Tools Of The Trade

Posted on by IJ

© I.Woloshen

I remember the first time I began to put together my little basement office. I had all of the major pieces…the desk the chair, the computer…but I was missing the little things. So it was with great delight that I made my list and ran off to the local Office Depot to find paper clips and pens and post-its to add to my collection of office supplies. I kept all the receipts for tax time and placed everything in neat little places, easily retrievable.

Nowadays, my office is a disaster area. I could care less about having an “In Tray”, there are piles of correspondence, lyric sheets, magazines, cheques and bills everywhere. Okay, so I’m not perfect.

There are some things that I can’t do without, however…I need them near me at all times, especially my songwriting “tools”!

1. First and foremost…lots of paper and pens! I keep a big red 3-ring binder with a thick supply of new lined paper in it…when I get in the lyric-writing mode, I don’t have to go far to find it, and a constant supply of pens too. I keep everything I write, which means for boxes of sheets of paper. I have some of the song lyrics I wrote when I was 15 years old! When the binder gets too full, I pull out the used papers, stick them all in a box, and refill the binder with more paper. I have at least 5 pens in various places, all within reach in case of a sudden brilliant idea :-), and usually a box of them in my desk somewhere.

2. I also keep a Hook Book, although I didn’t call it that until some other songwriters I know referred to it that way. A hook book is a small pad, essentially, that I carry with me whenever I’m away from home. Those ferry rides between Vancouver Island and the mainland are places when a line will just hit me. A must have!

3. I have a micro-cassette recorder that has saved a song more times that I care to remember. I’ve been lazy enough to assume that I’m going to remember something and two minutes later it’s gone! That recorder has tons of bits and pieces of music on it. I remember running off to the bathroom at work once, humming something into it. I’ve also gotten up in the middle of the night a few times, running downstairs to hum something into it. Once a few months back, I had to come up with a theme for a TV show and I was stuck! I decided to go for a walk and took the recorder with me, and sure enough, within a few blocks I had an idea. Just a quick glance around to see if anyone was looking…then I hummed it into the recorder and finished my walk with a smile on my face!

4. Probably the tool I’ve had the longest, as soon as I figured out how to use one, was a thesaurus. Undeniably, many songs would never have been finished without it. Sometimes I just have an essence of a thought or feeling I want to express and by looking up different words that come close to it, I will usually either find what I’m looking for, or get another idea as I’m searching. Even when I’m not stuck on anything in particular, I’ll look through it sometimes and get ideas…

5. Which brings me to the dictionary…nothing is more depressing than to figure out you’ve used a word the wrong way! Or, heaven forbid, sent a lyric sheet out with something and misspelled a word! Of course, if you’ve been using a word processor, there’s always spell check these days. But again, the process of just looking through a dictionary can bring you to places you’ve never thought of going, lyrically, before.

6. I don’t buy a lot of CD’s, but I do tend to listen over and over to the ones I do buy. If I’m enthralled with an artist or a song, I’ll obsess on it! And when I’m stuck for creative ideas, especially musically, my listening repertoire will always inspire.

7. Guitars…I have three of them, and a bass. Sometimes just changing guitars, going from acoustic to electric, or to my little Yamaha classical, will turn a song around for me. I will play my songs differently on different guitars! When it comes to arranging a song for recording, this can come in really handy! I want more guitars. Waahhh!!!

8. The Internet…so why the heck would I call that a tool? I can’t tell you how much the people I’ve met and the websites and newsgroups I’ve visited have inspired and encouraged me as a songwriter. The internet literally brought me out of the closet…you’d think that the opposite would have happened, but not for me! My website has attracted many songwriters over the last 4 years and because of it, my songs have had more exposure than I could ever imagine! BUT…the major boost for me has come from other writers. When you are flat up against a wall creatively speaking, chatting with another songwriter can ease it away. Someone who knows what you’re going through can help you get past anything that might be in your way. Your best friend can only stare at you helplessly, but another songwriter…that’s another story!

Okay, so there’s my small list. You might wonder why I don’t list songwriting books…I have only one! Songwriting books make me THINK too much. And for me, thinking can be a total disaster when I’m trying to write! Think about it :-)…then again, maybe you shouldn’t.

