March 17, 2025 · Episode 12
44 Min, 47 Sec

Summary

Lyndon reflects on his unexpected creative breakthrough while composing the theme for Echoes of Home. After years of following rigid studio habits, he found himself scrapping hours of polished work and starting over with a more instinctive, less technical approach. Turns out, knowing too much can get in the way of creativity and perhaps what we need is innovation through ignorance!

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Transcript

Lyndon: Welcome to Pain In the Arts with myself, Lyndon.

Breallyn: And also myself, Breallyn.

Lyndon: Did I say my name right?

Breallyn: Oh, pretty much.

Lyndon: If I think about it too long it comes out slurred and stupid.

Breallyn: You’ve only practiced it for 50 years. Yeah. Yeah.

Lyndon: It would have been helpful if I’d just been called Bob. Yeah.

Breallyn: I can start to call you that if you’d like. Robert.

Lyndon: Or, but Lyndon, you’ve really got to, you’ve got to get your tongue in the right spot to say that.

Childhood Names and Pseudonyms

Breallyn: I wanted to be called Peter at one stage. I went through this.

Lyndon: What, P E T A?

Breallyn: Yeah, I went through like a very intense time when I was about, I don’t know, 11 or 12 when I was just like, I really wanted to have a different name. Wanted it to be a boy’s name, boy sounding name. There’s a theme here because when I was four, I also insisted my name was Jack. But yeah, when I was about 10 or 12, I was like, okay, it’s got to be either Charlie or Peter. Yeah, maybe Jack. I don’t know. There was a, there were two or three names that were my favorite. Charlie was my favorite for a while.

Lyndon: I don’t mind Charlie for a girl.

Breallyn: I was very, yeah. When we had Birdie, I was having calling her Charlotte and Charlie as a nickname. Oh, okay. Yeah.

Lyndon: I don’t remember you ever flagging that.

Breallyn: Yeah, I did.

Lyndon: But we were for a while before we even had a fourth child, we were like, if we have a girl, we’ll call her Tabitha.

Breallyn: Yeah.

Lyndon: I really liked Tabitha.

Breallyn: Tabitha’s beautiful.

Lyndon: And then when we had a girl, we were like, nah.

Breallyn: We just assumed she’d get called Tabby and we weren’t so keen on that, I think.

Lyndon: But I’m not sure because we would already have known that if you’re considering the name Tabitha, that’s not suddenly a realisation you have, you go, Oh, hang on.

Breallyn: A little bit more real, like going, okay, if we have this child and It’s called Tabby. I don’t know. I guess we just decided against it. And for those listening, Birdie, is not her real name either.

Lyndon: And my name’s not really Lyndon. It’s Bobbie all along. It’s Spunkrat. Yeah. Do you want to explain why Birdie’s not a real name?

Breallyn: No, I’ve explained it before. We’re using pseudonyms to protect our kids privacy. That’s essentially it.

Lyndon: Yeah. Yeah. I don’t think our other kids even want us to talk about them, but whatever.

Breallyn: No, I think they don’t want us to talk full stop at that age. Yeah. there we go. Was that the intro you had planned?

Lyndon: No, I didn’t have any intro planned. I had nothing. I’m a blank slate. I, there’s so much to talk about. I just wondered where we’d start.

Breallyn: And you stumbled over your name.

Lyndon: I stumbled at the first hurdle.

Birdie’s Birthday Milestone

Lyndon: it was birdie’s birthday yesterday. It was. Was it yesterday or the day before? Ah, the before? So she’s a teenager.

Breallyn: Stop it. I still can’t cope.

Lyndon: Oh, wow. I know. And we’re getting a bit of pushback from her.

Breallyn: Yes, she is beginning to behave a little teenager ish.

Lyndon: she’s got a good no on her.

Breallyn: She’s always had just bucket loads of attitude, but, yeah.

Lyndon: Takes after her mum.

Breallyn: She’s got a presence about her, that’s for sure. But, gee, she was cute blowing out her candles. Her family was there and we were, yeah, just so excited because Birdie’s illnesses in recent years have meant that she hasn’t had all of her fine motor skills available to her. And so things like blowing a candle out was quite impossible for a while, but she blew them all out and she was super adorable doing it.

Lyndon: She’s never done it before, but she’s been practicing by blowing bubbles this year and last year she was.

Breallyn: Yeah. Trying to blow bubbles with the bubble mixture and the wand, I suppose it’s called a bubble wand.

Lyndon: Yeah.

Breallyn: Yeah. she likes bubbles and it’s been a skill we’ve been working on because I’ve been wanting her to, in moments of stress, be able to focus on her breathing a bit more. So I say things like, let’s pretend to blow bubbles and we’ll do a little bit of deep breathing that way and have a little bit more consciousness of the body.

