The songwriter's conundrum

[MickGael]

The ability to write a Country and Western song, or a soul, diva like Donna Summer type track. Or folk, or anything really, as an advanced songwriter can do.

But if you only write in one style, that is ok too. But can you write high end stuff - lyrics, chord progressions?

I think this describes an ambitious songwriter. Or better yet, a craftsman. I aspire to this (as do you) and must confess in taking a modest amount of pride in feeling comfortable in approaching any style of music.

I leave it to others to decide if that makes me an advanced songwriter.

Well, I just don't aspire to it. I am it. I can write a Country song as well as a pop song. A craftsman? Of course. If I had been studying Macramé for ten years, it would be a pretty poor show if I could not tie a knot.


You say you leave it to others to decide. I do that too. I blow my trumpet. Shoot me down. It is a shame that this is not the forum for sharing my work.
I am pretty anonymous here. Everyone thinks they know me, but no one does.


Maybe my Country is better than my Western?

Charming. I wish you well.

[codec_spurt]

codec-spurt, I've had similar experiences. This is partly what happens when writing songs, as you well know. It's unavoidable when so much of what meanders through our collective brains are fragments and threads of what exists there from before.

And a whole lot of other great stuff

Eh, I can tell you got the bug too! Thanks for the link. I might check it out when I get some time, hopefully. I waste a lot of time here at KVR.

I'm so glad I posted this here. It feels like coming out the closet in a way. I know that most my posts are computer stuff etc.. but there is not a day goes by you won't find me with a six-string in my hand.

Thanks rockstar_not, your post means a lot to me.

[codec_spurt]

blah blah blah

Charming. I wish you well.

I wish you well too.
Happy trails....

[MickGael]

blah blah blah

Charming. I wish you well.

I wish you well too.
Happy trails....

I really do regret when discussions takes turns like this, but - honestly - what kind of reaction do you expect when you write "I'm not even sure KVR is the right place for this kind of level I am talking about."

Perhaps my weakness is finding that offensive. And patently wrong.

So, I step back and say (sincerely) no hard feelings.

[codec_spurt]

Hasn't happened to me lyrically yet, I don't write much lyrics though.. But melodically, yea, several times. It's like there's some earworms that linger into the subconscious and then they surface as one's own ideas. I don't mind it much though, as I'm not really making music for anyone else than myself .. But it's a bit frustrating some time, 'cause like with this one melody line I came up with recently, I can't nail it down where I borrow it from.

And a few years back a friend of mine wanted me to listen to this one song he make, it had a real horn section and all, good conscious lyric, a catchy bass line. He was really excited about it, said he was going to make a 7" out of it. I listened to it and man it was a good song! But then I said to him that's just a remake of Aswad's Shine, and he's face froze for a second before he started screaming mad. He hadn't realized it was a song from his youth that had just surfaced back as his own.


I think it has something to do with, like codec spurt said, making a lot of songs/tunes -- but also with how something catchy is actually often something relatively simple, and how after going through so many variations of basic chord progressions etc, the brain just connects with something you've heard somewhere else. I don't know if that makes sense, but I can relate to this conundrum phenomenon.

I'm talking about one man and his guitar. For others it might be a keyboard.
For me it is a six string acoustic.


To thine own self be true. Do what you do.

By the time you get to the hundredth (is that even a word?), you should know if you are good to go.

I just played my songs to my Mum, and she said: Oh, you sound like Bob Dylan.
My heart sunk, and a lesser man would have hung himself from a tree. I know what she meant. f**k. I do all this, so my mother thinks I sound like rusty bob? Dear me...


No one will ever knock me like that, still I carry on. I enjoy meeting and talking with other songwriters, some of them quite successful, as I mentioned.

Bob f******* dylan. J*****.

Sorry for the rant.
I'm out.

[codec_spurt]

blah blah blah

Charming. I wish you well.

I wish you well too.
Happy trails....

I really do regret when discussions takes turns like this, but - honestly - what kind of reaction do you expect when you write "I'm not even sure KVR is the right place for this kind of level I am talking about."

Perhaps my weakness is finding that offensive. And patently wrong.

So, I step back and say (sincerely) no hard feelings.

eh man, you might like to step back and just admit you had one of those codec_spurt moments. Sometimes I go off the handle, talk gibberish and get all offended by people that just (well) wished me well.

I was just wishing you well. I was not offended by anything in your post. Is English your first language?

Really, my words are as they are. Sorry if you thought I was being obstreperous.

j/k.




We are all good here. Can we get back to the topic of songwriting?

cheers.

[MickGael]

We are all good here. Can we get back to the topic of songwriting?

cheers.

Yes, English is my first language. Interesting that you should ask!

I'd be delighted to listen to your music any time.

I also regret the shorthand way many people have of describing music by saying "That sounds like..." It IS a bit rude, but I don't think the vast majority of people are trying to be rude. In fact, I know it is sometimes intended as a compliment. It is amusing, however, when they detect the wrong influence!

I'm philosophical about it. It is more than 60 years since the initial explosion of modern popular music as we know it today. That creates an inescapable shadow. Do I write songs that sometimes sound like classic 70s rock music? Yes, but I was writing songs in the 70s, so I've learned to cut myself some slack.

[rockstar_not]

codec, you started a great thread.

