Song Talk with Morry Campbell

Interesting writing experiment

I was in an Alexander Technique workshop recently that asked me to write down ten things I want using my right hand, then again using my left hand. I was terrible at writing with my left hand. But it intrigued me. If indeed the right hand is wired to the left side of the brain, and the left is wired to the right side (an oversimplification, but stay with me here), wouldn't it make sense that using the left hand to write with, using both hands to write with at the same time, would be a great way to integrate the two hemispheres of the brain? I've been trying it. I write in my journal with my right hand, then answer with the left. I have little conversations back and forth with myself. I suppose that's a little schizophrenic, but it's an interesting ongoing experiment.

Try it. I got a great song verse out of my left hand. Perhaps my right hand would have thought of it too, but it didn't.

I'm off for a few days to visit some family in Minnesota. Will see you all when I get back. Have a great week/weekend.

xo,

M

Staying un-stuck

For reasons beyond my control, my songwriting group is only meeting once this month. And that's tonight. The good part of that is that everyone, including me of course, had extra time to prepare a song following the current guidelines; i.e. write a song in 3/4 time. And I have one. In my estimation a pretty good one. And I also have a rewrite of last month's song, ready for a second round of critiquing. What's a guy to do? Which brings me to the point. Once a month isn't enough.

I've been sitting on these songs, practicing them so I can sing them correctly, and at this point both are almost memorized. I could probably do either of them at a gig without too much trouble. So the question becomes, what am I going to do with the criticism I get from tonight's group? The more set a song becomes, the more difficult it becomes to make changes based on feedback. When we only meet once a month, it's too easy to let things set up.

When we work alone, as many of us do, it's easy to work in a vacuum, writing for ourselves, and to hell with what anyone else thinks of it. And that's fine for making records that we want to keep in the basement. But if we want our music heard and appreciated by anyone other than our mother (hi mom!) it's essential, or at the very least extremely valuable, to get objective, outside feedback from someone, preferably before the song has had a chance to "set up."

So we either have to meet more often, or I have to wrote more than one or two songs a month...time to become an insufferable overachiever?

Simplify and make that chorus soar

I think one way young songwriters (and this includes me) (and this means songwriters new to the craft, not necessarily young in age) get into trouble is that they try to keep the verse going in the chorus. In other words, the chorus follows the same basic patterns as the verse. One way to mix it up a bit is to simply make the notes of your chorus twice as long as the notes in your verse. i.e. if your verse moves in eighth notes, make your chorus move in quarter notes, or even half notes.

You might also want to make the pitches ascend as you move to your chorus, and make the notes of your chorus hang out in a higher tessitura (musical term for "average pitch range"). This in combination with the longer notes can really make your chorus take off.

The chorus should be the distilled message your song is trying to convey. Simplifying it down (by making the notes longer) is one way to get there.

Not every chorus does this. Not all of your choruses have to do it either. But if you find your song is missing something, this might be one way to kick it up a notch.

Songwriting in a nutshell

A past songwriting teacher of mine, Tony Coniff, sent me the link to this clip. It's a very basic how-to video on how to write a song. Enjoy.

M

Extend your songwriting brain

Discover Magazine has an interesting article on how Google is making us smarter. You can read the full article if you like (as it is an interesting read), but the gist of the article is that our environment is actually a part of our brain. In summarizing the research of philosophers Andy Clark and David Chalmers, he says:

... the mind is not simply the product of the neurons in our brains, locked away behind a wall of bone. Rather, they argued that the mind is something more: a system made up of the brain plus parts of its environment.

In other words, an iPhone is more than just an iPhone, it actually becomes an extension of the brain, because the brain assigns certain tasks, such as remembering, for example, the address of a museum or a music venue, to the device.

Outside the lines

Nick Granato writes really good songs. And he's a great singer. And his most recent release is actually called Outside the Lines. And actually, beyond giving a shout-out to Nick, he's only peripherally involved in this post. I'm thinking about Outside the Lines because I'm reading Natalie Goldberg's Writing Down the Bones, as if you've been following this blog, you know. And in the chapter called Writing as a Practice, she says, 

In my notebooks I don't bother with the side margin or the one at the top: I fill the whole page. I am writing for myself first and I don't have to stay within my limits, not even margins.

Songtalk Podcast: Dan Manjovi, Part 2

My conversation with the masterful Dan Manjovi continues in Songtalk Podcast: Dan Manjovi Part 2. We talk about song structure, music theory and subliminal political themes in music. Dan talks about his musical education and gives some great advice to songwriters with little or no background in Music Theory.

You can download part 2 here on this website, or at iTunes. You may want to subscribe to the website, which you can do by clicking on this link. Read more about Dan Manjovi below the fold.

Songtalk Podcast: Dan Manjovi, Part 1

Well, as promised, here's the first installment of Songtalk Podcast. To download the podcast, right click with your mouse (or control-click on a Mac) and select "download linked file" or similar command, here for the mp3 file.

I'm taking the maiden voyage with the incomparable Dan Manjovi. In this first installment, we talk about Dan's evolution as a songwriter from his first CD to the second, harmonic vocabulary, writing a lyric as opposed to writing a poem (a good poem is not necessarily a good lyric, and visa versa), and the blues. Look for part two, and possibly part three, of our conversation in the coming weeks. It seems we had a lot to talk about!

You can visit Dan on the web and/or listen to and buy his music at his website, at CDBaby (Woke Up This Morning here, and the self-titled Dan Manjovi here), and on his MySpace page. His music is also available on iTunes, Emusic, Rhapsody and Napster. You can read more about Dan below the fold.

Criticism versus Critique

Vikki Flawith has an interesting take on criticism on her blog, The Shy Singer-Songwriter.  In her article, entitled the 'honesty" movement is laziness (referencing this article at Esquire) she says:

There is a huge difference between criticism (this sucks) and critique (okay, here's a place to start, there's some good elements in what you've done here, I'm going to zero in on a couple of things I think would really help).