On "alone"

I know, I know... just another boat meets atoll story...  I had "Dust to Dust" by the Civil Wars stuck in my head this week, so naturally I decided to rip it off.  Add a heaping helping of metaphor, and voila!

Here's what I think went well this week:  I started with lyrics this time, though not by writing a poem and then setting it to music.  Instead, with the imagery of an island and a boat in mind, I brain dumped a pile of words and phrases.  Then, I grabbed from this list both while I was working out the melody and while assembling the final lyrics.  I will do this again in the future.

And an observation, though I haven't decided whether it's good or bad: the music portion of the writing seems to depend heavily on what instrument I'm using.  I originally started generating ideas this week by tapping away at the piano app on my phone.  I had something going, but I was unable to keep working on it without a real piano.  Trying to move to the guitar or mandolin was prohibitively frustrating, because I don't know as many chords on those.  I've noticed that I get very different sounding music depending on the instrument, I think because I don't have a strong intuition of what notes will come out when my fingers do different things.  I guess that makes instruments pretty useful as random sound-idea generators, each with a different probability distribution function.  So maybe it's good.  Either way, I think I need to get a piano.

Alone

isle on the sea
you're so serene
how you stand there
steadfast through the tide
with no one around
you make not a sound
as you watch
another sun set into night

and the years wash away
through the blue and the grey
we've almost forgotten
what it means to belong
to be welcome and warm
in somebody's arms
through the fog and the fray
we will find what we've known
we're not meant to be
alone

a boat on the waves
feel the wind on my face
how it moves me
as I tumble through the storm
cold and alone
with no place to call home
worn and weary
I fall upon your shore

how the years washed away
through the blue and the grey
we'd almost forgotten
what it means to belong
to be welcome and warm
in somebody's arms
through the fog and the fray
we have found what we've known
we're not meant to be
we're not meant to be
we don't need to be
alone

On "good morning sun"

Ugh...

I wrote a bad song.  This is what I set to do, but I feel like I need to excuse myself nonetheless.  The lyrics are exhausting and ham-fisted.  The music is boring and repetitive.  The recording sucks.  The chorus is too high for me...

Now that I've got that out of the way, this week was actually pretty successful by some measures.  I spent much less time working on it, just 3-4 sessions of my primary focus.  I followed my own advice with writing down a pile of lyrics first, and moving them around later.  Also, I was much more diligent about writing down whatever lyrics came to mind.  Granted, they suck, but at least it was a lot easier to finish.

I'd also like to address the subject matter.  Songwriting can be extremely personal.  It's very easy to filter the songs you share because you are embarrassed to expose yourself.  But if you avoid the sensitive material, there's not much left for songs to be about.  So I'm actively forcing myself to share something that feels embarrassing.  That said, (and I'm totally covering my ass here) I do sometimes invoke poetic license.  A song might start from a real emotion or situation, but I will often exaggerate, flip roles, completely change the direction, and otherwise distort the genuine article.  And that's assuming I didn't just make up the whole thing.  I think what I mean is, please don't think too hard about the meaning of my songs as they apply to me, as a person you might know - it makes me bashful.

Good morning sun

well good morning sun
how are you today
oh I'm all right, thanks for asking
catch your golden rays
pouring down my face
brightens up this empty room

tossing, turning
I am learning
wishing's not enough
get me though
with half a heart
just get me through

thank you morning sun
for the shadow play
wading though this sea of faces
with my eyes on you
keeps me from searching though
looking for what I won't find

tossing, turning
I am learning
wishing's not enough
yet like a beating drum
what dreams may come
but wishing's not enough
get me through, me through, get me though

well good morning sun

On "a little ditty"

Well, I was late on my first assignment.  That was much more difficult than I expected. Writing the lyrics was agonizing and slow.  And at the end of the day, I hate them. I got pretty sick of the music too.  That said, the sugary sappiness of it had me in the BEST mood all week.  Makes me a little worried for when I write a sad song.

Anyway, in this post I'll try to go over my process and what I learned from it.

This was actually my second attempt this week.  For the first, I couldn't think of a single lyric.  Maybe that one will turn up in a later week.  But while I was ignoring the first one, I started humming this happy-go-lucky melody.  I hum all the time, so this isn't unusual.  But because I'm doing this project, I paid more attention to it and let it develop further in my humming.  At some point, I grabbed my mandolin (a pretty new instrument to me, as evidenced by the simplicity of the part) and figured out the chord progression that the melody was suggesting.  I don't know many chords on the mandolin yet, so I just used the bass note.  And it seemed to fit the mood to have minimal accompaniment.

