I’ve just signed up for yet another songwriting challenge called the RPM Challenge. This time you write and record an album (defined as a minimum of 10 songs) during the month of February.

I know some people that for some reason find these concepts as anti-inspirational but personally, I use these songwriting challenges as a great way to just immerse myself into the spirit of unbridled creativity.

It’s a great way to stand up to your inner critic and besides, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with writing songs just for the sake of writing them.

If you’re interested in checking out some more info regarding the RPM Challenge, just go to www.rpmchallenge.com, have a look for yourself and perhaps sign up and have a go. What have you got to lose?

I know I will be tackling it and I’ll keep you all posted with my progress.

Peace,

Corey

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“You can’t wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club.” — Jack London

Man, we’re at the end of January already… Where did it go?

I don’t know where it went but I do know that the beginning of February is also the beginning of FAWM which stands for February Album Writing Month.

I’ll cleaning up my creative space, contacting all of my collaborators and sharpening my pencil for this one.

I know I’ve mentioned FAWM (and my lack of success in it) before in the past but for those of you that don’t know FAWM is a songwriting event that challenges the participant to write 14 songs in the 28 days of February.

However, seeing that 2012 is a leap year the challenge is now to write 14.5 songs in 29 days. The other 0.5 being an extra collaboration with someone new.

Here is some more information about FAWM taken from www.fawm.org

“The FAWM challenge is simple: 14½ songs in 29 days. Why?

If it is inspiration you are after, then FAWM is your club. Each February, this website forges a collaborative community of thousands of musicians worldwide, from all walks and skill levels.

We take on the challenge of writing an album’s worth of new music in the shortest month of the year.”

Interested? Then go to www.fawm.org and join up, immerse yourself into the community and enjoy the ride.

I know I will.

Peace,

Corey

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Make sure you mark these gigs in your diary in BOLD RED PEN.

Wed 01 – Open Mic @ The Dan (8pm – 12am)
Thu 02 – Open Mic @ The Brunswick (8pm – 11pm)
Fri 03 – Daniel O’Connell Hotel (9pm – 12am)
Sun 05 – FIGJAM @ Mick O’Sheas (2pm – 6pm)

For more information please go to my gigs page.

Hope to see you there,

Corey

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Make sure you mark these gigs in your diary in BOLD RED PEN.

Wed 25 – Open Mic @ The Dan (8pm – 12am)
Fri 27 – Hotel Royal (7:30pm – 11pm)
Sun 29 – The Duck Inn (2pm – 6pm)

For more information please go to my gigs page.

Hope to see you there,

Corey

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For a while now I’ve been looking for ways in which I can do something a little different with my cover gigs.

The reason why I want to do this is so I can stand out from the crowd a bit more while at the same time, I’m keeping things fresh for myself and hopefully I create a point of difference between me and all of the other cover musicians out there.

With that in mind I’m going to trial a different approach to my performances.

In the past, what I’ve done is created a setlist of the songs to play before the gig and then deliver a show from that setlist. What I’m wanting to do for this year is develop a comprehensive list of songs that I can play and then allow the audience to request what they want to hear.

It’s “Corey Stewart/FIGJAM By Request” a concept that has been bouncing around in my mind for at least a couple of years now.

I’ve seen this done a few times by other musicians and I thought that it was a fantastic idea. I know a lot of songs and I’m learning more all of the time, I might as well put them all to good use.

The beauty about letting the audience pick the songs I play is that it takes the pressure off of me totally because it becomes the audiences job to program the nights entertainment. I then become an interactive human jukebox and it allows me to get on what I do best.

Which is playing the songs and entertaining the crowd.

Another idea that I want to develop in 2012 is “FIGJAM Live Karaoke.”

Instead of people singing to backing tracks they have the opportunity to sing with a live band which will make the overall singing experience for the punter closer to a real band rather than singing with the radio.

How cool would that be? Let me know what you think.

Both concepts are still in its very early stages of development but as soon as I’m closer to launching them, I’ll let you all know so you can all be part of the interactivity.

Onward and upward…

Peace,

Corey

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I officially ended my holidays by playing my first gig for 2012 at the Hotel Royal last night and you know what… I was enjoying getting back in to the groove after a much needed break.

