Guitar

Song Breakthroughs – How Do They Happen?

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© I.Woloshen

Have you ever had a song breakthrough? Do you know what I mean by that? I’m talking about a song that somehow stands apart from your usual fare…something that doesn’t seem at all your “normal” style of writing. How does it happen, and when it does, do you fight it or do you welcome it?

First of all, the “rut” we all get ourselves into once in awhile often creates a kind of frustration that is actually very useful. I relate it to what happens to children when they are small…just before they have a growth spurt, they go through a small period of restlessness and discomfort. As a parent, you KNOW that when they start getting restless, it’s because a change is coming! If, as a songwriter, you try to view your ruts as the frustration before the breakthrough, this might help you to get through them.

So what do you do to get to the “breakthrough” part? This should be treated exactly the same as when you are simply low on inspiration, which is pretty much the same thing. Many songwriters discuss the idea of listening to other music, something completely out of your normal realm, as being helpful in this cause. Trying other instruments can also bring about a musical epiphany. If you’re stuck on ideas for song topics, read a book that you would not have chosen before, go to a place you haven’t been before and people watch, or read some lyrics from your favourite lyricists.

I’ll tell you something that recently worked for me. I sat down with my guitar and started to pretend I was a completely different singer…I was basically “acting”. And for some reason, this brought out a very unusual (for me) chord progression, melody, and a kind of phrasing I hadn’t tried before. What is “phrasing”? In musical terms, it’s a grouping of words and melody. For instance:

Mary had a little lamb
Little lamb, little lamb

The first line has one phrase, the second has two. I’ve separated the phrases with commas. Do you write in long phrasings, or do you create a series of short ones in, for instance, a verse?



But I digress 🙂 The point is that pretending I was someone else just put me in a completely different head space, and out came something quite new for me. This is what I would consider a “breakthrough”. I could have just laughed at it and moved on, but instead I allowed myself to explore it a little. Don’t throw anything away too quickly! If you’re not sure about it, record it on your trusty little digital recorder and then listen to it later with fresh ears. Then again, you might be extremely excited at what is coming out and have the drive to finish it right then and there. The opposite could also be true…you could finish it and then when you’re listening to it later, it could sound like complete garbage. Oh, well 🙂

In the beginning, as you’re honing your songwriting craft, you might have quite a few breakthroughs. A learning environment almost always inspires. As time goes by, you’ll likely find that you fall into more predictable patterns with your writing as well. This is not necessarily a bad thing…hey, maybe it’s just your style! But if you feel stagnant, then it’s time to do something really different in your life that will change your perspective and help you to find a fresh path. Changing your songwriting environment may also help. Have you ever tried to write something in the great outdoors? On a beach or under the stars?

Another point: don’t be afraid to explore this breakthrough with several songs. Sometimes painters will draw a number of sketches of the same subject before they focus on one perspective and paint that. If you’ve come up with something really different for you, let it develop a little by writing a couple of songs in the same style. Breakthroughs don’t come along very often…so make the most of it!

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Results of My Survey

Posted on by IJ

© I.Woloshen

For the past several months, I have had a survey up on my main songwriting tips page with some basic questions on your experience, preferences, goals and others. The survey brought some surprising results, at least to me! What I want to do here is go through the questions and responses and evaluate them! The company that provided the poll changed around and as a result, the poll is no longer valid. However, I’ll be creating new polls in future so stay tuned! As for the results I received from the last one, here are the results:

The length of time most of you have been writing surprised me a little. I usually hear from people who have only been writing for a short period of time…but according to the survey, MOST of you (36%) have been writing longer than 10 years, followed by 2-5 years (32%), less than one year (19%) and 5-10 years (13%). What is interesting to me is that although I started 32 years ago, I realize that it is only the last 10 years that counts to me. Why? Because I don’t think I really studied the craft until then. Before that, I could have cared less to do any rewriting or to step outside of myself and think about what an audience response to my song would be. So I’ve come to the conclusion that the length of time we’ve been writing is probably not all that relevant! Have we spent that amount of time REALLY studying songwriting? I have read some great lyrics by people who have only been writing for a short while…and some equally weak lyrics from some who’ve been at it for some time!

