Songwriting Strategies Read online

  Sequencing. One significant intervention of a 360° perspective is simply to trace creative work moving sequentially through material in various facets, rather than “all at once”—e.g., starting with a melodic seed, setting it to a lyric, then setting from the resulting melody + lyric to chords, etc. But the specific sequence you follow makes a difference. You can start in multiple places, and move at each step in multiple directions. Working from melody to chords, then to lyric, will yield different chords, different lyrics—a different song.

  Iterating. You could call this strategy: “Even if You Think You’ve Succeeded, Try, Try Again.” By taking multiple, independent passes at any creative step, you challenge your first intuitive, associative creative work through multiple trials. You also stress-test the relative independence of material you’re working from and toward. If you get stuck on your first trial, you’ve likely “fused” the material. Iterating is the essence of what all artists do when they sketch: make multiple, informal, noncommittal, fragmentary attempts at a single problematic feature. In master artisans’ studios, apprentices would traditionally learn by being given a small, discrete artistic task—like painting nothing but eyes for a year. Sketching or iterating is, in a sense, a kind of self-apprenticeship.

  Radiating. Since facets are peers, almost any creative work you can do involving one facet you can also try with another. If you get stuck following one pathway, you can switch gears and try another. You can also work in parallel, “radiating out” from the same starting material via different pathways.

  Pivoting. Moving sequentially through creative work in different facets is inherently a messy affair. Once you set from a rhythm to a lyric, sketching till you find what you like, you may find that your lyric requires reworking the original rhythm. This kind of turnabout, a pivoting move, can happen at any stage and with any facet. It’s what makes songwriting, even with a 360° songwriting approach, still very much art and not a mechanistic procedure. Pivoting can also be a powerful learning strategy for developing more “ambidextrous” versatility with different facets. As an example exercise, try setting from a melodic phrase to a few different lyric lines (sketches). Pick your favorite of these, and now pivot back, letting the original melody go and finding (sketching) several new ones. Pick your favorite; then compare the melody you started with and the one you wound up with. You can try this pivoting exercise with any combination of facets, and also with framing and casting.

  Triangulating/converging. You can also generate material (that is, make stuff up) in response to several converging sources. Most typical is setting across facets in the presence of some reinforcing content frame from the World: e.g., frame a melody, then set from the melody to a lyric, with the additional presence of the framing context. This strategy tightens the reins on the creative task. You might think this would make your creative work harder. But the strategy reflects a general principle of creative work: multiple impinging constraints, especially of different kinds, do not diminish but increase creative energy.

  Triangulating can also involve sources generated independently, such as setting from a rhythm and a (separately generated) chord progression to a lyric. When you triangulate from independently generated sources, there’s no guarantee the material will lock together; but you might stumble on interesting chance collisions that transform your way of hearing and working with the separate elements.

  Summary of Compass Elements and Moves

  The basic promise of 360° songwriting is that we can start songs “from any direction.” This principle now has more precise meaning in terms of the compass. We’ve described three components of the compass: the four facets (rhythm, lyric, melody, and harmony), the World of content, and structure at the center. We’ve also described a starting repertoire of essential creative activities or “moves” among these elements:

  catching song seeds, as concepts in the World or as material in any facet

  casting from concepts to lyrical or musical material

  framing lyrical or musical seeds to concepts

  setting from material in one facet to material in another facet

  structuring seed material into larger forms, using bottom-up (unfolding) or top-down (fulfilling) strategies.

  Each of these compass-specific moves can be augmented by strategies such as sequencing, iteration, radiating, pivoting, and triangulating or converging.

  Since we can start from seeds in any facet, we can set from material in any facet to material in any facet. Each connection can be traversed in either direction: e.g., setting melody to lyric or lyric to melody. This yields a repertoire of twelve distinct setting strategies or pathways: setting material in any of four facets directly in any of three directions:

  Rhythm → LyricRhythm → MelodyRhythm → Harmony

  Lyric → RhythmLyric → MelodyLyric → Harmony

  Melody → RhythmMelody → LyricMelody → Harmony

  Harmony → RhythmHarmony → LyricHarmony → Melody

  FIG. 2.7. Setting Pathways Across the Facets

  While there’s a logical symmetry to these pathways, they’re experientially unique. Each requires specific skills to traverse, yet also produces distinctive creative results. In this book, we’ll follow only a few of these pathways in detail, leaving others for your own deeper exploration.

  Example: Hurricane Revisited

  To show various elements and moves of the compass at work, let’s return to our lyric seed from the previous chapter, “Nice Day till the Hurricane,” and show some first steps we can take in developing this seed by first framing, then setting to various facets in succession. We’ll also illustrate general creative or process strategies such as iterating or alternatives, as well as radial vs. sequential setting.

  Framing “Hurricane”

  As discussed earlier, this lyric seed draws largely on the “by sound” side of the spectrum, and is relatively ambiguous in terms of situation and context. A useful first step working with this lyric seed, then, is to frame it: imagining a situation, character, and emotional stance, where the phrase makes sense.

