Songwriting Strategies Read online

  SHOULD WE CAPTURE CONTEXT?

  How much of the originating context needs to be saved with a captured seed? If it’s a chance phrase spoken by a friend telling us about their latest romance, do we need to record who gave us the seed, or the (possibly unsavory) specifics of their personal circumstances? I advise that you capture as little information as necessary about the initiating context—only what’s essential to remembering the seed’s “cool” factor later. Strong seeds invite you to lift them out of their original context. With such seeds, your later work doesn’t depend on that original context; it may depend on you letting that context go and reframing the seed. Stripping contextual associations from seeds is thus more than a matter of convenience; it’s part of the creative work of seed catching. There are a few pragmatic reasons to capture the generating context for a seed: when you want a memento of the moment of capture, to aid in reflection on your seed-catching practice, when writing a song as personal history or personal gift, or in anticipation of getting interviewed about your hit song years later by Rolling Stone. Also, seeds you catch from fellow songwriters (as opposed to the nonsongwriter folks I call “civilians”) warrant special handling. In a formal co-writing session, any novel material spoken aloud in the room by either partner is potentially shared seed material, for that session or a later one. I record such seeds with session notes, so that the co-writing context is clear when I return to the seed later. If you do think you’ll want context information for a seed, write it down with the seed. Trust me—you won’t remember unless you do!

  Lyric Seeds

  For many writers, the easiest kinds of song seeds to recognize are lyric seeds, especially titles and hooks. In genres such as mainstream country, a good title is a big part of getting to a good song. 3 Not surprisingly, typical names for lists of song ideas that songwriters keep on hand are “title books,” “hook books,” and “idea books.” But not all great lyric seeds are necessarily destined to be titles or hooks, or even central lines of the song. Great first lines, or lines that will show up buried within a later verse, passing images, and even striking individual words are all fair game.

  Lyric seeds are easy kinds of seeds to catch for several reasons. We’re surrounded by language in every aspect of our daily lives: conversations and overheard dialogue; language in books, the news, and other media; even our own thoughts, which we often experience as words heard internally, a kind of silent monologue. It’s also easy to transcribe lyric seeds just by jotting them down; we don’t need special notation or transcription skills for lyrics, as we do with melody, chord, or rhythm ideas. For popular song lyrics, where informal conversational language is valued, strong lyric ideas can appear in the midst of everyday activities and interactions.

  Attributes of Good Lyric Seeds

  Because language is so ubiquitous and inescapable in our lives, it’s worth asking: what makes a given fragment of language a good song seed? Here are a few observations about attributes of strong lyric seeds. To ground the discussion, I’ll use an example lyric seed of my own: “Nice Day till the Hurricane.”

  Individuality/Voice

  As mentioned earlier, through seed catching you gain a surer feel for specific kinds of lyric material that appeal to you individually. These form the core of your voice—your signature style and vocabulary as a writer. I found “Nice Day till the Hurricane” interesting because of the intriguing implied story behind the line. The paradoxical juxtaposition and contrast of a “nice day” and a “hurricane” strikes a casual-yet-ironic tone that I love, and that is very much in my individual style.

  Emotional Resonance

  Songs are not creative nonfiction or philosophical essays. Effective song seeds move us emotionally, or move our feet, as well as stimulate our minds. Finding the emotional resonance is important in clarifying concept seeds, but essential in working with lyric seeds as well. I wouldn’t try to prejudge this aspect too quickly, though, as you learn seed catching. At first, you might need to revel in clever, playful aspects of seed catching, which can become almost a game (like working a crossword puzzle but in real life). But eventually, we recognize that strong seeds—the ones that matter—reveal a story worth telling in song.

  This ties back to seed catching as a way to find out what you care about as a writer. With “Nice Day till the Hurricane,” I get an immediate sense for a character, situation, point of view—a wry, ironic attitude about the misfortunes of life… like a blues singer’s attitude, but with more of a country feel. Personally, I’m drawn to writing songs about more nuanced emotional situations, not just stark “I love you/I hate you” declarations.

  Novelty/Surprise/Unexpectedness

  Songwriters are always on the lookout for freshness and originality in their seeds. The phrase “Nice Day till the Hurricane” begins with a bland, cliché opener, like the proverbial smiley-face “Have a nice day,” but then surprises with the violent image of the hurricane. It’s almost a song seed about surprise.

  It might seem obvious that we are in search of novelty in lyric seeds. And yet, novice seed catchers often write down pure clichés as song seeds, even when there’s nothing unusual or striking about them—no new twist or angle for exploiting them. In these cases, you’re counting mostly on familiarity of the fragment as a reason to build it into a song. You can sometimes write great songs based on such clichés, particularly if you’re the first to grab a new idiom or expression for a song. But for a more conventional cliché, you need that twist, to set it in an innovative context.

  Usually, though, seed catching is listening for “anti-clichés!” Some of the Beatles’ greatest songs, like “Eight Days a Week,” came from awkward expressions or malapropisms (from Ringo, from taxi drivers, from children) that had a fresh sound when pulled out of their original context.

