It's been awhile but over thanksgiving weekend I came up with this simple tune which I have now worked 2 verses around maybe a bridge, still working on that. and maybe an intro. stil not sure and may change the intro later, it's just lacking something i think. Writing it all on acoustic. The feeling of creating music....can't describe. You all know what I'm talking about. we all been in ruts of some kind.
I just though I'd share my little joy. If i can get my stuff squared away I'll try to make you all a short sample you can listen to.
But this song is still in the works. I've been working the music out for couple of weeks or so. Some nights I can sit there and come up with a dozen new things then focus on 1 and try to make something of it.
What I'm going to start doing is when I come up with something new, like mostly just very intro outro length type stuf, riffs, whatever and store them into files on computer so that when i start writing a song I can have a list of stuff I may have played one night 5 months ago but suddenly it work in this project.
Thats great that you are working on a song Ginger. I tell ya, one of my favorite songwriters likens creating a song to growing a plant. You put a small seed (Your thought) into the ground. Water it a little bit. Give it some light.. Prune it back as it grows.. slowly it becomes a beautiful plant. I think songwriting is alot like that. I dont rush to finish songs anymore. I keep a book and I return to water the plants now and then.
Good luck with it. Cant wait to hear.
Jim
“The hardest thing in life is to know which bridge to cross and which to burn” - David Russell (Scottish classical Guitarist. b.1942)
That last tip gave some good advice and I have written a few songs that way. But I am also a very emotoinal person and often dont take time to sit and ponder what I am doing. sometimes I will be having a weird day and sit down, throw out a few chords that fit and just write.
One of my favorite songs I wrote after a huge fight I had with someone. Instead of telling her what I really thought, I locked myself in my room, picked up my acoustic and started shredding. Words just started comming faster than I could write them. I ended up writing a 7 minute song in 15 minutes and I never felt like I was in a hurry, it was just the state of mind I was in. In fact it took me 4 days to learn the lyrics I had scribbled down and eventually I converted it to fingerpicking.
I found when I try to force the lyrics or if I do the oposite and leave the turkey in the oven too long, I often end up with the same results: not having much substance, and when I write a song I go for meat and potatoes. Many Townes Van Zandt and Bob Dylan songs dont even have bridges or choruses, they just tell a meaningful story like a Byron poem.
I"ve tried writing down ideas and returning to them later, but i discovered that looking at it two weeks later it doens't always have the same meaning, if I can remember what the hell it means at all or what I was tinking when I wrote it.
For me it boils down to how I feel. If it feels right then I sit down and plug away. If I find myself forcing it then I will stop and take a breather for an hour or 2, overnight as a last resort. But not everyone writes like me. since I depend on my emotions, I may be sad or angry or happy for a short time, but if I wait too long that feeling leaves and takes my mojo with it.
Listen to Dylan's Boots of Spanish Leather and tell me you can't feel it. 10 to 1 he wrote it during a hieghtened emotional state and completed it within a few hours. I'm not advising you to get in a hurry, Im just saying these moments of creativity are precious and may be few and far between. When they happen it is imprtant to recognize it and act on it because it could be a while for the next one to come along.
After all, we write songs to convey a certain feeling not to entertain. If I wanted to be an entertainer I would buy a clown suit and learn how to juggle cinder blocks.
Have fun,
Ed
