Don’t Forget Square One…
March 8, 2006
0 CommentsI’ve noticed a lot of resistance to “songwriting rules”. Most of the criticism falls in the Craft vs. Inspiration camp. And my defense is always that it isn’t an either-or argument.
From Don’t forget square one…:
Horse trainer Linda Parelli says that, and her take on amateurs-vs.-experts is that the amateurs forget the fundamentals. Her husband Pat, founder of Parelli Natural Horsemanship (the most successful example of passionate users I’ve ever seen), says the same thing.
Let’s assume that we want to become experts at something. For our conversation here, we’ll focus on songwriting. Any path to mastery includes these three stages of development: pre-conventional, conventional, post-conventional.
Pre-conventional: You haven’t learned a single rule, principle or convention yet. Everyone has a right to create sound or make noise and call it music.
Conventional: You discover musical patterns and morphogenetic grooves that seem to naturally arise. You call these rules or principles and you allow them to guide your musical creation.
Post-conventional: You transcend and include the conventions you learned at the previous stage. You see the wisdom in principles and patterns and you have the wisdom to know when to let them go.
Let’s use lyric setting as an example of what I’m talking about. The conventions of rhythm are rules and principles about meter, note length, relative stress level and so on. The conventions about language are syntax, definition, pronunciation and so on. Now, one of the most overlooked lyrical conventions is stress. Our dictionary defines the conventional stress of words. And since we put lyrics to rhythm, it makes sense to match the pronunciation of the word with the stress of the rhythm. When we don’t do this, we have the common problem of having our ac-CENTS on the wrong syl-LA-bles. But when we follow the principle of proper lyric setting, we bring a clear level of understanding to our message–our listeners actually understand our lyrics. (Scuse Me While I Kiss This Guy)
Talk to someone at a pre-conventional stage of songwriting and they’ll either be pissed that you’re telling them what to do and stifling their creativity or they’ll be grateful to learn how to write better. Talk to someone at a conventional stage of songwriting and they’ll be bothered by any stretching of the principles. But at a post-conventional stage of songwriting you’ll be able to explain your choices and intuitively know what the song needs in order to achieve your outcome.
If you don’t care that people understand you, then do whatever you want. But don’t expect people to “get it” or even like it. But if you understand the social aspect of songwriting–there is a songwriter and a song-listener–then you probably want the listener to understand what it is you are trying to communicate. And that is where the conventions will help you.
Another overlooked convention is the definition of a song. I think many people confuse a song with the feeling they get when they first hear a piece of music. I’ve enjoyed listening to many songs that on further consideration were poorly crafted. But they don’t usually stand the test of time with me. And a time-tested theorem is one that can stand up to years of scrutiny by a jury of experts.
The problem the Parelli’s see in those trying to transition from skilled amateur to expert virtually always comes down to something from the fundamentals that they either never quite mastered, or that they forgot over time. So, perhaps that’s one more thing the superior performers do better than the rest of us–they keep practicing the fundamentals. This fits with the notion that experts practice things that aren’t necessarily fun, which can include both the things they still don’t do well, AND the non-exciting basics.
I disagree with the article I’m quoting on one basic distinction. I don’t believe “square one” is the fundamentals. Square one is the pre-conventional stage. Square one is where the desire to create something exists. And square one is not the primordial emptiness or space that exists before any fundamental principle or rule emerges–that’s square zero. 
Don’t forget square zero!
And don’t forget the fundamentals either.
Some of the best athletes never forget the fundamentals–whether it’s Tiger Woods practicing the basics, or a pro basketball player working on free throws.
And don’t let your lack of fundamental mastery stop you from playing the game. It’s perfectly okay to fire and then aim. Because there’s always more fundamentals to learn and master. It’s most important to just get in the game.
But the Parelli’s have another piece of advice that I think is equally important–that you shouldn’t get stuck trying to perfect the fundamentals before moving on. There’s a girl at my barn who has been taking dressage lessons on and off for the last ten years. Both her and her horse are bored out of their minds because the trainer won’t let them progress to anything interesting until they are virtually perfect on the basics. The Parelli approach is, “Keep moving forward, because you’ll gain new tools that you can use to go back and perfect the fundamentals.” But this is where the “don’t forget square one” message comes in–the problem is with the people who do NOT use their new “superpowers” to fix what might be lacking in the basics.
