Career Songwriter

In the effort of making a living with songwriting, I find it easy to slip into the habit of thinking that unless I’m endorsing perforated strings of royalty checks, I’m not writing great tunes. Commercial success certainly can be an indicator of great writing, but it’s also a result of other elements like networking and being on the pulse of the current sound of artists in our genre. When I signed my first publishing deal in Nashville, I hadn’t yet learned what that meant. Over the years as I looked back on my development as a writer, I recognized a few patterns I had gone through that are so typical of developing songwriters and artists. Initially, I was signed based on the merit of the songs I was already creating. My publisher believed there was something unique about my musical style and my lyrical voice that he could market. His comments to me were always “honey, just keep doing what you’re doing.” For awhile, I did. But the more I began focusing outward on other writers’ and artists’ songs getting attention around me, the more I wanted that attention too. After all, I didn’t know for sure if what I was creating would be successful in the major market. That very lack of belief was what convinced me to skip the process of developing my own style further and instead just recreate what were already hits. The problem was, my publisher already had writers to fulfill that need, and the songs I wrote were just near copies. After much frustration, a hundred thousand unrecouped and several years of a good contract later, I finally came back to what I was doing in the first place.
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Songwriting Conference and Workshop Highlights

During the summer months I usually take time away from writing to teach at various conferences and workshops around the country and abroad. Conferences such as those offered by Berklee College, NSAI, and other such opportunities are great ways to immerse yourself in the industry when you haven’t the time or resources to do so throughout the rest of the year. Many enlist music industry professionals to talk candidly about a certain side of the industry, or invite artists or songwriters to shed some light on how to break in. Others are focused on songwriting or vocalizing, concentrated 5-14 day experiences to step up your game in those areas. I’d like to tell you about a few of the conferences I taught recently, should you be interested in finding more about them. There are many opportunities out there, so I suggest pinpointing what you’re looking for and how much time and money you can commit before making any reservations.
For two weeks in July, the Grammy Foundation holds a camp for high school students, aptly named “Grammy Camp.” The camp is open to any student exhibiting exceptional skill in music and interested in pursuing a career in the industry. Held at the University of Southern California, students enroll in a specific stream: singer/songwriter, music production, music engineering, concert promotion, music journalism, or the study of their principal instrument: bass, drums, electric guitar, keyboard, saxophone, trumpet, or trombone in the scope of private study and ensembles. The camp culminates in a performance at the beautiful El Rey theater in Los Angeles by each singer/songwriter of an original song worked up with an ensemble. Select students also have the opportunity to record at the legendary Capitol Records.

Another camp I’d like to mention is Seth Rigg’s Speech Level Singing conference in Los Angeles. Prior to the conference I was only vaguely aware of Seth and his techniques. Over the last several decades Mr. Riggs has worked with some of the biggest names in contemporary music, and so naturally I was curious what makes his techniques so popular, revolutionary and even controversial to the world of singing. During our hands-on judging sessions (of which I was on staff to critique the original songs) I witnessed vocalist improve their pitch dramatically by applying simple feedback from certified instructors. I heard breaks diminish and ranges improve in literally 30 seconds of instruction. I realize I’m making it sound ridiculously simple, but I am ridiculously impressed by the simplicity of the techniques and how easily students are able to apply them from certified instructors. Should you be a singer/songwriter looking to improve your voice, you might check out more information on SLS and see if it’s right for you.

This past week I taught at Berklee College of Music’s Summer Songwriting Workshops. Held in mid-August each year, the workshops attract between 100 and 200 songwriters of all ages looking to improve their craft, play their songs for faculty and staff, and connect with other musicians. Leading the workshops are Chair of the Songwriting Department, Jack Perricone, Professor of Lyric Writing Pat Pattison, other faculty members Jon Aldrich, Henry Gaffney, Mark Simos, Susan Cattaneo, Sarah Brindell, songwriter Dana Calitri, and myself. The workshops are held on Berklee’s Back Bay Campus, from Wednesday through Saturday with a short closing ceremony Saturday afternoon. For anyone interested in boosting their creativity and songwriting chops while expanding your understanding of the industry, this is a great opportunity. Information is available on Berklee College’s website.

