The Process... Making Up Songs Over the years I've developed a certain process that works for me. First, I hardly ever call it songwriting, because I hardly ever actually write anything. I can't read or write music. I make it up, or it comes to me. The latter part of that may seem strange, but it's true. Sometimes songs just pop into my head, bits of them just appear. Then I have to make up the rest, and that's the hard part. Where these songs come from is a mystery. The subconscious? A higher power? Random brain cells? I don't really know, but they come to me almost as if I'm a radio getting stations that no one else can hear. It's been like that since I was a little kid. Maybe I'm nuts, but if I am, I'm glad to be, and that's the truth. Songs will occur to me at the weirdest times, and often it's when I'm not trying at all, when my mind is blank, just before or after sleeping, driving down the highway, in the shower, taking a walk etc... The next thing I have to do, is to get that idea from my brain to a pad of paper, a recorder, or a guitar. That's where the hard part begins. The mission is: To get what I hear in my head to actually happen in the real world. I keep notebooks all over the house, there's even a pad of paper on the dashboard of my car. I have several small recorders I use and I keep a recording device with me at all times, even if I have to call my answering machine and sing into the phone (I've done that twice) I have to get the initial idea down or I forget it. I have forgotten many songs that might have been good ones for all I know. Okay, so now I have the bare bones of a song idea, and believe me, I have dozens and dozens of unfinished ones laying around! I pick one that I'm enthusiastic about and I begin working. Usually I begin with a basic beat. I build a real basic drum pattern with my drum machine. It will probably change drastically later, but I need something to work around, so I'll record that pattern for 5 - 6 minutes. Next. I sit down and figure out the chords to the song in my head. There are always too many options, so I try to keep it as simple as possible. I can always change it later. I record this basic sloppy guitar part and then I sing the basic gist of the song I received, filling in with la la la, and doobie doo, and whatever nonsense syllables and phrases where I don't have lyrics. The idea is to get the ball rolling. Usually on the first play back I start to get phrases to replace the la la las with. That's where imagination starts to take over. Melodic ideas start to come in as well at this point. I go back and re-do the guitar part fixing the clunkers and refining the changes. Guess what? As I'm doing that more lyrics an melodies start popping up. I usually get pretty excited when that happens, and I'll go back and forth, adding and erasing these guitar and vocal parts until I feel it's time to quit. Once I have the guitar and basic guide vocal down I lay down the bass part. Now I can hear the basic rhythm section and it starts to sound like a band. The bass will suggest certain drum kicks and patterns to me, and I go back and work on the drums. Those kicks and patterns will force me to make adjustments to the guitar parts, so I go back and do them over. As all of these stuff gets refined more ideas start to pop in. Sometimes too many. Should I put this in? Should I leave that out? You have to trust your own instincts a lot. Background vocals need to be dubbed and re-dubbed and edited and processed around this time too. Then comes the spices - solos, sound effects, extra instruments and textures. Eventually I flesh out the rest of the lyrics and sing the lead parts. Usually I'll sing the whole thing end to end 4 times and select the parts I like in the performance, and splice them into one complete final lead vocal track. You have to put on different hats for different functions. (not literally) I'll go in for one session as the producer, making decisions on what stays and what must go. Sometimes I go in as the engineer, concentrating on the mix and the sounds and tones of the instruments. Sometimes I'm just the studio musician, trying to lay down that certain track as best I can. I set it all aside and listen to it later. Sometimes I go back and decide that it's great, but many times I just toss it aside and decide that I don't like it at all. So I have piles of unfinished songs nobody will ever hear, but that's okay. I'm just grateful to have these ideas coming in. I like it! Once I decide that the song is worthy, I focus on it something fierce. I drive myself and others around me crazy sometimes because I get a bit obsessed by it. I can usually hear what I want inside my head. The instrumentation, the harmonies etc... and again the job is- to get it out of my head and into the real world. Lyrics give me the most trouble. Sometimes the lyrics or musical phrases, or chord changes just won't come, and I'll usually pace the floors, go for a hike up the woods or a long ride, trying to remain open to that mysterious source where the songs come from. I've learned to get into a certain zone where that happens. I can't rally explain it because I don't really understand it. I only know