  Nice day till the hurricane

  Who’d say this to whom, and why? Rather than settling too quickly on the first story or frame that comes to mind, I iterate or “framestorm” several alternative frames. For each alternative, I note reactions and issues that come to mind:

  A husband just got in an unexpected fight with his wife over something small. (Gender: Does it need to be a husband? Could a wife say this? Are they married? How about a boyfriend/girlfriend?)

  A victim of abuse dealing with a violent partner. (Makes this a much darker-themed song. Would the lyric seed’s casual tone work for this scenario? It would be very ironic—maybe too bitterly ironic….)

  A more political or societal frame. People go about their lives imagining everything is secure; then the economic (or global warming) meltdown hits. Could be protesting our culture’s tendency to stay complacent until the—hurricane—hits the fan….

  Could combine frames (1) and (3) above: build the song as an arc moving from personal to the political. This frame would immediately suggest constraints on the overall song form to make it work.

  Last but not least: it could be a song about an actual hurricane! Or again, we could combine this frame with the political one, moving from literal to metaphorical.

  I want something closer to frame (1) than frame (2) in tone. I’m less interested in this being a song about a real hurricane, though I do want consistent use of metaphor throughout. I need the Singer to be male to preserve the humorous, lighter emotional quality of the seed; because of the specific metaphor a female point of view might evoke the notion of physical violence, a more serious topic warranting a different kind of song.

  Okay, here’s my framing statement:

  “A husband/lover in early stages of a new relationship, finds out his partner is “stormier” than he realized. They haven’t been together long, and this is the first incident wher
e he discovers this aspect of his partner. So, unlike a more settled relationship, there’s some doubt the relationship will survive the storm.”

  Now that I have my chosen frame, many next steps are possible. I could further develop the frame into a more detailed “back story,” including details that might never appear in the song but help me hone in on character, situation, tone of voice, etc. I could generate raw lyric material to develop later into specific lyrics, using tools such as object writing, associative word-lists and rhyming worksheets, etc. I might also begin to make structural decisions about the song, even planning narrative content for various sections to be written. I might also need to tweak the original lyric seed to suit the frame or song structure, or the song’s overall direction.

  Setting “Hurricane”

  With my lyric seed line and accompanying frame, I can also begin setting the lyric to associated material in other facets. Here, I’ll show a simplified sequential path: setting first from lyric to rhythm, then from “rhythmic lyric” to melody, then from the combined lyric + rhythm + melody to chords. I’ll consider alternative settings at each step, and the frame provides a guideline helping to ensure the emotional consistency of the resulting fully composed line of the song. In the chapters that follow on specific facets, we’ll explore some of the technical skills required to work effectively in this independent “isolation” fashion with various elements of the song.

  In generating alternative rhythmic settings for the lyric, I’ll work with both the emotional tenor of the frame and specific sound aspects and resonances within the seed line. Each rhythmic setting will suggest a particular time signature, tempo and groove, and a certain duration within a phrase structure. These can vary across the different setting trials, as shown in figure 2.8.

  

  FIG. 2.8. Setting from a Lyric Seed to Rhythm

  By isolating, focusing initially only on rhythmic settings, not yet considering or not fixing melody or chord choices, I gain flexibility in the range of rhythmic settings I can explore. I take more chances, and can more readily discern the varying effects of each alternative rhythmic setting. As we’ll see, I also leave more flexibility in the melody I’ll eventually put to the rhythm on which I settle. Extended durations may become single notes or melismatic turns. Melodic contour may follow the rhythm or move more slowly, with repeated notes. Isolation, alternatives, and reflection on the emotional and narrative effects of each choice are closely intertwined in making the strategy work.

  In the end, here’s the rhythmic setting I settle on. It’s a composite of several of my sketches or trials. This is typical: with the various alternatives, you traverse a space of possibilities, feeling out the boundaries of what feels right and the interaction of various compositional and sonic forces at work.

  

  FIG. 2.9. Preferred Rhythmic Setting

  I now move from my rhythmically set lyric to a melody. Once again, I’ll experiment with several alternatives:

  

  FIG. 2.10. Alternative Melodic Settings. Working from a rhythmic lyric.

  My frame provides a sense for the emotion and meaning of the line, particularly the ironic shift from the “nice day” to the oncoming hurricane. The first setting in figure 2.10 conveys this mostly through the descending melodic contour; but the line begins and ends on the stable tonic of the implied tonal center. In the second setting I draw out the more threatening aspect of the word “hurricane” by descending to the sixth, implying the relative minor and widening the overall range. In the third setting, I push the opening figure up to the D. (Here I’m writing melody prior to harmony; later this melodic decision might create a non-chord tone pull against a tonic chord, or suggest a different harmony.) As with my rhythmic alternatives, these sketches can be mixed, matched, and recombined, as in the last setting.

