Mar 12

Mar 12 Week 4: Turn up the Reverb

Leonie Orton

The Artist's Way

“Give it more reverb.”

Yesssssss!

I gladly complied, also dialing up the fuzz for good measure.

Transformative power of music

Some forms of creativity, like writing, require solitude. Music, on the other hand, is so much more fun with friends.

I’ve been catching up with my friends Stan and Joelee for years to jam in their living room.

Joelee on drums, Stan on vocals and acoustic, me on electric.

I’d love to say it’s all punk rock and neighbours telling us to keep it down, but in reality, we drink tea and our repertoire includes Peter Frampton.

There is something magical and transformative about making music with friends. At various times, we’ve each had our run-ins with challenging times, but as soon as we start playing, all that stuff seems to fade away.

We smile, giggle, and get silly like teenagers.

It elevates us to a better place where both small and big stuff doesn’t exist—just the music, the laughs, and the moment.

Nietzsche wrote:

“Music unites all qualities: it can exalt us, divert us, cheer us up, or break the hardest of hearts with the softest of its melancholy tones. But its principal task is to lead our thoughts to higher things, to elevate, even to make us tremble… The musical art often speaks in sounds more penetrating than the words of poetry and takes hold of the most hidden crevices of the heart… Song elevates our being and leads us to the good and the true.”

Unbelievably, he was just 13 when he wrote that.

Normally, Stan and Joelee tell me to turn it down so I don’t drown them out, so when I got the request to turn the reverb up, it was music to my ears!

Reverb

The previous chapter of The Artist’s Way discusses Jung’s concept of synchronicity - “a fortuitous intermeshing of events,” but I’m going to call it reverb - a rocking rippling of creativity.

When you’re plugged into the music from the universe—you gain access to a symphony of ideas, inspiration, and those threads that run through everything, that my clever friend mentioned back when this series was just a contemplation on self-doubt.

I find that when I’m not writing, I don’t have ideas.

When I start writing, the ideas are everywhere, especially when I follow the reverb of curiosity.

I’ll give you an example:

I just booked tickets to see The Lemonheads, which I’m very excited about. As a result, I’ve been listening to their back catalogue and rediscovered their fantastic cover of Different Drum.

It’s the perfect combination of melodic vocals, drums that make you squint while nodding your head in appreciation, plus lashings of fuzzy guitar.

I’ve started learning it on electric and presented it to the board of directors (Stan and Joelee) for consideration.

Here’s another example of reverb:

My partner and I are planning a trip to Turkey and Greece next year, so I’ve been asking friends who have been, for recommendations to add to the dreaming and scheming.

My friend Jo suggested I watch So Long, Marianne—a biopic about Leonard Cohen, his love Marianne, and their time living on the beautiful Greek island of Hydra.

Watching the series reconnected me with his soulful music and made me look forward to capturing little watercolour impressions of new vistas. Here’s a new one from a recent roadtrip.

And thoughts of Turkey reminded me of this cookbook that’s been gathering dust on a shelf in my kitchen.

Dinner party soon, local friends!

Which finally reverbs me to the topic of this week’s chapter:

Recovering a sense of integrity

The best way to describe this is as the true and comprehensive answer to "How are you today?" hidden beneath "Fine, thanks."

Daily morning pages are intended to be a personal self-counselling session where we can let all our mental ministrations out.

This can be uncomfortable.

Fine, thanks is safe.

But fine, thanks is a cardboard cutout of the human condition.

I’m not fine, thanks is revealing.

That doesn’t necessarily mean I’m unhappy. It just means there are complex thoughts and feelings existing side by side.

Throw it in the fire

There’s a self-inquiry meditation practice that involves imagining an internal fire.

The idea is to throw in anything you don’t like—addictions, negative thoughts—and then throw in the supposedly desirable attachments, like being a ‘good’ person. Eventually, you’re left with an empty slate, having dropped all your baggage off at the Salvos.

Honestly? I hate that meditation.

I don’t want to look at the crappy stuff. I’d much rather throw some old sheets over it and look the other way.

But eventually, that stuff starts to stink, and it’s not fun at all living with a pile of rotting things in the corner of your temple.

So okay, get that fire stoked!

Finding a self to express

Chekhov said, “If you want to work on your art, work on your life.” I.e., if you want self-expression, you’ve gotta find a self to express.

What I really love about all of us humans is that we are complex, flawed, and nuanced in surprising ways.

Integrity doesn’t mean perfection—it means self-knowledge.

I’m not going to reveal my truly terrible traits here since I am the narrator and the hero of this story, but I will give you a little example:

Whilst I think of myself as a strong, capable, and independent woman, I also LOVE wearing kitchen aprons over dresses like a ’40s housewife. The irony is that I made a terrible wife. Twice!

Isn’t that so much more fun than fine, thanks?

That sounds flippant, and yes, I am trying to make you smile—but there were also years of grief involved in being a terrible wife twice.

And that’s called being human.

But you know what? All that stuff that makes me uniquely me and you uniquely you IS ART.

The best kind of art.

Not paint-by-numbers art.

Real art.

Julia writes,