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Finding Your Voice

Posted on by IJ

© I.Woloshen

What is it about a lyric that makes the message universal? What is it that makes that message unique? So often, when I’m sent lyrics to critique, reading through them I find they “sound” the same as the last set of lyrics sent to me, but by a different writer! How can this be?

I remember being a teenager and coming to the realization that my thoughts about this world were not so much my own, they were thoughts that I’d picked up from my parents, my teachers and other mature individuals whom I respected. What a realization! It depressed me! I decided that I had to make time to come to my own conclusions about everything, but that was a pretty ominous task. This is the problem I find with newer writers…they are repeating lines they’ve heard a million times…cliché’s some of them, but others just ordinary, uninteresting phrases that make your eyes glaze over every time you read them. They have trouble coming up with a new way of saying something old…well, no kidding! When I wrote my first few songs…maybe the first couple of hundred!…I did the same thing. Not only were my thoughts not my own, neither were my lyrics.

The first hint of what’s coming is when a writer says…”Without the music, the lyrics don’t sound as good, so you should hear them with the music!” If you feel that way about your lyrics, take it as a sign that they are not finished yet! The age old argument, that a song isn’t completely understood without the music, may be true on some level. But that doesn’t take away from the fact that the lyrics may be weak…no music, no matter how wonderful, actually improves the state of the lyrics!

So how do you uncover your own individual thoughts, your unique perspective of the world around you? One of the keys is in your unique experiences…your life is different from many others lives in many ways. The things that happen to you, although they may have something in common with others, also have elements that are different.

For instance…say your whole family goes on a picnic, and the usual things happen…someone brings a football and the men play on a field…people bring baskets of food and drinks. The kids scream, people plaster sunscreen on. These are the common elements of a family picnic. But what might be different from others? That you have an Uncle Derek who has a gold front tooth that he flashes everytime he gets a touchdown. That your mother always brings tunafish sandwiches and makes you eat them before you can have the potato chips…that your cousin smuggled beer in a gingerale bottle because it’s almost the same colour…

The family picnic experience is common, the characters and events are not. When you begin to look for these little things that make your life unique, you begin to uncover your own voice in your lyric writing. Over time, it becomes easier to identify the interesting stuff! You didn’t just wear a suit to the prom…you wore a dark blue suit and the collar of the shirt scratched you in the same place all night every time you danced with this one particular girl…there you go. Later on in this series of articles, I go into more detail…about detail!

Eventually, you may find yourself INVENTING these details because your creative mind begins to feel freer to do so. My writing has developed to a point now where I can mix reality with imagination…sometimes I do that to “beef” a song up. People often ask me what elements about my songwriting are true and what I’ve made up! I almost never tell them! But I think I’ve finally begun to think, and write, for myself…

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How I Critique

Posted on by IJ
Song lyrics
Image by matsuyuki via Flickr

© I.Woloshen

Critiques can be brutal. Most of the time, the level of brutality is in direct relation to the thickness of your skin! I used to scoff and bristle at ANY suggestion that my songs might be less than perfect! How dare they!!??

More and more, I come across this scenario…people send me their lyrics for critique, I spend some time on them and send a reply, and never hear another word! Is it that I’m expecting you to love what I say? Not at all…you’re not likely going to agree with everything, in fact you may outright disagree with every word! I am not an insensitive boor who loves tearing other songwriter‘s work apart, but I DO tend to be quite upfront about the weaknesses and the strengths, whatever they may be. Therein lies the point…what do you expect of a critique?

The first and most important point…I can never emphasize this enough…is that it is nothing personal!! I can love you as a person and not like what you wrote! I can just as easily think you’re a twerp and LOVE your writing! Okay, I’ll admit that there are VERY few people in this world that I totally dislike 🙂

Secondly, I am at least equally as hard on myself when it comes to my own writing! I will never say anything to you that I wouldn’t say to myself…in fact, I’m probably easier on you than I am on me because I don’t know how for sure how sensitive you might be. The truth is that I want you to get better…and how can you improve unless you can identify your weaknesses? I want the same for myself.

I do not treat anyone differently…the only exception to this would be a very young songwriter (in age, not experience), in which case I try to be more encouraging. If a nine-year-old came up to you with her first serious effort at drawing a cat…you’d think twice before getting too critical.

