I’d never even heard of singer-songwriter as a genre before; have now Googled it and get the idea! I like that concept of an individual creator making the lyrics and the music (that’s probably how I’d like to create music if I learnt the skills).

Yes, I love to take apart other people’s pieces of writing to see what makes it work. Copyblogger’s great for that! Some people think that would diminish reading pleasure, but actually I find that being able to analyse a piece of writing helps me to appreciate it with greater depth — I’m sure you find the same with music.

(My fiance and my brother, both of whom have considerably more musical taste than me, have no particular liking for Metallica either… though my fiance bought me a Metallica t-shirt, amongst other things, for Christmas )

(Dude, Metallica? Really? I hear their new album sounds “squashed”) My top three musicians at the moment are: John Mayer, Colbie Caillat, and Jason Mraz. The singer-songwriter genre is definitely my most favorite kind of music, but I make it an effort to listen to other genres, specifically ones I’ve never tried or rarely hear before.

Of course listening to new music in an “undiscriminating” way plays a similar role to me as reading does to you. I like it when I realize certain production techniques that may escape the attention of the average listener, and then apply those techniques to my own compositions. I suppose you experience the same too Ali, when you realize a certain method of writing that ignites the interest of the reader, but you can understand why it’s interesting and apply it in your own writing.

Cheers, and happy holidays. Look forward to a blasting 2010.
Endy Daniyanto´s last blog ..Re-Incarnation: Why We Need to Re-Learn and Re-Discover

“Eclectic” is one of my favourite words (simply as a word, alas, rather than as a concept!) My taste in music is pretty non-existent: I’ll get passionate about a few things but they don’t necessarily bear much relation to one another – my top three bands at the moment are Blackmore’s Night, Metallica, and Franz Ferdinand…

I’ve always been a fairly wide-ranging (some would say undiscriminating!) reader, and I think that’s fed productively into my writing. I imagine music might play a similar role for you?

I like that sentence. During my college years, I too went through a self development program that was life changing, but it was only so through a long period of time, making the drama and romance out of it practically non-existent. But it’s still worth going through, when I see the person that I’ve become because I chose to go through it.

On a side note, I’ve always been an open minded person, and I make a point to be as eclectic as possible. One way to exercise thinking outside the box, especially for me, might be to try listening to the genres of music you’ve never heard before (e.g listening to jazz if you mostly are a hard rock fan).

Cheers for the article Ali.
Endy Daniyanto´s last blog ..The Premium Price of Privacy

If only I were listening…
Dave Doolin´s last blog ..Dynamic Content Generation – How WordPress is Like a Sushi Restaurant

Great addition there with blogs: yes, definitely! I’ve found some brilliant ones over the past few years (see the blogroll in the sidebar for my absolute favs). And you’re right that mixing it up and reading different bloggers is a great thing … I know I tend to get too set in the particular blogs in my RSS readers, and need to be nudged into finding new voices once in a while.