I Wonder Where Nowhere Is?
Well, I bet that title has you wondering, too! It sounds like a song title to me, and one I will most likely whittle on at some point because it’s a real place. I know this because lots of my songs come from there, right out of nowhere. The inspirations, the lines I use, the melodies I use come from that platform…from the place I picture looking like a pearly blank slate filling up and orchestrated by orbs floating around and glitter falling and stars shining and a golden light breaking through my thoughts and showering everything with warmth…my idea of nowhere! I quit questioning how I do what I do with a tune and some words years ago because I don’t have the foggiest idea how I became a songwriter or where any of my thoughts for creating a song come from. By accepting the gift from my Higher Power, the Creator, and Master Planner Himself, I just write in honor of the gift and consider it a calling to share what I do through recordings I have made and to try and share my process of composing with other songwriters through teaching what I know. What a lovely journey I have been on, each step a glorious thank you for getting to make my living doing what I love so much.
Recently, we had a workshop here on our beloved Wee Farm. We call them the Little House Songwriting Workshops where my farm darling and longtime husband Rick Stanley (also dubbed Farmer Rick) and our partner in song, Jerry Salley (known in my musings as “Lil Chief”) and me, The Goat Girl Gone Cat Crazy (its a long story and worthy of a whole article about how I came to the Cat Crazy lady) teach hungry, on-fire songwriters our secrets of songwriting. I was sincerely blessed to have two fellas in my class who had that real sense for writing, and we had THE BEST time whipping up a song. The lines almost invented themselves as we held on and paid attention to the words each of us were throwing down. Those kinds of co-writing sessions are unique, and the results always make me smile for the next few weeks because I don’t know how that really happens.
Of course, developing a discipline in writing songs is a must! For 25 years I faithfully used my morning coffee time to write in journals; stream of consciousness writing where I would dump my thoughts onto a page and go back after I had finished writing them and highlight or circle the lines that stood out to me. I have so many notebooks filled with these ramblings, but what I was actually
doing was reaching into “nowhere” and coming up with stories and phrases and melodies to use later when I had a writing appointment. Weird thoughts would just fly to the tip of my pencil and scribble all over the pages. No, I wasn’t taken over by some out-of-body thing; I was just developing the ability to stay out of the way of my own thoughts and let them be and voila…they fell out in a wonderful, new
way of saying things…right out of…lol…you know…
Somedays I just grab my guitar when the house is quiet and start singing a line. I honestly have no clue where the line comes from, but I just go with it and find a melody that fits over whatever phrase I’m using. In my songwriting classes I use the expression “letting the heartbeat of the song rise up.” Meaning, in those instances, I don’t have a clear direction of what the song will be about. I just keep singing random lines until a true path shows up, and I recognize what I’m writing about. It sounds crazy, right? But it works for me, and I don’t know how. Those are the things I can’t teach to someone else because I’m not sure how it works.
Do any of you have a bucket list of questions to ask God when you get to the other side? I do…lol…like, why do we need horseflies? Those poor cows are eat up with ‘em. Here’s another one: how did you decide how to put my family together? I love that one because my family is so very close and so very odd in the most wonderful way! Well, you absolutely know I’m going to be askin’ about the songwriting thing and how I was selected to have that gift…I want to personally thank the Almighty for the golden ticket of being a songwriter and…I want to see where nowhere starts and how it holds so many great ideas!
Until next time…
Donna Ulisse
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