Random Musings

Note: I don’t think I’ve written much about my songwriting process for awhile. Guess I’ve been too busy to write any songs lately (see previous post). Anyway, here goes:

Photo (“Car Free Festival (21 of 1)”) by airchinapilot

I realise that I write most of my songs in two types of instances: Whilst driving in my car, or whilst staring at a computer screen.

It’s weird, yes, I know…but that’s how the majority of my songs are constructed.

It kinda works for me.

While I would like to give you the impression that I write in the classic songwriter manner, which is whilst seated at the piano with a yellow pencil in wedged between the lips and a manuscript paper in front of me, or whilst sitting on the bed with a guitar…sadly that isn’t the case for me.

I let my songs germinate mostly when I’m driving, cos well…maybe that’s when I have absolute peace and quiet for maybe 15-20mins at one go, and I can just keep singing parts of the song to myself till I find something that I like and build on from it.

Yes, I am a firm believer that a song has to sing well. Meaning it is important first and foremost that the song can actually be sung, that it comes off the lips nicely. I don’t really know how to fully explain this, but I hope you get what I mean.

It’s no point if the song the song plays well on piano, or has a great riff, or has great chord changes, but it can’t really be sung properly.

Well, at least that’s my philosophy lah.

So anyway, it’s quite amazing how much of a song I can actually construct whilst driving in my car.

And I also mentioned staring at a computer screen – that’s when I get most of my lyrics done. Typing the lyrics out in front of me allows me to see the lyrical structure better, as well as the rhyming structure. And with rhymezone.com just a click away, I’m never at a loss for rhymes.

Yup, so that’s how the lyrics part gets done – in front of a computer screen.

…

So when does the piano come in?

The piano comes in when I need to suss out the chords and actually hear the song “in the flesh” for the first time. (It’s like when you conceive a play in your mind, and then you actually get to see it being staged in the flesh by actors and all that…that’s what I liken it to.)

It’s always quite exciting to try a musical idea out on the piano for the first time.

Sometimes the song plays better than what I thought it would sound like in my head…sometimes it plays worse.

Also, the piano can offer some much needed inspiration when ideas run dry. Sometimes you just let your fingers run wild, playing all kinds of weird chords and stuff…and occasionally you just might pick up some interesting ideas which you can then work with.

…

I used to think that a song should be written fully on the piano…but then after awhile I realised that it was not advisable in my case.

I tend to prefer getting the song done away from the piano most of the time (hence the “writing in the car” thing), because I realised that it’s better to compose melodies by singing them rather than playing them.

Because, as mentioned above, my personal philosophy is that a song must first sing well.

At the piano, sometimes the fingers tend to want to gravitate towards a few predictable patterns, and hence the melodies composed would tend to sound uninspired after awhile.

However, if I try to compose melodies via singing them out, I find that it gives me much more freedom and flexibility, and I am able to come up with more varied tunes.

So there you have it – some of my personal philosophies toward songwriting.