  Compactness

  A seed is often the shortest, most concise way to capture the essence of an idea that has caught our attention. The unity, cohesiveness, and compactness of the expression of the idea play a focusing role when developing a complete song. This is especially but not exclusively true of titles and hooks. “Nice Day till the Hurricane” is a short, punchy phrase that has the hookiness built right in.

  Recontextability

  By noticing a song seed, we lift it out of the original context where we

  experienced it, and see or hear it anew, as something bigger or at least different than in its original setting. An everyday phrase like “going for broke” suddenly strikes us as applicable to a relationship. An image seen in everyday life suddenly takes on metaphorical resonance. Skilled seed catchers keep their songwriter’s ear to the wind, continually listening “sideways” for associative leaps and reframing of lyric material. (This can make us songwriters annoying dinner companions!)

  “Recontextable” is not the same as “vaguely universal.” Concrete, small details engage the listener. “She brushed the hair back from her face” may strike you as a great lyrical seed because it conjures a specific, believable picture. The story you build into the song may have nothing to do with the girl who sparks the seed idea for you. As for “Nice Day till the Hurricane,” the best evidence that this seed was amenable to being lifted out of its original context is that I can’t remember the original context where I caught this seed. (Supporting evidence for my earlier assertion—if you want to remember context, write it down with the seed!)

  Collisions of Sound and Sense

  The strongest lyric seeds delight and engage ear as well as mind, combining an intriguing thought or insight with compelling sonic qualities in the specific combinations of words and syllables. You can work with a seed that captures an observation, but is not yet a clear title or lyric line. You can work with a great-sounding line, even with no idea (yet) of what it means. But song seeds worth their weight in gold (or even more!) arrive as a harmonious collision: a single, unified expression, generating both the lightning and the thunderclap as the two clouds of sense and sound rub together. We know insta
ntly what a “Hard Day’s Night” means. We also know we’re hearing it stated in a fresh way. This is the magical art songwriters refer to as the gift of “turning a phrase.”

  Let’s examine some collisions of sound and sense in our example:

  Rhythm and pace: The steadiness of “nice day” contrasts with the relative acceleration of “hurricane.” This echoes both the theme and the implied movement and narrative of the line.

  Assonance (agreement of vowels): The internal rhyme of “day” and “-cane” is the most prominent.

  Consonance (agreement of consonants): “Nice” and “-cane” bookend the line. Note this is consonance, but not the more specific effect of alliteration (consonance at the beginning of words), since the “n” is internal to the word “hurricane.”

  Sonic aspects of vowels: Long vowels (“I,” “AY”) begin the line, followed by the short “IH” of “till,” the cloudy or murky “UR,” the assonant return of “AY.”

  Sonic aspects of consonants: The “n” and “s” are smooth and gentle; “d” moves towards a more percussive sound (a voiced plosive), followed by its harder partner sound “t” (an unvoiced plosive). The “h” is ironic, a smooth aspirant vowel/consonant blend metaphorically suggesting the approaching wind.

  I’m not suggesting I was conscious of all these links between sound, imagery, and sense in the moment the line drew my attention as a seed. I’m not that smart—but my seed-catcher’s ear is, and yours can be too. Emergent sonic properties of resonance, structure, and correspondence between sound and sense are characteristic of strong seeds. We learn to catch them first. Then, we learn why.

  Rhyme Connections

  As with jumping to rhyming with a concept seed, generating on-the-fly rhymes can also be problematic in catching true lyric seeds. Even when an individual line is a great seed, in both sound and sense aspects, we may feel we haven’t done our job unless we immediately try to rhyme it. But rhymes we come up with this way are rarely strong; they’re most likely obvious, top-of-your-head rhymes. And now, we’ve locked an initial strong seed line into a couplet, closing off many potential ways of working with it.

  A specific rhyme or sonic connection may be a seed in its own right, if it’s a surprising juxtaposition of words that also resonates in meaning—collisions again. Here, you’d want to capture the rhyme as part of the seed. But you may not want to write down too many prototype or “filler” lines fulfilling the rhyme—maybe just the pair or list of resonating words that caught your attention. Of the many creative tasks in lyric writing, rhyming is one where some extra time and help can make a big difference. A rhyming dictionary and a rhyme word list (or worksheet) are highly effective tools for searching for rhymes in response to starting lyric material such as a title or line.

  Musical Seeds

  Central to the idea of 360° songwriting is writing from all directions. So, we want to catch song seeds, not just in lyric form, but in musical form as well.

  There are distinct challenges in capturing musical vs. lyric seeds:

  Isolation. In catching musical song seeds, as compared with lyric seeds, problems of separating the essential seed from associated “filler” material becomes trickier. Until we train ourselves to separate melodic, harmonic, and rhythmic aspects, they tend to be closely intertwined in musical seeds. And yet song seed catching is a perfect first training ground for developing these isolation skills.

