Keeping a Working Journal. Thoughts?

Subject: Keeping a Working Journal. Thoughts?
From: Peter T.
Date: 16 Mar 02 - 06:49 PM

I was wondering how many of the musicians, etc., here keep some kind of a journal or diary, of their gigs, or their musical life, or thoughts or ideas. The original idea of the journal (in the West at any rate) was so that religious people could begin to trace the patterns of God's working in their daily lives (17th century), but of course diaries and journals are now kept for all kinds of reasons. I am specifically asking about working journals, how people keep them, and any tips or thoughts people may have about the role they may have played in their musical lives.

I began to keep one when I began learning the guitar, and it has been immeasurable helpful.
yours, Peter T.

Subject: RE: Keeping a Working Journal. Thoughts?
From: Jeri
Date: 17 Mar 02 - 10:17 AM

Before I ever thought I'd be a musician, I made an attempt to keep a journal. I was consistant for about a week, and sporadic for maybe a month. Unfortunately, keeping a journal requires an attention span. I'm not very good at long-term projects, and a journal is certainly long-term.

If I could manage it, it WOULD be a good idea. I have no way of measuring progress I'm making with the guitar, and my memory is poor when it comes to remembering specific things I've learned in a certain period of time. It sometimes feels like I haven't accomplished anything when I know I must have.

Subject: RE: Keeping a Working Journal. Thoughts?
From: Clinton Hammond
Date: 17 Mar 02 - 10:22 AM

Isn't that what the Mudcat is for?

LOL!!!!

Subject: RE: Keeping a Working Journal. Thoughts?
From: Mr Red
Date: 17 Mar 02 - 10:30 AM

my book of my own songs are a journal of the most prolific episode of my life.
I wouldn't keep a diary normally.
I did record my dreams for a while but found it was consuming 2 hours a day of my life, for little reward. It did predict my divorce but for all the analysis I didn't read that in the dream!
I would have to ask myself "what benefit?" before I could embark on such a routine.
migraine is one such reason, but it would be a dietry/stress record - boring!

Subject: RE: Keeping a Working Journal. Thoughts?
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 17 Mar 02 - 01:46 PM

I think every time my wife has a gig, she makes up a set list on the computer and emails it to her music partner. If there is any disagreement, there may be an exchange of emails. I think she has kept a whole slew of these from past gigs. The only thing I know she has ever used them for is to remind her of songs or tunes that they haven't performed for a long time, that they should revive. Apparently she doesn't have a master list of all the songs and tunes she knows, or has ever known; the closest thing to it is the set of old set lists. I think they all have dates and names of venues, so they make up a kind of diary. I don't know how complete they are, though, or whether they will ever be used for any other purpose.

Subject: RE: Keeping a Working Journal. Thoughts?
From: katlaughing
Date: 17 Mar 02 - 02:40 PM

My brother has always kept one for his classical compositions. He notes where and when each few pages were written and also makes note of any current events, both personal and global, although he does not include that for every section. He has kept a journal since he was a young boy and those include much of his musical endeavours, including piano and theory and composition lessons, as well as performances.

Not musical, but when I first started working with computers, an old Radio Shack TRS-80(!), I had a journal for tracking what I did, so that I could duplicate it! I continued to do so until we bought our first PC in 1997(?).

I was going to say what Clinton did, at first, as your Thoughts for the Day, Peter, seem to be a great journal. I've copied all of what I consider to be my best ones and am making up a small booklet of them.

kat

Subject: RE: Keeping a Working Journal. Thoughts?
From: 53
Date: 17 Mar 02 - 10:25 PM

I have a record of every gig that I have ever played. It is great to look back on and remember things that you would of forgot if you hadnt of wrote them down.