If conferences or workshops seem like a luxury to you, you might consider giving yourself a songwriting vacation – a holiday to write, that is. These conferences and many more (see NSAI.com) operate for the purpose of regenerating the creative fire within, connecting songwriters with experts in their craft, and facilitating professional relationships. Some workshops last for a day, some for 2 weeks, and can be a rejuvenating step in advancing our hobby or career. Teaching at them is a rare and special opportunity that I consider a privilege and a pleasure. I am glad to be able to learn from my students, and spread what I know to grow my own career and of those around me.

Happy writing,
Andrea Stolpe

I recently received an email from a songwriter bringing up a very important idea in the world of songwriting called ‘write what you know.’ It sounds so obvious, but in fact it’s one of the most difficult ideas when trying to make a living writing songs.

I’d like to describe this idea of ‘writing what you know’ in terms of my own experiences. As an unsigned writer in a new town trying to establish a career as a songwriter, my ears were keenly perked to the styles of music and lyric that rode the radio waves in my industry. Back then it was Nashville, and so I my plan was to dive right into the types of songs that were making it as singles and basically write my version of them. This was always a frustrating endeavor. Just when I’d think I’d get the groove down, acceptable lyric material, and some good melodic ideas, I’d realize I’d be writing too close to the original. Even if I managed to draw a clear line between my tune and the one that inspired it, I was left with something that was an excellent caricature rather than an innovative trend-setter. Another problem was that the songs I’d be attempting to write like were old by the time they were released. I was always 9 months to a year behind the trends. The final blow was realizing that while an artist may have had a hit single with a song, they wouldn’t necessarily want to release another a year later with the same message and sound. It was a good exercise in capturing the essence of a song, but a poor direction for writing truly believable and innovative tunes.

As is often the case with new writers, it took me awhile to figure out that the key to my success as a songwriter would be in writing music and lyric that moved me. When I wrote what was important or significant to me, I ended up with a product I was happy with and an experience that moved my listeners. Understanding how my songs could fit within the commercial market took time and intense listening and study. Sometimes my writing would sway on the side of art songs, expressing my own artist’s voice but falling short of any commercial potential. Sometimes I’d flip-flop the other way, hitting the commercial elements but losing a bit of my own artistry. The process of hitting both the commercial market and expressing my own voice as an artist took many songs to grasp, and I’m still faced with the challenge each time I sit down to write. My most successful songs are those where I become the character, I step into the emotions of the singer. The topics though not always a frame from my own life, are deeply personal. I project how I would feel, move, think, and be in the situation I present in the song. That’s quite a vulnerable expression and takes some level of guts. More than that, it takes a level of honesty, revealing some intimate emotions I might only share with close friends. But that’s the power of music, isn’t it? It connects us at our deepest fibers where we may be uncomfortable connecting any other way.

This is where the idea of ‘write what you know’ comes into play. I may not know much about tractors, ex-husbands, or dive bars, and if I attempt to write country music from any of those perspectives, I may wind up with a fairly watered down idea. It’s not the theme that makes a song settle into a particular genre. It’s the artist/writer who draws from his/her own experiences giving that theme believability. At least that’s how I see it.

When I write, lyrics are a very important part of my songs. Relationships are a common theme in my tunes. That’s not to say that I often write love songs or break-up songs, but to say that the themes I tend to know about revolve around personal connection. It is an extension of what I value in life. In this sense, every song I write is deeply personal whether it’s an expression of an actual event or something imagined.

Think about your own life and what you hold close to you. What do you know a lot about? If you work a day-job, immerse yourself in a hobby, give your time, money, your resources to campaigns you care about, how do those feed into the perspective with which you see the world? What if you write from that perspective, creating connection from where you are now? Recognizing the extraordinary in the ordinary has sent thousands of songs to the tops of the charts – and the bottoms of people’s hearts.

