The holidays in the rear view, the statistically-speaking saddest week of the year is behind me, and yes; even the contingent of people who made New Years’ resolutions to go to the gym and stare at their phones while obstructing equipment have started to thin-out as the temperatures get colder here in Alberta’s capital city. You may not be experiencing that 3rd event just yet, but it’s fair to say there weren’t that many people who resolved to go to the gym in the early morning hours as there were who resolved to go after work.
I’ve been feeling like it’s time to refine things a bit – to add structure.
Lofty goals require lofty means.
I’m currently on the treadmill between 45 and 60 minutes 3 days a week, on a stationary bike for 30 minutes 3 days a week, and lifting weights 2 days a week (“a push day” and a “pull day”) and before you tell me that’s 8 days per week, a workout is 2 hours.
For those who care, the new target is 45-60 minutes of cardio, and 2 sets (to failure) of 5 exercises, 5 days a week.
I’m also compelled to refine my art life. Specifically songwriting.
One of the things I like to do while I’m on the treadmill is listen to an album front-to-back that I am either (a) no very familiar with, or (b) a total stranger to… and in so doing, I’ve learned that not all music is treadmill music… but I’ve ALSO come to critique and scrutinize my own methods of making songs by way of hearing elements of songs that make me think “I wish I was doing that!”
Now, I don’t wish to change what I’m doing from the ground up, but there are elements of songs that I’ve come across from the twangiest bluegrass, to the durgiest synth music, to the heaviest metal that can sometimes be the difference between a good song and a great song – in any genre. I don’t want to spill the guts any more than that, other than to say that the greatest bands take on a life of their own at a certain point, and they become bigger and better than the sum of their parts.
I believe my band has already don this, but there are still ways to hone and shape what we’re doing to take it somewhere new… because another thing that great bands do is transcend their own genres… because a genre is just a box, and once you figure out how to break out of that box without compromising your own values, that’s when it gets really wild.
That’s where I’m going.
The Conscious Pilgrim 