songwriting

Production Over Songwriting?

Posted on by IJ

The question today is:  Has production become more important than songwriting in today’s music?  It’s not a new question, but it’s important to revisit from time to time. I actually saw a discussion of this on Reddit and it got me to thinking about it again.

Let’s first separate production from arrangement.  Arrangement involves the musical part of the song;  who plays what where and for how long, whereas the production is the more technical aspect;  volume, effects, mastering and everything in between.

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Happy 2013! Tips From Others

Posted on by IJ

I was flipping through my most recent copy of SOCAN’s Words and Music and found some interesting songwriting tips from Matt Mays, a Canadian songwriter who finds himself on the road quite a bit.  Check out his website.

Here is his list of tips:

1. “One thing that has really helped me is to be moving – whether it’s on a train, boat, or car, or even walking around my apartment while I’m writing, instead of sitting in one spot.”

2. “Try writing lyrics on newspaper.  It rather distracts you because there are other words underneath.  That means yours don’t seem so final.  The words underneath may spark something else too.”

3. “Always change the key up.  Learn the song in other keys, and that helps keep you from getting bored.”

4. “Change instruments.  I’ll go to a ukulele, or piano, or try open tuning.”

5. “There is one tip from John Lennon:  never leave a song until it’s done.  You may never get that spark, that excitement, back.  If you get an idea, finish the song, even if you have to miss your best friend’s funeral.  Finishing that song is more important than anything else.”

Some excellent tips here…some of which I’ve encouraged myself, but some new ideas too.  The newspaper idea is a good one, I’ll have to try that some day!

On a more personal note, I have come back to my old way of writing;  on paper and without any technology (i.e. a computer) around.  This was my “old” way of writing and it seems to be working again.  Also, I’ve moved around the house to write in different places;  not quite the idea of being on a moving train or boat as Matt suggests above.  But changes places seems to have helped me too!

Best wishes to all of my blog followers for the New Year!

IJ

I Like Songs

Posted on by IJ

Well, I do. I like all kinds of songs, old ones, new ones that I discover through my students…all kinds of ’em. Which is why I started a blog just about the songs I like. You can find it here.

Songwriters Circle
Songwriters Circle (Photo credit: AndyRobertsPhotos)

As a songwriter, I quite often find myself listening to a song with a “critical ear”, which isn’t always a good thing! If the song really appeals to me, however, I notice that this critical ear shuts off. Why is that? It’s because the mind has shut off and the emotions have taken over. I don’t care if there is anything wrong with the song from a critical viewpoint, I just love the song.

When you think about all of the songs you’ve fallen in love with over the years (and yes, it’s like falling in love), you notice that any time you hear them again it almost brings back that initial “rush”, just like seeing an old flame. If you stopped for just a second and listened to it as a songwriter and not just a regular listener, you’d probably notice some flaws in it. There are flaws in just about every song, but when you’re crazy about the song, you push all of that aside, just as you look past the flaws of a person you’re in love with.

So I decided that I’d take a look and listen to all of the songs that I’ve really loved (and the ones I’m learning to love) not so much from a critical viewpoint, although there is some of that, but from a music lover’s perspective. I actually started to write those articles for this blog but realized that I didn’t just want to critique, I wanted to listen and enjoy! And that’s how ILikeSongs was born.

I don’t want to spend all of my time listening to songs with a critical ear any more.  I, like the rest of you, fell in love with a whole bunch of songs before I even knew what songwriting was.    So if you’re interested, join me on my other blog, won’t you? 🙂

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Five Deadly Songwriter Sins

Posted on by IJ

No matter how many times the same points are brought up when it comes to common problems that arise for newer songwriters, they bear repeating as a kind of checklist to go through once you feel you’ve finished a song and you want to send it out there.  Of course, a song can never really feel “finished” if you’re the type who likes to tweak a lot, but what I’m going to list here are more obvious problems that come up again and again when I’m listening to newer songwriters.

The bronze statue that graces Owen Bradley Par...
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1. INTRO TOO LONG –  I’ve seen this brought up by many songwriting instructors or critiques again and again, but somehow it doesn’t seem to sink in for many writers.  If you are pitching your songs to publishers or artists, you are going to lose them so quickly if your intro is long and self-indulgent.  They want to get to the meat of it, so don’t serve so much salad!  Keep your intro as short as you can, and you can even try no intro at all!  Now of course, you’re going to find lots of examples of pro recordings out there with long intros, but these are often by artists or bands who have long since established some kind of following and they can get away with it.  You can’t.

2. FILLER LYRICS – Even if you have one really good hook in your song, don’t ignore the rest of it!  The sound of boring old phrases  will put even the most enthusiastic of your listeners right to sleep.  Your job is to take every one of those old, boring lines and make them remarkable.  There is not one syllable’s worth of room for boring!  Don’t get lazy or impatient, keep going over every line and make it better.

3.  UNREMARKABLE MELODIES – in some cases the problem can be one of two things:  either the melody is too repetitive, or it’s not repetitive enough!  Work on your melodic phrasing, listen to popular songs or songs you like and notice how often the same melody is repeated within a verse and then within a chorus.  The human brain can remember a sequence of up to 7 digits easily, then it starts to lose track.  This is not to say you should only put 7 notes in your melodic phrasing, but just keep in mind that people who are listening to your songs fresh can only remember and retain so much.  On the flip side if you keep throwing the same melody at them over and over, they’ll drift off to sleep.  Too much or lack of repetition is probably the most common problem I hear in songwriter’s melodies.

