I like to produce songs because production allows me to give the song its sense of time and space.
I enjoy hosting people in my home. I get to create an experience, or the backdrop for an experience, and invite other people into it. My hosting inclinations were formed in The South— the Rural South to be more specific. In isolated, rural communities like the one I grew up in, extended families rely heavily on each other and on other clans in the community. There is a shared sense of space. My dad’s parents ran what was pretty much a free-of-charge coffee shop out of their kitchen and front room. Still to this day, a pot of Folgers coffee was on from dawn through early afternoon. Every day there had to be at least two or three people swinging through their house, getting a cup of coffee or “just saying hi.” Laughter, news, weather, fishing stories. Everyone knows you and you know everyone back.
Whether you grew up rural, urban or anything in between, there are certain ways we get reminded of how it felt to be there. Stories are one way— painting a moment with words, like the one above. Another ways is smell, which is a very strong sensory input for me personally. A certain pine smell could light my hippocampus up like a Christmas tree. I still use this Bath & Body Works eucalyptis-scented body wash, because my mom bought it in hand lotion form around the time we moved away from our hometown. The smell of it injects my brain with a tint of melodrama. I like to use it in the shower to get song ideas going.
Sounds are another mode of emotional transit. Piano feels a certain way, guitar feels another. Similarly, reverb feels like being in a certain space. Change the reverb “settings” (size of the room, shape of the room material of the walls, etc.), and you are in a different kind of space.