The first lyrics were "when I close my eyes".  No idea where they came from.  I think when I'm singing aimlessly, I'll sometimes just grab some random cliche line and sing that.  The lines "let's sing a song, if you like you can hum along" were next, and were deliberately chosen because they fit the sing-songy tone, and I was starting to get an "I'd like to teach the world to sing..." vibe from the music.

At this point I started visualizing what the song might be about.  The music made me picture Zooey Deschanel frolicking around a color saturated dream meadow, leading someone by the hand, showing them around.  So I guess it's about inviting someone to look into into my imagination, which is mostly full of musical things.  Now that I think about it, that's kind of what I'm doing with this whole blog thing.  Woah.  Having a reference image definitely helped me come up with more lyrics, but often I would try too hard to drive the direction of the lyrics and get stuck in a corner.

There's a concept in improvisational theatre called "yes, and..." (read Impro, by Keith Johnstone - you won't regret it), which basically means, always accept whatever your scene partner improvises, and add to it.  This can also apply to how you manage your internal creative filter.  The mind is a much better random content generator than we realize.  The trick to improvising is to recognize what your brain is offering, accept it without question, and run with it.  Both the recognizing and the accepting are difficult, but presumably get better with practice.  I think I should apply this to writing lyrics as a way to generate content to work with.  I can always fix it up later, or make more than I need and swap stuff in, out and around.  That said, I did a very poor job of heeding my own advice this time around.

Here are the lessons I'm taking away from this week:

1. If a lyric comes to mind, write it down. No matter how dumb, embarrassing, weird or whatever.  I wasted a lot of time fighting lyrics I didn't like that I ultimately kept.
2. Work faster, or at least give myself more breaks from the song.  Not sure exactly how to do this, but boy did I get sick of the song by the end of the week.
3. Plan a little more time for recording, not at midnight - it's not nice to my roommates. 

A little ditty

let's sing a song
if you like you can hum along
dance around like there's nothing wrong
not a care in the world

we'll throw our heads back and give in
to the music all around
the jingle and jangle
they tingle and tangle me up
a doo a ditty, oh

follow me
I know a spot beneath the apple tree
we can sit and watch the mountains be
just take in the world

when I close my eyes
I start to feel a little smile
you can step inside
oh won't you stay a little while
get a whiff of the flowers
take a sip of the wine
what will set you free
a sweet and silly melody
so open up and sing
a little ditty

happy feet
skipping down a cracked and cobbled street
to a lightly syncopated beat
what a wonderful world

when I close my eyes
I start to feel a little smile
you can step inside
oh won't you stay a little while
get a whiff of the flowers
take a sip of the wine
what will set you free
a sweet and silly melody
hear the symphony
of tapping feet
the humming trees
and whistling breeze
feel the beck and call
to join a long
so open up and sing
a little ditty for me (x 3)

Hundreds of pages, pages, pages for words

So I was going to entitle this post the same exact title as Marlena's last post. But for the opposite reason, ha! I knew Marlena was a great partner for this project because a) she's dedicated and b) she's way more musical than I am, and I would learn a lot from her. I didn't realize we had such opposing weaknesses.

I... well, I love words. I love the way words sound, the way that people combine and recombine them, the way some march and some glide and some just sit and glare. I love words in other languages, especially the ones that bounce. Some of my favorites are "krankenwagen" (ambulance in German) and "колокола" (bells in Russian).

If you're wondering why we're both all about the Jason Mraz right now, it's because we were just listening to him in the car the other day bonding over how much we are just in love with the song "You And I Both." I love loosely structured music, and listening to that song is like being cradled in this free flowing melody along a tumbling river of words. The whole song is just paint strokes upon paint strokes - pure art.

I started listening to the rest of his CDs on my way to work, and I realized that there were so many gorgeous lyrics that I never really heard because, to be honest, I'm not that into the melodies to which they belong. So, I thought I'd write an entry dedicated to some of my favorite lyrics (maybe I'm just procrastinating on this actual songwriting business... o_O)

Some of these I just find clever, others have really brilliant rhymes, and the select few are just poetry that I savor on my tongue like honey. I'll just keep adding to this post whenever I think of more:

Jason Mraz "Mr. Curiosity"
"I'm the same the way you left me,
In a hurry to spell check me
And I'm underlined already in envy green
And pencil red
And I've forgotten what you've said."

