A Quote by Beth Nielsen Chapman
It's like I'll sit down and put my hands on the piano or the guitar, and then I'll hear a sound or I'll feel a chord that will resonate and then I'll get something happening in my voice. My voice is like a car that I get into and drive but I don't know where I'm going. And I record everything. And often, I sort of get into a state, a creative state that is, where I'm just feeling around melodically, and playing things off the top of my head. Then I go back and listen to it and for the first time, hear what I just did. It's like Elvis has left the building while the thing is happening.
Quote Topics
Around
Back
Building
Car
Chord
Creative
Did
Down
Down And
Drive
Elvis
Everything
Feel
Feeling
First
First Time
Get
Go
Going
Guitar
Hands
Happening
Head
Hear
Just
Know
Left
Like
Listen
Off
Often
Piano
Playing
Put
Record
Resonate
Sit
Something
Sort
Sound
State
Then
Thing
Things
Time
Top
Voice
While
Will
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Most of the time I sit down with my guitar or at the piano, and I play for awhile until I get a new riff or groove that I like a lot. Then I'll concentrate on building around that line of thought by adding words and textures. At first I'm only trying to please myself, and hopefully what I like will appeal to others.
So, I'll walk around with - just an iPhone will work - but sometimes I'll bring, like, a little mobile recorder and I'll just, like, if hear an interesting sound, I'll just record it. And then later, I'll listen through them and I'll go like, 'I wonder how can I use that?'
I know a lot of bands that will make their first record and get to a certain level, and then when the second record comes out, they can start where they left off as a headlining act playing in front of a certain number of people, or they can go back out and make a lot less money and open for people. I feel like if you go out and just go right back into that headlining stuff, you're playing to the converted.
I got good at trying to throw a voice on a character from the very beginning as opposed to like reading it and sitting with it and mulling over it and stuff like that just try to read what it is and then try to put a funny voice to it like as soon as possible and stuff like that. Once you get laughs with your voice then you can start thinking about, you know the physical characteristics and how they might walk or if they stick out their buck teeth or if they wear an afro and stuff like that. I think like finding the voice of the character helps to like build the wardrobe and everything else.
I'm definitely feeling whatever's going on pretty hard. It's like playing Barbies. You're holding the Barbies, but all of the action is happening inside of your head. You might be holding them or even speaking out loud, but really, all of the animation is internal. That's sort of how I feel about my writing. And then the really awful thing is that at the end of the day after crying and experiencing things, then you look at what you've written and you're like, "Hmm, there's half a page that's good here." Then you throw out everything else.
I sit around for ages waiting for inspiration. Then when I get an idea, I want to go with it and get something as quickly as possible. It's like catching a fly in a bottle. I'll play with drums for a bit, then the piano for a bit, play the guitar.
When I won the first Grammy, there was no other feeling like that feeling. It just made me feel like I came so far, like that was just a dream a few years before that, and then it was happening right then.
Well we usually just try to do a mix from all the albums so if somebody just has one they don't get bummed out that they don't hear anything from that record, then a couple songs you'll only hear live. Just kind of wing it you know? And sometimes on a tour you'll get with a set-list you like and you kind of just stick with that.
These days I keep a journal, so I'm constantly sketching down my thoughts, or lines that come to me...ideas for songs. And then when I have a moment to myself, I'll sit down with my guitar and open my journal, and start kind of massaging things together, and see if a song takes shape. Or sometimes, I'll just be hanging out with my guitar and come up with a chord progression or a lick, and that'll sort of sit around for a while waiting to marry itself to some words. So it's sort of haphazard and it's like...junk culture. I go around finding shiny objects and I glue them together laughs.
I do a long sound check. I get there at noon on the day of a show and sit behind the piano and then walk around with the microphone. Then I feel like I have done my homework.
I'm self-critical but also, I'm not a very modest person. I'm self-critical in the lead-up to showing anyone anything. You know how people say they write, like, 30 songs and then they'll pick the ones they're going to put on the record? I don't ever get to that point because I self-edit so harshly at the beginning. I would never let anyone hear something that I wasn't happy with. But then once I've made it, I'm also not going to turn around and go, "Oh, yeah, I don't know..." If I'm putting it out, anything creative that I do, I think that it's good, otherwise I wouldn't put it out.
I'm sorry, was that homophobic? No--I think it was, 'cause I hear that a lot. Dave, What?, You're talking about being gay. You probably secretly are gay. And I'm like listen voice in my head, I'm not! HOW DO YOU KNOW YOU WOULDN'T LIKE IT? HOW DO YOU KNOW YOU WOULDN'T LIKE IT? I know I wouldn't like it, other scarier voice in my head! 'Cause one time while making a sandwich, a cucumber went up my ass. Three times.
When I create music, the feeling that you get... I get first. You [the listener] have a delayed experience with the feeling I initially get when I have a creative insight. Not just the voice, but all the creativity - the production, the idea, the concept, the music involved. There is a high. There is an emotional experience that happens when everything comes together... I made music as consistently as I did, especially back in the day, because it made me feel so good... When everything is on, it's a wonderful feeling.
[A]s soon as you try and take a song from your mind into piano and voice and into the real world, something gets lost and it's like a moment where, in that moment you forget how it was and it's this new way. And then when you make a record, even those ideas that you had, then those get all turned and changed. So in the end, I think, it just becomes it's own thing and really I think a song could be recorded a million different ways and so what my records are, it just happened like that, but it's not like, this is how I planned it from the very beginning because I have no idea, I can't remember.
I've always worked at the piano; I like to hear what I'm doing, I like the sound, to hear the actual sound. I get bored just looking at a manuscript.
I'd listen to a song and say, 'Hang on, I like that piano thing,' so I'd play the guitar like that and get the vibe from it, and it just evolved from the get-go. It was pretty obvious what to do; You don't think about rock n' roll: you just do it.
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