I spent the night working on some new songs.
It’s not often that I get the luxury of free time to lock myself in my room for three hours or so to concentrate on songwriting, so I was quite glad I had the opportunity to do so tonight.
I managed to get only one proper song out of it. The rest were more like half-songs.
I dunno about other songwriters, but it gets quite frustrating for me sometimes. I guess it’s because I’m not particularly talented (nor creative), hence the songs don’t come to me that naturally. I really have to go hunt for those elusive tunes & matching lyrics…and most of the time, I end up with parts of a song, but seldom the full song.
I mean, I’ve got a decent chorus here, but can’t really find a good verse to match. I’ve got a decent verse there, but can’t seem to work out the chorus to it. I’ve got three or four half-songs out of tonight, none of them close to completion.
Maybe I’m too perfectionistic. Or maybe I’m just not talented enough.
I dunno.
Songwriting is such a fascinating process. Everyone approaches it differently. Some write lyrics first, some write tunes first, some write them together. (I’ve tried all three methods…no particular preference.) Some write songs quickly, some take days or even weeks to complete a song. Some just bang around on the piano or guitar until they settle on something which they like. Some just happen to “hear” tunes in their heads. Some can’t even explain how they come up with their songs.
But at the end of the day, the end product is all the same. It is the song.
Anyway, as I mentioned, I managed to get one proper song out of tonight, so all is not lost. I’m kinda proud of the song, to be honest. (Though I think the pre-chorus could still use a bit of tweaking. And maybe I could add a verse or two more to the song.) But the general idea of the song is there. I would say it is more or less complete.
It’s a most satisfying feeling when you complete a song which you think is good.
But of course, whether others think it’s good is a completely different matter altogether.
Well, I guess I’ll find out at the next Songcraft session.
Seems all who try to write songs go through the phase of “I’m not good enough”. I’ve stopped saying those things. Obviously we all have some talents. It’s a matter of degrees. There will be weeks or months of song-writing dry spells for me. I don’t think much about it. I just take up other hobbies. Then when I go back to attempting a song, inspiration may or may not come. It’s timing for me.
do what john lennon does.. combine all the half-songs into a single song! =)
You sure work hard on your music. For me, I just “let it come”.
Different people, different ways, different takes but yupz, cheers to what you say about “the end product”.
And cheers to a [good] One :)
Ivan, thanks for the tip. Agree with what you said.
Firdaus - Yeah man! Now that you mentioned it, John Lennon was famous for doing that. One example is “Baby You’re A Rich Man”. And also “A Day In The Life”.
B - So you just let it come eh? Be careful, sometimes inspiration doesn’t come as frequently as you like. You gotta go “chase the muse” sometimes, so to speak. But yeah, to each his own.
u’noe..i actually had a song in mind on our flight to taiwan that time… but coz i had no way to record it down..i forgot it when i returned back to singapore. sad eh. sighhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.
Argh!!! It’s always painful to hear that. Sad sad…