Subject: RE: Keeping a Working Journal. Thoughts?
From: GUEST,SlickerBill
Date: 18 Mar 02 - 12:45 AM

I keep journals mainly as a place to write my songs; plenty of parts of songs though, ideas for songs, phrases, etc. When I started writing I was just finding I'd write on a bit of paper and soon it's just a mess, and of course you can't find anything specific when you want to. So it was just a way of getting organized. gradually it has turned into a journal; when I'm pissed off or something, or have an idea, or revelation, it's a place to go. I still find I write on napkins, etc., but if it's a keeper, I glue it in. What's neat is, after a few years, to go back through and try to play through some stuff, say during a dry spell. some of it is such crap, but you also find some nice surprizes. Not that it's a daily regimen or anything, but I don't think I could do without one now. SB

Subject: RE: Keeping a Working Journal. Thoughts?
From: GUEST
Date: 18 Mar 02 - 09:21 AM

I've kept a record of every gig I've played since 1964, places, fees, audience size. It's now history and shows the rise and fall of the folk club both in terms of time and geography, and the rise of arts centres and village halls as gig venues.I wish I'd kept a full diary. I have a few years fukly documented but not as many as I should.Sometimes your so busy living it you can't appreciate its full significance. What I have kept for years is a commonplace book,that's a book in which I write down quotes or passages from my reading that ring bells for me. It helps me sometimes to sit down and read these extracts about music, creativity, etc. It relieves the isolation to know so many others throughout history have walked the same road with the same problems, pitfalls and rewards.

Subject: RE: Keeping a Working Journal. Thoughts?
From: greg stephens
Date: 18 Mar 02 - 09:35 AM

GUEST with a record of every gig: dont lose them, youve got a priceless historical document.The 19th century Lake District fiddler William Irwin kept similar records in a notebook of gig details including whether people paid forthe whole evening or by the dance etc etc. Information like this is just wonderful to find.I've been contemplating writing an article on this sort of topic(working musicians life over the centuries sort of thing).I'd be very interestd in corresponding..if you(GUEST) are a signed out member, would you consider resetting your cookie and sending me a PM?

Subject: RE: Keeping a Working Journal. Thoughts?
From: GUEST,MC Fat
Date: 18 Mar 02 - 10:00 AM

I played once as a floor singer at the Sun Inn in Stockton. The club is run by Ron Angel who wrote some classics like 'Ring of Iron'. I noticed that Ron was writing most of the evening in a notebook. My first thought was that he was song writing but I asked someone there and they told me he was writing a record of who playe and what they were playing and has done so for all the years the club has been running. I thought what a great social record these diaries must be.

Subject: RE: Keeping a Working Journal. Thoughts?
From: KingBrilliant
Date: 18 Mar 02 - 10:28 AM

I have a pathological fear of over-repeating myself, so I have started to keep a diary of what I have sung at which sessions. Its amazing how the number of songs mounts up.
Also - there are a bunch of us that go together to a particular session, and for some reason I started a tradition of emailed reviews the following day. Unfortunately, it is difficult to think of new nice things to say each fortnight - so we are now rotating the duty. I don't think the reviews have much value as a record of our own performances because honesty is not always the best policy! But its fun to exchange our overall impressions of the evenings.

Kris

Subject: RE: Keeping a Working Journal. Thoughts?
From: Rick Fielding
Date: 18 Mar 02 - 11:06 AM

Wouldn't be without it. It doesn't worry me a bit if I DO repeat things, 'cause that in itself is an interesting bit of info.

I started keeping a journal several years ago STRICTLY for my thoughts and impressions on teaching music to folks. For the last three or four years though, Mudcat is the ultimate journal...only difference is that unlike Pepys or Haydon, people don't have to wait til we're dead to see how nuts we are!

Rick

Subject: RE: Keeping a Working Journal. Thoughts?
From: Mary in Kentucky
Date: 18 Mar 02 - 11:21 AM

There was another good thread on this topic here, started almost two years ago by none other than Peter T. in which I said "all I got to say 'bout that."

Subject: RE: Keeping a Working Journal. Thoughts?
From: Don Firth
Date: 18 Mar 02 - 02:18 PM

Do keep a journal or diary!