  Notation. We must have ways of capturing seed ideas. It’s easy to write down lyrics and concepts (though also easy to confuse them for that very reason, as we’ve seen!). To write down melodies, chords, or rhythms, we need some kind of notation. Use of technology like portable recorders, cell phones, or sequencers expedites the capture of musical performances. When you’re ready to work a melodic seed, you can just listen back to the recording and get to work. But the exercise of writing out the musical ideas can sharpen your focus and make you zero in on the precise expression of the seed idea. There’s also a power in working directly with notation—and specifically, with fast, informal notations. Curiously, as you get better about notating or transcribing musical ideas, your musical memory will also improve!

  Dependence on an instrument. Most musicians, whether singers or not, can hear melodies, and sing or hum them, away from an instrument. Similarly, we can hear and tap out rhythmic patterns. This is harder for most of us with harmonic ideas and chord progressions. You can cultivate this ability to hear progressions in “mind’s ear,” away from an instrument. Spend time catching seeds both at and away from your instrument. Listen for musical ideas that arise spontaneously in your “inner musical ear.” Be alert for ideas sparked from external sources. This can include other music—if you borrow judiciously, rather than plagiarizing too obviously!

  Sense and sound. Concept vs. lyric seeds can be thought of as a continuum from sense (meaning, ideas, observations in the world) to sound (lyric fragments that interest us because of their sonic aspects). We encounter this same polarity with seed material in musical forms. As we’ll see in the “Harmony” chapter, sometimes we’re not thinking harmonically at all when we find a “chord seed” at the keyboard or on guitar—we’re responding mostly to sonorities of the chord. At other times, it might be “sense”—that is, the “sensible” or meaningful as opposed to the “sensory”—aspects of chords in the context of a harmonic progression that forms the seed, the novel discovery we want to capture. This polarity creates significant challenges for the ways we “transcribe” various musical seeds. We need notation that doesn’t get in the way when the essence of the seed is more sound-driven. Informal notations, along with recording technology, can be useful tools in these situations.

  We also catch pure “sound seeds”—not associated with lyrics or direct musical material. Since the scope of this book does not extend to sound-based production or experimental composition, from a process standpoint here we might treat these—perhaps surprisingly—as concept seeds. A concept seed might be captured in the form of a photo, to use later as a prompt in writing. Similarly, a sample from existing music, or sampled environmental sound, can certainly be a starting point for songwriting. The songwriting-specific work begins when you “cast” those sounds into rhythm, lyric, melody, or chords.

  Guidelines for Catching Musical Seeds

  Here are some guidelines for catching musical seeds. We’ll discuss specific techniques for grabbing rhythmic, lyric, melodic, and harmonic or chordal seeds in each respective chapter on the facets.

  Quality

  It’s easy to be self-critical about the quality of your song seeds. When honing seed-catching skills, I suggest you grab ideas fairly indiscriminately. Don’t stop to judge your seeds for quality, just practice snagging them out of the air. As long as it feels like your stuff—banal, boring, or not—grab it and worry about it later. This won’t be your ongoing working process, but it will rapidly build your inner ear and musical memory. Having written for many decades, I still go through refresher periods where I write a lot of seeds down, then let both seeds and my seed-catching practice sit for a while.

  The quality of lyric seeds can be more obvious at a glance (or a listen) than melodic, harmonic, or rhythmic seeds. We’re unaccustomed to hearing musical ideas stripped back to their essentials. At first, even potentially strong melodies heard this way may feel trivial, sing-songy, nursery-rhyme-ish, almost embarrassing. Be patient, and overcome your resistance to catching these ideas. Eventually, this practice will help you recognize and capture stronger, more original melodic ideas and to strip away nonessentials. The same applies to seeds in the other facets. Once you dutifully capture a seed that seems trite or banal, then see it take form and gain interest through the act of crystallizing and recording it, you’ll learn to put more trust in your seed-noticing creative mind and feel less reverence for your inner judge and taste filter.

  Originality

  Closely allied to the issue of quality is concern for originality of seeds. We’re surrounded
by language in daily life—source material available for transformation into song lyrics. We can capture lyrical clichés and use them as seeds, especially if we give them that “twist.” We can also discover fresh lyric lines or “anti-clichés” just by being attentive. But melodies, chords, and rhythms are built on highly repetitive cliché materials: stock progressions, melodic figures, or rhythmic riffs that cue us to genre and groove. We can’t quickly assess the freshness or originality of such materials in seed catching.

  In addition, one continuing source of seed material is other people’s music. We can generally (though not always) tell when we’re inadvertently “lifting” lyric material directly from lines of someone else’s song. Musical borrowings can be more subtle and unconscious. So, some care is in order when a melody “pops into our heads” or a chord progression falls out beneath our hands, before proceeding with confidence that the material is ours to work with.

  With these caveats, I still recommend that, especially while building your seed-catching skills, you catch and notate all seeds that come to mind—even if you suspect they’re not original. If you quickly recognize your melody as the first line of “Honky Tonk Women,” then don’t bother. But if you have only a vague sense you’ve heard it before, don’t waste energy worrying about it; write it down. You can intercept possible rip-offs later (before your album comes out!). Even if you find later that you’ve rewritten the hook of “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” your effort was not wasted. You’ve sharpened your ear, and practiced the skills of grabbing seeds and composing melodies.