Jason Mraz "Life Is Wonderful"
"And it takes no time to fall in love
But it takes you years to know what love is
It takes some fears to make you trust
It takes those tears to make it rust
It takes the dust to have it polished"

Incubus "11am
"seven a.m.,
the garbage truck beeps as it backs up
and I start my day thinking about what I've thrown away."

Smashmouth "All Star" (yes, a 90s pop song, but I like the play on words)
"Somebody once asked could I spare some change for gas,
I need to get myself away from this place.
I said, 'Yep, what a concept. I could use a little fuel myself,
and we could all use a little change.'" 

Eminem "Infinite" (you have to listen to this song to get the full brilliance of the rhyme scheme)
"I came to cause some pandemonium
Battle a band of phony M-
C's and stand the lonely one"

Death Cab For Cutie "Stay Young Go Dancing"
"Lost in a maze of a thousand rainy days
Of a thousand rainy days
But when I heard her voice, oh it led me to the end
Yes it led me to the end
Cause when she sings I hear a symphony
And I'm swallowed in sound as it echoes through me
I'm renewed, oh how I feel alive and through autumn's advancing
We'll stay young, go dancing"

Shakira "Moscas En La Casa" (a bit long, but this song is just gorgeous)
"Mis dias sin ti no tienen noches -- My days without you don't have nights
Si alguna aparece, es inutil dormir -- If anything appears, it's useless to sleep
Mis dias sin ti son un derroche -- My days without you are a waste
Las horas no tienen principio ni fin. -- The hours don't have a beginning nor end.
Mis dias sin ti son como un cielo -- My days without you are like a sky
Sin lunas plateadas, ni rastros de sol -- Without silver moons, nor traces of sun
Mis dias sin ti son solo un eco -- My days without you are only an echo
Que siempre repite la misma cancion -- That always repeats the same song.
Tan faltos de aire -- Too lacking in air
Tan llenos de nada -- Too full of nothing
Chatarra inservible -- Useless scraps
Basura en el suelo -- Trash on the floor
Moscas en la casa -- Flies in the house"

Unencumbered numbered words

I stayed home sick today, so I had plenty of time to bang my head against this first week's song.  I won't get into specifics yet (I'll save those for when I post the finished song), but the process clearly reminded me why I'm doing this.

A bit about my background with music and songwriting...

I've been surrounded by music since practically day one.  My dad sings, plays a handful of instruments and writes music.  Before I could prop myself up, my dad was holding me up to the piano so I could bang at the keys.  I started writing instrumental piano music when I was 10, and at some point in high school I started writing songs with lyrics.  The creativity has come in waves and I've probably completed about 15 songs to date, many of which have been lost with time.

Voice is my preferred instrument, so I like to write music that can be sung.  However, I've always had a lot of trouble with lyrics.  When I listen to music, I rarely even notice what words are being sung.  Often times I'll sing along with some background instrument rather than with the singer.  I feel the music, but not the words.  It's not to say I can't appreciate lyrics.  But when I do, it's usually because the shapes of the words are particularly rhythmic and musical.  Jason Mraz's lyrics stand out to me in this (see title of this post), but then he's all about the wordplay.

So when I sat down to write this week's song, the music actually came out pretty quickly.  I even had a picture of what the theme would be like.  But as soon as I tried to add lyrics, I drew a complete blank.  I found myself unwilling to commit a single word to the page, even after reassuring myself that bad lyrics are good in this game.

Which brings me to my goals:

For me, this project is primarily about words.  I want to understand them more the way I understand music.  And I'd really like to turn down my lyric-blocking filter.

My secondary goal is to finish more of the songs that I start.  I think speed is key here.  The longer I take to write a song, the more likely I'll hate it before I finish.

I think this project is pretty well suited to these goals, as long as I can stick to it.

-marlena

Thoughts on songwriting

Dear people-that-I'm-about-to-embarrass-myself-in-front-of,

I thought I'd give a little rundown history of how this blog started and what I'm hoping to get out of it.

