More January Tune Time: Lester b7

Here’s another tune from the January collection as I continue on with my February banjo tune challenge. Most of the tunes I’m writing are named after the day they were written, so the file names will just read as “Jan23”. I do this for a few reasons:

The first reason is that when I’m trying to get into a creative flow state in this banjo tune challenge, I try to minimize anything that distracts from writing music. When I’m thinking of a new melody or building off of a lick that I made on the banjo, I don’t need to be thinking about a title for the tune just yet. In fact, it’s enough of a struggle for me to not flip over to Youtube and procrastinate, although that’s getting easier as I write more.

Another reason that I title these tunes generically after the day they were written is that I don’t know the tune yet. This seems obvious but I like to name tunes after tangible things related to them, like where I was when I wrote it, what was happening, or simply the personality that the tune evokes to my ear.

I also have a note in my phone that is filled with tune and band names that occur to me, because it’s difficult for me to come up with names in the spur of the moment. Many of these names are not appropriate for polite society but are nonetheless entertaining for me to peruse.

For example, Snow Stomp was written during the big snow storm in Nashville last month. I wrote it and shortly afterward went on a long walk with my friend in the snow, so the name is almost like a journal entry in time for me, and makes me feel personally connected to the music I write.

This tune, on the other hand, is named Lester b7 because it’s fairly straightforward bluegrass banjo and features the flat 7 chord frequently. (To clarify: the “b” is actually the musical “flat” sign but I can’t figure out how to type it on my computer.) It’s a play on Lester Flatt and “b“ 7 because I’m terribly clever and it’s terribly early.

The last reason that I name the tunes the date they were written is that I’m not sure if the tune will be something that ever meets an audience’s ear balls! It sounds a little silly, but I reserve naming a tune until I’ve concluded that it has something that’s worth sharing with the world. In this case, this tune is worth sharing and naming to archive my progress in writing banjo tunes.

In anything that you dedicate yourself to learning, you will make a lot of “bad” stuff at first. In the act of honing your creative process, you’ll benefit yourself mightily by making peace with this early on and trusting in the process. In the course of making “bad” stuff, a glimmer of something good will come out, and that glimmer will inspire and motivate you through the next run of “bad” stuff.

Trust in the process and stick with it—and write things down! You’ll find that your hit ratio for “good” vs. “bad” improves the more you do this, and your metric for what is good or bad changes over time as you refine your process.