The Joys Of Collaboration

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By the end of 2009 I found myself in a real bind creatively. There were no completed songs on the horizon but lots and lots of songwriting ideas archived away on paper or recorded as MP3′s somewhere on my computer. As a way to inject new perspectives into my songwriting process I said to myself that this year I’d start collaborating more with others and see how it transpires.

I made this pledge to myself because I have experienced first hand the joys of collaboration.

I’ve written songs with other artists in the past with some really good results but the collaborator contact has been too intermittent for my liking, either I’ve been too busy to keep up the writing relationship or, the other party had something get in the way.

That’s okay, that’s life but now that I have my home recording setup ready to go my desire to write songs with others has been re-ignited and my first collaborator (more like a test subject) in this new phase of my songwriting process is my good friend Adrian Miller.

I’ve known Adrian for a while now and always admired his lyrics and his very broad musical tastes. As musical ideas come to me more than lyrical ones I thought that collaborating with Adrian would be able to address my lack of lyrical inspiration.

It has and much more. We’ve written three songs so far and look I forward to penning even more. I’ll be putting them on the site very, very soon

I enjoy the backwards and forwards bouncing of musical and lyrical ideas and the conversations that evolve from that. For me, collaboration actually forces me to think about (and analyse at times), my songwriting process because no two songwriting styles are truly the same and the inevitable comparisons of each others songwriting styles makes for fascinating insights.

Creativity is a fickle beast sometimes and having a little help from your friends can achieve great results.

Peace,

Corey