Most of you who responded write both lyrics and music (67%), more write just lyrics (25%) than just music (8%). This was a newer question on the survey and therefore has fewer responses than some of the others, but seems to confirm my suspicion that MOST songwriters aim to do both.

The majority of you are what I call “sporadic” writers (42%)…I include myself in that category. I can go a long time without writing, and then suddenly spew out a long list of songs. This is why I don’t believe in “writers’ block”, at least for me! Because there’s a time that I’m in the songwriting “mode” and a time I’m not…sometimes I have nothing to express! 25% of you write daily! I wonder if you have written daily for all of your songwriting life? My guess is that there are probably some who responded this way because you THINK you should write daily 🙂 25% write weekly. This seems fairly reasonable. 8% of you write monthly.

The next question is one I took particular interest in…”What do you feel is your biggest weakness in your songwriting?” My guess would have been lyrics, since the majority of songwriters I hear from seem to find difficulty in coming up with fresh and original lyrics. But most of you (24%) responded that “structure” was your biggest weakness! I’m wondering if this is because the definition of structure isn’t all that clear? What I call ‘structure’ is also defined in songwriting terms as ‘form’. This is the ABABCB (or any combination of those) that you always hear about, where A=verse, B=chorus and C=bridge. There does seem to be some confusion by newer writers about what a “bridge” is, or a “pre-chorus”, and where they belong. But considering that most of you have been writing for more than 10 years, the confusion about structure does come as a surprise! 19% find melodies the biggest challenge and the same number say that “conveying a message” is their biggest weakness. I DID say to pick more than one if necessary, so the demo may be a little skewed by that. Another big surprise…only 1% of you said that uniqueness is your biggest weakness…now that’s a shock! For the most part, many of the songs I listen to or lyrics I read from newer writers really lack the uniqueness quality! Nobody thought rhyming was their biggest problem…this is also very interesting. Is that because it’s easy to rhyme words, or because you practise rhyming more than anything else? 🙂 14% thought your lyrics were your biggest weakness, and 10% music.

None of you have successfully found a songwriting collaborator on the internet. Whether that’s because you aren’t looking for one, or just haven’t had any luck, is another question. Considering that the internet has become a great tool for interacting with other songwriters, this also comes as a surprise to me!

The majority of you are interested in seeing more articles on lyrics (27%) or just more of anything (27%). Articles on performing (14%) and music (16%) and the business (16%) are pretty even. I do take this question pretty seriously…but it is curious to me in comparison to the question above about your biggest weakness, where only 14% of you thought it was your lyrics. I also like the fact that a good number of you will leave the choice of article topics up to me 🙂

In terms of songwriting goals, I’m also very fascinated to know that most of you (41%) are interested in becoming a performing songwriter! Practically speaking, it IS an easier way (if you can say that!) to get your songs heard by others. The trend in major music centers like Nashville these days is for a songwriter to be self-contained. In other words, less and less signed artists look outside for material and more write their own. 36% of you are in search of a publishing deal, 14% write purely for fun, and 9% haven’t quite made up their minds what they’d like to do yet.

The majority of you (86%) have never attended a songwriting workshop put on by a songwriting organization! I enthusiastically encourage you to do so! Not only is it a great learning experience, but you will finally meet more of your own “kind” 🙂 A lot of success in the music business, for instance, is based upon who you know. You’ve heard that one before, haven’t you? But who’s going to know you if you don’t get out there and introduce yourself? That’s the biggest side benefit from attending workshops, aside from honing your songwriting skills. Okay, enough preaching 🙂

And last, but certainly not least…favourite songwriting tools! I told you you could pick more than one, of course. Looks like the good ol’ “pencil and paper” method of writing is still valid one (36%), followed by the guitar (24%), micro cassette recorder (11%), keyboard (9%), newspapers/books/magazines (7%), the Internet (7%) and a rhyming dictionary (4%). I didn’t include a thesaurus, which I use all the time, don’t know why I forgot that.

As I said earlier, the poll no longer works, but I will be creating more in future, so stay tuned 🙂

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Chord Keys

Posted on by IJ

© I.Woloshen

Here’s an email I received recently:

“Irene,

If I write a song and start playing the first chord as (A) what other chords can I use that would fit. Usually I go to the C to G type, but that’s because I’m limited. How can I find a wide selection of chords that would that would fit ? especially with minor chords.”

