Introduction and a Statement of Purpose

My name is Chris Torgersen. I am a musician and songwriter with a lot of thoughts and opinions on the creative process and of songwriting in particular. I have been writing and recording music for the better part of the last 20 years. This is one of the biggest passions in my life, so I have decided to start blogging about it.

I am not going to give any tips on how to succeed in the music industry. I won't have any advice on live performance. I know nothing about fame or making money with music. I am not a gearhead, and I'm not much of a techie, either, beyond the minimum necessary for what I do. I am neither famous nor rich. My music is mostly available for free, and I have never had a record deal. I have played live with a band exactly one time ever, although I have had music written by me played in public settings a few times. But not much. Most musicians reading this will have more experience in these areas than me, despite the length of time for which I've been a musician.

What I have done is compose a lot of music. A whole lot. And I think a lot about the process of writing and what goes into it. I've found that I love talking to people about it. I'm a pretty quiet person, but songwriting one of the few areas where I seem to have a lot to say.

So, for this blog, I'll post a lot of my thoughts on songwriting. I welcome feedback (but not spam, please). I'll try to see if I can do some interviews with fellow musicians about the process as well, and we'll see from there.

I'm not a big believer in genre (more on that later), so I'm not interested specifically in, say, rock songwriting, although I do come from that sort of background, at least in part, myself. I believe in inclusion and mixing up genres, so I will hopefully be able to get perspectives from a variety of styles, and maybe even talk about what makes some different from (or similar to) others.

First up, so that you know more about the guy doing the writing, a history (coming up)...