So from now on, when I bring up a rule or principle, you’re going to say, “Thank you for helping me write better.” Right?
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(1 votes, average: 4 out of 5)
Loading ...Songwriting For Busy People
February 10, 2006
0 CommentsMind Hacks posted how choice is demotivating when there are too many options.
“Offer students a choice of 6 essays, rather than 30 essays, for extra-credit and more will take up the opportunity if there is less choice of essay titles - and, what is more, they write better essays.”
And if you have 45 song ideas in your notebook, chances are none of them will get finished.
Here’s a few tips for busy songwriters that have trouble finding the time to write and for songwriters who have too many ideas to finish.
1. Have just a few places to capture song ideas
If you have your song ideas in 5 audio recorders, 7 notebooks and 13 computer folders, then chances are all those unfinished “open loops” are unconsciously stressing you out. If you capture your song ideas in a central location, then your songwriting will be better organized and easier to manage.
Here’s the minimum of what you need to capture:
- Lyrics
- Song Titles
- Written Music
- Recorded Audio
My advice, capture each written idea on a single index card (a la Hipster PDA). If you have 20 separate ideas on a single sheet of paper, it may save physical space, but it will take up psychological space. Picture having a separate file folder for song titles, a separate folder for choruses, etc. How much easier would it be to collect your ideas when you need them? But if you have various song titles, melodies, and chord changes on a single sheet of paper, when it comes time to recover your ideas, they’re going to be much harder to find. If you do your songwriting on the computer, keep every idea in a separate .txt file in a single folder or with sub-folders like ‘choruses’, ‘verses’, etc.
Try to capture your audio recordings on just a couple of devices. I used to record everything first on my iPod–until it crashed and I bought the new video iPod that doesn’t have a mic available for it yet. Everything was synced in iTunes in a special playlist that I kept organized. If an idea became worthy of development, it went into GarageBand and finally into Logic Pro when it became worthy of finishing. I could probably skip the GarageBand step but I just really like the program. All songs are stored in a single ‘audio’ folder which has sub-folders: ‘archive’ for finished songs and ‘maybe’ for songs that I’ve set aside.
2. Have 1 song that you are finishing at the top of your list
Always be focused on finishing 1 song. If you successfully write more than one song at a time, good for you. But if you struggle getting songs finished, narrowing your choices will be more motivating. Plus, with the above system of capturing your song ideas, you will have a beautifully organized cornucopia of inspiration to draw from when you’re ready to write and finish song number 2
3. Tag all of your song ideas
I can’t personally speak for windows users, but with Spotlight for the Mac you can find any file quickly with just a couple of keywords. Adding metadata to your song ideas will help you organize them and find them quickly. If you called a .txt file ‘title-windowless-room.txt’ or ’song-windowless-room.txt’, then you’ll be able to find them by name. But if you tag them with other descriptive terms like ‘happy’ or ‘rock anthem’, you’ll be able to make unique connections between all of your captured song ideas using criteria like emotional content, subject matter, tempo, or key signature.
Before the ubiquity of recorded music, the way we would pass music from one person to another was through written music. And music notation has mood markings like Vivace (lively) and Maestoso (majestic or stately) which also have tempo connotations. These markings/tags can be very useful for tightening the message and tone of your song if you decide on them beforehand. They can also be useful when you’re interested in writing something different than what you’ve written in the past.
Here’s a technique I use to begin writing. Let’s say I have a title, Windowless Room. While working through the rhythm of the title I settle on a tempo marking of 90bpm (Andante). Going to my thesaurus, I see that andante also means slow motion. With a little deeper digging, I have a word list to flesh out my song idea and to tag my song with: crawl, walk, dragging, trudge, shamble, limp, hobble, slow march, linger, delay, take your time, etc.
Now I have a focused tone for my song, a word list to help me write, and keywords to search my other captured song ideas for inspiration.
4. Review your song ideas at least once a week
Your weekly review is the time when you archive finished songs, choose your next song to write, and celebrate all the great song ideas you came up with during the past week. I also add tags during this review to help my song writing during the upcoming week. The weekly songwriting review is good for reevaluating, reprocessing and feeding your intuition.
