With The Flow

Episdoe #61: With the Flow     (Song at 5.22) Welcome along to another episode. This week we are looking at a song I wrote back in 2016. The day I wrote this one, I was teaching piano. In fact, I was teaching 17 students on a Monday - followed by another 15 on Tuesday! I've ‘reeled it in a bit’ now to 26 students. Either way, that's a lot of private lessons in one day.  As I teach these lessons, I aim to entertain the students & make it as much as fun as I can - yes, I'm in a creative state. As I walk around the school to collect the next student, often I whistle, just to sort of switch off and relax. Snippets of melody come out of thin air as I just relax and play as I whistle.  The opening notes of 'With The Flow' came whistling from my lips. So I headed back to the Piano room and wrote those notes down. 'With The Flow' is Song number 643. That seems pretty bizarre to me. There was never a time when I sat down and said to myself ... now I'm going to write 800 songs. They just came - because I made a start and I committed to carrying on... …and carry on have - learning each time, going with little mistakes, being free, tuning into something - it's like being a secretary: playing a few notes writing them down, then rewinding the song a little in my head, then starting off again and see what comes out next.  The title song of the song says it all. With the flow ...it's like swimming with the current of the river - or nature in general. How does it feel? It doesn't feel like hard work. Perhaps it should sometimes... in truth, I have worked and I continue to work extremely hard at this. The thing is, because I enjoy the process so much, it really doesn’t feel like work. I'm playing with the a purpose and I'm in the flow.  These are the things I talk about on these episodes - plus life observations, anecdotes, etc. I really enjoy exploring, going back in my memory remembering things that were happening at the time I write these songs. Taking a moment to get in the flow and just go with it. That kind of sums songwriting - or any art for that matter.  Perhaps the art of being human.  I mention that I went to the beach to paint, again, this week. You can see today's painting and read the lyrics on my blog post this week. Www.petepascoe.wordpress.com  Thanks for dropping by. I hope you enjoy this episode as much as I enjoyed recording it. It's all off the cuff, I don't have any notes. As long as I just start, everything comes together. It's all a work in progress - and it's fun along the way.  Here we go…with the flow. Enjoy.