my name is Lindsey Allen and I am –
Alexander and in 48 hours we are getting
married this is true it’s actually less
than 48 it’s officially less than 48
hours so so what are we doing here right
we should we should be back in Nashville
preparing for a minor event that we’re
having on Sunday yeah that would be the
normal thing to do well we are two
people who somewhere along the line made
the conscious decision in life to pursue
careers and music so we are not normal
and so we are here and we’re so excited
and well we want to talk about today is
the creative process and changing the
creative process to allow for
partnership and collaboration which we
really need to nail in the next 40 hours
yeah so when this opportunity presented
itself to speak at a TEDx event of
course we jumped at it especially we
found out that it was going to be all
about change because we kind of saw this
as an experiment to try out something
that we’ve never tried out before like
she was saying we get asked all the time
since we’re a couple and we’re
songwriters hey have you guys ever
thought about writing a song together
there’s some reasons for that which
we’ll get into later but we tasked
ourselves to see if we could make space
in this really deeply personal creative
process for one another and see if we’d
come out as better artists at the end of
it and Nashville is really a case study
as to why this is important has anyone
here spent any time in Nashville have
you visited or oh good we’re in the
right place well if you know anything
about music grow in the process you know
that it’s really interesting it’s it’s a
town of really accomplished writers and
they’re coming together sometimes in
like a blind date kind of scenario and
they’re writing a song or you know
working on a song in a session and then
it’s hopefully pitched and out the door
for another artist to record pretty
quickly and so a lot of the songs that
you’ll hear on the radio for instance
that are coming out of Nashville or even
in LA in some cases are completed in
this format actually the number one song
on country radio right now was composed
by four writers
so it was kind of a culture shock in a
certain sense I came from Georgia and
she came from New York City and neither
one of us had really plugged into a
songwriting community so we hadn’t ever
really thought to do that right to
collaborate and write songs with other
people we’d always done it alone there’s
obviously a lot of merit though to a
partnership in any industry but
especially in creative endeavors but we
like a lot of artists were kind of
worried because we kind of had this idea
that collaboration could water down our
work or cause the song to like lose our
personal voice or even worse like create
this assembly line approach to music
that kind of flew in the face of the
reason why people like her and I decided
to start writing music which was to
write really personal kinds of stories
and these sorts of things so in the
spirit of change you know we saw this as
a great opportunity to task ourselves to
come together and co-write and y’all it
was the best and most free like
premarital counseling we could ever get
conflict resolution yeah because it was
so tough and changes tough right and we
were vulnerable in ways we hadn’t been
before we it wasn’t comfortable but we
pushed through and we ended up writing a
song and we learned a lot of things in
the process and so we wanted to talk
about that it was one thing that was
kind of funny about it is it felt like
this awkward first date with someone who
had already agreed to marry really this
is the first like key thing that I
learned immediately was so I kind of
came to the table with the idea for the
song and so I think I felt like I had
this at least a misplaced idea that I
had kind of ownership or like it was my
baby and so I found that collaborating
for me in kind of evoke this
fight-or-flight response I think that
our artistry and our ideas our work gets
really tied up in our self perception
and so when somebody doesn’t like your
idea or doesn’t really care for your
work it tends to make your brain make
you go crazy and I’ve kind of found that
we were there button heads over the idea
or you know leaving the room
well those slamming the door didn’t
happen
bydd leave the room a couple you know so
that said we learned that we really
needed to assume positive intent from
our collaborator our partner you know
you think about in this kind of scenario
for us it was writing songs but it could
be in any collaborative process
everyone’s coming into the room
vulnerable and open and wanting to share
and everyone’s coming to the table
wanting to do a good job so we found
that when we started from that place
mentally it really transformed the
process and allowed us to succeed in the
right yeah
the third thing here is that you have to
learn when to surrender so we kind of
found that we were fighting really hard
like I said for our unique perspectives
and things like this like we we wanted
to get our line in there or whatever but
what ended up happening was we just
ended up kind of spinning our wheels we
weren’t really getting anywhere because
we weren’t creating space for each other
to actually work and so when we learned
how to let go of things and create space
other priests are today succeed in the
right and then she was less frustrated
or vice versa and that was key to us
