songwriting

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 The company that provided the poll changed around and as a result, the poll is no longer valid.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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Self-Indulgence – Don’t Sound Like A Beginner!

Posted on by IJ

© I.Woloshen

Just to qualify what I’m about to say here: this applies to songwriters who are either performing or trying to pitch their songs, not necessarily to hobbyists!

After having listened to many, many songs, and critiquing lots of lyrics over the years, I can spot a “beginner” almost immediately! Don’t misunderstand, there is nothing BAD about beginner songwriters…we all have to start somewhere! As I’ve said before, it takes about 50 songs before you begin to find your songwriting “voice”, your individual style and content. But some songwriters take 100 songs to get there, and some never get there. Why? Well, it’s simple. It’s difficult to step outside of yourself and hear your song from another person’s point of view. And THAT is the whole key to writing songs that you want others to hear and love. Right?

What I’m going to discuss here ideally shouldn’t be implemented until AFTER your first draft…that’s because if you think too hard too soon, you’ll lose the connection with your creative self, and we can’t have that! So consider what I’m about to say once you’ve got the first version of your song in front of you.

The very first hurdle we have to overcome as writers is self-indulgence. Although “self” expression is probably why we started writing in the first place, it doesn’t have much weight when it comes to getting your material across to your listeners. Why do they want to hear all about you and your problems? You know what I mean? Self-indulgence happens when we get so enamoured with a chord, or a line, the sound of a note or a repetitive phrase, that we can’t let it go. This is “no-no” number one. The second no-no is when a song meanders on and on without any seeming purpose. It is NOT EASY spotting your own self-indulgence however! Here are some things to consider:

Repetition – I refer to this later in another article, but here is where I want you to understand the difference between “good” repetition, and “bad”. Popular music especially relies on a certain amount of repetition in order for the listener to remember! Rhyme helps too, but a “hook” or repeating line or musical phrase creates the memorable part of the song that brings a listener back for more. But how much do you repeat? Just enough and not too much 🙂 I once had a writer send me lyrics in which EVERY LINE ended with the same word! It’s not hard to see how this would create a yawn in no time! That is an extreme example, but I understood that he thought he was reinforcing his theme and how can you ever do too much of that? Well, you sure can.

Lyrically, I try to stick to the “three’s plenty” rule. If I want to use a word or phrase as a hook, if you will, I won’t repeat it more than three times in a chorus, for instance. If I had a four line chorus, the fourth line would be the “twist” or the surprise, or something different. But the shorter the lines, the less likely I’m going to repeat too soon!

(I want to make one destinction here…there is a difference between repeating a word that is IMPORTANT to the song [like the hook] and a word that is repeated in error! Sometimes I find that when I’m first writing, I use the same word twice in a verse or song without realizing it and when I get to the second draft or beyond, I’ll usually replace one of them.)

Musically I use the same rule. It is rare that I will repeat a musical phrase or melody more than three times within a verse or chorus. Here’s an exersize you can do to reinforce this idea. Sit down and sing the same short line four or more times. Try to pay attention to when it sounds cool, and when it gets tedious. Again, the length of the line has a lot to do with when that happens!

Meandering – this is almost the opposite of repetition! Some songs can go on and on and on and never get anywhere! Imagine listening to a long and boring monologue, no jokes, no purpose, just a continuous drone. I’ve heard many beginner songwriters write one like that, and I’ve written a few of those myself 🙂 This type of song is in DESPERATE need of repetition. You might be afraid to repeat too much and end up going in the opposite direction. Sit down with your song and plot out how long it takes you to repeat a musical phrase. So much of this is intinctual, so I can’t tell you you need to repeat every 10.5 seconds, but you HAVE to learn to listen to your own songs with some objectivity. If you have really long verses, think about repeating musical lines within that verse, don’t make the whole verse one long musical line. Does this make sense? If your verse is relatively short, there isn’t as much need for repetition, is there? Because you’re going to move on to the next verse more quickly! A repeated chorus can also satisfy this need for repetition somewhat. If your song doesn’t have a chorus, you still need SOMETHING that a listener can hang on to. A refrain will do that job…think about Bob Dylan’s song “The Times They Are A Changin'”. That line is the refrain…he doesn’t have a “chorus” in the song, just verses with that line at the end of each one.