My situation may be unique, but then again, maybe not. I hope I'm not the only one who's trying to document this kind of thing. I've been making attempts at writing fiction all my life (rarely actually finishing anything). A few years ago, when asked by an eighteen-year-old, "Who is Joan Baez?" It occurred to me that if there are fledgling folkies out there who don't even know who Joan Baez is, then my bid for immortality in the Fifties and Sixties will certainly not be remembered! There were a lot of great things going on in and around the Seattle area back then. I had a lot of fascinating experiences and adventures as a singer of folk songs, and I met a lot of people—nationally known singers passing through, and many other singers who, like me, were well-known locally, but not nationally and who had never got around to making any recordings. There was a massive amount of activity going on around here, but according to the Folksinger's Map of the World on page 124 of Eric von Schmidt and Jim Rooney's Baby, Let Me Follow You Down, Seattle doesn't even exist! Unless this time and these people were to be totally forgotten, somebody had better get off his tail and write it up! I didn't see any signs of anyone else doing it, and since I felt strongly about it, I figured the task fell to me.

Since I am retired from my "day job," for the past several years I've been plugging away at it, and it's coming along. At the rate I can whip out fairly readable wordage, I should have been able to do the deed in about six months to a year. But I've been at it, off and on, for almost ten years! The biggest delay factor and the most time-consuming task is fact-checking. My memory is pretty good, but the main problem with fact-checking is chronology. "I know that happened in August, but was that 1960 or 1961?" This often involves trying to get in touch with people who were there at the time and whose memory, I hope, is more tenacious than my own.

Had I kept a journal—or even a diary with brief entries of a line or two about what I'd done and who I'd met that week—the book could have been finished long ago. Fortunately, I did keep (i.e., I never got around to throwing away) some odds and ends like old check registers, some letters, a few notebooks, and a lot of other flotsam and jetsam to be found in the bottom desk drawers of the chronically untidy. And I have a fairly good list of phone numbers and e-mail addresses of people with whom I can check things.

The point of this spasm? Two points, actually:— 1. Keep a journal or diary. It doesn't have to be a massive literary effort (although that's good too), just a "keeper notebook" where you write down a few lines about your activities and events of the day or week. When you browse through it in years to come, you'll be very glad you did, just on the grounds of nostalgia alone. And if you do decide to write something, it will be invaluable! And 2. Do write something! Where were you in the Fifties? Were you there in the Fifties? The Sixties? Where were you, and what was going on? Who else was there? Or, are you just starting out and meeting other singers? What's going on locally? Who's singing where? What are you doing? What are your thoughts an feelings about all this?

You don't have to be another Hemingway or Fitzgerald. Just write it as if you were writing a letter or and e-mail to a friend. But even if you don't want to write anything for posterity, keep the journal anyway. Sometime in the far future, you may get a call from a geezer like me who asks you, "I know that happened in August, but was that 2004 or 2005?"

Don Firth

Subject: RE: Keeping a Working Journal. Thoughts?
From: VoxFox
Date: 18 Mar 02 - 03:06 PM

I don't keep a journal but I have kept all my calendars with gig info and other things like doctor appontments etc. since about 1974. I wish I had started earlier when I first started out in 1970 but I was a teenager and memorabilia was the last thing I was concerned about. Sure am sorry now. I drag them out every once in a while and just drift away for a while. Thanks for this thread.VF

Subject: RE: Keeping a Working Journal. Thoughts?
From: Peter T.
Date: 18 Mar 02 - 05:39 PM

Continuing thanks -- I am certain that Mudcat is an amazing journal. One virtue I have found in keeping a journal is that I am a lot smarter than I used to be, and I have real evidence to prove it. I can only hope that I can say the same in 10 years.

yours, Peter T.

Subject: RE: Keeping a Working Journal. Thoughts?
From: greg stephens
Date: 18 Mar 02 - 05:47 PM

Peter T what evidence have you found to prove that you're smarter than you used to be? I like to think that but i can't figure out how to prove it. Give us some hints.

Subject: RE: Keeping a Working Journal. Thoughts?
From: GUEST,Les B.
Date: 18 Mar 02 - 06:21 PM

Good idea, think I'll try it. Let me know what songs/tunes were learned when, etc.

