Music Journal/Diary?

Subject: Music Journal/Diary?
From: Peter T.
Date: 09 May 00 - 08:52 AM

Since I began taking guitar/music lessons a year ago, I have been keeping a diary (well, I did keep it until it was destroyed a few days ago when my computer died) about what I was learning, problems I was having, things that came into mind, new songs, and so on. I am really unhappy that I lost it, but it can't be helped. Does anyone else out there keep such a thing? -- I am interested in what forms it might take, as I am about to start a new one (this time with an extra copy on a backup!)
yours, Peter T.

Subject: RE: Music Journal/Diary?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 09 May 00 - 09:11 AM

Well there are times when I am one of those dreaded singer-songwriters putting my diary into song form. But that tends to mean, writing songs about whatever preoccupations are on my mine at any time, so they aren't totally introspective, which is what I think people object to in the practice generally.

They are sometimes mind you, and I think people sneer at things like that too easily.

Subject: RE: Music Journal/Diary?
From: Mooh
Date: 09 May 00 - 10:27 AM

Peter T

I used to do this, years ago, when I was just learning the basics and was playing small gigs where I tried out my stuff. I wish I'd never stopped because I'm sure I've lost alot of information over the years since then. I often don't know when or if I've played a particular hall before until someone else tells me about it. The biggest loss is all those little riffs and tips and such that I never wrote down the first time I learned them.

Now I record most everything because I am teaching guitar again after years away from it. I don't use the computer to store the information however because I am very distrustful of the technology, so everything is backed up by real paper, some of which will eventually become lessons and such. The real benefit to your journal is that you'll never quit learning. Once you quit keeping account, it's harder to progress, as I'm finding out. I sometimes think I learn as much from students as they do from me, it's just different stuff like human nature. I learn from hearing and watching other musicians on all sorts of instruments, and keeping an open mind (which is harder to do than to say).

As for form, I like loose leaf binders with dividers by topic. This is easy to transport. Technique tips, playing tips, performance tips, chord movements and cool fingerings which I might be inclined to forget, tunings, bizarre scales, exercises, etc. The other thing that helps is actual recordings of yourself and/or others. Add a diary of acts seen and heard, places visited, conversations and correspondence, and you'll have a real treasure.

Keeping an open journal helps to keep an open mind.

Peace, Mooh.

Subject: RE: Music Journal/Diary?
From: jeffp
Date: 09 May 00 - 10:37 AM

I haven't been, but after reading this, I think I'll start. It sounds like a wonderful idea. I have started jotting down lyric fragments as they come to me, hoping they'll eventually meet, fall in love, and reproduce.

jeffp

Subject: RE: Music Journal/Diary?
From: Vixen
Date: 09 May 00 - 10:45 AM

As someone who has kept various journals since I read Harriet the Spy as a child, I've got reading journals, writing journals, riding journals, music journals, fishing journals...and what I wish I'd kept up is my daily journal and my teaching journal. The dilemma then becomes dividing my time and attention between the experience itself and my record of it...

Journals are incredibly cool--My father has his grandfather's journals, and they make fascinating reading.

V

Subject: RE: Music Journal/Diary?
From: Amos
Date: 09 May 00 - 10:49 AM

I have electronic journals that always end up with huge gaps in them, chronologically. But I also have directories where I keep poems, songs, essays, fiction, and other bits and pieces. So if I ever wanted to reconstruct my life I could do it. I date my file entries out of old habit (from the days of paper dispatches and typewritten letters). (Remember handwritten memos?) (Carbon copies?) Wow....

And I back up my hard disk almost as regularly as I should!

A

Subject: RE: Music Journal/Diary?
From: Bert
Date: 09 May 00 - 11:11 AM

Don't you just HATE people like Amos?

Just kidding Amos;-)

Bert.

Subject: RE: Music Journal/Diary?
From: Mary in Kentucky
Date: 09 May 00 - 11:21 AM

I'm not a regular journal keeper, but I have kept various types in the past. Now I have to keep a meticulous log of my medication injections. I learned in that endeavor to keep calendar books THAT ARE THE SAME SIZE. I can then store them on a book shelf each year, and they fit nicely side by side.