Lyndon: That was good.

Breallyn: Cute little birthday party.

Lyndon: Yeah, very cute, as in very small, literally just a cake after dinner. Yep. that was fine.

Breallyn: Yeah.

Lyndon: That was nice. All right, let’s get on with the show. Yeah. What we have been doing is we alternate bringing a topic to the table, a topic to the podcast. And, so we’re surprising the other person. in this case, I’m surprising you.

Breallyn: You’ve got no idea what the topic is. I have no idea. You’ve come in with your lap blanket.

Lyndon: Yep, I’ve got a little blanket. And a novel. On my knees. But you also have a pad with notes on it, which is interesting because I’m bringing the topic and I have nothing here. I have my phone.

Breallyn: Don’t be fooled by my notepad. It’s just all my notes. It’s just for show. Yeah, there’s no actual notes about the episode. And I did bring a novel, because I never quite know how long the microphone setup is going to take, and I might just be sitting here for.

Lyndon: No, in fairness, up and done. But I haven’t actually thought that any of the setups that we’ve done in the past have been perfect. so I was like, I’m just going to try something different this time, which is in line with the topic anyway, innovation through ignorance.

Breallyn: Oh.

Studio Setup and Portable Recording Gear Memories

Lyndon: So what, yeah, so we’re sitting slightly differently in the studio. There’s less stuff around. It’s a bit less cluttered. And you’re on a mic, interestingly enough. this is interesting to me. This will probably not be interesting to anyone, including you, but that microphone I bought when we went to America.

Breallyn: Oh yeah.

Lyndon: this is when we went on tour with the Darlow show. back in the day. It seems like just a whole, it was another lifetime ago now.

Breallyn: It’s a while back. Yep.

Lyndon: But I took with me a backpack, which I’ve still got. and it basically was a portable studio, we didn’t know how long we were going for.

Breallyn: Yeah.

Lyndon: That was the thing. And wanted to be able to record while we were away, I think I barely did any recording and I lugged that stuff around.

Breallyn: We were prepared for any eventuality, essentially.

Lyndon: I don’t know how much it would have weighed, but probably, oh, 25, 30 kilos

Breallyn: And that was your carry on luggage, wasn’t it?

Lyndon: could it have been? It was, yeah. Yeah, because you were concerned about obviously banging around in baggage.

Breallyn: yeah, it was your carry on. And what was my carry on? Do you remember?

Lyndon: No, I don’t want to go, it’s too stressful to think about. Was it three kids?

Breallyn: It was three children. We had a four year old, a one year old. and a five week old. So my baggage was nappies, cream.

Lyndon: We also took the world’s most heaviest pram.

Breallyn: it had to be a double because Yeah, our middle child was, little and run.

Lyndon: Oh,

Breallyn: But it was Run everywhere, yeah.

Lyndon: And we thought like a, light aluminium one wasn’t really going to cut it.

Breallyn: No,

Lyndon: In my backpack of recording gear there was, yeah, that was the computer, the laptop. But heavier than that is the interface that you see sitting over there, which for people that don’t know what an interface is, it’s basically recording gear. It’s it’s what you plug your mics into and then that interface plugs into the computer. That’s what we’re recording through right now. And, Yeah, so there was that in there. And anyway, so that microphone,

Breallyn: and it’s barely ever been used.

Lyndon: Yeah. It’s barely been used. And even for the last decade I’ve rarely ever used it. And I just thought I’m going to get it out. and just give it a run and just see how it sounds. So there.

Breallyn: Okay. So if I sound a little different this week, you’ll know why.

Lyndon: Hopefully you’ll sound better because I’m doing things a bit differently. Okay. that’s all we’ve got time for, on this affair. I’ve spoken about his children. Just, when they’re all out of the house.

Breallyn: What’s your topic? Innovation through desperation.

Lyndon: I know. it’s Innovation Through Ignorance. Now, the, I guess to a little side note with our topics is we choose the topic, but then what I do when I’m editing, I go, what did we actually talk about? And then, so the topic changes. for the, keen listener will hear that, obviously they’re going to read the topic. On the podcast title, which may or may not say, but, and then you’ll hear me saying a completely different topic. So maybe that’s why some podcasters, after they’ve done the episode, they top and tail it and they go, Hey, this episode coming up is about yada, yada And yeah, We had a great chat and hope you enjoy it.

Breallyn: we could do that. We might have to do that. We could actually consider both of us knowing the topic ahead of time so we could both prepare things rather than just fly off the handle.

Lyndon: I’m going to need help today.

Breallyn: All right. So you got a topic, have you got a flow, have you got a plan? No. Okay.

Lyndon: Of course not. You’re the professional.

Breallyn: we do tend to approach these things quite differently. I’m the over preparer. Lyndon is more a free spirit when it comes to this stuff.

