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