I hope you find the courage to write what you know. I truly believe that as writers we share the most valuable part of ourselves when we write from a place of true experience. The audience can feel our honesty - just as they can feel us withholding the truth. Begin to believe that you don’t need to become someone else to the audience than who you are now. Write what you know, because no one knows it better than you.

I consider myself a bit of a hopeless romantic. I’m a sucker for a good romantic comedy. I love watching the groom’s face as the bride walks down the aisle. Even though I know Valentine’s Day dinner and a movie at twice the price is a cheap exploitation of true love, I still make the reservations.

You’d think with such a soft spot for affection I’d eek out a few hundred love songs now and then. The problem is not writing a love song, but writing a good love song that people want to hear again and again without chewing their own arm off. For me, songs have to connect - and connect with a depth of purpose. If that depth of purpose only runs skin deep with phrases like ‘ever since we met’, or ‘I was so blind,’ my willingness to believe the song reflects actual experience is compromised. I want to be swept away by the love song, not just mildly interested. I want to feel down to the marrow of my bones that this love is worth every ounce of passion and vulnerability the artist is asking me to invest by listening to it. Anything less and there is a discordance between what the writer/artist intended on making me feel, and what I actually feel.

I’m not saying that a love song can’t be reggae, can’t make me smile, blush, or can’t bounce along with the pitter-patter of a new romance. I am saying that a great love song has to deliver some actual life experience between the clichés. It’s got to be real, intimate, and totally accessible.

It is for this reason that I find love songs especially difficult to write. In my opinion, my most successful love song attempts result from two techniques, both of which I only realized I was using in hindsight. The first of these techniques is using a location as the basis for the story. By setting the first verse in a specific ‘place’, such as a laundry mat or a coffee shop, the song finds its roots firmly planted in a real-life experience instead of whizzing out in nowhere with scattered thoughts and feelings. Take a listen to some of the more recent popular love songs and look for this ‘location’ within the lyric. Many artists within the pop or rock vein come to mind, such as Jason Mraz, John Mayer, Edwin McCain, Sting. As with any songwriting technique, look within your genre to find examples of the tool at work. For more detail on this technique, refer to Popular Lyric Writing: 10 Steps to Effective Storytelling, chapters one, two, and three.

The other technique is using a metaphor to ground the song. For instance, love is a rose. Love is a rent-controlled apartment. Love is an open field. Love is a landing strip. Thinking about the characteristics of these nouns, we can draw contrasts and comparisons and come at love from a unique perspective. When I write with a metaphor in mind, I also choose my verbs wisely. If a landing strip is my launchpad for this technique, I list all the verbs, nouns, and adjectives that come to mind related to that idea. Taking off, zoom, jet fuel, screech, burnt rubber, passenger, wingspan, etc. This gets me on a path towards more ideas: What happens when love takes off? When would I describe love with the word ‘zoom’? What jet fuels love? What happens when I smell the burnt rubber, the screech, am I ever a passenger in love, and what wingspan can love have?

On a final note, I find break-up songs just flow out of me. Even though breaking up hasn’t been a theme in my life for years, I find I can access that well of painful words and images as if it happened yesterday. Perhaps it’s because so much of love is deliriously happy and almost removed from the details of mundane reality. But to connect in intimate ways, generalizations just won’t do. While you’re writing your next love song, how vulnerable are you willing to get for the sake of connecting with your listener with purpose worth writing?

Keeping the ideas fresh and flowing often requires a lot of flexibility. It’s easy to suddenly find ourselves in a dead space, a plateau where all the shimmer is gone from our ideas. When this happens to me, I’ve got a few tricks up my sleeve that will keep the pen in my hand and the spring in my creativity. I’d like to share a few of those ideas with you now, in hopes you may be able to jump-start your engines next time you stall as well.

