EXPERIMENT: Ordinary Observational

Notice everyday things to write better lyrics

Midnight Voice Memos ‘EXPERIMENT’ posts are quick, playful, and slightly addictive ways to jump-start your music-making brain.

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Ordinary Observational  is about finding meaning in the mundane. 

It’s designed focus your sense of 

• What is nearby & now 

• What is always there, but often ignored 

• What is unexceptional yet (maybe) profound

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YOU WILL NEED

Your five senses, a notebook & pen, a comfortable spot from which to watch the world (in your home, or outside it)

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TRY IT

Settle in to your surroundings (1 min)

Spend about a minute getting present in your body and tuning into your senses. Check in with each sense, as well as any sensations in your body. 

Write what you notice (10 mins)

Spend as much time on each sense as needed, writing exactly what you see, smell, feel, taste. Don’t try to be clever or poetic — just observe. 

Scan what you’ve written (2 mins)

Quickly choose …

• one phrase to be your song title. 

• one phrase to be your opening line. 

• one phrase to be your closing line. 

Use this as a starting point for a new song.

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VULNERABILITY MOMENT: My experiment results

Normally, I share these on IG without sharing my own output. Substack feels like a great place to get a bit more vulnerable, so I’m sharing some artifacts from my session yesterday where I used Ordinary Observational to get started.

Here’s what happened when I did the writing:

As you can see, I paid no attention to punctuation when choosing lines. This is a fun trick: grab your phrase from either side of a period for something a little less expected.

Here’s a rough n wild recording of what I wrote in my first burst following the experiment. It’s a voice memo with all the sounds left in, so beware!

FIRST DRAFT OF LYRICS (with parts from the experiment bolded)

Of the weave in front of me I only see a second
Closing eyes, and endless lives, and ages imperfected

People walking past have no idea
that we’re just barely here

It’s only blood, blood, breath and blood that means we can stay
And later blood, blood, breath and blood that gets in the way

I really did use what came out of the experiment only as a starting point:

I’ve positioned the line ‘People walking past’ so it’s part of my pre-chorus. It probably won’t end up being the name of the song, but it got me somewhere interesting I might not have gone otherwise.

Also, knowing I ‘had to’ finish on a final line having to do with blood made me think about bodies and blood and how to pull that into the song earlier. Not sure I’ll end up using the last line.

Ultimately, this song is perplexing me still but I think there’s something interesting there.

If you’re feeling bold, let me know in the comments how you go trying this for yourself!