Random Musings

Haven’t been talking about songwriting for quite awhile.

Here are some random thoughts…

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The Special One

Ever met a special someone whom you felt was probably going to be the most beautiful person you’d ever meet in your life?

As in, for the rest of your life, you can’t imagine how you’d ever meet another person who can top him/her?

Well, I haven’t.

But if you have, then you might know what I mean when I say that I think I’ve recently met the songwriting equivalent of that.

I wrote a song in early 2009 for church, but kept it in the proverbial mental drawer of my mind for a very long time…for almost 2 years, until the beginning of this year when my sister and I thought the time was right to introduce it to the kids in church, for presentation in March.

And truth be told, I can’t remember how I conceived the song, and I can’t remember what drove me to complete the music and the lyrics…but I just think that it might be the best song that I’m ever capable of writing.

I mean, I tend to be very critical of myself and most of my songs are weak in this or that…but for this song I happen to be very satisfied with the entire thing, both musically and lyrically.

Somehow, when you’ve met the Right One, you just know.

(Not that it’s a fantastic song, I’m just saying that it might represent the peak of my ability as a songwriter, however high or low that may be.)

There is a pro and con to this.

The con is that I’m worried that every single song I write from now on will not be able to top this song.

The pro is that at least I can take some comfort that I’ve written at least one song in my life that I’m really pleased with, and for that I thank God.

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Church Musical

I didn’t think that I’d be writing many songs in 2011, not least in January…but as luck would have it, I composed 5 songs in a span of 5 days last week.

How about that!

Our church is putting up a children’s musical in June this year, and last week I was handed the full script complete with the full lyrics of the 5 songs that are within the musical.

When I first saw the amount of song lyrics to set music to, I wondered how on earth I was going to manage.

But credit to the lyricist – he wrote excellent lyrics which made my work as composer so much easier.

His lyrics were creative, made a whole lot of sense, had great rhymes, and most importantly, had a good sense of structure.

I’ve never been one to write songs quickly.

My average time taken to complete a song (I usually do both music & lyrics) is about one to two weeks.

However, this time round I employed a different strategy.

Because the lyrics had all been already written out for me, I put the musical script in my car, and for one whole week, every time I was at a traffic light or at a stop, I would glance at the script and try to form melodies out of the lyrics.

Guess what?

It has proven to be the most effective songwriting technique I’ve come across yet.

5 songs all completed in 5 days!

All I did was at the end of the week, I sat at the piano, hammered out all the tunes, worked out all the chords, and it was a wrap!

And thanks be to God, I’m really satisfied with how all 5 songs turned out.

Can’t wait to introduce them to the kids.

Should be fun.

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Collaboration

I’ve never been one for collaboration, especially in songwriting.

I’ve always had this self-centered thinking that I do my best work when I’m working alone.

But this musical collaboration has made me realise that collaboration between lyricist and composer can result in songs which each would never have been able to accomplish individually.

I will readily admit that I would never have dreamed of composing some of those 5 tunes had I not worked with the lyricist’s lyrics.

Let’s see, how do I explain this more clearly?

The fact that he wrote the lyrics in his unique way, it made me think out of the box musically, and I came up with new and unique tunes which I normally would not come up with when I’m writing my own lyrics.

Hence, you can chalk this down to one more reason why collaborations in musical theatre are so important.

Most of the great songwriters worked in teams – Rodgers & Hammerstein, Lerner & Loewe, Kander & Ebb, etc.

There exists this certain form of synergy that comes about when a lyricist works with a composer, that sometimes may be absent when one chooses to work alone.

I am now a true believer in the power and magic of collaboration.

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Songwriting Style

As much as I would like to tell myself that I’m a lyricist as well, I think I may have to concede that my forte is still putting music to existing lyrics.

There have been occasions before in my songwriting whereby I put music to Bible verses, which went pretty well.

And the fact that I was able to do 5 songs in 5 days last week probably adds more confirmation to that.

Certain composers write the music first, and pass the music over to the lyricist.

Certain composers work together with the lyricists to come up with songs together from scratch.

Certain composers write the music after being handed the full set of lyrics from the lyricist.

I think I definitely belong to the third category.