actually completing this all it was it
was critical and we’re so grateful that
we learned that through the process and
ultimately we learned that changing your
creative process drastically changes
your product but that’s the beauty of
collaborating and so you walk away with
something that you could have never made
by yourself that you made with another
person and in our book that’s growing
and that’s a success yeah absolutely so
I’d really like to task
everybody in here whether it’s in
creative endeavors or anything else to
allow collaboration yeah and collaborate
in ways that make you a little
uncomfortable and kind of kick you
outside of your comfort zone we did for
the sake of this talk and we want to
share of a song that we wrote it’s the
first song we’ve ever written together
and it’s called the real thing and
Taylor why don’t you tell a little bit
about kind of how you came up with the
idea for the song like I was saying
earlier I had the original idea for this
and then I brought it to her and I had
the idea when I was at a concert seeing
music and I was looking around and
there’s this new thing that I hadn’t
noticed until like the last five years
where everyone watches the concert like
this through their iPhone you have ever
seen that and I thought it was super
weird in like
I mean this is like I said it’s
something that’s only been able to
happen for the last five years in it
made me think that we really do kind of
live our lives through pictures a lot
and maybe we miss out on some things
when we do that and that’s kind of what
the song is about so I hope you guys
enjoy it
[Music]
I won’t fat and no picture-postcard
[Music]
greetings from somewhere mills and
though I wish you were here
it sounded sincere I can’t say I’ve gone
myself
that ain’t the real thing
[Music]
you wait for it’s an holyday glad to
come sweep you off your feet but you can
turn down the skies of no measure to
work they said on TV are you the real
thing
have you thought about the moments you
barely miss but you were busy taking
pictures so you don’t forget we’re a
thousand words any words Allah would not
you read me one it was the real thing
[Music]
bring the real thing
[Music]
we flip through and read a cheap
magazine or you spend in the chicken
[Music]
we’re just a face on a page but don’t
look her age I’m very sorry sir
[Music]
the real thing
[Music]
have thought about the moment you barely
missed but you were busy taking pictures
so you don’t forget where the thousand
words anywhere to laugh when I was the
real thing
with a thousand words saying where’s the
light wood now you really won’t it was
the real thing
[Music]
there are you thing
[Music]
[Applause]
Alexander and in 48 hours we are getting
married this is true it’s actually less
than 48 it’s officially less than 48
hours so so what are we doing here right
we should we should be back in Nashville
preparing for a minor event that we’re
having on Sunday yeah that would be the
normal thing to do well we are two
people who somewhere along the line made
the conscious decision in life to pursue
careers and music so we are not normal
and so we are here and we’re so excited
and well we want to talk about today is
the creative process and changing the
creative process to allow for
partnership and collaboration which we
really need to nail in the next 40 hours
yeah so when this opportunity presented
itself to speak at a TEDx event of
course we jumped at it especially we
found out that it was going to be all
about change because we kind of saw this
as an experiment to try out something
that we’ve never tried out before like
she was saying we get asked all the time
since we’re a couple and we’re
songwriters hey have you guys ever
thought about writing a song together
there’s some reasons for that which
we’ll get into later but we tasked
ourselves to see if we could make space
in this really deeply personal creative
process for one another and see if we’d
come out as better artists at the end of
it and Nashville is really a case study
as to why this is important has anyone
here spent any time in Nashville have
you visited or oh good we’re in the
right place well if you know anything
about music grow in the process you know
that it’s really interesting it’s it’s a
town of really accomplished writers and
they’re coming together sometimes in
like a blind date kind of scenario and
they’re writing a song or you know
working on a song in a session and then
it’s hopefully pitched and out the door
for another artist to record pretty
quickly and so a lot of the songs that
you’ll hear on the radio for instance
that are coming out of Nashville or even
in LA in some cases are completed in
this format actually the number one song
on country radio right now was composed
by four writers
so it was kind of a culture shock in a
certain sense I came from Georgia and
she came from New York City and neither
one of us had really plugged into a
songwriting community so we hadn’t ever
really thought to do that right to
collaborate and write songs with other
people we’d always done it alone there’s
obviously a lot of merit though to a
partnership in any industry but
especially in creative endeavors but we
like a lot of artists were kind of
worried because we kind of had this idea
that collaboration could water down our
work or cause the song to like lose our
personal voice or even worse like create
