar. Of course, it’s not ’cause we’re not, it’s not really, it’s quincy’s observations as to where it comes from. And these are just my observations of where they come from. So, of course, they’re similar. Of course they are. It’s about sticking to this and, and accepting this as the process, rather than trying way too many different places that are vacuous and hollow. Â So trust, when subconscious presents an idea, Â it gives you the confidence of authenticity and not the pressure of originality.
 That’s important when you come from a true place that’s authentic. It doesn’t need to necessarily mean it’s you’re reinventing the wheel. That can be a burden that puts us in a place of not creating. Okay? Don’t worry about that. Just originality is you, you are their unique and original part of it. So it gives you, when you trust your subconscious ideas, it gives you the confidence of authenticity, not the pressure of originality.  So I’m gonna fly through this, but essentially that feeling of, this is the science I promised to cover this way back when in, in, seed to song when I was talking about that shower moment that kind of like when you’re la la la la and you get an idea and you go every time I hear you, and then you, a line comes to you, or a beat comes to your, a baseline comes to you  that Dr.
Seeming dream state, Â we all call it this for a reason. It’s alpha and base of brain brainwaves.
So there’s real science behind this, and I wanted to explain it so that you trust putting yourself in this place. Quincy talks all about this in one of the sections of his book. And it’s exactly, what I’ve explained in different terms about putting yourself in that state. Okay? Essentially, I’m not gonna read all through that. But alpha waves are when you feel relaxed, that kinda shower song moment driving, and then you bang an idea comes to, you’re staring out of a window on a train. I used to intentionally get intercity trains to just, hope that ideas would come to me, okay?
Or knowing, not hoping, knowing that ideas would come to me, and forgetting about it and just, you know, watching the landscape whiz by. And then  out would come something not about the landscape, not, you know, not necessarily about that, just about something that was important to me, a person. And then I’d be talking to that person. I’d be saying something that I really meant.  So that’s alpha, that’s when we were relaxed. we’re in an idle state without really concentrating on anything.
And that’s when we get these ideas. So that’s where we want to, to access particularly this is why it’s not just about,  you know, sort of  backing down the hatches and getting that first line. ’cause it’s going to provide so much. It’s about, this is why I say first lines, the power of the first line and what and why it says so much. It provides us with so much for the rest of the song. ’cause it’s decided so much for us. and that rules out so much, which is what we’re looking for always when,  you know, confronted with infinite options.
We want to narrow that down. And there’s no better way to narrow it down than not having had to think about it. Just to feel what you want to create and make that, beta waves, are, it’s nice to know that they’re actually different frequencies, isn’t it? They’re actually different waves. They are different shape, you know, frequencies of wave in the brain and they’re what occur when we are most conscious waking states tasks. So essentially, it’s kind of right when in alpha waves, you know, craft wedding beta waves, that’s really it.
You know, I say it in a different way, but it’s alpha and beta, okay? We, we need to get into this beta state to kinda get stuff done. Â But creativity so often comes from that place. That’s why I’m really not good in, in sessions where there’s, it’s when it’s uncomfortable, and I’m in an anxious state, I’m closed down, I can’t access that place. I mean, that feels relaxed and flowing. So my ideas are all coming from up here, and they’re not good.
They’re emotion free, they’re brain led and heart free. And therefore, I get caught like a rabbit in the headlights. Â I go into those situations with ideas where I already know I created them from a place of that creative purity in alpha, in that kind of shower moment, in that kind of, I went for a walk, I got on a train, just so that I know the, the, the idea head wings straight away. That’s the important thing for me. Â So, and we access alpha by relaxing.
We really, it’s, it’s, you know, we sharpen our pencils and we get our, our guitars and we get our piano and everything. Actually just allowing yourself to sit and stare out the window, your ideas are going to define everything that follows.  It is the greatest pre-production, pre-writing plan that you can have  is to let go,  let go, relax,  daydream, put yourself in an alpha state and watch what happens. Watch what comes to ……
