(Please bear with me; this might be a long-winded post, but it's necessary to describe my point of view, here...)
I'm about halfway done recording a CD of my own material I've been thinking about for a couple of years. (Although I'm nowhere near mixing down all completed tracks [shudder] - I'm a pretty lame engineer, as it turns out...) Anyway, I've got 5 1/2 of 12 planned tracks down on disk, and they sound great to me.
Major philosophical problem, though: I keep on asking myself who(m) I'm writing for. I've recorded/will record older songs that have occurred to me in the past, but I'm also recording completely new stuff. Back when I used to do technical writing, they used to drill into our heads this mantra: "write for your intended audience." This is an idea that I really can agree with.
So, the questions should, in theory, be the same in the music arena. Based on this premise, who is my intended audience?
I'm really hoping that I'm not so shallow that I'm actually doing it for me, but I dunno. And, if I'm actually writing for me, is that vanity?
I suppose that in the end it doesn't matter; I don't think I could stop now if I tried, but I keep wondering anyway. Stephen King says he wrote most of his life for his wife, as Mark Twain was also rumored to do. Does this mean that I should focus on my girlfriend as the intended audience? Whom do you write to? Or, (unless you're a pro, of course), are you writing to anyone? Do you write, um...FOR anyone? And does it matter?
This might seem like a minor point, but it keeps coming around. Whom, if anyone, do you write for?
"Who is this 'Phil Osophy' and why is he bugging me?"
Songwriters: Who(m) do you write music to/for?
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- Rad Grandad
- 38041 posts since 6 Sep, 2003 from Downeast Maine
to whoever gives a damn and for myself... 
The highest form of knowledge is empathy, for it requires us to suspend our egos and live in another's world. It requires profound, purpose‐larger‐than‐the‐self kind of understanding.
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- KVRAF
- 12977 posts since 29 Sep, 2003 from Ottawa, Canada
There are kinds of audiences, and 'yourself' isn't such a bad one. After all, if you're not enjoying it, who will? That said, I guess I usually write for a theoretical audience. Ie. even though I doubt my music will ever be heard by many (and I don't even make an effort to be heard, truth be known), I imagine a certain demographic that would like my tunes, and I write for them.
Then, the majority of my truly 'completed' projects are written for special occasions and a specific audience. Ie. I/we (my group of friends) have written songs for special occasions such as weddings.
Recently, I've been wanting to write a song for my girlfriend, so as long as she likes it (I haven't started yet, just in the conceptual stage (ie. been lazy)) then all is well.
Greg
Then, the majority of my truly 'completed' projects are written for special occasions and a specific audience. Ie. I/we (my group of friends) have written songs for special occasions such as weddings.
Recently, I've been wanting to write a song for my girlfriend, so as long as she likes it (I haven't started yet, just in the conceptual stage (ie. been lazy)) then all is well.
Greg
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- KVRist
- 238 posts since 10 Mar, 2004
Hi Lunch Money
I'm making music that I like, for me.
I often visualize my music being discovered in the future though like I was a modern Van Gogh or something. It's funny how the mind works.
Art/music is to me all about inspiration, practice and process. The end product can serve a lot of different purposes but in the end its all about MAKING art/music as we can only exist in the present moment.
I'm making music that I like, for me.
I often visualize my music being discovered in the future though like I was a modern Van Gogh or something. It's funny how the mind works.
Art/music is to me all about inspiration, practice and process. The end product can serve a lot of different purposes but in the end its all about MAKING art/music as we can only exist in the present moment.
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- Rad Grandad
- 38041 posts since 6 Sep, 2003 from Downeast Maine
I was adopted at birth My song Reality was written about my birth mother, it wasn't for her, it was definately for me to let it out. But I have been accused of being very selfish about my music, I write music for me to play guitar to, and say what I feel. My song Plight of a Dreamer is about how I felt when I turned 40...all my life a dreamer. There's a line "It's gotten way to hard to be a dreamer, now that I've out grown all my dreams". That was from the heart... 
The highest form of knowledge is empathy, for it requires us to suspend our egos and live in another's world. It requires profound, purpose‐larger‐than‐the‐self kind of understanding.
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- KVRAF
- 12977 posts since 29 Sep, 2003 from Ottawa, Canada
Great lyric, that. My favourite lyrics are the ones that are clear and to-the-point about the writer's emotional state. To me, that has more impact than the ambiguous kind of lyric that passes itself off as "artfully obscure".
Wish I could come up with that kind of purity in my lyrics. Xoxos' (Ixox? I can never remember!) lyric generator does a better job than I do, though the lyrics fall exactly into that 'artfully obscure' category quite well.
Greg
Wish I could come up with that kind of purity in my lyrics. Xoxos' (Ixox? I can never remember!) lyric generator does a better job than I do, though the lyrics fall exactly into that 'artfully obscure' category quite well.
Greg
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- KVRian
- 637 posts since 5 Sep, 2001 from Hollywood, Ca. one block East of the Jack in the Box
I write for me. My stuff has the same voice that I write in a diary.
...a lot of the time, it's an inner dialouge that I really should be having with someone else, or reflecting on people I know and how they react to me.
...kinda like I'm the narrator of my life, or something...detached from the events and commenting on them...
My lyrics are kinda lame, but it's stuff like this:
"She says she's lonely and doesn't know why,
lights up a cigarette and blows out my reply.
She says it's allright but there's something in her eyes,
she hurries off to work and waves to me goodbye."
...that kinda crap. Watching a conversation I'm having...mildly confessional about how lame I am.
Alternately, I'll just rip off a victorian poet or two
-S.
...a lot of the time, it's an inner dialouge that I really should be having with someone else, or reflecting on people I know and how they react to me.
...kinda like I'm the narrator of my life, or something...detached from the events and commenting on them...
My lyrics are kinda lame, but it's stuff like this:
"She says she's lonely and doesn't know why,
lights up a cigarette and blows out my reply.
She says it's allright but there's something in her eyes,
she hurries off to work and waves to me goodbye."
...that kinda crap. Watching a conversation I'm having...mildly confessional about how lame I am.
Alternately, I'll just rip off a victorian poet or two
-S.
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- KVRAF
- 12977 posts since 29 Sep, 2003 from Ottawa, Canada
That's a good lyric; just don't rhyme the 4th line and you have a winner.
Greg
Greg
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- KVRAF
- 4738 posts since 20 Feb, 2004 from Gothenburg, Sweden