Lyndon: Yeah. I approached this in the same way that I approached high school.

Breallyn: Oh dear. We are in trouble. Yeah.

Breaking Old Habits in the Creative Process

Lyndon: Yeah. But what I’ve been trying to do lightly, and it’s become more apparent in the last couple of weeks, is I’ve found that I’m easily falling into old ways of doing things. you had to live with me for the last decade or more, but you know how I’d come back from work in the studio and I just was not satisfied with my work. and a lot of that had to do with that my main function or role was to get people’s ideas out of their head and into demo form. So I didn’t do a lot of the finished recordings.

Breallyn: Yeah.

Lyndon: Like I did do some of that, initial stage of getting a song developed and into a good sort of structure and so on.

Breallyn: initial stage of getting a song developed and into a good sort of structure and so on.

Lyndon: And mostly singers who hadn’t been in the studio before or had written something on a guitar, but they hadn’t really considered what the arrangement would be or what instruments would make up that arrangement, stuff like that.

Breallyn: So you had to help them bridge those gaps.

Lyndon: Yeah. So I, which is fine. And that was fine. And it’s a good job. but in terms of setting me up for, recording stuff now, , different studio wanting to record the stuff that’s in my head and, have it sound how I want it to sound, I’ve noticed that unless I’m intentional about, what I’m doing, I’ll just be doing stuff in a way that I’ve been doing it like for forever and and then wondering why it doesn’t sound like what’s in my head. And I go, Oh, I think I might know why. I’ve been becoming really aware of, trying things new without any preconceived ideas. really going, okay, here’s a microphone. I wonder what it will sound like if I do this.

Breallyn: yeah,

Lyndon: Do you know what I mean? Rather than going, all right, I’ll just do this. And then after that, I’ll have to do this. And then on, you’re like having some sort of weird guidelines or process of stuff that actually served a purpose back in the day, but ultimately didn’t bring me joy.

Breallyn: Yeah,

Lyndon: essentially. sounds a bit harsh, but,

Breallyn: I suppose You were limited by time and so on, obviously working with different clients and you had a job to get done, but now you’re wanting to not have to use the same processes and formulas because now you’re doing something different. You’re exploring sound and you’re trying to create new things. so are you finding that it’s difficult? Do you have to retrain your brain a little bit to do that? Not operate by those formulas, or is it a freeing experience to do something new?

Lyndon: no, it’s both.

Breallyn: Yeah. Okay.

Lyndon: Yeah, it’s both they were sort of formulas, even though I wasn’t doing anything formulaic. It’s more like just the processes over time.

Breallyn: Yeah. We’re, creatures of habit, essentially. And yeah, we tend to follow patterns where, you know, which for daily life that can be quite a good thing if you get into certain habits it really can help achieve things like I don’t know, health wise or, getting things done wise, like just doing the daily tasks of life, building and habit stacking can be super helpful because you do operate on autopilot.

You don’t have to think through every single step of every single task that you do. But when it comes to those creative processes, especially like you say, you, writing and recording new material, that habit unconscious following of certain procedures that would not be so helpful at all then.

The Importance of Curiosity and Play

Lyndon: Yeah, that’s right. And we’ve spoken before about the importance of curiosity in, creating art.

Breallyn: Yeah.

Lyndon: , and there’s, that sort of childlike approach. And it’s funny, remember being younger and, , whether it was an art teacher or even like a music teacher and I already know the , the C major scale and I understand the Do, Re, Mi, Fa, Sol, La, , all that kind of stuff. But it’s the first time everyone else has seemingly heard of it. And then the teacher will be saying stuff like, Oh, just play with it. Just experiment. And I’ll be like, Ugh. So like such lame things why would you just play with it? And it’s not an experiment. it’s a fact like

Breallyn: it’s what a basic building block of understanding. Yeah. Can we just get past this please?

Lyndon: But now I’m like going, actually, I need to approach things with that sort of attitude of just being experiment with something and even if it’s just to ensure that I’m not, inadvertently doing something, that’s not going to yield the results that I want. Yeah. And it’s, one of these things too, where, if you hold something too tightly, like you, you kill it or

Breallyn: Absolutely. Yeah.

Lyndon: And I don’t know, we’re not meant to be results driven yet. If you’ve been working at something, and then at the end of it, you go, I don’t like this at all. What happened? then it’s hard to not focus on the result.

Breallyn: the result.

Lyndon: We’re meant to be creating things. and just what experiment and play and, and, in a way not care about the result, but know that, yeah, if you do it, approach it that way, you’ll probably be closer to what you want. And if you’re not just throw it away and start again, because the whole process will be more enjoyable. I don’t know, even talking about it just seems,

Breallyn: It seems like so many dichotomies all held at one time and many like opposing ideas held at one time in your head. So you’ve, got to produce something and yet approach it with, without having that end result in mind. but you’ve also got to have, direction and be purposefully Making your art because you’ve got certain ideas that only you can bring to the world. you don’t just want to end up with a scrambled mess.