  Prior rhythmic decisions about durations of specific syllables now get elaborated by decisions about melodic contour. I can move the melodic contour on downbeats previously de-emphasized by anticipations in lyric rhythm (as in setting 1), or on weak beats (as in the concluding figure of setting 2). In my final melodic setting, shown in figure 2.11, I further tweak setting 4 by swapping melismatic effects: using the softer, delayed melisma on “day,” a harder-edged melisma, emphasizing the underlying strong metric beat,

  on “hurricane.”

  

  FIG. 2.11. Final Melodic Setting of the Rhythmic Lyric

  Of course, this degree of “word painting” is an over-intensified example. It would be rare to do such polished sketching of a single line without starting to consider structural aspects. In practical songwriting, I’d likely want to know by this point whether I was working on a first line of a verse, a chorus hook, or a refrain line for a verse/refrain.

  Now, at last, we can set to our fourth facet, harmonizing the line. Again, I explore several chordal possibilities:

  

  FIG. 2.12. Alternate Harmonic Settings. Working from a rhythmically and melodically set lyric.

  I originally conceived the melody with the tonal center of C, and so my first “off the top of my head” harmonization starts on C and ends on the relative minor, A–. Since I developed the melody prior to harmonization, I get a nice non-chord tone relation of the starting D against the C chord. And since my rhythmic setting was a four-bar phrase, I have the option of moving chords in the space after the lyric. Here the “darker” A– chord at the end of the phrase is given an extra punch through the harmonic rhythm of the E– to A– sequence.

  But on reflection, I feel that the move to A– at the start of the word “hurricane” telegraphs the change of mood earlier than I’d like. In setting (2), I delay that move until the third syllable “-cane,” while creating a strong repeated harmonic-rhythm figure in each bar. In setting (3), I experiment with starting the line on the F (IV) chord instead of C (I). This keeps the D melody note a non-chord tone, but a different non-chord tone relationship, a 6 instead of a 2 (or 9). In the final setting (4), the BD (DVII) “rocking chord” invokes a more tense, Mixolydian feel. The A– is saved for the very end of the phrase, passing quickly through the implied tonic chord C along the way.

  These alternatives show how independent melodic and harmonic work opens fresh options. I’m still working here with just a fragment, an individual line. It’s always possible to overwrite and overcrowd when you focus on sketching possibilities for a given facet in isolation. But the alternative sketches need not apply only to this one line. As I develop the song section (e.g., verse or chorus), alternatives generated in first stages can later be incorporated as matched question-answer phrases within the sectional structure. This might include variant rhythmic settings, melodic phrases, or chord choices. Thus there’s always an advantage in leaving a “trail of bread crumbs” and not discarding unused alternatives. Here, technology, like multiple “takes” in a sequencer, can be useful.

  Exercise 2.1. Cast from a Concept Seed to Each Facet

  The following exercise reinforces the insight that material in each facet can carry meaning and emotion in different ways.

  Phase 1. Cast to Lyric/Iterations

  Start with a concept seed from your seed catching. A natural instinct is to look first for a lyrical expression of the concept. Don’t settle for your first attempt. Use iteration: cast the concept into three different lyrics. With each attempt, find a different lyrical way of expressing the idea or story. (This iteration helps to confirm that your original seed was more a concept seed than a lyric seed. If, leaving your first lyrical cast behind, you lose the power of the seed idea, you likely started with at least partially a lyric seed!)

  Phase 2. Casting

  Go back to the original concept seed and forget your lyric attempts. Now use a radiating strategy: cast the idea, successively, into: (1) chords, (2) melody, and (3) rhythm. When casting into chords, think of the theme as you play chords at your instrument. The chords will reflect mostly emotional associations and responses t
o the theme. A melodic setting may be more narrative, suggestive of lyrics to come (but remember, no lyrics on this try, and no setting of lyrics you previously wrote!). It may be hardest to cast to rhythm, especially to a lyric rhythm for lyrics still to be written. The rhythm should be a response to the theme or idea prompt, not a new rhythmic seed on its own. You’ll more likely come up with a beat or rhythmic pattern suggesting an accompaniment and groove.

  Phase 3. Setting to a Lyric

  You now have your original theme or idea as a guide, as well as musical material generated by several independent “castings”—to chords, melody, and rhythm respectively. Now set to a lyric by triangulating or converging from the original concept and one (or more) of these musical castings. This is a kind of “pincer action.” You’re constraining the lyric generation task in multiple ways, by theme (sense) and by sound. Compare the lyric you obtained by casting straight from the concept in phase 1 with the lyric obtained through this combined radiating/converging strategy.

  Other exercises: Start with a seed in any facet and sequentially build the seed into a “complete fragment” by setting successively to the other facets. You can follow the chain as in the extended example above, or try other pathways and sequences. You can try this by first framing the seed and using the frame as a guide for the setting activities. Or “fly blind,” and rely on sound relationships to see where you get, framing only at the end. Unlike flying a real airplane, if you crash and burn, only a few syllables will meet their fiery doom.