By the end of it all I was getting to the stage where I was starting to actually miss the gigs again, I realised that it’s amazing how much your perspective changes after taking some time off.

Last nights gig was awesome… The songs sounded better, the voice was in great shape, the guitar played easier, the audiences were more friendly plus, the venue and its staff seemed more accommodating.

One of the key things I did was making a point of incorporating a whole bunch of new songs into the repertoire and they all worked, I was really proud of myself and it made me want to play the songs.

No, I would go so far as saying that it made me want to perform again.

I was looking back on what I did over the last 18 months and I was amazed that I did 253 shows in that time.

Now that’s insane…

No wonder that by the end of last year I felt that I had just about enough with the gigs.

With my new found energy I’ve spent most of the last week learning new covers, re-charting the old covers, playing the guitar, practicing the piano, writing some songs and reconnecting with a whole bunch of people.

All in all I’ve been just getting back into the swing of things again and I’ve been loving it.

This coming week the Open Mics at the Daniel O’Connell Hotel and The Brunswick Hotel start up again which signifies to me that life is just about to get a whole lot busier.

All I can say is “Bring It On…”

Peace,

Corey

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For those of you not familiar with the SongDare concept, it goes a little bit like this:

“You request a song, and I mean any song, no matter how bizarre or beautiful it may be, and if I can play it just by using my voice and an acoustic guitar, I’ll video it and put it up on YouTube and embed the video on this blog.”

Jordan, good things come to those that wait… Enjoy

In Australia, it is said that any brilliant band from New Zealand we adopt as one of our own and Split Enz is one of those bands.

Written by Tim Finn and Eddie Raynor and released in 1977 on their “Dizrythmia” album, “My Mistake” was not one of those songs that I took much notice of until I started to work out how to play it.

The song makes beautiful use of diminished chords however, the main challenge in playing this song was to find a suitable ending as the angular orchestral outro in the original version was just way too difficult to play.

I’m hoping what I’ve done is a good compromise.

Remember, if you have a SongDare that you’d like me to tackle, just contact me and I’ll see what I can do for you

Peace,

Corey

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For my first official day back from the Xmas/New Year break I spent the good part of yesterday compiling a list of covers that I wanted to learn and integrate into my Corey Stewart Solo and FIGJAM Duo/Band song-lists for 2012.

I figured that the time between now and my first gig on January 18th will be best spent sorting out my covers. This has been something that I’ve been trying to do for ages but had never found the time to do.

After a few years of making changes to my covers repertoire in a sporadic and haphazard manner, I thought it was time to put some process into place because at the end of the day, I love learning new songs and I wanted to add new material on a more purposeful and consistent basis.

I love learning new songs because it expands my musical palette and forces me to experience new songs and genres that I’m not used to.

It also enables me to sharpen up my listening skills, hone my music and guitar chord theory knowledge plus it gives me a reason (as if I really needed one in the first place) to pick up my acoustic guitar and just play it.

Most importantly however, the reason why I love learning new songs is that by mucking around with covers, I actually come up with new songwriting ideas of my own.

This happened on four occasions yesterday and these were immediately recorded onto the iPhone for future reference.

It’s amazing what happens when you just go off on a bit of a tangent in the middle of learning something. Songwriting ideas can come from anywhere…

Even from other songs.

Peace,

Corey

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Now with the haze that is the Xmas and New Year’s festivities out of the way, the realisation has hit me that 2012 is finally here. I’m now back in the land of the living which means it’s time to get back to work.

I do feel refreshed after my little break however, I also feel a lot heavier and a lot more sluggish from all of the excesses and over-indulgences of the past 12 days since my last blog post just before Xmas day.

I must do something about that.

The first (and most important) goal that I want to set myself for 2012 is to “Get Healthy.”

But what does that really mean?

Getting my health back to an optimum level is my number one priority for this year as I’ve come to the conclusion (through having a shocking 2011 health-wise) that none of my other goals will become fully realised if my health is not taken care of first and foremost.

I know that “Get Healthy” is a bit of a nebulous statement and nebulous goals of this nature are really easy to break so I want to take this time to define what getting healthy really means to me.