You want to end up with something that people, on the other hand, when like on the other side of it, when it comes to people appreciating the art or interacting with the art, they can see what you’re doing. They can hear what you’re doing or they can experience something. art is that twofold thing. it’s about the producer, but it’s about the, the person that interacts with it as well.

Lyndon: Yeah. And, I think when I talk about the sounds in my head, a lot of the time there’s a song that stuck with me and it’s, the sound of the guitar and the weight of the voice against that guitar that I really liked. And so I want to get close to that sound. But the, thing is the audience that ultimately might have ears on my music, they’ve also had a lifetime of hearing things.

And so there’s, there’s an understanding mind and in their brain and their ears what, a recording, like what an acoustic guitar and a male’s voice over the top, what it should sound like or what it does sound like so if you’re not close to that, you potentially are you’re not going to get that engagement with a listener. But then that palette is so broad as well if you listen to, to say Bob Dylan. if it’s just his vocal over an acoustic guitar, that’s going to sound wildly different to, hearing Joey Landreth just him and a guitar. his voice is so buttery and it’s everything. It’s like honey, it’s like molasses. Like it’s a, beautiful, warm, tone.

It’s completely different, yet as valid experiences listening to a Bob Dylan. I suppose with writing, you get that tone too, don’t you? Oh, for sure. every, every book’s got its own, tone of voice and every author’s got their own distinct ways that they’ll construct sentences and bring things across. And that’s the beauty of it is just being absorbed in the language as well as the characters or the plot lines or whatever.

Breallyn: It’s the particular way that the author can be heard through that as well. Yeah.

The Saga of the Echoes of Home Theme Music

Lyndon: So what happened over the last couple of weeks is finally, I was getting to record the theme music for my podcast, which is on Patreon called Echoes of Home. And the episode I recorded a while ago now, but I hadn’t published it because I didn’t have theme music for it. So I thought, okay, I’ll write, I better write the theme music. And I had loads of different ideas on my phone and things that it could be and whatever. And then I ended up getting that guitar there. That Gretsch .

Breallyn: There is another guitar in the studio.

Lyndon: And not let’s describe it. Okay. Not long after that.

Breallyn: It’s orange, it’s bold, it’s in your face. .

Lyndon: It’s a color I never thought I would like, but then when you see some of the other colors, you’re like, actually, you know what, the traditional orange actually isn’t too bad.

Breallyn: Wow. Gretsch hey?

Lyndon: it’s funny though, when I, was a lot. younger, I hated the look of Telecaster guitars. I just thought they were the ugliest. but also I never used to like olives or mushrooms and I eat them now,

Breallyn: You’ve grown up.

Lyndon: It’s interesting I haven’t had a Gretsch earlier because so many of the sounds on albums and songs that I really love, it’s the Gretsch sound and I never join the Dots because I’m slower than a Wet Week, so there you go. But anyway, so I got that guitar, I got a a P Bass, bass guitar. and I just thought, Oh, let’s see if I can come up with something with these.

And so I did. And I came up with a tune and then I recorded it over, I don’t know, an afternoon and then spent the best part of two weeks mixing it, changing it, doing a whole bunch of different things. And then right when I was about to publish the episode, I thought, I actually don’t like that. I don’t like that music. I didn’t mind the music. I just, I thought, you know what, it’s not doing it for me. So I just shelved it.

Breallyn: that just sounds excruciating. It was like, it was painful. Cause I would hear it Coming from the studio, I was thinking, I think it’s finished by now.

Lyndon: No.

Breallyn: And kept working on it and, yeah,

Lyndon: I reckon for the last few days of me stuffing around with it. I knew that I’d overstepped like how long I’d been it shouldn’t take that long. I think that’s a sign.

Breallyn: Yeah.

Lyndon: but what happens is you go, I’ve put this much work into it, this much time for zero money. I might as well just finish it. So what I have got now is a shelved 32nd tune.

Breallyn: Which is actually a nice piece of music.

Lyndon: yeah, but to me it’s just sounded like a demo, So getting back to what you started talking about. Yeah.

Breallyn: Yeah. It sounded like a demo

Lyndon: and it also didn’t like, it was fine. It’s a fine podcast theme. but it didn’t suit my podcast to be completely fair.

Breallyn: Yeah, I’ll just say, no one would have cared. I think you’re being super harsh because I think it was really nice, but let’s examine what you’re saying about

Lyndon: We should play them back to back.

