Songwriting And Other Intangibles

Published: Thu, 08/26/21

Songwriting, like improvisation, can seem like an exercise in intangibles. True, when it finally works, at least you wind up with a page of lyrics or maybe a quick phone demo, but so much of the time is spent on false starts, blind alleys and bad ideas that the whole thing can wind up up feeling like an infinite round of stabs in the dark. When I started writing songs, it was entirely hit or miss. Even when I got to where I could write the occasional song that didn't suck, there was still no such thing as writing with any regularity, and for the longest time, writing lyrics remained the most elusive part of the process.

As a teacher and a player, I've spent a lot of my time trying to make that other great intangible, improvisation, something you can actually sit down and practice, in a somewhat linear fashion, and gradually get good at. So as a songwriter, for my own sanity, I've worked equally hard over the last few years to figure out an at least somewhat linear means of getting lyrics on the page faster and more reliably, in order to get more songs written, when I want to write them. There's always going to be voodoo and guesswork involved in both improvisation and songwriting. But it pays to recognize that in both disciplines, it's the balance of facts and voodoo that makes things whir. In the case of improvisation, the chord progression, form of the tune, groove and original melody are all potential constraints to thread your ideas through. You're not on your own – the shape of the tune provides a channel for your creative impulses.

As a songwriter, you may feel like all you have is a blank sheet of paper, but the moment you put something down on that paper, you start cutting the infinite down to size. The rhythm of your first phrase suggests a rhythm for the next one; the end of your first line suggests a rhyme a line or two away, the end of your first main idea suggests the shape of a verse, a phrase that feels worth repeating suggests a way to tie multiple verses together.

The difference between improvising and songwriting in this case is that as an improvisor, things like form and phrasing are handed to you by the song, but when you're the songwriter you are, as the entrepreneurial cliche would have it, building the airplane once you're already aloft. But that's ok. As along as you know that, you can work with it. 50% of songwriting might be just keeping your hand moving, getting words down on the page before you can stop to think about them too much. Another 25% is making choices along the way, and the last 237% is just editing and rewriting.

The workshop I'm teaching this weekend will be focused primarily on writing lyrics rather than music, and and we'll narrow things down from the outset by looking specifically at how to write lyrics within the blues form. The emphasis will be on making things tangible: how to get from blank page to opening phrase, from opening phrase to your first complete verse, and from one complete verse to a three-verse lyric. You can find out more, and register, at the link below. And yes, there will be a complete replay available afterwards if you can't attend on Saturday.

Songwriting Workshop

More soon,

David