The mechanics of the weekly songwriting review are simple:
- Organize and process your loose song ideas, i.e. put song titles in the ’song titles’ folder and so on.
- Review current song(s) you are writing and review your ‘maybe’ song ideas.
- Commit to finishing another new song.
5. Commit to write at least 10 minutes a day and for longer periods a couple of times a week
There’s a small number of things you need to complete to finish a song:
- Song Title: Lyrics, Melody, Rhythm
- Chorus: Lyrics, Melody, Harmony, Rhythm, Form
- Verse: Lyrics, Melody, Harmony, Rhythm, Form
- Prechorus/Bridge: Lyrics, Melody, Harmony, Rhythm, Form
It’s good to know what song sections you have finished and what you have yet to finish. If you print out my ‘Hit Song Cheat Sheet‘, you’ll know exactly what you need to do next.
I hope these tips help you finish more songs and relieve any stress that you might have over the multitude of unfinished song ideas you have floating around your mind. If you have songwriting tips to share, please comment. Happy songwriting.
(1 votes, average: 5 out of 5) Loading ...How Do You Develop New And Interesting Chord Changes?
February 8, 2006
3 CommentsHere’s a handful of my top techniques that I use to develop new and interesting chord changes.
1. Stick with I-IV-V
I know, it’s not new, but I-IV-V doesn’t have to be uninteresting. There’s a reason why these chords are so fundamental to our harmony. So master them. Use their constraints to challenge your songwriting ability.
2. Copy another song’s chord changes
Just take a look at the top 10 in the past 10 years and you’ll find a long list of songs that use the same chord progressions. The chord changes to Prince’s Purple Rain have been used before that song and after that song many, many times. The challenge then becomes how to write a unique melody over those chord changes.
3. Copy another song’s chord changes and modify them
One of my favorite techniques to come up with chord changes is to simply copy another song and then modify it. You can modify the color of the chords (major/minor/dominant 7/major 7/etc.). You can modify the rhythm of the chord changes by making them change faster or slower or syncopate them. You can play the chords backwards or start in the middle. You get the idea.
4. Create a chord progression mashup
You can follow the popular mashup trend right now. Take two or more songs and then combine their chord progressions. You can cut them up, play them simultaneously or play them sequentially. I haven’t done this yet, but it sounds fun
5. Write a modal progression
Modal progressions–made popular by Miles Davis (Kind of Blue)–are a very easy place to start. The best modes to begin with are mixolydian and dorian. If you’re going to stay in a single mode throughout your song section, the challenge becomes making the melody interesting enough to sustain the listeners interest. And if all of your song sections are going to be in the same mode, then the challenge is to make each section contrast.
6. Write a blues
The blues doesn’t have to sound like the blues. There’s no point in trying to be another Robert Johnson. Just listen to Prince’s Kiss or U2’s When Love Comes To Town.
7. Dig into other genres
Classical music is an endless supply of time-tested music to recycle. Sting’s Russians is a great example of a song that is based on Prokofiev’s “Lieutenant Kije” Suite.
8. Use music software
I’ve used Band in a Box to inspire me and I’ve messed around with other music software that’s resulted in a few keepers. Check out the del.icio.us musicsoftware tag for the latest releases.
That’s it for now. I’m sure you have some chord progression shortcuts that I haven’t thought of yet. Please share them.
(No Ratings Yet) Loading ...Top 10 Lyric Writing Insights
February 6, 2006
0 Comments*Before I continue, and I’ll say this many times, I operate under the assumption that the opposite of everything I say is equally true. Including the opposite of what I just said.
Here’s my top 10 lyric writing insights:
1. The rhythm of your melody and the rhythm of your lyrics should match.
Rhythm has *strong and week beats. So do words. When you speak to someone, you use conventional stresses–found in the dictionary–to communicate your ideas as efficiently as possible. If you spoke with the ac-CENT on the wrong syl-LA-ble, people would have a hard time understanding you. Yet this happens over and over again in lyric writing. Match your stresses and your listeners will get what you mean.
2. Show, don’t tell.
Compare “I was nervous” with “My palms were sweaty” and you’ll get the picture. The first example is about the experience while the second example is from the experience. The easiest way to do this is to stimulate your listener’s senses by using sense-bound language. Write from the 5 senses and you’ll find interesting details that will keep your listeners captivated and emotionally involved.
