Tag: perseverance

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When I was 17 I had a dream of how my songwriting career would pan out… I would live in London in a tiny bedsit, just me and my piano and spend my days writing beautiful songs whilst trying not to starve to death from crap pay and late night gigs. My days would be spent thinking up new ways to be bohemian, playing my Carpenters vinyl and reading trendy paperbacks. To some extent my student days were like this: I lived in a damp house with 3 friends and piano, I drank Cinzano and Jack Daniels (not together in the same glass, that would just be weird), listened to Sarah McLachlan and Sophie B Hawkins (showing my age now!) and bought clothes from Camden market.

However my life 20 years on is very different. I’m married with two children and although I lived in London for 11 years, I now live in the Home Counties in a sensible house that hasn’t seen any bohemian, artistic deaths. My songwriting techniques have changed over the years and I’ve learned to adapt as my situation changes particularly with motherhood and the demands of running a business. Nothing ever prepares you for these changes but here are the things that I have found interrupt my songwriting…

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  • At the crucial lyric or harmony development stage, my 2 year old will always fill his nappy with something disgusting and demand a nappy change. Not only does it disrupt my creative flow, it completely and utterly kills the mood…
  • I stuff myself with food. Yep I write 8 bars and then immediately think that I deserve some sort of treat for 15 minutes of concentration. Hello treadmill!
  • Suddenly everyone wants to visit. My doorbell only ever rings when I’m working, yet no-one ever shows up when I’m watching TV or cleaning the sink.
  • The smell of burning food. I can’t tell you how many dinners I’ve ruined by “just having a few minutes on the piano” while its cooking. I always get into the song, forget the dinner and serve up something cremated with a side of “would you like to hear my new song?”. My family aren’t impressed.
  • My children join in… There’s nothing more distracting than my 7 year old daughter singing one of my songs in face or my 2 year old son banging the piano and pushing me out the way so he can have a go.
  • The piano is too messy. I can’t deal with untidiness in the area I want to be creative in. If it’s not tidy then I’m not writing. I’ve spent many hours procrastinating under the guise that  “I can’t possibly write unless the ambience is right!”.
  • I’ll just check Facebook, Twitter, my emails. LISTEN UP HELEN: NO-ONE EVER WROTE A SONG BY READING FACEBOOK.
  • I get lonely.
  • The spreadsheet of doom… or otherwise known as “The album song list”. This can either cripple or energise my composing. It’s either “Ooooh I’ve written 8 decent songs that could go on the album, let’s write a hit!” or “Great. 8 crap songs, let’s see if I can completely kill the album”.

And then there are all the other things: accounts, emails, promotion and of course writing blogs! So I’m off to write a song…

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It will take as long as it takes…

Last year I embarked on writing the new album; an exciting new adventure filled with lots of creativity. Or so I thought… Don’t get me wrong, I LOVE songwriting and creating new music. However, I couldn’t find my joy with it. Years of having to write to a deadline whilst under the pressure of teaching, running a business and holding a family together were beginning to catch up with me. Previously I had felt that the quality of the music I was producing wasn’t up to standard and that I hadn’t got sufficient time to think and prepare the material.

11666043_10153166177393863_2720499530418960870_nI was also becoming entangled in the machine… Constant promotion, constant reinvention, constant campaigns were getting in the way of writing and in 2013 when I went on maternity leave I made a vow that things would be different when I returned to work nine months later. I’m not decrying that these elements aren’t important, but they were beginning to supersede what I was meant to be doing. The pressure to continually produce something new was becoming immense, and in my mind this way of working doesn’t always mean quality. I’m not driven my money (if I was I wouldn’t be making music!), I’m driven by artistry and the desire to create, and represent life as I see it through music. With everything that was going on, I didn’t feel that I had done my best. Something had to give.

The journey of artistry and creativity over a lifetime is varied. Sometimes the path of creativity is exciting and sometimes it is downright boring, other times it is full of joy and then it can be excruciating. It’s messy, outrageous, quiet, dormant, unrelenting and possessive all in one go. It changes all the time, it’s never the same. For me, the only thing that stays constant is the goal to produce something of beauty that helps others.

The upshot of taking my time is that I am finally writing the songs I’ve always wanted to! I’ve got time to go deeper into the subjects that intrigue me and compose in the styles that aren’t necessarily commercial but suit the topics on my heart. I have a group of trusted colleagues that listen to my work during the writing process and give me feedback, so far their reaction has been great and they are loving the new direction that things are moving in, which means the world!

So please excuse me while I take my time, lie in a field, staring at the sky and be excessively artistic for the next few months. This will mean many trips to Starbucks while I ponder on the issues of the day and will lead to huge piles of manuscript paper being left all over my house (this really winds my family up!). I like doing my best; I want to do my best, so the new album is going to take as long as it takes… Hhhmmm that sounds like a good album title!

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Never, Never, Never Give Up…

Winston Churchill was right, never, never, never give up! The last few years have been a tough ride musically and I have wondered whether I should actually stay in music. I know that may come as a surprise to some of you as I’m not someone who publicly moans or talks about what’s going on behind the scenes. But finding work has been hard. It actually been difficult for about eight years since the recession started; my husband’s four redundancies in five years did not ease the problem either! I’ve put up with people telling me that my songs are irrelevant, that no-one wants to hear “a bird with a piano” and that singers like me are “two a-penny” and therefore I should work and perform for free. On top of that for every project that is successful, I have approximately four projects that fail. I don’t usually talk about that, but believe it or not everything works out with a fairytale ending. A lot of projects do just go “tits up” taking a large amount of money with them.

Fortunately I’ve had some solidarity from other music colleagues who have had exactly the same problem and we’ve kept each other going. At this point I would publicly like to thank a number of people who have listened to me whinge! Thanks to Nikki, Rachel, and Anya! LOVE YOU GUYS!

