The Process by Tom "Ketchfish" Inglis, copyright 2004 I started songwriting back when I was 17 years old, hitchhiking across the country with my Sears Dreadnaught Starburst Acoustic guitar strapped to my back. I'm still working one of those songs. I got a bit more serious about it when I started playing out but until I took a 'breather' to put food on my family's table without having to hustle gigs 24/7, I was really only practicing. I think those years of playing the bars, restaurants, fraternal organizations, town gazebos and whatnot have served me well. I was exposed to, and required to play, a wide variety of genre with an even wider assortment of insane individuals. I think I carry the influence of every gig I played and every musician I worked with over into the songs I write today. Every triumph I enjoyed, every heartbreak I endured, every lick and trick I've tried to master - it all comes back in THE PROCESS. Oh yeah, THE PROCESS. Getting to that creative place and letting the lyrics and melodies flow from some unknown fountain of ideas, that's always the challenge. Each song becoming it's own sentient entity. They start in several different ways. Sometimes the inspiration is a genre, "I'll think about acoustic blues for a while and see if something comes out of it". Sometimes there's a conscious idea that painstakingly takes form one word at a time. Sometimes there's a snippet of melody that goes around in my mind for days. Occasionally, a complete song springs out faster than I can write it down. Wherever
they come from, then they have to be nurtured like a houseplant. You
feed them with new ideas, water them with perspiration, trim off the
dead leaves and shape them to become what they are. I seldom know
exactly what that is until they have evolved themselves using my hands
and mind to give them voice. The songs call the shots, I'm just an idea
gardener in the paradise of a creative life. Just as you can never get
apples to grow on a tomato plant, each song seems to know what it is
and eventually becomes itself. I eschew the rigid strictures of writing within any particular genre specifically because my PROCESS allows the song to be what it wants to be. When you get a chance, check out my online music and you'll see what I mean. There area several genre represented but I had to wait until each song "grew up" to find out what label to put on it. |
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