Marlena and I took a class on songwriting recently taught by my manager and friend Alex Mandel, for whom music is somewhat of a second career and primary passion. After three way-too-short sessions of analyzing chord structures, melodies, and lyrics, the main advice that we went home with was, "Don't be afraid to write a bad song."

A little bit about me: I've never written a song before.

There it is, plain and simple... this whole concept is extremely scary to me. I almost didn't want to take the class because I was afraid we'd have to write something and share it, and as I told Alex, "I don't want you to see my feelings." Songwriting is extremely personal even for good songwriters. For me, well, you'll basically see not only me exposing my feelings, but me exposing my failed attempts at exposing my feelings.

When I think about my musical ability, I always think of this one quote from the movie Vicky, Cristina, Barcelona, where Scarlett Johansson's character says, "I just have to come face to face with the fact that I am not gifted, you know? I can appreciate art and I love music, but... It's sad, really, because I feel like I have a lot to express, and I am not gifted."

This feeling is paralyzing. I studied music throughout grade school, and at some point I hit a wall and said to myself, "This is really only as good as you'll ever be. Not horrible, but not great."

And yet, what is 'talent' anyway?

We've had a long discussion about this, during which Marlena had expressed the opinion that, "I don't really believe in talent. Early exposure looks like talent." Personally, I think talent exists, but mostly in the form of 'natural passion.' If you obsess over something for long enough and deeply enough, you begin to understand the beauty in its nuances; it grows and intertwines and becomes a part of you. 

Dancing is my thing. I consume dance like oxygen. I lose hours at a time just watching dance videos on youtube. Watching dance for me is like seeing the matrix. Music... I love music, but I don't get it. But how much of that lack of understanding is innate, and how much is due to laziness and lack of education? I want to test this hypothesis.

This is my goal in this project: I want to see the matrix with music.

I want to take any scholarly understanding that I have - the memorized scales and chords and counterpoints - and turn it into a deeper intuition, the kind that knocks on your bones and without which you feel empty. I might not really become a better musician through this (that skill will still only come through practice and more practice), but at the least I will hopefully become a better music lover.

-Ling

The Rules of the Game

The rules are pretty simple:

1. One complete song is due every Sunday night
2. The song should be in some format that can be posted to this blog (not just in your head)

Now what constitutes a complete song?  We'll leave that at the discretion of the songwriter.  Since this blog is about bad songs, it obviously doesn't need to be perfect and ready for the recording studio.  Rough drafts are absolutely fair game, as long as they're complete.  For example, we won't leave holes in the lyrics - at least we'll write down something crappy.  We can always go back and polish that turd later ;).  I think we're generally going for songs with chords, melody and lyrics, but if an instrumental song is what comes out, then that's still a song.  Momentum is key though.  If we're really busy some week(s), maybe we'll only have time to write a two stanza nursery rhyme (think Mary Had a Little Lamb).  That's still a song.

Also, we only specify a due date of completion.  I see no problem with picking up an unfinished song and finishing it.  I could see in the course of working on a week's song, getting stuck, putting it aside, and completing it later.  Or maybe we'll be extra productive some week and start a few songs in addition to our completed one for the week.  I know I have a backlot of song fragments that I've never gotten around to finishing, so I'm hoping to chip away at that here.  Starting songs is much easier than finishing them, and we want to get better at the finishing.

As for what format the deliverable should be, that's also pretty open to the songwriter's preference.  I tend to prefer making a rough audio recording, since it's really quick compared to writing out sheet music.  But there's nothing wrong with writing out the song as sheet music, or tabs or whatever.  If you don't want to sing, you could also play the melody on piano or some other instrument.

Maybe at some point in the future we'll start having themes for each week, like different song styles, topics, musical techniques etc...  But for now the goal is just to get something done.

Hello, world!

Welcome to humdrumming.  Our goal in keeping this blog is to write bad songs.

Songwriting, just like any other skilled activity, takes a lot of practice.  No one is born good at it.  Especially as a creative pursuit, songwriting suffers when we over-filter.  A songwriter that refuses to write bad songs probably won't end up writing anything at all.  But if we're willing to lower the bar a few notches, not only will we produce a lot more, but also we'll be free to explore new song styles, musical techniques and approaches to writing.  And I bet we'll get much better at writing songs... maybe even good ones.

So, no matter how crappily these songs come out, we will each post one new song a week.  This blog is here to keep us honest.