Brain Dump

Have you ever had a brain dump?
Just sit down and type the first thing that pops into your head. It doesn’t matter if it will sound good when you read it again or not. This is something you can do for yourself. I find that it makes me feel better about something, just to get it out there.

So sit down and write the words that come not from your mind, but from your soul.
Don’t think about what words are going to sound good or make sense next. Just write.

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Here, I’ll show you what I mean. This is tonight’s brain dump, no later editing:

The best songs tend to have lyrics that seem to just flow off of the tongue, like honey, as it flows from the tree of life into the minds of the young and reckless. The rhythms spin tapestries of grand design around your heart, and exhume your thoughts. They caress your emotions in a bundle of sounds that carry you through the rocky waves that is our journey to the Kingdom in the Sky. And after all the words have fallen from your lips and stopped ringing in the cavern of your heart, you realize that that is what true songwriting is made of.

Lyrics should spin the fibers in your head, should make you stop and evaluate what you are doing right now at that very moment. Let your mind wander to the river that is free-spirited music. Don’t listen for the dissonance, but listen for what is being conveyed. Hear the organized chaos. Art is not creation, merely management. The composer heard a story in notes and arranged them into a form you can understand, into a form you can connect with. Listen with both ears open to the sound, and your heart open to the meaning.

Can you hear it?

Like a gentle rain in the night, the melodies of composers past float about the airwaves, searching for wanderers with open hearts they can worm their way into. Music has not changed — how we convey it has. We think it changes because we have a need for something different, a need to innovate. But the meaning behind music, and the reason for it is all the same. See, there are thousands and thousands of musicians out there, and if you want to stand out, it will take more than a soap box. It will take something so crazy that people will have to listen. No, I’m not talking about dancing in your underwear, or wearing tight pants. The realms of sound are full of endless possibilities. We can write different music if we only really, truly, step outside the box. And to do that, we have to first understand what is inside of the box.

Start at square one, home base, the top. If you want different, then you have to go searching for it with a bat and gun, because your prey isn’t going to just run up to you with it’s tongue hanging out. It will take knowing true self-worth, and having a genuine interest in sharing with others what you see and hear in the world around you.

-=x=-x-=x=-

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Now, I challenge you, tonight, when you finally sit down to relax or go to bed, to do a brain dump. I think that it feels very… Liberating? That sounds cheesy, but it’s true. Try it.

Eyes on the Prize

I know I am not the greatest writer.

I re-read what I’m about to post at least twenty times, just to make sure that it at least makes sense. Then I try to re-work some words, to avoid saying the same thing too many times. I start sentences with “but” and “and” because I think it’s an effective writing technic (to an extent). I only take my first college english course next quarter, and this blog is the most writing I’ve done since senior year of high school.

But just because I’m not the most confident in my writing, doesn’t mean I shouldn’t try.

I think we’ve all done this. It’s part of growing up. We start something with good intentions, but aren’t satisfied with the end product after doing it once or twice. So we give up.

Although there are some things that are understandable to give up on, we should be able to recognize the things we shouldn’t give up. There are things we sometimes want to stop trying to do, but we can’t give up – not because it might be something you need – but because it’s something someone else might need.

Something else I’ve been doing for Lent besides this blog is sending out a text at 6:00 in the morning. I’ve been sending a Bible verse with some questions to go with it to the kids from my youth group. My first class is at 9:10 in the morning. The earliest I had been getting up was maybe 8:00. It’s a bit of a struggle to get myself up for 6:00. It would be so easy to just shut off my alarm and go back to sleep.

But on Thursday night, I received a text from one of the kids from youth group. It was a simple message, something like:

“Hi Graham, I just wanted to thank you for what you’ve been doing for Lent. It’s really changed my past two days.”

IT’S ALREADY WORTH IT. Two days in, and I know that I’m doing something right. It would be so unbelievably easy to not care, and to just go back to sleep when my alarm goes off.

Something similar happened a few months ago, and it’s the reason why I play music. My good friend Sara and I play Christian songs at the end of youth group on Sunday nights. I usually play cello, she plays guitar, and other leaders sing with us, too. The way that specific evening had been planned, though, was that Sara and I had basically half an hour to play music. At the end of the night, a student came up to us and told us that one of the songs we played made her tear up.

That is the ultimate compliment you can give a musician. Knowing that you have the ability to make someone feel like that is crazy and amazing and beautiful.

That is why we can’t give up on things. Especially the things we love – or loved, at one point. Because what you do, can and will, make a difference in someone else’s life.

That is why I write right now. That is why I practice cello, even when I feel like it’s impossible to catch up to the next best player. That is why I help with LifeTeen on Sunday nights.

So on those days you find yourself struggling to keep up, whether it’s with school, with work, or whatever – don’t give up! It’ll be well worth it in the end.