Whether you write music first, words first, or both at the same time, it’s a good idea to change up your process and explore other possibilities. I’m not talking about the style of music or genre of lyric you write, but rather how you go about writing it. Always starting with lyric can lead us in a pattern where all our phrases, rhythms, and rhyme schemes follow the same patterns. The lyric also has the power to steer the musical tempo and style, and so the result can be streams of songs that either don’t match the subtleties in our musical moods, or all tend to sound basically the same.

If you often start with lyrics, try setting words aside awhile. Sit at the piano or with your guitar and just let your musicality take over. Something I like to do is write 8 or 10 different motifs, just little mini-sections of 4 or 8 bars of melody and harmony that I think are catchy. I record each one as I sit there, and once the recording is done, about 15 seconds, I move onto another idea. I don’t allow my editor to interfere too much and I’m not afraid to record bad ideas. Later in the week I dump all my recordings onto my computer and listen. I’ll pick out all the ones I think could make a good verse foundation or chorus idea, and stash it in a folder labeled “New Music 6-22-08.” I may even grab one random idea and consider it a verse, putting it together with another random idea as a chorus, both very catchy and ready to inspire great lyrics. Sometimes the pairing works, sometimes it doesn’t. The point for me is that I’m trying things without any presumptions or concern for making mistakes. I may go through this process each day for a week, letting the music clips stack up until I feel ready to sift through them. When I finally do, it’s like opening little Christmas presents – I’ve forgotten what’s wrapped within each music file and I listen with much more objective ears, responding as the listener might to my song.

In my experience, many songwriters are at least additionally, but often first and foremost performers. Having a bunch of music clips lying around isn’t exact a novel idea. So in this case, lyrics are the issue and we need a process for finishing songs that are gathering dust without words. What I like to do in this case involves a two-pronged attack. First, I focus on a musical idea that I feel is very strong. I record it – just a rough one minute job will do. Then I sit with my eyes closed and earphones on and listen to the track, poised in front of a word document ready to jot down any images, words, phrases, emotions, etc. that the recording sparks. As I type, I pay special attention to the mood of the music. I allow myself to write whatever comes to mind, free of my editor and focused on sensebound descriptions. This process of writing is called ‘Destination Writing,’ and I teach it in my Commercial Songwriting Techniques class. From my paragraph of rambling images and thoughts, I harvest the phrases and words that seem to plug into my melody, building around them always from the destination writing.

Sometimes we get mired in perfecting each section as we write. This can land us in a hole of lots of first verses and choruses, but no back halves of songs. To this problem, I take a bold leap and try using my first verse as the second verse. Seeing the song from this new angle enables new ideas to flow. I write a first verse setting the ‘who’, ‘when,’ and ‘where’ clearly, creating the foundation of the storyline. Again, to do this, give your editor the day off. You’ll need guts to leave behind old ways, but trust me, it’s worth the effort.

Every few months it can be a great idea to change up our process. Not only do we realize greater depths of skill, but we consistently knock down the tower of hesitation that keeps us bound within our typical melodic, harmonic, and lyrical styles.

The path to becoming a professional songwriter is never as clean-cut as we’d like it to be. If only there were ads in the classifieds “writer needed for top pop act,” with a phone number and an address to send a resume, it would be more obvious to know where to start. For me, the transition from hobbyist to professional writer was a bit like wandering through the woods and then suddenly stepping out into the clearing. I didn’t know how far down the path I had tread until I found myself already at my destination.

The trouble with success like anything in life, is that it’s not typically a steady upwards curve. There are months or years when even professional songwriters don’t get paid for their craft, being in-between deals or waiting for royalties to trickle in, and so in the most realistic sense, professional is a just a matter of experience and a way of doing business.

So what are some of the activities or elements that transition a hobby songwriter to a professional? I’ll give you my two cents, and you can add your own as you look back into the woods from your own clearing.

