Hi folks,
I hope you enjoyed the Orchestral Song series!
Today we’re going to talk about something completely different: my favourite notebook! If you think that’s boring, hear me out for a second more: GreenBook isn’t just any notebook, it is a reuseable notebook with whiteboard pages. Bonus: You can order a stack of music pages to add to your GreenBook!
I’ve created a custom GreenBook with lined, dotted and music pages and I’ve been using it for about a month now – and guess what? I’ll never go back to discardable paper!
How to use the GreenBook for managing your music projects
1 – Sketch Scoring
Sketch scoring is an important part of my writing process. Not only do I quickly jot down ideas for melodies and chords progressions, I also write down voicings and arrangements when I’m working on a song.
Before, I always threw away the scratch version, but now I can just erase my writing and use the page for another song. It also comes in handy when I make a mistake – editing my melodies and arrangements is infinitely less messy.
2 – Brainstorming lyrics
Whether I’m looking for rhyming words, synonyms, keywords or writing down some sentences that emerged in my brain, I can easily order them by taking out the pages and grouping them in whichever way seems best to me. And again – when I’ve produced the final song and created a lead sheet, I can wipe the pages clean to use them for a new song.
3 – Creating repertoire lists
As a singer, one of my goals this year is to build a repertoire so I can start performing as a solo artist. I have various lists I can easily manage in my GreenBook: songs that already made the list and need some rehearsing, songs that are interesting to study for vocal technique reasons, and songs that are potentially interesting to add to my set list.
4 – Weekly planner
This one speaks for itself. I add my to do’s such as blogging, rehearsing, project tasks and promotion and write down the hours I’ve worked on it.
5 – Recurring tasks
I have some recurring tasks that come back every day, week or month. In my GreenBook I’ve liste them all and I can easily erase all the checked boxes to use those lists over and over.
6 – Project manager
One of my favourite parts of the GreenBook is how you can manage your projects the way YOU like! I have a list of all my current projects, and for every project I have a separate page where I break it down into easy tasks, such as recording, editing and promotion. It is a really structured and efficient way of working.
7 – Energy curve sketching
Did you read The Addiction Formula by Friedemann Findeisen? Those whiteboard pages com in really handy when sketching his so-called energy curves. Not only for producing new songs, but also for playing all accompanying parts for a cover song. Without a conductor, you need som way to make sure all dynamics are the same in all the right places.
8 – Goals
I’ve listed all my goals in the GreenBook. Not only my monthly an yearly goals, but also what I want to accomplish in 5 years, or during my lifetime, such as releasing the Platonica concept album I dream of and working together with certain artists.
GreenBook features
Shortly summarized, these are the features that make the GreenBook such an incredibly helpful resource to help you managing your musical career:
- Wipe pages clean and use them over and over again;
- Take pages out and rearrange them;
- Customize your GreenBook with blank, lined, grid, dotted or music pages;
- Available in A5 and A4;
- Comes with wiping cloth and refillable whiteboard pen.
Where to buy?
You can buy a GreenBook in the Dutch webshop of A Green Story. They don’t ship internationally yet, but I’ll let you know as soon as they expand their horizon!
This blog post is written in association with A Green Story. I’ve received free music pages.
