Living the Nashville Dream

(from the book Twisted by the Wind by Tom Hays)

Cody walked onstage and surveyed the huge, cheering crowd, soaking in the excitement and energy radiated by thousands of adoring fans, the flashing effects lighting, the fog, and fireworks spewing from the pillars behind him. The warm-up band had been good … but the huge audience had evidently come to see him, Cody, the star attraction.

“Cody! Cody! Cody!” Their chant filled the huge auditorium to the rafters.

He threw his right arm up in the air with his guitar pick in-hand in a gesturing salute to the crowd, and the cheers grew even louder, more demanding!

Turning his head slightly to the right, he gave a shallow nod to the keyboard player, and his band began the set. The crowd was still screaming over the first, familiar bars of the first song.

He stepped to the mike, sang the first line, and the crowd noise swelled again. It was one of his signature songs, one he had written himself, one of many that had placed him on the top of the charts over and over again. At the chorus, everyone in the audience sang the hook with him. They knew it as well as he did.

Women in the front rows charged the foot of the stage, trying to get closer, reaching for a touch of his pant leg, tossing flowers along with notes, phone numbers, and undergarments onto the stage.

Cody smiled broadly, his pearl-white teeth gleaming in the spotlights. The crowd grew more frenzied and their sing-along turned to cheering at the top of their lungs, louder and louder, a constant high-pitched roar!

The loud buzzer on the timer over his head brought him to now. He suddenly realized the French fries were done. He lifted them from the cooker and dumped them into the draining tray. He salted them liberally and scooped them into small, red cardboard sleeves and placed the packages one by one onto the serving rack.

His dream had brought him to Nashville for his big break nearly five years earlier.

Looking through the small opening over the rack holding the cooked fries, out to the serving counter and beyond to those waiting in line, he saw a collection of other wannabe dreamers on both sides of the counter, all playing the lottery in some form or other.

Some, like him, playing the “Nashville Lottery” and hoping for a chance at fame.

Others, perhaps with an equal chance, simply purchased their lottery tickets at the quick mart, hoping for the big hand of chance to point to them and say, “You!”

Cody’s dream had followed him from Oklahoma all the way to Nashville. It was as real as any dream had ever been. He had lived it over and over … but after five years it was still just a dream. And it was still no closer to reality than it ever was.

He dumped more frozen fries into the cooker and hit the button to start the timer again. As the white fries sizzled in the oil, Cody slipped slowly back into his dream.

The crowd was still roaring as he began the second song. Cody tipped his cowboy hat and gave them a thumbs up.

There are people all over the world who wished they could be in Nashville, living the dream. Cody had made it.

Others, like Ben, knew about dreaming, but they knew about waking up too. Ben wanted to live in the best reality he could imagine.

Music Makes The World Go 'round

My first memory of music was of sensing the steady, rhythmic thump, thump, thump of my mother’s heartbeat, as I snuggled warmly and safely in her womb. Later, she cradled me in her arms, held me to her breast and I heard the same familiar rhythm. As we swayed back and forth she murmured soft sounds that added melody and lyrics and it became a lullaby, comforting me to sleep.

And, while you might not remember back quite that far, surely you feel that same, familiar rhythm pulsing through your own veins, pushing life through your body, animating your every move.

Yes, music is as old as human life, and the appreciation, enjoyment, and creation of it continues to bring joy, understanding, and emotional release to our lives.

Whether you write music, perform it, dance to it, study it, or just like to hum along, Platinum Pearls® has something for you on the music picks web page http://www.platinumpearls.com/platinumpearls/creativeb.htm. Click around the page for sources of inspiration if you are a songwriter, or to further enhance your understanding or enjoyment of music as a creator or as a listener.

As to Mom’s heart . . . it had a good beat, I gave it an 85.

If I Had a Dollar For Every Time I Have Used This Book, I Would Be Writing This in Napa Valley

Pat Pattison is a professor of music and songwriting at the Berklee College of Music in Boston, where he developed the curriculum for their degree in songwriting--the first of its kind anywhere. He was a regular contributor to Home and Studio Recording Magazine. He lives in North Hampton, New Hampshire.

I first met Pat in Nashville. I was living and writing there for awhile, and Pat would come down from the Boston area and spend his summers in Nashville, working with some of the great songwriters in the area, as well as teaching seminars. We had mutual friends, and soon I was visiting his summer house on a weekly basis, at the foot of the master. He is a joy to work with.

In this book, Pat presents a unique, in-depth approach to the process of lyric writing. Apprentice songwriters will examine 17 extraordinary songs and learn the distinct elements that make them so effective. Pattison then presents more than 30 lyric-writing exercises designed to help them achieve the same results. From generating lyric ideas and managing repetition to developing verses, it's all here. Songwriters will:

* find warm-up exercises that revolutionize songwriting imagery

* use a rhyming dictionary and a thesaurus to generate ideas and find snappy rhymes

* create meaningful metaphors and similes while avoiding clichés

* develop verses by using or by breaking conventional rules

* experiment with point of view in every lyric to make a song stand out.

Buy Now - Writing Better Lyrics

For more music tips, visit http://www.platinumpearls.com/ and search out the "Music Picks" page. Or, if you are really into songwriting, click on http://www.barkingfrogmusic.com/. In any event, keep listening, keep writing, keep it fresh.