The first activity that makes the change is writing. It seems obvious, but it’s amazing how easy it can be to get distracted or just plain too busy, and stop writing regularly to develop our craft. Writing songs can certainly be a gift, and with that gift each of us brings a certain style and inspiration. But like any other skill, it takes dedication to learn to direct our inspiration to consistently achieve the results we want. That’s the important word here, consistency. Professional writers don’t just write one great song every 6 months. They write 10 good ones every 3 months, and if we’re lucky, 2 or 3 of those stand out as great songs.

I can’t stress enough the importance of writing, even when you don’t feel inspired. If you’re going for a publishing deal, for example, the company expects you to continuously put out more material. That’s how you stay relevant and current to the industry. Even as an artist writing for yourself or for others, if the last song you wrote and recorded was 6 months ago, you could be 6 months behind the trend…not to mention everyone you’ve played the song for has begun to forget you’re still around. Fans need to be reminded too. With so much new music coming out that is so accessible, we can’t go into hiding for too long before we’re simply out of mind as well as out of sight.

All the other activities, from networking to performing, getting to know names in the industry, gaining studio and recording experience, co-writing, following leads to meetings with industry gate-keepers, and so on are secondary. Learning how to carry ourselves in a meeting such as how many songs to play and how to accept criticism and compliments are certainly important, but without the activity of writing, we hardly get the chance to practice those skills.

There are hundreds of thousands of people who write songs and fancy themselves songwriters. What makes the difference between a hobbyist and a professional is how aware the write is of his/her own shortcomings and potentials. It’s not how many songs we get recorded or how much money we make (artists as famous for not being recognized and appreciated until they’re dead). It’s how much we enjoy the craft that enables us to survive just about anything along the way.

If you’re writing a few times a week and would like to step up your game in other areas of the business, I encourage you to follow some of the steps I’ve outlined in my previous blogs entitled ‘While You Are Writing.’ If you have specific questions about a crossroads you’ve reached in your career, please feel free to submit your comments in response to this blog. I’d be glad to take a stab at brainstorming with you for your next big career step.

Sincerely,
Andrea Stolpe

What: Missing Pieces: Techniques for Finishing Old Ideas. Part of the guest artist series by the Positive Music Association, http://www.positivemusicassociation.com/

When: June 18th, 6pm Pacific time (9pm Eastern)

How: To join us, call 1 (605) 475-4333, access code 367913#

I’m delighted to spread the word that on the 18th of this month I’ll be a guest speaker for the Positive Music Association’s monthly lecture series. I’ll be talking about an issue it’s safe to say all of us as songwriters have faced – multitudes of good ideas remaining only partially developed in our odd notebooks and hidden laptop files. To start the discussion I’ll outline some tools I use to keep the fire burning until the end, and then open up the lines for questions. Bring any challenges you’re facing, whether it be problems with lyric content or musical direction. If you already have my book, Popular Lyric Writing: 10 Steps to Effective Storytelling, I welcome any questions you may have about how to further apply the techniques to your own songwriting.

I look forward to talking with you!

Andrea Stolpe

Songwriting like any other art brings with it a fair share of critics. After all, anyone can listen to a song and form an emotional opinion. In fact, music is an art that anyone can make, whether novice or experienced. Anyone can call themselves a songwriter by writing a few tunes, effective or ineffective in creating a good experience for the listener. In addition, hindsight can make some of the most memorable songs seem simple to have written. The melodic ideas are short strings of connected tones, the harmonic progressions basic root, four, five, with an occasional six minor, and the lyric phrase after phrase of everyday language we hear ourselves using in conversations and love letters. What could be so difficult about that?

Songwriting isn’t often thought of as an art to be mastered, like classical piano or upright bass. Truly remarkable artists begin with an undeniable gift, but that gift doesn’t truly shine until it is invested into with time, focus, and dedication. But in popular songwriting today, I find that the focus is nearly entirely on the gift, rather than the development of that gift. What results is a viewpoint that either a songwriter ‘has the gift’ or ‘doesn’t have the gift’, and furthermore, that each utterance from the songwriter with the gift is art worth listening to.