For keeping a personal journal - I prefer to write in a spiral bound notebook. I can think more fluently when I write in longhand as opposed to typing on the computer. I also noticed when I worked in a research lab and had to write monthly reports that required a lot of anylytical thinking: the younger folks could think at a computer keyboard; the older ones had to write everything out; I was in the middle.

Also, for a personal journal, I think the most important thing is to write something everyday. When it's in chronological order I can usually find what I need. Also, it's nice to observe the development of ideas and feelings over time.

Mary

Subject: RE: Music Journal/Diary?
From: Rick Fielding
Date: 09 May 00 - 12:08 PM

Wouldn't be caught dead without my journal!

McGrath, you are NOT one of those singer-songwriters who get dumped on for pouring every last bit of angst into their musical diaries. You're writing is incisive and witty....and most importantly: I think you're not afraid of editing yourself. More should force themselves in that direction, before releasing their stuff to the public.

Rick (my, my, I AM opinionated this morning!)

Subject: RE: Music Journal/Diary?
From: JenEllen
Date: 09 May 00 - 11:50 PM

Every time I think I should sit down and put all of the notes to computer, I hear about a disasterous meltdown like Peter's. Chicken scratch on a paper napkin doesn't seem so bad then...

I do keep journals, but I fear they are indecipherable to any but myself. My current one is a mid-sized spiral notebook with 'UnderDog' on the cover. It is overflowing with notes, phone numbers, addresses, pressed flowers, bits of song I hear and think 'have to find out what that is', sketches, compostitions, ticket stubs, and all sorts of minor revelations.

Luckily I am of unsound mind, and actually remember where things are when I go to look for them. The system seems to work, and except for an unfortunate incident in '96 when the dog thought 'notebook du jour' was an appropriate menu item, I still have it all.

Keeping notes about your path is a great idea. Even if it's not essential information to you anymore, you can at least take time to see how far you've come.

~Jen

Subject: RE: Music Journal/Diary?
From: Art Thieme
Date: 12 May 00 - 10:31 PM

Over the years I have kept a month to month---year to year record of everything I spent and took in on/from music. I could deduct (for tax purposes) much of what was spent on the road. Therefore, I did a good job notating things. The income is noted as well as expenditures---where I went--mileage--where I hung out--festival tickets purchased---books and records bought---all of it. Everything that was legal I kept a record of. Anybody wanting to know where I was and what I did and what I earned and/or spent can look at these journals and recreate my entire life on the road striving to earn a living singing folksongs.

Also, for all those years I had a "BITS AND PIECES" file where I saved ALL the jokes and observations and tales and strange happenings on the road, at gigs, killing time 'til the next concert and what-have you. Loves and hates might've been chronicled along with always changing conclusions about all manner of people-politics and philosophical stands I may have embraced and maybe discarded. ----- I no longer have this file. A while ago, for various reasons, for better or for worse, I burnt the whole hodge podge. When I did that I had over 500 single spaced pages with no margins. Only a single blank line separated the many entries. The beginning of every entry was only a single *.

Art Thieme

Subject: RE: Music Journal/Diary?
From: RichM
Date: 13 May 00 - 02:35 PM

I keep my notes in a database called InfoRecall. It was and may still be, shareware. I like it because it's completely free-form, much like me! Just what a musician's personal database should be. I know, I have designed enough of the traditional business kind--no more, thank you.

I don't need to define fields,forms,reports or any of that usual dreary stuff; just pick a name for a topic,type it and there it is. I can include subcategories if I like-and add them whenever I like. And I don't need to be logical about it, either.

I keep my song sheets there; my address list, gig lists, venues, band information, contacts, interesting snippets about instruments,medical tips, funny quotes, limericks, recipes, emergency contacts....

It's very much the electronic version of all those bits of paper, notebooks,and napkins that I used to use and lose...except now I don't lose them. I even occasionally back up to disk all information so I don't lose it if (when)my hard disk goes south. My one concession to practicality...