Lastly, I compare ALL lyrics/songs with those on a professional level. If you want to be a carpenter, you have to set your goals in such a way that you can compare your work with the best darn carpenter you know. Even if you intend only to be an amateur songwriter, the very fact that you’ve sent your lyrics to someone for a critique shows that you want to be good at it, no? Otherwise, why bother?

In my experiences being a reviewer on Gods Of Music , I’ve noticed a number of things in the feedback artists/bands give reviewers when they get their reviews. This is a really common response…”you didn’t get my song/you didn’t understand my music”. Who’s responsibility is it to get the message across, the reviewer, or the songwriter/artist? If someone doesn’t understand your music…especially if a number of people don’t, you have to start looking at whether or not you are doing enough to communicate in your songs. You are putting yourself out there into the “big, bad world” of the music industry and they are not going to be nice. They are going to be brutally honest. So get used to it!

Another response…”I got a great review at (some other obscure reviewer or article)…”. This doesn’t mean anything…all it does is reflect the wide variation of responses you will inevitably get to your songs. Don’t expect everyone to feel the same about your song…you don’t feel the same about every song you hear!

There are also various other defensive responses you see from songwriters and artists who are pretty new to this idea of criticism. On the other hand, I see many who respond in a mature, gracious manner to whatever feedback they get. If you don’t get the “that’s a number one hit!!!” response the way you thought you would, take a long breath before you put your fist through the wall 🙂 It takes time, tremendous luck and a whole lotta talent to begin to compete with the rest of the music world.

I sincerely hope that EVERY SINGLE PERSON who asks me for a critique reads this very article first, in order that they understand what I’m going to do. To be painfully honest, if you are looking for a pat on the back ONLY…don’t ask for a critique. Instead, play your song to your friends and family. They will ALWAYS accept what you do because they love you!

(PS…Irene is no longer giving personal critiques other than her work with Gods Of Music, but you can request a critique on the Messageboard!!)

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Step By Step

Posted on by IJ

© I.Woloshen

This is a more recent song lyric that was born from one line that hit me in the car (don’t worry, I wasn’t hurt 🙂 )on the way home from dropping the kids off at school.

I thought it might be an interesting thing to take you through the process I went through in creating this lyric. I have mentioned before that usually my songs come from a “music first” place, but in the last couple of years, I’ve noticed a tendency to come up with a line and melody at once.

I saw a man that I’ve seen many times, walking down the street. I don’t know him personally, but when I look at him, he reminds me of someone…

“There is a man who looks like Truman Capote“

That was the line…now I had no idea where the song was going to go, I had only that line! What on earth was this song going to be about? Some people start with a central idea or theme…these days, I tend to write the first line and then try to build a song from there.

So I recorded it into my trusty micro-cassette recorder, and left it for awhile. Later, I pulled it out, along with my guitar, and started playing around with it. The melody had come at the same time, so I picked a chord and a key and let the words kind of come out as I was creating the melody.

Okay. There is a man who looks like Truman Capote…I thought I’d give a bit of a description next:

There is a man who looks like Truman Capote
He wears a slanted smile and a wide-brimmed hat
A little pigeon-toed, a lot eccentric
He gets a kick out of what he’s smiling at
And as I pass him on the street I wonder
What it is he’d have to say…

But what’s the song about? At this point, I remembered something my Dad talked about once…how he always remembered the “characters” that were around when he was a kid: characters who had idiosynchracies or looked or spoke a little strangely whom he never forgot.

This made me think about another older woman who we buy pumpkins from every year…she has an old house and some property and it’s become our tradition to always buy our hallowe’en pumpkins from her:

There is a woman, must be in her nineties
She sells her pumpkins every Hallowe’en
She’s all bent over with the weight of something
But every year, her crop’s the best I’ve seen
And as she prices out the one I’ve chosen
I wonder what she’d have to say

Now it seemed was the right time for a chorus…as it turns out, I wrote a melody and a different chord progression, but no lyrics! I just hummed a melody. Now, that’s not very conventional…but somehow or other, it works. If it feels good, do it 🙂

So did I just want to write about characters? I could probably think of others, but at this point, I decided to take a different direction:

A friend of mine who rides the bus on weekdays
With sixty travelers she’ll never know
She looks at every one and writes their story
To entertain herself when the ride is slow
If she saw Truman and the Pumpkin Lady
She’d know just what they had to say….