I write songs for two reasons: for the pleasure of writing, and for the pleasure of those listening. Sometimes I’m fortunate enough to achieve both those elements at once. But sometimes the process is slow and frustrating, and the real pleasure only comes from knowing my craft and process well enough that those listening find pleasure in my end result. Sometimes the song was pleasurable to write, but the experience of the listener fades in comparison. The truth still stands that in order to excel in my art, I need to practice my craft. Regardless of the ‘gifting’ I may or may not have started with, I take all the credit for developing it into the useful tool it is today.

As I said before, anyone can write a song, and anyone can critique a song. But that doesn’t mean we should listen to just anyone. As a songwriter reading this yourself, I strongly urge you to do the same. As a songwriter writing about songwriting, I realize that I’m a critic right now, so I urge you to sift my words as well for those ideas that ring true, and those that do not. The most valuable lesson I’ve learned as a writer over the years is that another writers’ process is not my own. Their process may serve as signposts for my own, but the more I practice my art, the more I learn to hear and trust my own instincts.

Songwriting is an art that for some comes very naturally, and for others takes a lot of practice. But until you’ve given yourself adequate time to find out how far you can develop your gift, don’t stop writing. Consider critique or feedback in context of those giving it. Some people care very much about lyrics, some don’t. Some people swear that a great melodic hook is the key to a hit song. Some think it’s all about the guitar riff, the tempo, the vocals, etc. Some have spent years in Nashville and believe that the storyline should be clear and the title apparent. Some come from a heavy metal background and believe that lyrics should be open for interpretation from the listener. The list goes on and on, but for each opinion, there is a musical context from which these preferences were formed. Allow yourself the grace to find out where your own preferences lie, and how they direct your process.

To truly call yourself a songwriter, you must write. You’ll know you’re making progress when you intentionally apply tools of the craft to achieve desired effects. You’ll know you’re excelling when the tools of the craft become instinctual, integrated into the very process you’re developing.

Many critics in my humble opinion don’t understand the level of dedication and time required to truly excel as a songwriter. To create something with intention and to do it over and over again takes immense skill that can be directed, but only truly developed through practice. If you’re in the early stages of developing your own process, I hope you find the courage to continue amidst colorful critique, both helpful and destructive. Anyone can write a song, but not anyone can create valuable listening experiences over and over again.

If you’re writing a few times a week, you’re speeding down the path to better songs that more clearly express who you are as an artist. Along the path are inevitable pit-stops where strings of songs reflect the same stage in your musical and lyrical development and writing process. Sometimes we get stalled in these stages and find ourselves unable to move past them. When this happens to me, I go back to my toolbox, the big box of songwriting techniques that enable me to throw my song against the wall and see if it sticks. I’ll critique my own song, taking a look at the lyric content, rhyme, conversational quality, title placement, overall structure, the melodic shape, phrasing, note lengths, the harmonic progression and frequency of chords, etc. As I break the tune down into these elements, I often start to see similarities.

Perhaps I notice that several of my latest tunes use the same melodic shape, or the phrasing of the verses are all 4 lines followed by 4 more lines. Maybe I’m stuck on starting on the root chord or using the same melodic intervals. The antidote is to start implementing the opposite tools. Instead of starting on the root chord, I try starting on the 4th or 5th. Instead of large melodic intervals, I try small intervals or just staying on 1 note.

Recently a student asked for some ideas for getting out of harmonic ruts. Below are some of my tools, but add your own as you confront pit-stops in your own writing.

1. As I described above, notice how often you start your verse or chorus on the root chord. If this is typical of your harmonic movement, try starting on the ii-, iii-, IV, V, or vi- instead. Listen carefully to how your instincts tell you to alter your melody based on those changes.

