Have you ever wondered about the creative process?  I know I have.  How does someone translate the idea for a song into an actual piece of music?  How does the original idea change as it is brought to fruition?  Here's an amazingly innovative album idea that explores these philosophical concepts.

Kate Schutt's new album, The Telephone Game, is about many things, but one of them is the process of creativity.  Scutt accepted song ideas from her listeners and then turned these ideas over in the mill of her own creative process, creating original songs with the input of her fans.

I remember playing the telephone game as a kid.  Everyone would sit in a circle and one person would whisper something in the ear of the person next to them.  That person would whisper the message to the next person, and the message would be transmitted around the circle.  By the time the message got back to the first person, it was usually drastically changed from the original message.

The title of the album is a great analogy for how Kate Schutt shared her songwriting process with her fans.  She received tons of responses from fans, including postcards, emails, stories, letters, and even paintings.  She responded in some way to each idea, whether it eventually became a song or not.

The originality of this idea is amazing.  I mean, have you ever heard of someone doing something like this?  Usually, artists guard their creative process carefully.  It's like a secret they don't want to share.  But Kate Schutt's album is all about sharing that secret.

The songs on The Telephone Game are strongly linked to the theme of love, which makes sense.  We've all felt love.  It's the most basic emotion humans can feel, so it's no surpise that it would be a common theme on a collaborative effort like The Telephone Game.

One of the songs on Telephone Game is called "You Can Have the Sky."  It's about giving everything away, including the sky, because you no longer have a need for it.  Loss is also a major theme on this album.

Kate Schutt is a relatively new artist.  She has a debut album out, called No Love Lost and just released The Telephone Game this fall.  Both albums are available for purchase on her website, http://kateschutt.com.