When I first started to learn how to play guitar, every new “neat” chord or progression I learned ended up being in a song 🙂 The more I learned, the more I wrote! So I understand completely the limitations that pop up when you don’t know your instrument all that well. Translation: Learn your instrument!

Here is my simple explanation of very basic chord theory…I hate theory, but it helps to know some of it so you can expand your understanding:

First of all, chords are grouped together in families called “keys”. These chords all relate to each other, which is why they sound good together! If you sit down and look at the chords to a lot of popular songs, you’ll notice that very often the same chords will be together in different songs. If you see a song with a “G” in it, you’ll often also see a “C” and/or a “D” too.

Below, I’ve listed some keys, and all of their relative chords. If you play these chords together, you’ll notice that they all sound like they work together…voila!

Chord Keys
Chord Keys

So that’ll give you a few chords to work with. But of course there are MANY, MANY more different types of chords! Not only that, but you don’t HAVE to use chords in the same key…experiment by throwing a chord in a different key in somewhere…that’ll give a little musical twist to a song! Nirvana was a band notorious for writing songs with chords that were in different keys…it gave a kind of strange mood to some of their material that was part of their ‘sound’. What’s your sound going to be? 🙂

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Success – What’s Standing In Your Way?

Posted on by IJ
A digital sound recorder
Image via Wikipedia

© I.Woloshen

“Success” is a relative word, and your idea of it can change as you inevitably do. For instance, in my teens and 20’s (ugh!) I measured success by my position, my income and the number of friends I had. Well, the part about friends hasn’t changed much 🙂 But everything else has!

These days I define my success much more simply…I ask myself, am I doing what I want and love to do? Most of the time, I’m happy to say, the answer is yes! But it took me a long time to get here…

I believe that the largest hurdles we have in front of us are the ones we put there ourselves. Never mind what the “others” say, what are the things you tell yourself? Have you ever listened to your own thoughts? I know, that sounds weird and new agey, but have you? What kinds of things do you tell yourself? Do you encourage yourself and keep a positive attitude, or do you tell yourself over and over “I’m a terrible writer, I can’t do this, I’m not going to make it”? Creative people, on the whole, tend to be extremely sensitive…it is that sensitive part of ourselves that gives us the insight to our own creative juices, but it can also be a burden. The downside to sensitivity is the old chip-on-the-shoulder syndrome when things aren’t going the way we’d like.

But knowing all of that, what can we do to get a little closer to our idea of success? Being songwriters, sometimes we lose our ability to come down to earth and establish some structure in our lives! But structure, organization, plans and work are all necessary ingredients! Here are a few steps you can take:

1. Identify – write out what your idea of success is! Sometimes we meander around the subject without really clearly identifying anything about it. What is success to you? You can give yourself a time line, if you like. “In five years I’d like to be…” Work your way backwards, all the way to what you can do today!

2. The Steps – what steps can you take to achieve your goals? Make two lists…one will be the more major steps (ie…I want to get a publishing deal, I want to record a CD…etc.), the other will be the little steps! I can tell you right now that the little steps will be the most important!! For instance, if you want a publishing deal, there are several things you need to do to make that happen. You need to identify the publishers who might be interested in your songs, you have to have a decent recording of your songs, you need to collect addresses, make a list of who you’ve sent to, etc., etc.

Perhaps your primary goal is to become a better writer. Well, that goal is never off my list! Again, you would benefit by sitting down and determining what it is that YOU NEED in order to begin achieving that. Do you need to improve your lyric skills? Do you need to be around other writers? A few visits to some open mics? Are a couple of piano lessons in order?

3. Be Prepared To Change – For heaven’s sake, if something isn’t working, let it go! It’s okay to move onto something else! Stubbornness and determination are admirable qualities, until they are just plain stupid!

