Career Songwriter

If you are Object Writing or Destination Writing each day, you’re undoubtedly coming up with lots of material you can turn into songs. Many times we think we’ve got to start with a theme or topic clearly outlined to get a good tune. But, I’d like to show you how you might burst open another pot of ideas just by pulling interesting words and collisions out of thin air.

Whether or not we have a theme, we can start by choosing an ‘object’ to be the center of our song. I might look around the room and make a list of objects I see, like this:

Chimney
Wicker chair
Loveseat
Fax machine
Keys
Painting

Next, I’ll describe those objects in more detail with some taste, touch, sight, sound, smell, or movement ideas:

Chimney: puffs of smoke, exhaust, burning, fireproof, clogged, cords of wood, soot, ashes, brick, mortar

Wicker chair: Lacquer, hard, weave, cushion, pattern, frayed ends, peaceful, summer

Loveseat: Soft, worn in, cushion, bright pillows, sagging, beige, velvety, lived on, inviting, stuffing bursting

Fax Machine: buzz and beep, signal, flashing light, out of paper, cable, call, tray, jam, frustration, test

Keys: clink, hang, lost, sawed edges, unlock, secure, jingle

Painting: vivid color, texture, paint, brushstroke, curve, impression, wavy, outline, frame, gold, black, reflection, fine art

Now that I’ve got short lists of some of the characteristics of each object, I can draw some comparisons. I’m going to choose a few universal song themes and throw them against my nouns. Some universal themes we all know are finding love, losing love, longing for love, moving on, taking on the future with optimism, etc. So I’ll start with the first:

How is love like a chimney? In what ways does love burn, turn to ash, feel like brick and mortar, send up smoke signals, leave a layer of soot? We’re not talking literally here, of course, but metaphorically. This love could rage like kindling, could burn out and leave nothing but wisps of ash, the memory of it caked like thick soot, or block me in like brick and mortar.

How is love like a wicker chair? This love is woven tight, is weathered and hard from years of wear and tear, frayed on the edges. Or, it’s playful like a summer vacation, comfortable, peaceful and unassuming.

How is love like a fax machine? What kind of relationship runs out of paper when you need it most? How about has trouble connecting, requires a progress report, rings but there’s no-one on the other line, gets jammed?

The trick here is to let your imagination run, lengthening your list of characteristics of your noun and tossing each against the thematic idea. Though you may start with the same theme each time, such as love, you’ll get quite different song ideas depending on the noun you choose.

We can use this technique to brainstorm our song beginnings, or we can choose to return to metaphor to liven up a second verse, for example. After the first chorus, we move back into verse territory, and metaphor can provide excellent content that allows the story to progress while adding weight and purpose to the story. Just be careful to choose metaphor that stays relevant to the mood of the song. In other words, keep your metaphors consistent. We’re painting with a specific palette of color when we’re using metaphor, and changing that palette midway through the song can feel like switching out our main character for somebody else. If you begin with a wicker chair, consider the mood you’re creating. Then consider what other objects also reflect that same mood. If ‘wicker chair’ symbolizes comfort and hope, I may disrupt that mood if I later use ‘sleek business suit’ as a metaphor. Instead, I can move to a metaphor in which ‘wicker chair’ still has context, such as ‘leather-bound book,’ or ‘tea cup.’ Give it a try next time you’re searching for that unique perspective making your universal theme songs different from any other.

Happy writing,
Andrea

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.

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.

Last week in While You Are Writing, I suggested two activities – one business, and one craft. They were purchasing a new record, and trying your hand at writing a few simple choruses. This week, I’ve got some other suggestions I hope you enjoy working into your songwriting routine.

Business:
Begin to familiarize yourself with the function of a music publisher. There are many great resources out there to help, but I suggest starting with the performing right organizations such as ASCAP.com and BMI.com, and my very own website www.andreastolpe.com and clicking on ‘Craft and Biz.’ There are some excellent books out there too, such as those by Berkleemusic’s very own, Eric Beall, on how to set up and run your own publishing company. You may also visit your local Borders Bookstore and look for ‘All You Need to Know About the Music Business’ by Donald Passman. It’s an excellent resource for music industry professionals and simple enough to understand for anyone new to the business altogether.
Take a half hour and page through some of the album notes of your favorite artists. Look for the publishing information after the copyright sign. You’ll notice that many artists have their own publishing companies, but you’ll also see some familiar name such as Warner/Chappell Music, or Universal Music.
On ASCAP’s website, you can click on ‘title search’ and search for any popular song that crosses your mind. If ASCAP handles the title you’re looking for, it will be there – and most often along with several other songs of that same title. (If it’s not there it might be handled by BMI or SESAC). You can click on the song, and see the publishing information. Just get an overall lay of the land. It can help you to understand avenues you might pursue in the future for marketing your songs.

Craft:
Here’s a great exercise I learned years ago. Make a list of interesting verbs down the left side of a piece of paper. Then make a list of adjectives on the right side of your paper. At random, try colliding various verbs with various adjectives and see what those ideas spark. I’ve worked up an example below.

Vault shadowed

Pocket colorful

Bend green

Stretch pixilated

Soar passionate

Song Ideas:

Pocket green
Soar passionate
Stretch colorful

Or try them the other way:

Colorful vault
Shadowed stretch
Green bend

Don’t worry about whether they make sense or not. Some collisions will simply serve the purpose of creating interesting visuals in your mind, and sparking song ideas otherwise unimaginable.