About 25 years ago I took a job overseas, and as part of that experience kept a journal at work. I jotted down briefly the key happenings of each day. It really came in handy when some bitter wrangling ensued between staff and management. I was able to pinpoint times and places, and quote specific behaviours that upheld my side of the story. Those happenings would have disappeared into the ozone without a journal.

Subject: RE: Keeping a Working Journal. Thoughts?
From: 53
Date: 18 Mar 02 - 07:05 PM

Like I posted earlier, when you keep a journal it helps you go through memory lane a little easier.

Subject: RE: Keeping a Working Journal. Thoughts?
From: Peter T.
Date: 18 Mar 02 - 07:36 PM

I am much clearer how stupid I am, which makes me smarter. Looking back, I am struck by my arrogance. I could give you innumerable examples, but the Internet has limited capacity.... yours, Peter T.

Subject: RE: Keeping a Working Journal. Thoughts?
From: GUEST,.gargoyle
Date: 19 Mar 02 - 12:06 AM

It is a vital necessity when confronted by the U.S. Internal Revenue Service on an audit. You are a fool not to keep one.

Subject: RE: Keeping a Working Journal. Thoughts?
From: Marion
Date: 02 Jan 03 - 02:03 AM

Besides the obvious (financial books, and an appointment book) I've been using two kinds of record books for my new music career.

The first is a contact book. For each prospective booker that I find I put in a whole blank page, so that besides their contact info I can make notes on every communication that I have with them: when I called, what I mailed to them, and what exactly was said.

The second is a gig log that I'm keeping for the memories' sake and to develop my performing skills. For each gig I put something into each of these categories:
- date, place, and what sort of event it was
- which songs I did that were particularly well received
- requests that I got
- any feedback received
- what I learned from the experience and/or would do differently next time
- what I did for the first time*
- little interesting things that happened that I'd like to remember (like the person who sat in front and drew my portrait during the show, or the time Santa got his beard caught in my guitar head)

*This relates to a resolution that I've made that in every gig I will do something that I haven't tried before. A song I haven't performed before, or a different arrangement, or doing something by memory I was previously using notes for, or something different in the sound setup, etc...

Marion

Subject: RE: Keeping a Working Journal. Thoughts?
From: sharyn
Date: 03 Jan 03 - 12:28 AM

I have kept a continuous journal since I was introduced to journals at age seventeen. Before that I wrote songs on looseleaf paper, napkins, whatever was available. My journals contain whatever my current obsessions are, which may include what recordings I'm listening to, songs I'm in love with, reviews of concerts I've been to, drafts and final versions of poems, letters and songs, as well as romances, finances, etc. I'm not consistent about keeping set lists, although I know someone who makes a list of what was sung at every concert and workshop she attends. I have a (partial) record of most of my adolescent and adult life -- embarrassing at times, but if I ever become famous my biographer(s) will have a field day!

Subject: RE: Keeping a Working Journal. Thoughts?
From: Ebbie
Date: 03 Jan 03 - 02:49 AM

The notable person who lived in this house museum where I live kept a continuous and far-ranging diary for 39 years. In tourist season when I do the history tours for people from all over and of all ages I like to tell the young 'uns to keep a diary- because you're the ONLY one looking through your particular window, and whether rich or poor, that view is invaluable.

I don't keep a daily journal but I do what I call memos- mostly on the computer now; I print them off and clip them in a notebook. They include songs, experiences, thoughts, dreams and bits of trivia. Some entries are long, others are just a paragraph or two but leafing through I keep being surprised at patterns, repeated complaints and/or joys. Speaking of dates, Don Firth, what keeps startling me is how long ago something happened that seemed to me quite recent!

Subject: RE: Keeping a Working Journal. Thoughts?
From: pattyClink
Date: 03 Jan 03 - 03:17 PM

We are so busy keeping up with our songs and set lists and gazing at our own lovely belly-buttons. We forget the best reason for keeping a journal. To record the names and stories of the many people you meet. In the modern world we meet too many people, and we focus on too few, and we forget too many. It really helps, especially over a long life span, to write some things down about the people, musicians and otherwise, that are sent your way.