Breallyn: It’s a good idea. Anyway, so why are we examining it? Yeah, we’re examining it because you started out talking about that you are finding that you need to do things differently now in the studio because you had been doing things a certain way. And obviously this piece of music that you’d first written for your podcast, you’d approached that in a certain way of, I don’t know whether it was the writing or the recording or a bit of both, but you’ve realized, okay, let’s step out of those patterns now, do something different. So what had changed? Like, how did you approach it differently for the second piece that you wrote?

Lyndon: Okay. Oh, okay. so just let me state too, they’re both inspired in the moment. So there’s no difference there.

Breallyn: Yep.

Lyndon: so if I think back to the first theme, I started with an electric guitar melody. And I won’t bore you with how it all got put together, but it had drums. It obviously had bass guitar. Yeah, I ended up going, you know what it needs? A horn section. So it was this sort of slightly grand, pompous sounding thing and the more things I put on it, the less I liked it,

Breallyn: and is that because you like deep down you weren’t happy exactly with the, writing of the music or the piece of music itself. So it didn’t really matter how much you massaged it. It was just never going to be what you wanted it to be.

Lyndon: Yeah, maybe I captured the inspiration and then really needed to go, all right, now let’s record that properly with the considerations of what’s gonna make it sound like a record.

Breallyn: Oh, So you think your first few layers of the recording weren’t what you’d want it to be.

Lyndon: Yeah, possibly. Okay.

Breallyn: Interesting.

Lyndon: Yeah. I’m always learning like something I like about what I do is that I’m always learning like I’ll never stop learning.

Breallyn: Yeah.

Lyndon: but the learning itself can get in the way like the learning becomes the thing rather than in this case. music. So partly I probably spent too long on it but still the, cloud hanging over me was, I don’t think this actually suits my podcast theme. Yeah. So as soon as you got any little doubts like that, it really does affect the, whole thing. It had been a depressing week, that second week of trying to get this thing to sound right. And I was like, I don’t even know why I bother thinking that I’m a musician.

Breallyn: When you get to that point that something’s wrong.

Lyndon: Actually, I was catching up with a mate yesterday with Steve and he was telling me, so he does a radio show and, he was saying that he’s getting to the end of his creativity,

Breallyn: which was

Lyndon: really a conversation for another day. But I was like, how does anyone, get to the end of their creativity. I think maybe I’ve seen people that have gotten to the end of it, but they haven’t recognized it. Maybe.

Breallyn: Maybe it’s just the, end of that creative project. Like maybe he’s just done the radio show for so long that. He’s out of ideas. Yeah, and he should do a different creative project.

Lyndon: this is what we spoke about, but he said, nah, I think I’ve just run out of creativity. I just, I don’t think that’s possible. I don’t think that’s even human. anyway, we’ll, so we’re talking about.

Breallyn: I think it probably is for a lot of humans. You’re an exception, Lyndon.

Lyndon: He was saying that people that, Yeah. are doing it for a career or that are really creative. He said, you’ve got to have that drive where it’s limitless there’s no top to it. You just don’t see the end.

Breallyn: Yeah.

Lyndon: And I said, yeah, I guess that’s true because you need that in order to get through the, slumps that always come.

Breallyn: Oh, yeah.

Lyndon: Do you know what I mean? so if you don’t have that drive, like I may have given up last week, but I’ve got this blind, it used to be blind ambition. Now I just think it’s the ambition that surrounds a career, isn’t there? It’s an ambition of more like to do with actually the need to create and knowing that I’m not gonna stop.

Breallyn: Yeah. that’s what I see in you and probably always have is, that endlessness of the creative curiosity that you do have, and you are always like pursuing a new idea, something fresh will occur to you and you’ll go down that rabbit hole for a while.

Lyndon: Yeah, I have all these different projects that sidetracked me from the the one thing that the sort of holy grail thing in my mind that even when I do it, I’ll be like, okay, what’s next? Yeah. So where were we on that whole Oh, the slump. Yes.

Breallyn: You were talking about, you were catching up. Yeah. You were catching up with Steve. Yeah. Yeah.

Lyndon: But it was about the slump and like getting through it.

Breallyn: To the point

Lyndon: of me going I’m not, I’m, I don’t want to every time I do my podcast and edit it and then put it on Patreon for for people to listen to. I don’t want to listen to the, that music and go, ah.

Breallyn: I’m not happy with that.

Lyndon: Like what, it would be insane to do that. Yeah. So I didn’t, I got rid of it and, the very next day.

Breallyn: You got rid of it, you were in the slump of going, Oh, this sucks. And.

