WRITING SONGS YOU DON’T WANT TO WRITE

_{© 2001 Cindy Lee Haddock}

LEARNING TO LIKE GREEN EGGS AND HAM

Songwriting should be fun, but we find it is often more chore than enjoyment, especially when we aren’t in the mood or are forced to write in a style we don’t enjoy because that is the assignment in front of us at the moment. The real trick here is to somehow turn this minus into a plus and make this an enjoyable exercise, and it will go by that much quicker. By breaking a noxious job into smaller, more palatable doses, adding a bit of fun to make it more palatable, doing your best and keeping your nose to the grindstone, the time will just fly by, and you’ll be done before you know it. Best of all, you will now have gained some very important experience in unfamiliar territory—training that can only help your writing in the long run.

WRITING ENVIRONMENT

Just like in the Dr. Seuss story—perhaps you would like writing this obnoxious piece a little better if you start out in comfy surroundings. If possible, use your favorite instrument to start, a setting that has inspired you in the past, a few special pictures or objects to make you feel relaxed. I often take a cruise around a favorite part of town, come home, take a bath, sit down with a favorite stuffed animal for company on a favorite sofa with a favorite pen and notebook in hand, and then get out the closest recording I have to what needs to be done just to tell myself—see, it’s not that far off from what you like. Once I find at least some common ground to start from, that first leap is a lot easier for me. I listen to that work, and then listen to works that are steps closer to what the finished product should sound like. It’s then just another short step to picking up that favorite instrument and trying to jam along with those recordings. The creative juices are already flowing by this time, and I deliberately try to come up with harmony solos and other parts that aren’t written on the recording—improvising in that same vein. Funny, it already seems more enjoyable.

You can even dress for the occasion. Wear comfortable clothes or dress for the occasion—maybe wearing a cowboy hat will make it easier to write that Country tune. My husband and I, as a joke, wrote a rap tune and won two awards for it—Ed ran around with an alarm clock on a ribbon around his neck making gestures while I cycled through various drum loops I’d written to get us into the mood. If nothing else, it can make you laugh, and laughing while you do this will make it happen just that much faster, and make the job easily bearable.

GOOD DOGGIE!

Be a little silly—reward yourself at this point. Once you have already come up with a few simple jams, lyrics or melodies, give yourself a break and a treat. This works with other animals learning a new trick—it will work for you, too. Play a favorite tune for a few minutes, make a quick phone call to a friend, or have a tiny special snack. I keep a bowl of a favorite snack around and take a few bites after each song and part I’ve come up with. Silly, but you brain likes this, and it does give you something to look forward to after each step. Try to avoid things that have chemical stimulation as a part of them, though—don’t have a caffeineated drink or something alcoholic—whatever you are feeling will only be intensified by this, and you want to learn to like it, not hate it more. Food is best, and only take a little—eating an entire box of doughnuts will probably make you sick, and your brain will associate the illness with this situation and make you want to avoid it in the future—not what we want to do, here. Think mini candy bars (or a small slice of a candy bar) or doughnut holes or a small cookie or a chunk of favorite cheese—you can finish the whole song without getting a tummy ache this way, and won’t have to stress about putting on a few pounds for your efforts. I sometimes even do a mini-workout as a break—a few jumping jacks or stretches—whatever is fun for you—emphasis on the fun.

WRITE THE SONG, NOW

Okay, so now you are more in the mood, you are giggling a little at how silly this all is, and you’ve rewarded yourself for going along with this nonsense so far. It’s now time to take another small step and just throw yourself into the character needed here and “just do it!” Free association is often the best thing to do, here—just jam out whatever comes to mind with the recorder humming along. Feel free to be really ridiculous, now—be as extreme as you want and even do a lyric on how much you don’t like this genre and why. I’ve done really well with parody metal, parody rap and parody country tunes I did this way (the really hilarious part was that I was told that each was a good example of each genre, apart from being parody tunes, so something rubbed off). You can always go back and change things later, and work them into more salable material, but you need to get some initial things on paper, first.

If you can’t seem to come up with anything original, yet, feel free to even use an old tune and do a different, silly lyric, take an favorite riff and work it into that genre or rewrite a classic into the new style. There is a great band out there called Dread Zeppelin that does reggae versions of Led Zeppelin material, for example. For places that want a few cover tunes, I’ve come up with a Celtic-sounding redo of Elton John’s “I Need You to Turn To” and a Christian metal version of the Beatles’ “Eleanor Rigby.” If nothing else, this can be another small step to getting you into the mood for creating music in this new classification, and can also add to your resume if you supplement your songwriting with performance and need some more varied styles and cover numbers to help you get more work. As a performer, there is never such a thing as knowing too much.

After you have at least some silliness on tape, it is only a short step more from here to taking your rough idea, applying the songwriting rules you’ve learned to make your intro effective and reaching the chorus in time, a few quick lyric touch ups and you have a good rough draft started. At this point, you might bring in some fellow musicians who are better versed in this style to point out areas that need reworking—they may notice some things that will help you refine your composition into something that is pitchable. At this point, some writers will actually turn the piece over to some studio experts and let them finish the arrangements and add some proper genre vocals to complete the effect. You have, at least, at this junction, done the copyrightable part of the tune, and can leave the details to expert producers if this is not your forte. At least now, though, you’ve accomplished what you started out to do and have a song in a new genre under your belt.

THE LOW BUDGET VERSION

If you are like me, though, and just can’t afford the studio expert route, there are a few easy ways to finish out your production and keep it true to form. I love toys like my Yamaha QY10 and the sequencing programs on my computer—there are so many different arrangement loops available in just about every genre imaginable. Most are easily customized, too, so you don’t have to run into any problems with contests or websites that don’t allow sampling of existing work. Once you have the basic loop, just have fun with changing bass lines, percussion instruments on drum tracks (just make sure they are true to the style) and the actual notes played. A few passes and saves later, and the new piece is now indistinguishable from the original and is now your own. This also will keep your piece from sounding “dated,” since most of those loops are based on old popular material, and you want to sound fresh, not something from last year that’s no longer in vogue.

FRESH EYES

Make sure you do your research and listen to a lot of what’s hot in that genre, too, if you can, and try to extrapolate to what the next “big thing” might be—your “fresh eyes” looking at this genre from the outside may be the new direction it may go in, since people in this field may not attempt the directions you are willing to try. The electrification of the blues helped create the genres of hard rock and heavy metal. The combination of traditional African, classical, Celtic and old standards helped create country, bluegrass and pop. Whatever your life and musical experiences are, you will bring that to the table and paint whatever you create with your personal stamp based on those experiences. Free yourself to try new things, and you may just create the next new genre on your own, or at least be at the forefront of a very salable new mousetrap. You won’t know unless you are willing to open yourself up to new art forms, and be willing to incorporate them into your treasure box of knowledge. Hey, I never thought I’d have a use for Physics class until I learned that waveform modification is what you use to create new sound files for your sequencer. So look at that new style with your personally tinted lenses—you may find that you not only like the new info, but it may make you a more salable commodity as a writer in the long run.

Have fun, and keep writing!