Introduction to Section A)–Part 3
Your Personal Code for Learning
There is a Personal Code for Learning that is vital to becoming a Great Songwriter, and one that you should get your wits around before you begin.
It goes like this:
Never compromise one little bit with your own sense of knowing when you’ve really understood something. And, your best test for that is if you can easily do what you just learned without having *to think about it. You just do it.
*To think is defined here as the • telepathic process that you instinctively do within your own virtual work space which is part of your own unique world, as you figure out an idea or technique back and forth, back and forth, until you know you understand it so well you just do it, without all the figuring or “thinking”.
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A sobering thought: any high risk activity carries with it an expectancy that those responsible will adhere to their own Personal Code for Learning.
How would you like it if your fellow mountain climber didn’t know how to hammer in the spikes well enough for you to hold your weight.
Or you had the misfortune to have a brain surgeon for your surgery who never bothered during his training to fully understand with certainty how to remove tumors from a brain so their patient didn’t die or become a vegetable from a sudden hemorage not planned for.
Or that Formula 1 race car mechanic who never learned to correctly spot indicators of potential brake failure, and a deadly crash resulted.
Or sadly, the mother who goes to answer the front door but leaves her baby unattended in the bathtub full of water, forgetting they can’t sit up by themselves yet.
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Any activity has a correct way of being done. If you are willing to search out for what you want to know, the internet, for example, is a wealth of answers easily accessed 24 hrs a day.
For you the Songwriter, the liability for not adhering to the above stated Personal Code for Learning may only be the personal let down of not being able to write or perform a Great Song, but why gamble with your own future anyway.
The thing people like about a professional who has mastered his craft is when you talk to them they don’t introvert or think about what they say, and their own certainty about what you need them to do comes across very clearly, and inspires confidence in you.
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Completing each Step correctly
As you complete each Step of • Section A) Steps 1) – 10), you will probably notice a gradual increase in your ability and certainty for being able to write a Great Song.
As you progress through • Section A) Steps 1 –10 you may experience a specific phenomena that something you thought you already understood or could do doesn’t seem that way now, for whatever reason. Don’t worry. That can happen sometimes during the process of learning to do something new and is an oddity you don’t need to stick on.
Just clarify or practice what’s needed until you feel fully resolved about it so you don’t feel any need to think about doing it anymore. You just do it. Leaving it unresolved will always trip you up later in some way.
And… you may feel the above is all too obvious and not needed to go over, which I can understand.
But…it’s the continuous application of the above process towards learning that I am intending to you.
That continuous application is the key to your success as a Songwriter and Performer, and is used constantly in the Songwriting and Performing exercises throughout • How to Write and Perform a Great Song.
Note: For a more detailed explanation concerning learning and the problems that can occur during that process • click here
You will be glad you held to the above Personal Code for Learning while completing • How to Write and Perform a Great Song, as the essence of that code is the basis for your success, and is why • Step 10) is your final step in Songwriting.
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