that if I remain open to it these ideas just appear, and when they do, I feel really good. I don't have a band any more, and even when I did, I found that I had a hard time communicating my ideas to them. Often they would take my ideas into an unwanted direction and begin to make the song what they wanted it to be instead of working with me to achieve my goal. (and who could blame them) Eventually I learned that I would have to learn to play the parts myself. I AM a picky stubborn strange bastard. I know that, and I accept it, happily. I have to be to accomplish my mission, and the mission (again) is to get the song out of my head and into the real world. So I gathered a bunch of instruments and tools to get the job done. I commandeered a spare bedroom in my house. It became my studio. I call it "Head In The Sky." After Casey Kasem's famous words: "Keep your head in the sky and your feet on the ground." I use a stand alone 10 track hard disc recorder. No computer for me. I want no Microsoft updates or e-mails coming in while I'm working. My recorder is old and inexpensive, but it's all I can afford. It heats up and starts wigging out after a few hours, so I put an air conditioner in and work with my coat on a lot. I usually work for 6 to 10 hours at a whack, but it goes by like a few minutes for me. I told you I get obsessive, right? I have a Fender Jazz Bass and a bunch of old guitars,and some harmonicas,a crappy old keyboard, but my two favorite toys are my Variax - which can imitate many kinds of guitars, and my Frankendobro- which is an acoustic dobro with a LesPaul pickup installed in it. I plug into some effects pedals sometimes and directly into the recorder many times. I never use an amp. I refuse to use pitch correction when I sing or quantization on the instruments I play. I'm not the greatest musician in the world, I can't read music and I've never had any lessons, but being a stubborn picky strange bastard has worked for me. I will simply torture myself for hours on end until I can play the part I hear in my head. I don't really mind spending hours singing and playing, in fact I love it. (Masochistic stubborn picky strange bastard that I am) When I'm stuck on a lyric I employ a method I've developed which helps me a lot: 1. First I ask myself, "Exactly what is it that you want to say?" This is really important to do. Sometimes it's easy to let the rhyme twist your ideas around until the meaning gets lost. I hate that. So after I decide what it is I write it down in as many ways as I can state it. 2. Conveying a picture. To paint a picture with words you need to see the picture in your creative mind, so I write down these mind pictures in as many ways as possible, just letting the pages of my notebook fill up with them keeping my hand moving on the page. Going back I take the key phrases and list the ones I like best. 3. Now it's time to rhyme them. I'll go for a walk, or a ride, or stare into space, or take a tubby...whatever it takes to open myself to the creative ideas. What are the different ways I can come up with to say the same thing? As I get into that zone, they begin to appear magically, and I'm thrilled when they do. Sometimes I'll sit with the guitar and la la la until the phrase appears. I feel as if it's a gift to me. It feels good to receive a gift after all. Doesn't it? 4. Back to the notebook... This is tedious, but it works... Lyric writing exercise: see feel sense show smell taste hear remember Under each of those headings I'll place the phrases I've come up with. (lot's of them) Then it's like putting the pieces of a puzzle into place. It takes tremendous concentration, usually at my kitchen table, to do this. Many cups of tea and coffee get made during this process. I can have no distractions at this time. 5. Back to the recorder to try the new ideas out. Round and round we go! Using these methods and recording at home in my spare time, it usually takes me a month or two to complete a song. Time is hard to find sometimes. You have to schedule it. One way is to stop watching so much TV. It's amazing how much time we waste watching crap when we could be creating something of value. Sometimes when I'm done I love it, sometimes I hate it, but I feel like I'm getting better at it as I go, and that's important. That's what keeps me going. Once it's done, it's done. People can say what they want about it. Only I know if I tried my best. On to the next song! I love to read about and study other people's songwriting. Reading is another passion of mine and I usually have two or three books going at the same time. I really should make a list of the books I've found inspirational. There have been plenty of them. You can always learn more. My goal has never been to make it big in the music business. My one and only goal is to get the songs out of me and into the real world. Some will be good, and some won't. I accept that. It's okay. I'll keep at it and once in a while I'll get lucky and make up a good one. ( I hope) I'm trying. The fact that some people like them means a lot to me. But even if they don't, I'm doing what I love to do, it makes me happy and it's very fulfilling. So... On to the next song! |
