We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Scott Hall. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Scott below.

Scott, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Learning the craft is often a unique journey from every creative – we’d love to hear about your journey and if knowing what you know now, you would have done anything differently to speed up the learning process.

I started out writing poems when I was 14 or 15. They were pretty awful, but I always imagined them as songs even though I hadn’t started playing guitar yet. I was very self-critical and was afraid that others would judge my guitar playing until one day my best friend started taking lessons. I thought, “If he can do it. I can do it.” So at 16, I asked my parents for an electric guitar and lessons. I remember feeling that I was starting very late because I had classmates who had started when they were 12.

I think the first song I learned how to play was an Aerosmith song. But almost immediately I began to write my own songs with no songwriting training and only rudimentary music and guitar knowledge.

I went off to Wake Forest hoping to please my parents with a business degree. There I took a classical guitar elective and formed my first band and shortly after dropped out and begged my parents to send me to music school.

I attended Brooklyn Conservatory of Music which was taught by instructors whose passions were playing jazz clubs in town. That’s where I learned music theory and how to improvise. This created a huge step up in my playing and songwriting.

I finished college at Georgia State with a degree in commercial music recording (sound engineering) which helped me understand the recording process.

Later in life, I attended songwriting workshops at the BMI headquarters in Nashville. That was another big step up in my songwriting as it taught me to not be too ambiguous and to stick with one feeling throughout a song. Those workshops also taught me to keep rewriting in search of the best lyrics.

To speed up my learning process, I would have asked for formal music training earlier and would have asked for songwriting lessons early as well.

Studying music theory may not be essential, but it greatly expanded my songwriting ability. Knowing what chords I could potentially use in a song and understanding their relationship with each other brought me to a new level.

And regarding learning to play an instrument, practicing a riff or chord progression slowly to a metronome or drum beat and increasing the tempo only when you’ve mastered the slower tempos is essential. Otherwise, you carry your sloppy mistakes with you as you increase your speed. And practice, practice, practice!

The biggest obstacle that stood in the way of me learning more was fear. I was afraid to be a novice. I was afraid to fail. That’s why I started everything late.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

After college I was in a series of rock trios that played mostly in Atlanta, and I have continued to play in bands and duos throughout my life. I also composed and performed music for several plays that were performed on the Atlanta Beltline, but music was always a part-time profession.

My first creative career was as an artist/photographer for the hospitality industry and my photos are in hotels around the world.

For the last 6 years I worked as a psychic medium and gave readings to people and helped them communicate with loved ones who had passed. When business slowed during Covid, I decided that my heart was truly about music and that I could combine my intuitive skills and knowledge with my songwriting ability and help people expand their consciousness through music.

At the ripe age of 56, I decided to retire my crystal ball and record a solo metaphysical/spiritual rock album based on my life experience with the supernatural and spiritual worlds, but in the process of writing and recording, a family crisis occurred, and I ended up trying to help a loved one with a major addiction problem. This led me to write songs about the crisis to cathartically work through my feelings. As a result, the album ended up being a metaphysical/spiritual/addiction album called Aliens Angels & Monsters available on all music platforms.

I am very proud of my accomplishment. The album is an accurate depiction of where I am after 40 years of songwriting and gives many nods to the rock music that has influenced me along the way. You’ll be surprised all the way through as the album twists and turns through various rock genres, eventually unwinding into the heartbroken final songs played in Americana and Folk styles.

The songs on the album span the themes of spiritual awakenings via UFO contact, calling on angels, seeing ourselves as aliens, meeting my father in the astral realm, a higher self’s point of view, spirituality and boundaries with loved ones fighting addiction, and there’s an unusual love song Talk to Your Ghost written for my partner Janet about love after death.

Is there mission driving your creative journey?

Yes. My goal is to entertain myself though self-expression. I’m constantly bringing what is inside of me to the outside as I shape it into something that I enjoy experiencing. If I really dig it, then I share it with others. This includes the painful stuff like my song Monsters, which is about addiction. I still enjoy hearing it even if it reminds me of the pain. But my overall mission is for my creative expression to be a catalyst for my consciousness to expand as well as that of the listeners.

Is there something you think non-creatives will struggle to understand about your journey as a creative?

Every time I’ve tried a non-creative path, I end up miserable. I’ve learned that every day I must do something creative and when I do something creative, it feels like I’m digging in rich soil. Even though it’s a feeling, it’s almost physical for me. I feel this when I pick up the guitar, when I sing, when I draw, or when I pick up my camera or edit a video. It’s a wonderful feeling of connection with myself that I now understand is essential to my wellness.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://iamscotthall.com/
• Instagram: @iamscotthall
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/scotthallartistmusician
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/scott-hall-864b903b/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC6qUs-b7dHzNmvk2oCnINzw
• Other: https://open.spotify.com/album/4c4rNReeAElwbJey5rHcsK?si=ETtW8zfMRNCyIAP2aBi6QQ

Image Credits
Scott Hall – 1 of 27.jpg Georgie Harris Scott Hall – 6 of 27.jpg Georgie Harris 4E5A1966 SQ.jpg (The photo of me playing guitar in a live setting) Taryn Shultz The remainder I took or created myself.