Lyndon: I just got rid of it. I just shelved it. Yeah. And, and then the next day I picked myself up off the floor while I got out of bed. Which sounds more comfortable. I waited until we had a carer. For our daughter and, we had a couple of hours free and I just came up with a new tune on the acoustic guitar on the spot. So once again, inspired in the moment. And,

Breallyn: See that, that’s pretty incredible. Can we just stop there for a sec? The fact that you didn’t then spend a month and a half trying to stuff around with different ideas and, not being able to come up with another tune or anything like that. I don’t see that as Like the fact that you can just do that. I think that’s actually amazing though.

Lyndon: Yeah. But to me, that’s honestly, it’s that’s not anything because I just, because I’m sitting down playing the guitar all the time.

Breallyn: Yeah, and you’re always coming up I know you’re always coming up with little notes, little riffs or like tunes, whatever you might want to call them, but yeah, like I hear that pouring out of the studio all the time, but I don’t know that’s, is that normal? Like that sounds to me like that, that’s pretty great that you do that.

Lyndon: I think it’s probably normal in the studio. For peers of mine and whatnot, if that’s what you mean. Yeah. To be able to do it. Yeah, I don’t know. I guess so. But so yeah, but the approach that was different was I, played that and I went, that could be something, I’m not going to complicate it. That’s a thing. And I recorded it and I thought maybe that’s all it has to be. And then I tried to let curiosity guide me. and what did I do next after that? I recorded for a start, I was recording into a mic that I’d never used on an acoustic guitar before. So that whole thing was new.

Breallyn: So it wasn’t a similar thing that you’d done before, like it was going, let’s try things, let’s let the creative process guide the,

Lyndon: and having done that, next time I record with that mic on that acoustic guitar, I’ll probably do it a bit differently as well. Yeah. Yeah. I captured the idea and that’s what you’ve got to do. There’s a mic, there’s a guitar, there’s an idea, quickly record it. So yeah, so I did that and then anyway, cut a long story short, I I made it more complicated than it needed to be. and I deleted that.

Breallyn: Oh

Lyndon: I didn’t delete the whole music, just the extra part I put on. I’m like, why did I add that third guitar part? That was just, I already had it and I knew I had it. And then you can layer things up until the cows come home. You can create, every note. you could easily add at least two other notes to, create a chord so that you’ve got harmony on every note. you could do all sorts of different things. You, could shoehorn everything into a simple tune if you wanted to.

So yeah, I did that one stage, go, Oh, hang on, I’ve made this more complicated and I deleted that part. But ultimately ended up with something that is much more suited. to my podcast, Echoes of Home, which is talking about the writing of, the music for your audio book, for your novel. So that’s what the podcast is about. And I think the theme for it now, is just a nicer, gentler introduction to that world. Or to that podcast, not necessarily to the world of your book.

Breallyn: There is a connection. There is like a greater landscape in which all of our podcasts and all of our work is surrounding this novel. All of that is sitting, So yeah, it needs to fit within that. that creative landscape. if it was completely at odds, obviously it would not sit well and it wouldn’t be the right piece. yeah.

Lyndon: And, what, is cool about that decision I made to shelve the original idea is that yes, it was, when I say two weeks of my life, I never get back. It, wasn’t two weeks of solidly working on it. It was just two weeks of That tune being in my head, me working on it, when I had the opportunity, and, Do you remember when I said to you, Oh, I’ve realised I shouldn’t be so linear with things. it’s actually healthier for me to have a few different things happening at once.

Breallyn: Yeah.

Lyndon: Musically.

Breallyn: Yeah.

Lyndon: Because your ears need a break and you get, Oh, I go Because you start unintentionally over the smallest things and you, and even though you go, I’ve got to keep sight the big picture insight. You don’t, you can’t. It’s, you’ve made it impossible for yourself. So you need a break from mixing something and listen to something fresh, something new. what was cool was that when I started recording the new theme, I had it all recorded, mixed and the episode published inside three days, I think.

So I could have spent another whole three, four days on the other theme and still not been happy with it. It would have been nearly three weeks of

Breallyn: laboring over something that, of laboring over. Yeah. So did you find then that the process of doing the second one that you ended up going with was, like fresher and more vibrant work experience of doing that?

Lyndon: Yeah, it was heaps better because the result also is closer to it’s closer to some of the sounds I want to create in the future.

Breallyn: Yeah.

Lyndon: And, the sounds I want to create in the future aren’t, it’s not like new sounds that no one’s heard before. It’s just the sound of my acoustic guitar. Yeah. Nice and full and big or whatever.

Breallyn: It’s well one thing I have learned

Lyndon: It’s not like I’ve created a new instrument and there’s gonna be some new sound that no one’s ever heard.

Breallyn: No Yes, no, I have learned that I’m living with you that a sound is not just a sound and like what I would have at once thought just like a guitar is a guitar or an acoustic is an acoustic, it’s all got the same sound. No, that is not true. There is just so many possibilities and yeah.