Mick Gael, you focused on a bit of braggadocio, which was not lost on me either.

In general, patting oneself on the back doesn't fly well in any asynchronous communication between strangers - so perhaps to keep a good topic going, can we agree to keep the discussion here about a well-titled thread and topic?

Bruce Swedien once posted here at KVR, or at least someone that was posting with his name. He didn't hang around long. He didn't brag in the one or two posts that he was around. I tried welcoming him or his impostor. Dude had plenty to brag about, agreed?

I sure would have loved to learn from his posts here if it was in fact him and had he stayed around.

codec, I believe that you are a great songwriter. I don't know that I am or am not - I enjoy the ride and that is what is important to me about the whole topic. Just like I like playing around with recording technology; trying sidechain compression just to see if I can get my head around how it works, or when I had a ribbon mic with a figure 8 pattern, I recorded some songs in mid/side configuration just to say that I had done it and did it with at least the ability to widen the stereo field with the routing.

The conundrum is a stark reality that any songwriter that sets out to hone their craft as a songwriter all face. Who else here has experienced this horror of rearview mirror analysis/realization of one of their songs?

For me, it's usually Coldplay that I'm unconsciously ripping off. How shameful is that?!? At least I parodied it one year as a FAWM song: Coldplay Chordal Confessional

-Scott

[MickGael]

I must say that part of me admires how some great writers unapologetically "borrow" from earlier material. Ray Davies, I'm looking at you!

[codec_spurt]

Bruce Swedien once posted here at KVR,

Was that Bruce (Compression is for kids) Swedien?

Geezer.

Then again, once a junky, always a junky.

How is Bruce? Superstar, love him to bits.


Ok, I've larged it up, and I've humbled myself too.


I posed a question.
It was:

Does anyone else have the songwriter's conundrum?

[wrench45us]

I've always assumed this happens all the time -- maybe not lyrics, but chord progressions and melodies.
Say Sir Paul wakes up one day and a whole song is in his head -- at that instant of waking he doesn't know exactly if it's a new song of something he's lifted from the thousdands of samples that he's listened to. He has to catalog it and search the archives.

I've always been in the position that I can steal chord progressions of well-known songs and when I play them as I play them, it's unlikely anyone recognizes the song. Now if I were a better musician maybe that wouldn't be the case.
If one sets out to copy and can't becuae it just turns out in its own way-- how differnt is that from somebody who accidentally copies somebody else and at some point after the initial tracking recognizes the progression or melody as somebody else's.

[Tricky-Loops]

A few months ago here at KVR (yes, really!) I met a successful producer who has written and produced the hit song "Tequila" - he didn't have the need to say how amazing/great/grand he is, he just told VERY interesting things of his production. These are the peoples I want to meet. All these "I have written more than 100 songs, I'm an advanced songwriter and only want to talk with blablabla" arrogance, I simply cannot stand it. In the end of your life nobody is interested of how much songs you've played for your mother or for your hard disc.

What I wanted to say is: Really successful songwriters don't have to boast about themselves any more...

And that's for serious, without any conundrum...

[tapper mike]

Yep chord progressions and melodies are constantly repeated.

The Blues... etc
As well we learn rhythmic techniques and they stick to us.

In as far as listening to material and the collective unconscious. Everything you've ever heard three times is memorized and stored there. Although details going back to where you may have heard it at the time are somewhat sketchy. Sometimes we are taken down a path of remembrance even though we think it's exploration.

The thing is not to give into the temptation as you travel down the path of writing. This doesn't mean through the baby out with the bath water. It does mean be conscious of similarities and work towards another direction within the framework without giving into the temptation of trying to figure out the piece it sounds similar to.

[Xenobt]

Fun thread, codec!

I think that most of us are a collection of our influences and are shaped more by what we hear and see than we'd like as "artists", and TBH, I think most writers start out imitating their musical and cultural heroes. And as we gain experience, we can avoid that to a greater extent, but our roots are just that.

No doubt Dylan had a huge impact on the whole sixties/early seventies landscape, but to most songwriters today, he's as relevant as dixieland jazz. Taylor Swift on the other hand, is writing across multiple genres with all the classic songwriter tricks, (i.e. slight changes to the hook to reflect the song narrative, key changes after the bridge, and yes, bridges themselves!)

I too have been a writer since eighth grade, and am often bewildered by the variety of styles things come out in. While I haven't written anything in the EDM field, the stuff I've done in the last five years (twenty six songs, fully produced and recorded) covers 60's soul, folk, country, Springteen/U2 style arena rock, and stuff that wouldn't be out of place on a Coldplay or Train record.

I can hear some of the production ideas I've "borrowed" to keep my stuff current sounding, but as it's been said many times before by great writers, if your song can't stand with just a single instrument and voice, you need to start over.

Famous folkie Richard Thompson did an acoustic cover of Britney's "Oops, I Did It Again" and it showed what a great song it is under all the production gloss.

Finally, just for fun, here's a set of chord changes that changed the pop world!




KVR/eSoundz: Xenobt

[codec_spurt]

I've always been in the position that I can steal chord progressions of well-known songs and when I play them as I play them, it's unlikely anyone recognizes the song. Now

Now that does intrigue me. Whatever do you mean?


Were you speaking figuratively or metaphorically or literally?