All of these people are real people…there really is a friend who does this…I always thought it was an interesting way to pass the time on a bus! It just goes to show that little bits and pieces of ideas and thoughts can stay with you and come in handy in your songwriting sometimes. And it gave me the title of the song…again, not very conventional, because there’s no lyrical chorus, which is where the title is more commonly found. So I decided at this point to call the song “Truman and the Pumpkin Lady”. Kind of unusual :-). Now I needed to finish the song…how do I tie all of these thoughts together? This is what I came up with:

And as we reach our final earthly hours
Looking back at what our lives have been
It will appear as though a giant weaving
Of every person, place, and time we’ve seen
And maybe someone will pass by and wonder
What it is we’d have to say…

Then I finished with humming that chorus again…a kind of wistful exit to a wistful lyric. One point I’d like to make is that I wrote it all in the present tense…this is intentional. If I had written it in past tense, it would have had less impact. There is an immediacy to the present tense that works very well with this type of lyric.

Of course, the verses didn’t come out all that easily and just as I’ve shown them here…they went through two or three drafts first. And is the song finished? I dunno!! But that’s the story of how it got this far.

***Update*** I finally broke down and wrote lyrics to the chorus…in fact I changed the chorus melody altogether. Why? Because I felt it was missing a summation, outside of the repetition of the line at the end of each verse. Here it is:

Don’t be unkind
Live a simple life
Laugh at yourself sometimes
Look at me now
You’ll be here someday
So love a little bit along the way

When I was in my teens I bought my step-grandmother a little wall plaque, that said “Live, Laugh and Love”. She thought it represented exactly what she believed. So there you go.

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Go With The Flow

Posted on by IJ

© I.Woloshen

You’d think that, being a songwriter, my interest in literature would venture more to the fiction arena. But ever since I discovered non-fiction (working in a public library for eight years helped), I’ve been hooked. I’ll read anything from spiritual to the so-called self-help books, with the aim of developing a greater understanding of myself and the world around me. I find great inspiration in many of the books I’m reading…lots of song ideas!

I’ve been reading a book lately called “Emotional Intelligence: Why it can matter more than IQ” by Daniel Goleman. I highly recommend it as a source of understanding your own emotional brain, how it works, and how you can work with it. One of the more fascinating sections deals with the creative mind and learning…the chapter is entitled “The Master Aptitude”. It begins by discussing how paralyzing worry, anxiety and fear can be…how it affects our learning and sabotages our ability to function. Eventually, the author moves on to a discussion of “flow”.

This immediately piqued my curiosity…flow is described as that state which “represents perhaps the ultimate in harnessing the emotions in the service of performance and learning.” Athletes call it the “zone”, but it can be found in almost any type of situation, whether it’s a doctor performing surgery or a composer creating a piece of music. The traits of “flow” are intense concentration, where pretty much everything else around you is shut out of your consciousness, a feeling of bliss and a loss of the sense of “self”. This is how I often feel when I’m writing! It can last a few minutes or hours…depending on the task at hand. It’s a kind of “in between” state, whereby if there wasn’t enough stimulation you’d grow bored and if there was too much you would lose control…a very thin line. The feelings associated with it become the motivation…in other words, you work at getting a flow because of how it makes you feel .

That’s a perfect set up for this next question: Do you write because you like the flow, or do you write because you want to get rich and famous? The fact is, that in studies done around this phenomenon, those who are more likely to succeed are the ones who do it for the feeling it gives them! The ones who are motivated by outside success will give up sooner, or have a lower success rate.

We will find flow more easily in the things we feel we are “good at”. For you beginning songwriters out there who don’t feel you’re good at it yet…think about why you do it. I find that from all of the songwriters I have met so far, the ones who began writing as a source of self-fulfillment are more likely to stick to it. Inevitably, the writers who have been writing for a good length of time began from that frame of mind. On the whole, do you find joy in writing? If you do, you’re more likely to succeed! Simple as that.

Oh, yes…and how do you get into the flow? There are as many answers to that as there are those who experience it. The more you write, the more you will find your own way to it. Some find the flow only when they are inspired. Some are disciplined enough to write everyday…they likely will get into the flow more often. The only answer is to DO. Go for it!

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