Lyndon: which is a freeing thing when you’re creating stuff you can go, I guess there’s no rules.

Breallyn: Yeah. And there’s literally not a, an end to all the options that you have really. Yeah.

Lyndon: Yeah. Yeah. I don’t know, have we strayed from the innovation through ignorance? But I guess what this is touching on is the importance of recognizing when when you hold beliefs about how to do something or how to create, and being able to recognize that, Oh, I’m, operating under those and I don’t need to,

Rick Rubin and the Beginner’s Mind

Lyndon: I know in Rick Rubin’s book, the creative act, a way of being well, I may have spoken about this before. I’m still reading this book. He talks,

Breallyn: we have mentioned this book. Yeah.

Lyndon: He talks about the beginner’s mind and he says, ‘a child hasn’t got a set of premises it relies on to make sense of the world. And that preconceived ideas limit what’s possible. The childlike mindset of play above all else is being in the moment, being radically honest without consideration, having no regard for consequences and moving freely from one emotion to the next without holding on to story.’

So each moment in time is all there is. So there’s no past, there’s no future. So he’s talks about, yeah, that’s part of the beginner’s mind. So in a way, like you need to like, so not saying that experience doesn’t count for anything, but it, can limit you. And for me, it was like an unintentional Limitation.

Breallyn: Yeah.

Lyndon: And I think we probably all have it, and I think that’s, yeah, we do. That’s why I was referencing teachers just a memory of yeah. Whether it be art, teachers just experiment with this and using that language, they’re actually trying to empower you and get you to connect to that, purity of creativity and that childlike, even though I guess we were children. Yeah. I suppose it’s setting you up with all sorts of constraints and boundaries and stuff like you’ve got these materials to work with and you’ve got this 20 minute before the bell goes time limit to do it in.

So within that, go for it. Yeah. And I suppose too, they, applauded what I would have looked at was just, that’s just rubbish. They’d go, well done because they’re, not just because they’re being encouraging necessarily, but because acknowledging process and the fact that someone thought, why paint the macaroni when I can just stick it on the page and then flick paint at the page and it will cover some of the whatever it was. And they go, that’s awesome. I’d look at that and go, that is shite.

Breallyn: Yeah. I suppose they’re, yeah, they’re applauding that you’ve tried a different process rather than you’ve come up with the most amazing result. Yeah.

Lyndon: So yeah, experience doesn’t rule out innovation, but it just makes it more. difficult to access.

Breallyn: Yeah, I think we’re always trying to reach that point of playfulness yet. bringing all of our knowledge and experience to create something that’s, better or like different or somehow above what we’ve previously created. So it’s it is hard. You’ve got that experience that you need to bring into everything and your know how and all the things that you’ve, what you’ve become over the years, you have to bring that because that’s what you’ve got to create with. But then to set it aside in the moment and play with new ideas or whatever comes to mind. That’s a, it’s a real balancing act

Lyndon: and not being such a stick in the mud with different things. Yeah, it’s an ongoing, challenge, one I am accepting and a line that I read that I found impacting was, ‘tuning into what enlivens us in the moment instead of what we think will work.’ So when you’re asking me about the approach, that was the difference that I had writing and recording the second theme I was just going, what’s exciting me about this? And sometimes what is exciting is using the microphone I’ve never used before.

Breallyn: Yeah.

Lyndon: Like even today, like with you using that microphone, I, wouldn’t say like I’m over the moon excited, but just, but I was quite happy with myself that I said, you know what, we’re going to do it different today.

Breallyn: Yeah.

Lyndon: Getting back to the studio I worked with and and the way our good friend, Brendan ran that studio was, awesome. it was a project studio and we had to get things done in a certain amount of time. So you end up going, we know this mic and that guitar work.

Breallyn: Yeah.

Lyndon: When someone comes in and they want to record an acoustic guitar, we’re using that mic. We’re hopefully going to use that guitar. If they’ve brought their own guitar, that’s fine. We’ll deal with that. But that mic is probably the one we’ll use. And that mic lead is plugged into this preamp over there. and away we go.

Breallyn: So you don’t have like hours to set up different options.

Lyndon: no, And I was always fighting that. And because I wanted to spend more time experimenting and whatnot. So it’s, interesting, isn’t it? That I’ve actually wanted to do that. And now I can do that. Yet I found myself still going, I want everything set up in this studio so that it’s all just ready to go and there’s house sounds. It’s like you plug in the bass and it sounds nice. And that’s fine. But also being able to go, you know what, none of that really matters. Maybe it matters when someone comes in and we need to get going straight away. But when it’s just me here, just try a different mic. Yeah. Try a different, so yeah, sometimes that, so

Breallyn: know when to set aside those, Yeah. Procedures that you’ve got that work. Yeah. And, going, I’m gonna, take the risk on these other sounds and I might just be stuffing around trying to get the right sound for three hours. That’s always like a risk. ’cause then you can’t put down what that idea is or whatever. So you’re setting yourself up going, I might have a really horrible time right now and not feel at all creative, but I’m going to do it for the chance to be a bit more curious and a bit, be a little bit more experimental in the way I develop a sound for this thing.

