I was a staff songwriter for Combine Music Publishing in Nashville for seven years. I'd sit around with a groups of friends with a Yamaha piano and a tape recorder and crank out songs.
Even though, theoretically, being a composer and being a songwriter are the same thing, in my brain, they are completely different. When I am in my composing mode, I go into my studio and turn that part of my brain on like a faucet. And when I finish, I turn it off. But with songwriting, that process is much more elusive.
I love the name 'Stella McCartney.' It's a beautiful name the way it rolls off the tongue. A couple of years ago, I wrote a cello concerto and used that as the basis for the rhythmic and melodic structure of the main motif of the cello part.
