The Guru Challenge - Part 1. The Song.

[Alice Knows]

I thought it high time to put my gurus to the test. Can Doug Marks, Ken Tamplin, Rick Beato, and Ralph Murphy help me write a great song? And can Savvy Musician Academy and IndiePro marketing methods help me create an audience while I do it?

I think it's fair. If you pay thousands of dollars to learn from these folks, you might as well test them out and see if they work in real life. Right? After all, demonstration is supposed to be the only way to teach. (See, Ken Tamplin? I can learn!)

Here's the video.

Let's start with our song's inspiration. The song is called Alice Knows. I heard this Fmaj7 chord and thought it sounded cool. Reminded me of a David Bowie song. So, that's where I started. I then, started thinking of writing a story about Alice In Wonderland, and what stories she'd tell based on her experience. And perhaps that experience was a psychedelic trip based on her eating a mushroom. And then, I thought perhaps she was an addict. A lovely addict. A very nice person, who was intuitive and gentle, just needy and who knows loneliness. And so I started writing.

Using Rick Beato's musical teaching, I wanted to write a song that was musically interesting and used lots of 7th's, +9th's, minors and borrowed minors. He says people don't write songs like that anymore and so music is (more or less) getting boring.

So I wrote this sequence, and started on lyrics. And knowing I was going to write this song with my friend, Chloe Bowie, I wrote the following words:

She'll use your love

Like a silver spoon

What she's dreaming' of

Can't come too soon

If you think you got problems now

Just wait til she shows you how

Far Down

She goes

Alice knows

If you need somebody

Alice knows

If you want a friend

Alice knows

The Highs

And Lows

That's how it goes

Alice knows

Alice knows

Alice knows

Don't take her hand

Unless you take her in

Don't give her your heart

And dream of what could've been