3. Use prosody. Support your meaning with your lyrics.
How you put your lyric together should support what you have to say. You can create prosody with:
- Form: Organize your song functions into effective song forms, e.g. verse/chorus, AABA, and verse/prechorus/chorus, etc.
Musical Stress: Put words in relation to each other according to its relative stress in the bar and its relation to surrounding notes. Put the most important word in the most important stress, beat 1 of bar 1.
Line Length and Number of Lines: You can balance or unbalance a section accordance to its meaning by having an even (balanced, stable) or odd (unbalanced, unstable) number of lines. You can also match line lengths perfectly (balanced, stable) or match lines imperfectly (unbalanced, unstable).
Rhyme: Perfect rhyme and Family rhyme will support a stable or resolved meaning. The more remote rhyme types (assonance rhyme, consonance rhyme, etc.) will support an unstable or unresolved meaning.
4. Create contrasting sections.
Lyrically, line length is one of the most effective tools to create contrast. Create contrasting sections using one or more structural elements, i.e. contrasting ideas, number of lines, rhyme schemes, etc. Ask yourself, “What have I got? What’s different than that?”
5. Consider when to balance and unbalance your lyric.
The main point of balancing and unbalancing is, again, prosody: supporting your meaning with your structures. Do you need stability or instability to support your meaning? Combine all four structural elements–number of lines, line length, line rhythm, and rhyme scheme–to balance and unbalance sections.
6. Use fresh metaphor.
To see one thing as though it is something else is your unique ability. To make sure your metaphors aren’t cliche, use the “duh” method (I got this from Shane Adams). You start with your first object, cake. Think of the most obvious characteristic of the object, as in the cake is round. These are called the “duh” descriptions. Now take the “duh” description and think of something else that has that quality or characteristic. The cake is round…duh…what else is round? The moon. Now think of a “duh” characteristic of the second object, the moon glows, the moon is distant. Now plug those new traits into the original, the cake glowed like a distant moon. Now that’s original.
7. Develop your verses.
Develop your song idea from verse to verse making sure the chorus gains meaning and interest each time it is repeated. Give your final verse a “pay off” that rewards your listener for their attention. Think of how you tell stories to your friends. Usually, the point of the entire story comes at the very end. Where you begin your story and how much you share depends on what material is relevant to the understanding of the song’s climax.
8. Control the song’s point of view and verb tense.
Discuss a song’s story-line from the singer’s point of view. This solves a lot of problems: verb tense, setting, point of view, gender, etc. Write from the perspective of the singer of the song.
9. Use fresh rhymes.
Rhymes occur at the ends of lines. These positions are natural spotlights. Since your listener has time to consider what you just said before the next line begins, make it worthy of the spotlight. Avoid cliche rhymes and boring rhyme schemes. Learn how to find fresh rhymes that stick in the mind of the listener and that help you say what you mean in a unique way.
10. Spotlight important ideas.
Certain positions in a song spotlight important ideas. These power positions get special attention:
- Opening lines
Balancing lines
Unbalancing positions
When you have something important to say, these techniques can help emphasize the point:
- Shorten lines to spotlight important ideas
Lengthen lines to spotlight important ideas
Put your important ideas in opening lines, balancing lines and unbalancing positionsAnd use power words (action verbs, sensual adjectives, unique words, etc.) in your power positions.
Rules are definitely meant to be broken. But please learn the rules first. 
*This relative pattern of strong and weak beats, from strongest to weakest:
In 4/4: Beat 1, Beat 3, Beat 4, Beat 2, Beat 4&, Beat 2&, Beat 3&, Beat 1&
In 3/4: The only strong beat in a bar of 3/4 is the downbeat. The second and third beats are weak. In order of strength, the beats line up like this: Bar 1, Bar 3, Bar 2, Beat 1, Beat 2, Beat 3, Beat 2&, Beat 3&, Beat 1&
In 6/8: Think of it as two quick bars of 3/4. In order of strength, the beats of 6/8 line up like this: Beat 1, Beat 4, Beat 6, Beat 3, Beat 2, Beat 5
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