Lyrically, meandering can be a little different. Sometimes a songwriter will send me a lyric that starts out with an idea in the first verse, and then moves onto another unrelated idea in the next verse, and another one…there is very little that ties these ideas all together. I find myself telling songwriters to “focus” a lot! Focus in on what your song’s lyrical purpose is. Plotting out a kind of storyline helps you to focus…write out a phrase that represents each verse and chorus, like this:

Verse 1
I just don’t want to see you anymore

Verse 2
What happened to the way things were?

Chorus
There’s nothing left of us

So I’m plotting out where I’m going with this song without getting tangled up in rhymes and meter and all of that, stripping it down to it’s main purpose.

A listener is almost ALWAYS waiting for the repeated part. If you make them wait too long, you’ve lost them. If you never get there, you bore them. There are simple listeners and sophisticated ones…you won’t please all of them, but your job is to decide who you are writing for and figure out how to leave them wanting more!

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I’m Too Happy To Write

Posted on by IJ

© I.Woloshen

I was at a songwriter‘s night recently where two writers said they hadn’t written anything for months because they were too happy! Does this mean that you have to be miserable to be creative? Well, that my friends, is a songwriting myth!

It’s obvious that when you are in one of your dark periods, you can better tap into the emotions that go along with it. But if you feel that you are a slave to your moods and can’t produce without them, you haven’t tried hard enough yet. How would staff songwriters at publishing companies ever eat if they had to depend on their state-of-mind?

First of all, you limit yourself if you think that the only good songs are miserable ones. You may be attracted to them, but they are only a small portion of what you are capable of. And you ALSO limit yourself if you decide ahead of time that an uplifting song is going to be crap. Have you ever written a happy song? Trust me, I write lots of ’em and they can be a lot of fun to write! So my first piece of advice to you is to write in opposite feelings than you are used to…spread your wings a bit and try a different emotional feel.

Secondly, you are not new to this world, you’ve been here awhile (even if you’re only 15!). You have had many experiences already, some of them quite traumatic, that you can draw from if you insist on writing something miserable 🙂 But getting to that creative “place” will take a little work.

Here are some ideas: If you’ve ever meditated, do so. Clearing your head of all present thoughts and feelings will also clear your emotional slate and give you a chance to really remember those times. If you don’t know a thing about meditation, it is really about releasing yourself from thinking for a little while. It’s hard to do at first, but keep at it…just sit there and think of NOTHING. Hard to do, eh? 🙂

Once you feel you are ‘blank’ enough, go back in your mind to a time when you were really unhappy, angry, sad or distraught. Only YOU know what those times were. Close your eyes and visualize that period of time…think about how that emotion felt in your body, picture every detail about that time that you can. The more detail you remember, the closer you will come to re-experiencing it. Spend a little time there, and then pull out a pen or your instrument, whichever you use first. Either write out a description of those feelings…all of it, physical, emotional, everything…or play some chords that get close to that feeling. Just a warning though…once you’re finished, DO take the time to visualize yourself back into your present, happy state 🙂

I’ll give you an example of something that I often use in my writing, especially when trying to express sorrow or grief. It is a picture I’ve had in my head since I was 14…it is my mother’s bedroom, she is dying of cancer, she is holding my hand and that act alone is scaring me. She is saying goodbye, although at the time I don’t realize it’s her last goodbye. To this day, I become overwhelmed when I think of that scene. I have used it many times to get myself into that emotional frame of mind.

I have also used memories from wonderful, flirtatious experiences to write romantic or lustful songs 🙂 And if I want to write something self-effacing, I remember some stupid things I did in my life…you see what I mean? You’ve already got a headful (literally) of experiences to draw upon when you are “Too Happy To Write”!! Oh yeah, how about not taking a bath or shower for a couple of days? That’ll make you pretty miserable 🙂







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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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More On Magical Melodies

Posted on by IJ
“If It Makes You Happy” cover
Image via Wikipedia

© I.Woloshen

I went to a Songshop recently, put on by the Songwriters Association of Canada where there were a number of songwriters baring their souls and their songs all in the hopes of improving their craft. Sometimes as an observer it is much more obvious where the problems lie within a song…but when you’re the writer you can’t see the forest for the trees (ugh! sorry, little cliché there 🙂 One of the workshop leaders talked about hearing someone, who wasn’t a songwriter by the way, say that the highest note of the song had to be in the chorus! Is that true? Of course not…but he’d obviously made that decision after hearing songs for years and years. Defining a melody and how a great one works, will NEVER be that simple!

