Another Great Month in the SAB

Well, February is coming swiftly to a close. Darn these months with only 28 days. We managed to write seven new songs between us this month. I noticed that all but one of them were posted before Valentine's Day. I'm sure that means something, but I don't know what it is.

We've written and posted 18 songs since Christmas! I don't know about you, but I'm really enjoying the songs and also the sharing of information asnd inspriration that goes on around here. On a personal note, I played one of the songs I wrote for this work out in public for the first time last week. Jesus and John Lennon made its public debut on February 16th.

On to March! Let me know what your goals are ASAP. I'm going with one this month. My focus got a little shifted the last part of this month as I played out live for the first time. My focus will likely stay on playing live for the next two or three months, but I'll grind one out this month!

Thanks for making it fun!
John

a new perspective

Just found this guy, Andy McKee, whilst stumbling about the internet. He has a wack technique, but very effective... great Sunday afternoon music. Nice innovation.

The Mad Scientist Strikes Again...

As I've probably said here before, I'm a bit of a gadget degenerate. And, like most artists, I'm terrified of losing ideas. While I'm out and about, I can, of course, write lyric ideas down, but have no real way of saving audio ideas (melodies, lyrics, guitar ideas). I've tried the "call your phone and leave a message" route, but no, thank you.

Today I bought an Olympus WS-100 Digital Voice Recorder. This little baby is about 3 1/2" by 1 1/2" and only about 3/8" deep. It's tiny. But this unit has 64MB of memory built in. It also has the ability to detach from the "base" unit and plug directly into the USB port on your computer.

This morning I sat down, set the WS-100 on my desk and played through a song I wrote about a year ago to try it out. The unit was sitting about a foot and a half from me as I played. I've uploaded an untouched file for you to check out the sound on this thing (and no, this doesn't count toward my song production for February).

It's a bit muddy, but for a unit that small that you can take anywhere, I love it. Check it out if you like...

This Time.WMA

I also tried to import the WMA file to my recording software and tweak it a little, but, while it works, it kind of defeats the purpose of the unit. I got it to save ideas. It's got so much memory (and the files it generates are so small) that I can hit record and just sit around and play all night, recording every idea I try. Then I can upload the file to my computer and save it with the date.

Plus, I can use it to record my kids when they tell me they're gonna clean their room - as evidence. ;o)

John

iSOUND - A Wealth of Information for the Aspiring Performer

Normally when I find a really useful site, I just copy the URL and put it somewhere on the sidebar on this site assuming you all will eventually come across it. Tonight I was messing around in the Man-Cave™ and received a message from a fellow Michigan perfomer, Dan Vaillancourt. He turned me on to a site that had a page full of useful article links. A few article titles:

• Getting Better is All About Promotion! Promotion! Promotion!
• Entrepreneurship Is The Key To New Artist Success Today
• Image: It Still Matters More Than The Music
• Building An Effective E-Mail List and Delivering the Right Message
• The importance of blogging and keeping your content fresh

Check them out if you get the chance. Note the list of article links in the sidebar of this site. There is a ton of useful information available to the motivated artist.

John

Leave Letters

I just wrote this in the last hour and recorded it in the last 15 minutes. shazam.

Leave Letters.mp3

Leave Letters
words and music by Liza Swart

Well you don't write songs for me baby
You don't write songs for me
And I don't want "no," I don't want "maybe"
Not when I know how it oughtta be
But we've tried and tried and tried tonight

Well you don't leave me little letters
You don't leave letters for me
Maybe it's time for something better
Time to change this present company
When we've tried and tried and tried all night

It's not giving up, it's not giving in
We both know now we can never win
It's not giving up, it's not giving in
It's just the end
We can begin

Well I don't whisper sweet nothings
I don't whisper them to you
And I for one am tired of all the running
Tired of running from the truth
When we've tried and tried and tried tonight

It's not giving up, it's not giving in
We both know now we can never win
It's not giving up, it's not giving in
It's just the end
We can begin

It's just the end
We can begin

It's just the end
We can begin

Leave Letters.mp3

Tunesmith - Songwriting Books

A couple years ago I purchased and read a book called Tunesmith by Jimmy Webb. After going back to this book recently, I can honestly say that every songwriter should read this book. Even if only for the first chapter. Webb is an inductee in The National Academy of Popular Music Songwriters Hall of Fame. His biography says the following:

Jimmy Webb has given the American songbook more hits, in more styles, than any other songwriter of his generation. The wunderkind of pop music, Webb became the hottest songwriter around when, starting at age twenty-one, he wrote a string of hits including "By the Time I Get to Phoenix," "Galveston," "Up, Up and Away," and "MacArthur Park."

Here are a couple quotes from the back cover of the book:

Tunesmith [is] an eminently readable master class in songwriting-one that will thrill aspiring composers and lyricists, yet still interest the general reader." - Michael Eck, Albany Times Union
Tunesmith may be the most interesting book ever written on songwriting... The sections on writing lyrics are riveting... It's for anyone who enjoys words." - David Hinckley, New York Daily News

Chapter titles:

Out of Thin Air
In This Room You'll Never Make a Mistake
It's Only Words
Elements of Form
It Can't Get No Verse...
Give Us a Tune Then, Jim
In Search of the Lost Chord
You and the Words and the Music
At Odds and Ends
Getting to First Base
Living With It

If anyone knows of any other useful books on Songwriting, please include the title and author(s) in a comment and I'll post the list in this thread or on the sidebar.

