Paleopete wrote:puppy - Train yourself to do it. If Billy Joel and others can do it, you can. I've heard of other pro musicians who do the same thing, but can't remember any names.
Tell yourself, especially before going to sleep, you WILL get up and work on it. You will FEEL LIKE getting up and working on it. It's called mental training. Professional athletes do the same thing, Olympic competitors have been noticed imagining their runs, bobsled teams sitting there nowhere near a board but sitting in position and swaying as if making the run...
Same thing applies here. I never thought much of it but am trying to do some study on this right now. Your subconscious has a huge influence on your waking mind and body. It can do amazing things, such as heal serious ailments, allow you to walk on hot coals..(don't try that one at home folks...)
Start training yourself to get up ready to get to work. I guess Billy Joel didn't have to train himself, or maybe he did without knowing it early on. Or maybe he never even thought about it, just got up and did it.
You can do the same, but since you have trained yourself to be lazy, you need to undo that training and teach yourself to get up and go for it. No, I'm not calling you lazy overall, just stating a fact abotu this particular situation. Your mind has trained you to be groggy and listless and not get up and do something with what you just dreamed about.
I had a friend years ago who was like that, all his life. In his 20's he went out to the chicken yard to gather eggs and grabbed a chicken snake out of one nest one morning, still groggy. From that day forward he always woke up alert and ready to go...
Since nothing that extreme is likely to happen, you'll have to do it the tedious way. Just keep telling yourself you will, and it will happen but it will take time.
Paleo,
I generally agree ... but conscious work -ethic also has a lot to do with it. Most professional Musicians (I'm talking triple A team types) will tell you that they spend 15 hours of their waking day, everyday, pounding out song ideas, take, after take, after take.,,until they get it right. Now here s the cool part.. The
zen approach (Which I believe is kind of what you described) helps them decide what "got it right", by helping them ask the right questions . You remember the song "Instant Karma" by John Lennon...
"When you're everywhere, you'll get your share..." . To me, that line depicts an interesting parallel to a strategy he used in song writing... Because they (Beatles) treated each song distinctly and uniquely, they could tell you that for every 1 keeper (partial or complete song) , there were 10-20 bad ones, which they had to wade through and get out of their system. But, the fact that they covered all possible bases form experiencing the failed songs, song parts... meant that hey could leverage that experience for the 1 good song... In other words, they busted out a lot of work, and having traversed through it, they could arrive upon a better question when they relaxed about the choices... This is strictly my opinion and of course,,,I could be wrong.