this assembly line approach to music
that kind of flew in the face of the
reason why people like her and I decided
to start writing music which was to
write really personal kinds of stories
and these sorts of things so in the
spirit of change you know we saw this as
a great opportunity to task ourselves to
come together and co-write and y’all it
was the best and most free like
premarital counseling we could ever get
conflict resolution yeah because it was
so tough and changes tough right and we
were vulnerable in ways we hadn’t been
before we it wasn’t comfortable but we
pushed through and we ended up writing a
song and we learned a lot of things in
the process and so we wanted to talk
about that it was one thing that was
kind of funny about it is it felt like
this awkward first date with someone who
had already agreed to marry really this
is the first like key thing that I
learned immediately was so I kind of
came to the table with the idea for the
song and so I think I felt like I had
this at least a misplaced idea that I
had kind of ownership or like it was my
baby and so I found that collaborating
for me in kind of evoke this
fight-or-flight response I think that
our artistry and our ideas our work gets
really tied up in our self perception
and so when somebody doesn’t like your
idea or doesn’t really care for your
work it tends to make your brain make
you go crazy and I’ve kind of found that
we were there button heads over the idea
or you know leaving the room
well those slamming the door didn’t
happen
bydd leave the room a couple you know so
that said we learned that we really
needed to assume positive intent from
our collaborator our partner you know
you think about in this kind of scenario
for us it was writing songs but it could
be in any collaborative process
everyone’s coming into the room
vulnerable and open and wanting to share
and everyone’s coming to the table
wanting to do a good job so we found
that when we started from that place
mentally it really transformed the
process and allowed us to succeed in the
right yeah
the third thing here is that you have to
learn when to surrender so we kind of
found that we were fighting really hard
like I said for our unique perspectives
and things like this like we we wanted
to get our line in there or whatever but
what ended up happening was we just
ended up kind of spinning our wheels we
weren’t really getting anywhere because
we weren’t creating space for each other
to actually work and so when we learned
how to let go of things and create space
other priests are today succeed in the
right and then she was less frustrated
or vice versa and that was key to us
actually completing this all it was it
was critical and we’re so grateful that
we learned that through the process and
ultimately we learned that changing your
creative process drastically changes
your product but that’s the beauty of
collaborating and so you walk away with
something that you could have never made
by yourself that you made with another
person and in our book that’s growing
and that’s a success yeah absolutely so
I’d really like to task
everybody in here whether it’s in
creative endeavors or anything else to
allow collaboration yeah and collaborate
in ways that make you a little
uncomfortable and kind of kick you
outside of your comfort zone we did for
the sake of this talk and we want to
share of a song that we wrote it’s the
first song we’ve ever written together
and it’s called the real thing and
Taylor why don’t you tell a little bit
about kind of how you came up with the
idea for the song like I was saying
earlier I had the original idea for this
and then I brought it to her and I had
the idea when I was at a concert seeing
music and I was looking around and
there’s this new thing that I hadn’t
noticed until like the last five years
where everyone watches the concert like
this through their iPhone you have ever
seen that and I thought it was super
weird in like
I mean this is like I said it’s
something that’s only been able to
happen for the last five years in it
made me think that we really do kind of
live our lives through pictures a lot
and maybe we miss out on some things
when we do that and that’s kind of what
the song is about so I hope you guys
enjoy it
[Music]
I won’t fat and no picture-postcard
[Music]
greetings from somewhere mills and
though I wish you were here
it sounded sincere I can’t say I’ve gone
myself
that ain’t the real thing
[Music]
you wait for it’s an holyday glad to
come sweep you off your feet but you can
turn down the skies of no measure to
work they said on TV are you the real
thing
have you thought about the moments you
barely miss but you were busy taking
pictures so you don’t forget we’re a
thousand words any words Allah would not
you read me one it was the real thing
[Music]
bring the real thing
[Music]
we flip through and read a cheap
magazine or you spend in the chicken
[Music]
we’re just a face on a page but don’t
look her age I’m very sorry sir
[Music]
the real thing
[Music]
have thought about the moment you barely
missed but you were busy taking pictures
so you don’t forget where the thousand
words anywhere to laugh when I was the
real thing
with a thousand words saying where’s the
light wood now you really won’t it was
the real thing
[Music]
there are you thing
[Music]
[Applause]
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