Lyndon: Yeah. so that’s how I was living out that idea of not doing what I think will work, but just it doesn’t matter. this is what’s exciting me right now.

Breallyn: Yeah.

Lyndon: I’m going to record something with my acoustic guitar. It’s got really old strings on it. They’re not that old, but they’re dead from half a dozen gigs, it doesn’t matter.

Breallyn: Yeah.

Lyndon: That’s good. It’s nearly what have I learned this week?

Breallyn: We’ve learned a bit of innovation through, what is it?

Lyndon: Innovation through ignorance. See, maybe that’s not really the title, is it? It wasn’t.

Breallyn: Not so much ignorance,

Lyndon: having ignorance towards something actually has been responsible for a lot of innovation over the years and in music. And, yeah,

Childlike Innovation and Novel Inspiration

Breallyn: We were talking earlier about a daughter Birdie and. She has a mind that is perpetually childlike. So we’re often trying to bring more stability and bring more regular routine type function to her. And yet she will always surprise us. Like we’re, constantly having a laugh because she will do things in the most unexpected ways. Because she, doesn’t approach them like an adult or like an older child.

She always brings this sort of freshness to the everyday and even things she’s done a lot of times before she’ll do in a new way or do something different that just makes us all smack our foreheads and go, who would have thought to do that? So yeah, it’s, funny that we’re living with somebody who really does have that childlike sort of ignorance and innocence about her. and it’s quite difficult to manage day to day, but I think we always appreciate it when she shows us something new.

Lyndon: And hopefully we can bring some of her light and Her childlike approach to things, but yeah, on the other hand, just as day to day parents, we’re doing lots of thinking around every situation that could possibly arise. It’s probably a good time too to mention that Birdie is one of the inspirations for your novel that you’re writing.

Breallyn: Yeah, and I can’t remember if I’ve spoken about it on this podcast or whether it’s mainly the other podcasts that I’m doing if you’ve not heard it, you can subscribe to Patreon for free and you can listen to the first episode.

Lyndon: I think you can listen. Oh yeah, maybe you’ve got to be a free subscriber to listen to it. Yeah, potentially.

Breallyn: So it’s the first episode. The podcast is called In Search of Home and it’s about my career. Writing process of writing the novel of which, yeah, Birdie has inspired one of the characters, Audrey. So it’s from Audrey’s point of view, but also her brother Tom’s. So yeah, I do a lot of studying Birdie and, like as her mum, I’m constantly trying to figure out how she works and how she thinks and all that just to, to help her and to, you help her build her capacity in every single way possible. But writing this book, I’m also trying to capture in some ways her unique take on the world and voice what she can’t voice in many ways. So yeah, it’s a bit of a complex process.

Lyndon: Yeah. Yes. thanks for listening, everybody. Probably a good time also to mention if you’ve been enjoying our podcast to head on over to Apple podcasts and give us a five star rating. Nothing less will be acceptable.

Breallyn: It will help us.

Lyndon: You don’t have to leave a written review. Look, if you’re not enjoying the podcast, just ignore everything and, go make yourself a cup of tea maybe.

Breallyn: Yeah.

Lyndon: And, calm down. now you can also visit our website, paininthearts. life. and head on over to Patreon. you can search for us on Patreon, Pain in the Arts, or you can go to patreon. com forward slash pain in the arts life.

Breallyn: And you will discover lots of nice little bonuses and extra interesting information. You can subscribe for free.

Lyndon: You know what else is coming up on Patreon? Unfiltered episodes. Yeah. So we’ve got an unfiltered episode coming up. I know that. And then, and there’ll be more unfiltered. So basically an unfiltered episode is the episode as it was recorded rather than editing it. Down to make sure that it’s, we, we want our episodes to be somewhere between, 40 and 55 minutes, I will tend to go in there and go, what,

Breallyn: What can we lose from that?

Lyndon: yeah, it’s normally, my heavy breathing that I just get rid of. Those long silences where you’re just staring at me.

Breallyn: If you think our normal episodes are rambly, have a try at the unfiltered ones.

Lyndon: It’s not too bad, but yeah. that’s it for another week. we will convene again, Bre, next week.

Breallyn: And, Indeed.

Lyndon: And yeah, maybe don’t, tell me you’re bringing to the table.

Breallyn: No, I’ll keep it a surprise. Yep. Yep. And we’ll chat about it then.

Lyndon: Okay. See you.

Breallyn: Bye.

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