What people haven’t realised though is that I’m a feisty old bird and NOTHING keeps me down! If anything it only makes me more determined and drives me to keep going. The thought of leaving music behind killed me and especially as it I feel that it is something that God called me to; I left a very nice, secure career in HR fourteen years ago to do this full time. So I made a decision: the decision is that I’m never, never, never going to give up! As fans, your job is to hold me to that statement…

So what have I been doing over the last few months? I know many of you have been keen to hear news about new music… Well I can confirm that I have been writing a new album! It’s been lovely to have space to return to my first love: songwriting. The last EP (Sirens and Other Mysteries) was written in a bit of a rush, so I wanted to take my time with the next project and I’m currently still writing. It may take forever – Sorry!

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Earlier this week I headed down to Resound Media’s new studio in Gloucestershire to record a new single “Close That Door”that will be released later this year. Andy Baker is producing again and we had a great time working on the track. I can’t wait for you to hear it! I also got to a have cup of tea with the gorgeous Penny Lyon from Out of the Ashes afterwards – so that was a bonus!

So if you’re on the verge of giving up – DON’T! Keep going and don’t stop. It can only get better – right?!!! So to encourage you, here’s a photo of me recording me new single; it’s the stuff that dreams are made of…

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I often get asked about the stories behind the songs I write. Some of the songs are about my personal experience or based on the experience of others. I’m a real “people watcher” and I like to observe people about their everyday lives and that’s why you’ll see me in cafes a lot! This particular blog is a story that concerns my own experiences. Last year was a rough year for my husband and I; he was made redundant for the fourth time in five years and I had a miscarriage at the same time as this. It seemed like everything was going wrong, our finances and home were under threat again and the second baby we had longed for was gone. It all felt out of our control. A few weeks after the miscarriage, I went up to see my producer Andy Baker at Resound Media to discuss and look at new songs for an EP. We looked through the collection I had written and found five that worked really well together but we needed a sixth and nothing else from my collection seemed to fit. Andy suggested that we write something new together and he was aware of the situation that me and my husband we’re in. He asked me if I could describe the way I was feeling in one sentence, to which I replied “if that’s the way that it has to be” and so a song was born. One of things that I’ve learned over the years is that all experiences work for our good if we allow ourselves to learn from them or except that something might not be for us. I was very with angry with God over what had happened but resigned myself to the fact that he might have better plans than mine and although I didn’t know what they might be yet I still had to trust him. And this is reflected in the song lyrics “you see far beyond where I stand, and how it all fits in your plan”. I can’t say it was an easy song to write and poor Andy had to sit with me crying through most of our session! But it has yielded a song of my own experience that may be able to help others. I’m happy to report that I’m now twenty six weeks pregnant with another baby and that my husband has sorted out his job situation. It’s been a long road and has not been easy and there are still days when I worry that it’s going to happen all again, but that’s the challenge of faith, taking things one day at a time. You can hear the song “If That’s The Way” here…

 

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I was very moved by the story of the musicians who continued to play for the passengers whilst the Titanic sank. Part of me wonders what motivated them to do such a thing?  Was it bravery, dedication, a sense of a deeper calling or that they were just facing the inevitable and trying to provide a few moments of pleasure before facing death? Makes me wonder what I would do if faced with certain death: would I hold true to what I believed and my calling? The Titanic Musicians were obviously very sure that their duty was to play beautiful music – not just a job but a way of life. Music was intrinsic to their being.

For many of us doing the job or vocation that makes us happy is already a way of life. But for some of us we are not sure what our calling is yet. In popular culture it is presumed that we must have everything sown up career-wise before we are thirty. But life isn’t like that and God isn’t bound by time, He does things when he is ready and in His time. Winston Churchill is famously quoted for saying that he felt his “moment” was taking on the role of Prime Minister during the Second World War; he was in his mid 60s at the that point. He’d waited most of his life for his seminal moment of vocation.

So what is a “calling”? For Christians, this means a task or job that they feel God is asking them to do. It could even include looking after a certain people group or making a difference in some way in their local community. Some callings are big, such as being called to move to a different country, or to work with a people group that can put your life in danger. Other callings can be small such as looking out for your neighbour or looking after a sick friend. I think it would be fair to say that all callings can be life changing if you do them willingly. The benefits of helping someone can be life changing to both you and them. There are plenty of non-Christians that feel that they are called to a particular job and this is often known as a vocation.

So how can you find out what your “calling” is? If you believe in God, ask Him, He knows far better than us what our gifts, talents and purposes are. Write a list of what you think your gifts and talents are, also add activities or jobs that make you happy and that you enjoy doing. You should begin to see where your gifting and calling lies. A calling isn’t always a paid job either. It can be something that runs alongside your current career or post; something to look forward to after work.

Some people also assume that a calling is easy and will present no problems. Unfortunately life isn’t like that and people often find that the greater the calling, the greater the challenge that faces them. This shouldn’t deter us from acting though, if you face problems in doing your calling, keep going! You’ll grow through facing the challenges and gain greater wisdom and experience.

There are some callings that we don’t know we have until the moment arises. This is certainly true for the musicians on the Titanic. It may be that today you will help someone in some way without knowing it. A kind word or action that was spontaneous and unexpected could really move someone. I met someone recently who said that they felt the musicians’ gesture on the Titanic was an act of defeat and admittance that nature was going to win. An interesting thought but I see their act more of defiance in the face of adversity and also a magnanimous gift to relieve the last minutes of fear and sorrow for those who were about to drown. So ask yourself: what you can do for others today to unlock your calling. It doesn’t need to a big gesture; you can start small and see your gifting grow from there.