Thanks,
John

Songwriting/Recording Book Listing -

• Webb, Jimmy. Tunesmith. New York, NY: Hyperion, 1998
• Swedien, Bruce. Make Mine Music. Norway: MIA Musikk, 2003
• Blume, Jason. 6 Steps to Songwriting Success. New York, NY: Billboard Books, 2004
• Thall, Peter, M. What They'll Never Tell You About the Music Business. New York, NY: Watson-Guptill Publications, 2002

Songwriting Ideas: What's The Big Idea?

Photo by Quas

I was sitting in a teaching seminar and I found that even there I could find ideas for writing songs. We were looking at the big ideas that drive our lesson plans and I found a list of themes that I thought might spur on songwriting ideas.

Acceptance
Adaptation
Balance
Beauty
Change
Chaos
Choice
Communication
Community
Conflict
Connection
Courage
Cycles
Dignity
Civersity
Energy
Equality
Evil
Ethics
Excellence
Exploration
Family
Force
Form
Freedom
Friendship
Future
Geography
Happiness
Harmony
Honor
Identity
Individuality
Integrity
Journey
Law
Leadership
Liberty
Matter
Migration
Motivation

(there were more but I didn't have time to copy them all down).

Any more that you can think of?

Our Year

Our Year.mp3

This is the current view of my backyard. Only add about 4 inches, maybe. No work today! So I thought I'd post a song.

Our Year
words and music by Liza Swart

Chasing down these miles of endless highway
The darkness of the road is on my mind
You never were the kind to see it my way
Just bind it up and keep it all inside

But it's almost here
This will be our year

I suffer from no lack of inhibition
Would you see the meaning of my words
There's nothing so beyond our definition
After all the sky was made for birds

And if you learn to fly
Love, you know, I'm coming right behind

Just a little bit
Just a little bit of you
Just a little bit
Oh love, you know we'll see it through
Just a little bit
Just a little bit of you
Just a little bit
Oh love, it's all that I can do

Picking up the threads of conversation
You know I'm always sleeping when you call
Understanding little of our nation
We conjecture when the empire will fall

But you know my mind
That's the end of sleep I will see tonight

Just a little bit
Just a little bit of you
Just a little bit
Oh love, you know we'll see it through
Just a little bit
Just a little bit of you
Just a little bit
It's all that I can do

Yes, this is the one lacking a bridge- I kind of fudge it a little with that last transition between the choruses. It also really needs some backing keys, but as I'm horrible/have no way to record them, it doesn't get any. Opinions?

Our Year.mp3

To Keep Me Comin' Back To You

To Keep Me Comin' Back To You.mp3

Ok. This song was really my goal for this month, a love song to add to the ten others I've written my wife since we first were engaged.

One song a year to be delivered on or before Valentine's Day.

I think THIS was actually the first songwriting challenge, self-induced, that gave me a set time a song needed to be finished.

I am going to post the original version that I was going to settle on...until several newer ideas started flowing. I do this partially for the sake of the songwriting process (and what people go through to get to a more "finished" song) and partially for the history of it. I don't hate this version, but it doesn't feel as interesting as my first version.

To Keep Me Comin' Back To You
words and music by Steven Wesley Guiles

verse
I was looking out the window, I could not believe me eyes
You were walking rather slowly darlin', I was hypnotized

I am trying to remember when I last looked deep at you
I hope that you will pardon all this staring at my shoes

chorus
Daylight, pouring through the window of my
Old mind, changing because love has found a
Gold mine, filled up with the days and hours
You don't need a dozen flowers and I don't need no superpowers
To keep me comin' back to you

verse
I was looking out the window, I could not believe me eyes
You were walking rather slowly darlin', I was hypnotized

I am trying to remember when I last looked deep at you
I hope that you will pardon all this staring at my shoes

chorus
Daylight, pouring through the window of my
Old mind, changing because love has found a
Gold mine, filled up with the days and hours
I don't need no superpowers
To keep me comin' back to you

bridge
Don't look back now with regret
Thank you for the hardship, thank you for the tears
Thank you for the blessing, thank you for the years
Thank you for the break down, thank you for the rough patch,
Thank you for the bleeding, thank you for the relapse
Thank you for the trials, thank you for the tribulations
Thank you for the nosebleeds, thank you for the fascination,
Thank you for the promise, the promise, the promise...of you

chorus
Daylight, pouring through the window of my
Old mind, changing because love has found a
Gold mine, filled up with the days and hours
I don't need no superpowers
To keep me comin' back to you
To keep me comin' back to you

verse (reprise)
I was looking out the window, I could not believe my eyes.

To Keep Me Comin' Back To You.mp3

Here is an mp3 of the original idea that I was going to go with until another idea struck me:

To Keep Me Comin' Back To You - original demo

Lyrical Ratings: I Would Never Have Thunk It

As a songwriter lyric writing can be the hardest part. Many times I have the music, the chords, even the feel of the songs done long before the lyrics are finalized. They are an integral part of the song and are therefore much scrutinized.


I stumbled upon this website and thought I'd share it with you guys:

Toward A Technical Analysis Of Song Lyrics
or, "How Many Ways Does That Line Suck?"

I think this is an interesting conversation to have. We rate everything in some ways.

"Whoah! What did I just play?! That was awesome!"
"This soup is too bland, needs salt."
"That chord progression and melody sucked! I will never play that again."
"Too many cooks in the kitchen if you ask me..."

Why not songs? We certainly rate our songs, if not with actual numbers, by playing them often or putting them in the circular file after struggling with them for too long.

I have to admit that these guys are pretty wacky. They rated a Fresh MC lyric higher than a Eurythmics lyric, but these guys are pretty tongue in cheek too. If this does anything for me, it makes me think a little more about what I put on the written page.