4. POOR PERFORMANCE – if you’re not a singer, don’t sing on your own demos.  For the purpose of getting a demo made, of course you’ll probably need to give them a rough version of the melody.  The same goes for your accompaniment.  If you can’t play very well, get somebody else to do it.  A poor performance of even a great song will often be a distraction for those who are listening with a critical ear.  Your mom will love it, your publisher won’t :-).

5. LACK OF A THEME AND CONTINUITY – what is your song about?  If you can’t tell me in one phrase, then you haven’t got the chorus down yet.  And don’t tell me it’s a love song, that’s going to lose me too!  There are a gazillion love songs out there, what makes yours different?  Then look at the continuity of your lyrics, is the first verse tied to the next one?  Can you describe the “story” as it unfolds in each verse and does it make sense as a whole?  A common problem is disjointed lyrics where one part of a song doesn’t seem to have anything to do with the next part and it’s difficult to really know what the song is about.  It’s like walking into an extremely cluttered living room, where your eyes don’t know what to look at first.  In a song with no continuity, your ears can’t figure out what to listen to either.  Get rid of all the furniture and pictures, pare it down and start again!

The above problems are not insurmountable, and yet they will stand out immediately to someone who is used to listening to a lot of songs, like a publisher.  You don’t want to give anyone the excuse to hit stop too soon!  Take your time to fix them and it will pay off, I promise :-).

Happy 2011!

IJ

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Help! I’ve Never Written A Song Before…

Posted on by IJ

…what do I do?? I see this question often on message boards and blogs all over the web.  If you’re one of those out there asking this question, then let’s start at the very beginning (a very good place to start ;-)).

First of all, you might want to begin with an instrument like a piano or guitar.  The majority of songs are written on either of these two instruments, so if you know a few chords, you’re already ahead of the game! Sit down and play around with a few progressions (a series of chords) and see what you can come up with.  Don’t worry about writing a WHOLE song, just see if you can find a nice chord progression that pleases your ear, and then try humming something on top of it.  Again, don’t worry about where it’s going to go or what it means or if it’s any good!  The most important thing is to start the process.  The “finessing” comes later.  I’ll get back to the music part in a minute.

Some songwriters like to begin by writing down some lyrics.   If you decide to start this way and then find yourself sitting there for an hour in front of a blank page, then don’t push it.  It’s more handy to keep a pad of paper and a pen with you wherever you go, and/or a digital voice recorder (even smart phones come equipped with audio recording capabilities these days!).  That way, when a line or phrase comes to you, you can write it down or record it for use later.  However, you might find yourself writing lyrics at your first sitting.  It’s REALLY important not to judge what you’re writing too much at the start, so if there is something there, let it flow out of you without editing yourself.  The editing comes later!

Another question that comes up all the time is “what should I write about?”.  The truth is you have a whole lifetime of experiences to write from, so that’s a good place to get some ideas.  I’ve written two articles that relate to songwriting topics, one called the Songwriting Topics Poll and another called Nothing To Write About?, which is a little exercise to help you come up with some ideas.

Ideas are everywhere if you’re looking for them.  You might hear a bit of conversation from someone, or read a line in a book that just jumps out at you.   You might have had a particularly interesting experience, or just want to express your own view of something. Once you start getting some ideas out, you might start thinking about different parts, like putting in a chorus or a bridge. I’ve got an article called Song Forms And Terms that is a quick study on what these are and what their purpose is.  In more in depth articles, I tell you more about the chorus in Don’t Bore Us, Get To The Chorus and the verse in The Verse’s Purpose, and even about The Bridge.  Understanding the different parts of a song will help you to shape it and make it work.

If you are trying to create a melody for your song and struggling somewhat, I have an article on The Magic of Melody and  another article on Putting Music to Lyrics which might help you if you’ve written lyrics, but don’t know where to do from there. The fact is that there are many, many articles on this site, but just start with the ones I have given you, and later on you might find the need to read some others!

A lot of people find it easy to start a song but not so easy to finish it.  This is going to happen from time to time, so don’t worry if you lose steam part way through.  Put it away and look at it again later.  That is not to say that you can’t “finish” a song in one sitting, that happens too.  Maybe you’re just chomping at the bit to write something and it all comes spilling out in one session.  It’s exhilarating when this happens, so bask in the glow of your new found creative self!  Then walk away from it for awhile and come back to it again. That’s why I put quotations around the word “finish” because there is no such thing as a song coming out perfect the first time.  Unless you are Beethoven or some other musical genius (I know, I know…SURE you are :-)), the real work is going to come when you sit down and revisit and revise it.

Why would you bother?  Because this, my new songwriting friend, is the mark of a good songwriter!  A great painter doesn’t just slop some paint on a canvas and consider it done.  There are always little spots that need re-doing, little touch ups that have do be tended to.  So once you have complete song, teach yourself early to look for and fix the “bits” that don’t work.    And that is for another blog!

Good luck with your new songwriting venture 🙂 IJ