24/7/2018

​Ok, you’ve found a thousand excuses not to journal (I know I did). After all, you’re a writer. As if journaling is not writing. Still, how many times have you caught yourself trying to remember something and connect it with a specific date, time, weather conditions, mood…
So you probably missed it, but is there anything else around that can help you jolt your memory, is there somebody out there that could have done your journaling for you? Not really, but there are certainly straws you can grasp and suck that memory out of its hiding place.
As somebody who devotes quite a bit of his writing time to music, scouring almost any type of a music site for useful information is a daily must. Particularly if you want to connect a piece of music to an artist, date…
In an almost frantic moment, I ran into a site called Harkive (www.harkive.org), which has an interesting concept — every year it runs a music listening survey and actually asks people to write a personal music listening story. For 2018, they have extended their entry date until July 27th.
Harkive then stimulated the ‘memory lane’ mode it got me into and I ran into Classic Album Sundays (www.classicalbumsundays.com) , which itself led to more news-oriented Best Classic Bands (www.bestclassicbands.com), which then brought me to where I was actually headed — to This day in music (www.thisdayinmusic.com), which not only lists a choice of daily music events through the years but also has its choice of best albums, quotes and other factoids.
Being of ‘certain age’, one of the daily entries for Friday, July 20th did that jolting trick personal journaling could have — “1975, [Bruce Springsteen](http://www.thisdayinmusic.com/pages/bruce_springsteen)
and the E Street Band played the opening night on their [Born To Run](http://www.thisdayinmusic.com/pages/born_to_run) Tour at The Palace Theatre, Providence, Rhode Island. This also saw the live debut of Steven Van Zandt, (Miami Steve) as a member of The E Street Band.”
So, yes, there are treasure troves of writing information and inspiration out there you can always resort to, but, then, I think I’ll start keeping my favourite notebook and pen in proximity for one more try at journaling.
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