Mark Geary 'The Maker and The Mindset of a Master Songwriter - exploring the songwriting process'

Hello and welcome to This is HCD. My name is Gerry Scullion and I am a designer, educator and host of This is HCD, based in the wonderful city of Dublin, Ireland.

Our goal here is to have conversations that inspire and to help move the dial forward for organisations to become more human-centred in their approach to solving complex business and societal problems.

This is a new type of episode that I am looking to explore more over the coming years, and that is looking laterally into other fields where we as change-makers can find inspiration. And inspiration you are 100% about to feel and hear in this conversation with one of the finest singer-songwriters around anywhere today, and that is Mark Geary.

The music you hear throughout this episode, is from Mark’s first album, released in 2002 and has accompanied me on my journey as a designer and an ex-patriot whilst living in Australia. It wasn’t until recently though that we really got to sit face to face, in front of turf stove, and drink countless coffees and sing and play guitar together in Mark’s gorgeous cottage in the wilds of a rainy Autumn day deep within a forest on the outskirts of Dublin. 

In this conversation we talk about the remarkable journey Mark has been on over the last 2-decades that has seen him play all over the world. 

Mark doesn’t play music to be adored, he plays to exist - it’s part of who he is. It’s part of his fabric. He constantly tours around the world, often with Glen Hansard, another phenomenally talented Irish musician. 

We speak about his roots in Sin-E in New York, a place where he cut his teeth - a free flowing cafe that many music lovers will automatically connect with Jeff Buckley, but this was a community of like minded people, that cheered and nurtured their own. A community, much like our own within This is HCD, that is trying to figure it all out and get ahead.

There are points in this conversation where we chat about Mark’s environment, and how having the space set up and ready to channel whatever it is that we call ‘it’ - how this affects the process. Mark’s guitars are all around the place, and he’s constantly playing, experimenting, trying and testing out ideas. He’s a master crafts person.

We even talk how this environment is shaping his music, or maybe his music is shaping his environment. How living within a forest is permeating into his latest release, with his latest single being called The Forest.

Let’s get into it!

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