4. Opportunity Meeting Preparedness – I’m sure you’ve heard that expression before. People who have achieved success weren’t just sitting around waiting for it to fall into their laps. Well, most of them anyway! They were able to recognize an opportunity when it hit them square in the face. You may think that is obvious…but you can never be sure exactly when it’s going to hit, or how. A little story, if I might: When I’m almost finished recording a song, I tend to make a DAT copy of it (digital audio tape) just so I can have it there to listen to for myself, and for whatever else I might need it for. A couple of months ago, my husband and I had a business meeting with an old friend in our home, not related to songwriting in anyway, just an investment opportunity. This friend brought his business partner with him, and we spent an hour or so discussing this new business. At the end of the talk, we started chit chatting about other things, and it so happened that this friend mentioned to his partner that I was a songwriter and had a studio downstairs. Lucky for me, I’d cleaned it that morning 🙂 So I invited them down to see the studio. I happened to have my DAT machine hooked up with the tape in it, and my friend wanted to hear the latest version of Catnip (a song he’d participated in recording). It JUST SO HAPPENED that his business partner was ALSO a songwriter and NOT ONLY THAT, but he had a line on a guy who was looking for material for an up and coming group, so I played him some of the songs…was that a coincidence? No, it was opportunity meeting preparedness 🙂 What comes of it doesn’t matter, but I was ready!

5. Critical Line – ever heard of this expression? It refers to the steps that have to be taken in order to achieve goals. Even at their jobs, most people spend a great deal of time doing the peripheral things that aren’t getting them any closer to getting the job done. Like sharpening pencils and tidying the desk, or getting distracted by something entirely un-job-related. Try to spend 1/2 an hour each day completely devoted to your critical line…doing something you need to do, even if it’s just a boring “little step”. Time is everything! So is discipline!

6. Discipline – is not one of my strong points. I consider myself a naturally lazy person, and have had to battle with myself most of my life to do what I need to do. This can be applied to just about anything in your life…but in order to succeed, you need discipline! Instead of throwing too much on yourself too quickly, take those “little steps”…see how important they are? But taking just one of those will make you feel better! And when you feel better, you’re likely to do more! It’s magic 🙂

7. More Irons in the Fire! – I know you’ve heard quite the opposite…that you can’t have too much on the go, but I’m here to tell you that when it comes to writing songs, the more your songs are “out there” the better it is for you! I don’t mean that you should be careless about it, BUT, if you’ve ever listened to some of the stories of how songwriters got their music heard, most of them had quite a long trail of opportunities. Someone just happened to hear a recording in the other room that someone’s cousin was playing that just happened to be sitting on the top of a pile…you know what I’m saying? Great songs aren’t just AUTOMATICALLY HEARD BY ALL THE “RIGHT” PEOPLE! It can take years for a great song to get the attention it deserves! So multiply your opportunities…let other people perform your song, play them at every chance, let people hear ’em!

8. Diversify – You’ve heard the saying “putting all of your eggs in one basket”. Having any kind of career in music means you have to diversify. The statistics are that less than 1% of songwriters make more than $5000 a year from their writing. That means that more than 99% of us have to have some other kind of income. I teach guitar, write music for television, write and perform…when some areas are not as profitable or emotionally satisfying, others are! As long as it is music-related, I’m happy. If it comes down to employment (and it inevitably does!), try to find work that is related somehow to your music, or at the very least, find work that allows you to BE a songwriter, go to open mics, or run off to the bathroom and record an idea when you have one 🙂 Then again, a job that is completely non-music related is sometimes perfectly satisfying! I’ve met writers who LOVE songwriting, but also love their jobs. Wouldn’t that be nice? 🙂

Okay, well there you have it…some ideas as to how you can achieve your idea of success. You know, half the time I write these articles as much for myself as I do for you 🙂

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You’re As Strong As Your Weakest Part

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© I.Woloshen

I used to be a lousy lyricist…maybe I had nothing to say, maybe I just let that part of my songwriting go, maybe I was just plain lazy! It was something I swept aside in my frenzy to write great music, especially when I was in my 20’s. I was impatient to finish…ever feel that way? These days, I have an endless supply of patience, but I digress…

When you get to the point of looking at the first draft of a song is when your weakness becomes most apparent. What is it that you’re skipping over in order to get the darn thing written? You know yourself better than anyone else, and this is when you have to be the most honest. When I say to be honest with yourself, I don’t mean that you need to be hyper-critical, just that you have to come face-to-face with the part of the song that isn’t “there” yet. This is the part of the song that will stand out to those who spend hours and hours listening to amateur songwriting, the people in the business. You can bet that they’ll pinpoint your weak point instantly!! You can’t hide it!

