Hey everyone, and welcome to the podcast. For today's episode I talked with Grayson Graham, a high school senior with no plans for college. For his future, he's put all his chips in on his musical ability. He is a really talented guy, and he's almost entirely self taught and self motivated. To date, he has written over 170 songs, he plays piano and guitar, and he performs live. Recently the band in which he's the lead singer won a battle of the bands at a local public high school, and he leads youth worship at his church and for various small groups. The YouTube link for the podcast is below, as well as relevant timestamps to various topics we discussed. At the end of the episode he sings an original song called "Fall Again." I hope you enjoy this conversation, and look forward to more coming soon.
As always, thanks for listening.
Timestamps:
0:00 Intro and why Grayson doesn’t have college plans
4:06 Balancing quality & quantity when learning to write songs
5:47 Finding inspiration
9:29 How to connect to an audience even when you’re writing a story to which you aren’t personally connected
18:38 The push and pull of music that is good on a technical level vs music that resonates with an audience, and how to walk that line as a creator
23:39 Grayson’s creative process
28:34 Can just anyone write a song? Is it an innate talent that some people have and others don’t?
31:53 How to overcome the concept of perfection?
37:19 The problem with modern music lessons
44:45 Original song “Fall Again” by Grayson Graham
YouTube link to episode 8: