Quiet Time

June 11, 2017 – Sometimes I just don’t want any input, no music, no tv, no movies, no sounds, save for the sounds of the outside — the birds, those little wind chimes everyone has around me. Mine features a wooden carved hummingbird. I’ve had it for years, decades actually. That’s what I’m hearing right now, birds and wind chimes.

I think, in silence, creativity is born. Or perhaps it’s just mental chaos. Mind you, I’m not in perfect silence. Intermittently I have on a few Ellie Goulding songs. That’s about the only music I can listen to when I’m in moods like this, a handful of her songs I like to sing along to, but not very loudly. I play it just to hear if I can make anything close to the same sound. And then I stop. I go back to the silence, but even these few songs I’ve listened to this weekend made me wonder if she had any news. So I searched, pleased to finally read she is working on a new album.

The article I read, People magazine interviewing Ellie with a really stupid headline about how she doesn’t shower after her morning boxing workout, said Ellie expects to have a new album out by the end of the year. The article, mostly featuring a load of talk about what she uses as soap and moisturizer and about how much to shower or to wash one’s hair, it did mention a few asides about her creative process, or at least I took a few messages about her creative process, and those tie perfectly to my mood today.

Number one, she likes crazy strong work outs to motivate her when she’s busy in the studio. It’s boxing, now; it used to be running. She wants to be strong, she says. The article also said she only wears black in the studio so as to not be distracted by her own clothes. I wonder if both of things are inherently female. I too need a work-out program to make me feel strong enough to take on the world. Ah yes, I need to get on that very soon. And superstitions about what I wear? I can see ending up with only white and black clothes for the very same reason – everything else is distracting.

The article quoted her saying “I am taking time to sit down and reflect.” She said she is seeing more movies and reading more books, I suppose for inspiration. She mentioned watching a documentary on Chuck Berry. Of course, there was no conclusion as to what she took from that documentary.

Quiet time, Ellie, that’s what I call it all.

Mind you, if I could turn my own personal quiet time into something as successful as Ellie does, I’d be, well, doing something else, but I do take her statements as an inspiration, validation, even. If she too needs to go into a head space where it’s all work-outs and searches for inspiration, even watching documentaries about legendary guitar players, then maybe I’m on to something. Actually, I’d love it if the article had said which documentary she watched on Chuck Berry. I’m always up for a good suggestion on guitar documentaries. She did say about all of this: “those things will shape what I do next, because I’m discovering a lot about myself and the kind of music I want to make.” I would have asked how, but seeing as the interviewer was more interested in learning the details about showers and soap, I suppose I can wonder, on my own, about whether one of my favorite singers is going to be actually influenced by Chuck Berry. More guitar, Ellie? She does have a really killer Les Paul, y’all, and she can play. Oh sure, I doubt her new record will rock out like you all like, but anything to get guitar on the pop stations, I’ll take. So please, let the Chuck Berry documentary have an impact on her.

Now back to my own version of quiet time and looking for inspirations….