This weakness in your songwriting may take some time to strengthen, so be prepared! You essentially have several choices:

1. You can spend the time necessary to develop your skill in this area…for instance, because of my weak lyrics, I did a lot of reading and worked at writing a journal over a long time. When I would write in my journal, every now and then I’d come up with a line or phrase that stood out…that was the beginning of knowing I had my own point of view to express. If music is your weakness, push your envelope! Get out there and learn something…take a guitar class, learn some theory or join a choir and get a feel for how melodies and harmonies work together. There are endless possibilities.

2. You can skip the learning part and get yourself a co-writer. Find someone who has the skills you are missing…maybe they will be missing what you have! It isn’t easy at first to find someone suitable, but there are many, many songwriters out there who co-write. On Jeff Mallet’s site Lyricist.com you’ll find a huge list of songwriters broken down into lots of categories, including location.

3. If songwriting is your hobby, as opposed to a career pursuit, you have the luxury of time and little pressure 🙂 You may not be driven to change anything about the way you write, but even hobbyists like the idea of improving on the craft! Most of the books you’ll see on songwriting are primarily geared towards commercial writing, but there is a great book called “The Artist’s Way” by Julia Cameron which focuses mostly on the creative side of yourself that you may find very helpful. It deals with “recovering your creative self” and although it doesn’t speak specifically about songwriting, I’ve heard many songwriters recommending it highly. If you are interested in other songwriting books, check out the Muse’s Muse for a whole list of ’em!

4. “Time…is on your side, yes it is…”…but for a great period of time in my songwriting “life” when I wasn’t focusing on improving it, I didn’t! There is no magic formula or pill. If you wanted to play better golf, you would probably consider taking lessons, or practicing as often as possible, maybe on a driving range…in other words you would focus in on your game and give it the time it deserved. The same is true of anything, including songwriting. When I focused in on my weaknesses, I learned to write better songs. Simple as that.

You will probably always feel more comfortable with one aspect of your writing, the part that comes naturally…it’s easy to ignore the rest when it’s too much “work” to fix it. But if you’re interested in getting your songs heard by others…it’s something you can’t ignore anymore!

PRODUCTION WEAKNESSES:

If you are considering sending your demos out to publishers…here are some problems that relate to production that you may not have considered (some I’ve heard and been guilty of from time to time myself). Seriously think about going to a professional studio to do a decent production on the song.

1. If you are a great keyboardist, vocalist, etc., etc., but you can’t program drums worth a damn…THAT’S exactly what the publisher is going to hear first…those lousy drums! Don’t you dare think you can hide them 🙂

2. Vocal buried in the mix…it doesn’t seem to matter how many times I’ve heard publishers, etc., say this, songwriters STILL forget that the lyrics are half the song and if they can’t hear ’em, they won’t listen any further!

3. Self-indulgent solo leads…come on, maybe your favourite part of recording is putting down that nice over-effected guitar lead that you just can’t play enough of…but that’s when the machine is going to get turned off. I’ve had demos sent to me when the songwriter raved about his guitar part, as if the song itself had very little to do with it!

4. Bad tempo shifts – I hate over-quantification, don’t get me wrong…there’s nothing that beats a “real” feel or groove in a song. But it’s got to be tight, it has to feel solid tempo-wise. Even if you’re just playing a simple keyboard or guitar and vocal, keep it on time!

5. Forgot to tune – oh, there’s no excuse for this one! Tune all of your instruments first…new strings on guitars if you can, don’t give somebody another reason to hit the “stop” button!

6. Lo-o-o-o-o-ng Intros – are for performing songwriters who can get away with it…if you’re pitching, don’t bother with much of an intro, get to the song as soon as you can! Equally true with long extros…nobody’s going to be listening that far into the song anyway!

7. And last but not least – REAL fancy production, but weak song. Let me tell you right now, you can’t hide a lousy song with great production. Somebody’s going to see that one right away. Make sure your song is “there” first before you even THINK of anything else!

Well, as I said, you are as strong as your weakest part…as soon as you figure out what that weak part is, you’ve got it made!

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