2. Notice how many times you change chords in each section. Is it once per measure, twice, or every two measures? Change up the harmonic rhythm by changing chords more or less frequently than you typically do.

3. Simplify. Movement in both the melody and harmony all the time doesn’t automatically make a song better or more interesting. Try writing a verse over a 1 chord groove.

4. Avoid the root until the chorus. This technique not only changes your starting point, but helps to keep the tension taught until releasing it in the chorus when you do play the root. The root chord offers that great feeling of ‘coming home’, returning to the tonal center of the song.

5. Change the bass shape. Try descending or ascending the scale, moving up or down by whole steps or half steps. Notice how often you change chords, and then increase or decrease that frequency for more ideas.

6. Change the tempo and the time signature. If you consistently write in 4/4, try 6/8 or ¾. Notice your typical tempos, and significantly slow down or speed up for new ideas.

7. Learn a new rhythm on your instrument. If you’re a piano player, try playing quarter notes in the bass, or half notes, or arpeggios. If you’re a guitar player, try a new groove and write the whole first verse or chorus over that single 1 or 2 bar groove.

8. If you play an instrument, put it down or switch to an instrument you’re not familiar with. Try a drop D guitar tuning, try a capo on the 6th or 7th fret and turn your guitar into a mandolin. If you don’t play an instrument, pick one up and sing a melody over a 1 or 2 note bass-line in your left hand.

9. Pick up a CD you haven’t listened to in awhile. Pick a tune at random and play the intro and stop just before the verse starts. Try writing the rest of the song using the intro as a guide for tempo, rhythm, and chord progression. You can always go back later and substitute a chord or two of your own to bring the harmonic progression further away from the original.

10. Go out and buy 5 new records. Sometimes just funneling new music into our heads inspires the growth we need to move on from a plateau.

Musicians aren’t exactly famous for their ability to handle relationships well. The stereotype is that our art comes first, and that there is always a part of ourselves we withhold from our loved ones as we’re devoted to another muse. That may be true for some, but perhaps it’s impossible to distinguish whether it’s a product of our personalities and choices rather than the fact that we have a musical gene weaving through our DNA.

Recently a fellow songwriter shared with me a difficult situation with his wife resulting from a seemingly insignificant performance of a popular song. The song brought up some sensitive issues, and in doing so, created a rift within the most important relationship in his life. As songwriters and artists, it’s only natural we sing and write about issues close to home. By the very act of connecting with our audience, we focus on what provokes thought and causes emotion. We can even bring to life an experience that was not our own, and write it with such sensitivity, such detail, that it becomes real once more in the span of that 3 and half minutes.

I’ve personally performed songs I’ve written where after the performance, several audience members came to me with concern for my well-being. No, I wasn’t suicidal, but rather digging deep into the difficulties of what matters most to us in life- our relationships. Some songs are just more powerful written from first person perspective. In this case, taking a side-line view of divorce using he/she said language just wouldn’t cut it. I had to expose every fiber in my body to the sting, the hurt, the desperation and the shame of what it would feel like to find myself at the end of that rope. We’ve all been in similar situations or felt empathy for others in those situations, so I’m not about to pretend that I’m safely on the sidelines of every song I write. I’m saying that in order to write songs that matter, sometimes I’ve got to reveal my own vulnerability by personalizing the issues that affect us all.

I hope that those listening to my songs feel comforted and less alone. The few that decide all my song lyrics foreshadow the dissolving of my closest relationships are missing the point. For those close to me, a good sit-down discussion about where the song came from and why I chose to write it can be a great idea. I don’t know about you, but often my songs reveal to me things I’ve been tossing around in my head before I know I’ve been tossing them around. In a sense, I guess you could say I journal to pitch and rhythm. My songs are an extension of how I look at the world and how I think the world looks at me. Sometimes that’s messy, and sometimes it’s beautiful, but it’s always honest. And that’s all I owe myself or anybody else.