We get caught up sometimes in finding a neat little groove and getting those lyrics perfect, or having that lead guitar pop in at just the right moment…that we often neglect what may be the one thing that we might want people to most remember about the song! Think about all of those “great” songs that you listened to growing up…how often is the lead guitar riff the only thing you remember? While a memorable guitar riff such as Eric Clapton‘s first version of “Layla” (Derek and the Dominos) can stand out from everything else…for the most part, it isn’t going to carry the whole song!

The most difficult part, I think, about writing a melody, is keeping it simple AND unique at the same time! Why is simplicity important? Because MOST listeners out there will probably only remember the song in bits and pieces after the first listen. Test this out on somebody…play them a song of yours they’ve never heard before, and then afterwards, ask them to repeat something about it. Don’t tell them you’re going to do this beforehand, that would be cheating! What do they come up with? Melody? A line? A guitar riff? What a cool test, eh?

Let’s take a look at a couple of contemporary hit songs…I’m going to focus on Pop/Rock for the time being. Joan Osborne had a hit with the song “One Of Us”. Think about the first line of the chorus…”What if God was one of us?” The first three notes are about as simple as you can get…(F#, G#, A in the actual key) same length, major scale…you could find that same set of three notes in a thousand other songs somewhere. On their own, what they do is ascend (rise) to the most central theme of the song…God. And the word “God” is the highest note (okay, maybe that non-songwriter had a point!) But the next four notes really help to reinforce that melodic hook…C# C# D E. So simple and powerful. Now look at the whole chorus…that series of 7 notes is repeated all the way through except for the last line. So the melody is not only simple, it is repeated and reinforced throughout the chorus. And of course, lyrically, it has a powerful message!

Let’s take a look at another contemporary song…”If It Makes You Happy” by Sheryl Crowe. This is another example of a very simple melodic line in the chorus, but sung with such power! I teach this song to some of my guitar students…as soon as I sing that line, they know the song! When she goes from the first D up a whole octave in the first line, there’s the whole song right there! And look at the notes, very simple and straightforward (If D it D Makes D*octave You B Hap A py B!).

Let me tell you a little secret…your listeners, unless they are musical masters or jazz enthusiasts, do not have complex listening skills! As I said earlier, they will collect bits and pieces of a song, but won’t grasp the whole thing on the first listen. So it’s important for you to get their attention with shorter, simpler lines of melody, reinforced with great lyrics of course! If you look at Sheryl Crowes’ song again…the first melodic part is repeated…so it’s broken down into four lines in the chorus:

If it makes you happy D D D* B A B *up an octave
It can’t be that bad D G G G B A G A
If it makes you happy D D D B A B
Why the hell are you so sad? G E G E G G B

And although she doesn’t do it the first time it’s sung…the chorus is repeated twice after every verse! Again, she really reinforces that musical hook. Her performance is another very important element…think about how she sings it…it’s balsy, not pretty, which is her style certainly. But it makes you want to shout it, rather than sing it!

In listening to some demos recently, another point came to mind. There’s a real need for “flow” in your melody…it has to move seamlessly and effortlessly from one line to the next. One demo especially stood out as having far too many “blank” spaces or pauses…it lost something and had little impact as a result. This does not mean that your melody shouldn’t have any pauses in it at all…you’ve gotta breathe! But if you ARE running out of breath when you sing it, that’s a pretty good sign that it’s much too full. And if it feels like it’s dragging, the opposite is probably true…you’re not doing enough!

So now it sounds like I’ve told you two contradictory things…keep the lines shorter and simpler, and make sure there’s a flow…well, they really do compliment each other. Look at the two examples I’ve shown you again…and then examine your own!

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