Yes, I’m still very interested in songwriting and have been rather heavily involved in songwriting this year.
It’s still a huge passion of mine.
Anyway, I recently borrowed a book from the library called “In Their Own Words” by Bill DeMain.
It’s a collection of interviews with renown songwriters such as Billy Joel, David Bowie, Carlos Santana, John Mayer, Jewel, Burt Bacharach, Amy Grant and so on.
I always love reading such books because it gives you valuable insight into the songwriting philosophy and approach of the great songwriters.
It’s always a fascinating read.
My favourite parts so far are from an interview with Amy Grant and Burt Bacharach.
To quote from the Amy Grant interview:
Question: If a singer-songwriter says to you, “I want to make a career out of this,” what do you tell them?
Amy Grant: I’ve had people come up and say, “I would like to be a singer-songwriter,” and my first advice is, “Then stop saying ‘I would like to be’ and start saying ‘I am.’” Because that perception of something eventually happening is just as elusive as a cloud. If you are a singer-songwriter, then you start looking for ways to be that where you are.
Gotta love that quote from Amy Grant, who remains one of my favourite female artistes of all time.
She basically hit the nail on the head.
If you want to become something, stop saying “I would like to be” and start thinking that you already “are” and start getting to work.
Sometimes in life you’ve got to go create your own opportunities, and that is something that I’m still trying to learn.
To quote from the Burt Bacharach interview:
Question: I know you’ve said you like to get away from the piano as soon as possible when you’re composing. What are the main advantages of that?
Burt Bacharach: You can hear a long line that way. You can hear the whole song. You can hear it evolve. And not be as concerned with what the fingers and the hands are playing, where they’re going…You can hear the long line. I can anyway…I just get a better picture when I get away from the keyboard and just try to hear it that way. You can also get trapped by pretty chords when you’re at the piano…But I have to have a long-range picture of the whole scope of a piece. I get a sense of balance that I wouldn’t get if I were sitting at the piano. I can’t say enough about where your hands tend to go, because they’ve been there before.
I really enjoyed reading this bit from Burt Bacharach.
He constantly talks about moving away from the piano and “hearing” the song in your mind.
And that is something that I tend to like to do nowdays too (I especially like to put the lyrics on my car passenger seat and occasionally glance at them and think of tunes), because I always feel that it can be quite stifling sitting at a piano and trying to come up with melodies.
Nowadays I usually try to come up with the lyrics and melody away from the piano (just sing and imagine the melodies in my head), then when I’ve got a substantial melody formed, I would then go to the piano to work out the chords.
On another question…
Burt Bacharach: …If you have a keyboard that’s MIDI’d with a couple of synthesizers, so you have strings and horns, you can sound glorious. But when you take it all apart, when you peel back the cover, what do you have? Do you really have a song, do you really have a melody?
Well said.
My own personal philosophy to songwriting is that the melody should be able to stand on its own.
If you’re relying too much on an accompaniment or a riff or an effect to make the song attractive, then I personally feel that the song is essentially weak.
A good song should be able to withstand scrutiny even when it’s stripped down to its bare essentials.
Not that I’m anywhere near mastering the art of writing a good song, but it’s always good to keep the above principles in mind.