It means…

1. Going Back To The Gym
A couple of months ago I joined the EFM Fitness Centres network and started going to their gym in Brompton two to three times a week.

Things were going well until I started experiencing the side effects of expelling a lot of toxins from my body resulting in some nasty infections which required a severe course of antibiotics which prevented me from going to the gym.

Then came Xmas and New Year…

Even though getting the routine back is going to be difficult I’m more determined to go back to the gym because when I was there I really enjoyed it.

I might even consider getting some personal training once I reclaim some level of fitness.

2. Finding More Ways To Be Active
I have noticed that I spend most of my time sitting down and this needs to change.

While I might not be able to change the sitting down component of my work I can find more reasons to get up from the chair and do something else for a while like go for a walk, use the treadmill, get out in the garden or play some tennis/squash.

The list of things to do is as endless as my imagination.

Experts say that being active for 30 minutes to an hour every day is essential. I’m sure I can find some time to become a more active person in-between gym sessions.

3. Giving Myself Some ‘Me’ Time
Meditation, contemplation, naval gazing, whatever I want to call it I need to give myself the permission to experience it every day.

It seems that my brain runs at a million miles an hour all the time and this year I want to be able to find a way to slow it down so it wont chatter so much. Maybe then I can get some more sleep and perhaps be a better person to be around without being so preoccupied with what’s going on in my own head.

Taking some time out to ‘just be’ is something that frightens me. Even thinking about brings up feelings of guilt because I should be using that time to ‘do something’ hence why I have never read a book cover to cover for pleasure.

Now there’s a great way to start things off…

4. Paying Attention To My Diet
I love my junk food way too much, especially pizza and ice cream… Now there’s my downfall.

I’m addicted to dairy products and I’ve got to do something to control these junk food cravings. I’ve been able to give up smoking so surely I can do something about my diet.

I’m certain that preparing and cooking more food at home plus being more mindful of my food portions will be a really good start.

5. Maintaining A Positive/Optimistic Attitude To Life
It would be impossible to eliminate stress from my life however, changing the way I work with and react to stress is something that I can do something about.

One of the ways I can work with and react to the everyday stresses of life a whole lot better is by maintaining a positive and optimistic attitude towards it.

Thankfully, I’ve always considered myself a “glass-is-half-full” kind of person so I think that maintaining this kind of attitude won’t be too hard but when things get a little too intense I can slip into negative territory pretty quickly.

It’s all about being mindful of my thoughts and my actions and whether they are congruent with my overall attitude.

All in all I’m really excited about what opportunities 2012 can bring to my life, my music and to the hopes and dreams of my friends and loved ones. I know that together we can make this year work for all of us.

May you have a happy and safe 2012.

Peace,

Corey

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Last night I played my final gig for 2011 and with that out of the way I now have three weeks off, the first time I’ve had a gig-free break this long for years and let me tell you… I really need it.

2011 has been a very, very busy year for me. It’s allowed me the opportunity to consolidate on what I’ve already achieved and really cement in my own mind what I’m going to be doing for myself from now on.

Right now I’m excited but then again, I always seem to be excited around this time of year.

As you’ve probably already gathered I have an almost pathological obsession of wiping the slate clean and starting things again but nevertheless, 2012 is a fresh new year with fresh new opportunities to explore and grab with both hands.

I’m going to use the next three weeks to map out my goals plus I’ll be preparing and implementing my CD release strategy for 2012 and beyond. Launching my CD and marketing it is the main thing that I’ll be concentrating on in the new year.

You might have already noticed that I’ve redesigned the website which is the first step in creating a more consistent marketing message for me and my music. I’m really proud of the new look and functionality of it all and the comments I’ve been getting have been very encouraging.

Finally, I want to wish everyone a wonderful festive season (no matter how you celebrate it) and a fantastic New Year and a huge THANK YOU to anyone who has turned up at a gig, put in their two cents, bought me a drink and crossed paths with me on my journey through 2011.

I hope that 2012 gives you everything that you want it to (and a whole lot more).

See you all on the flipside…

Peace,

Corey

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