- Mike P
- Nov 15
SONGWRITING WORKSHOP - week one.
I was approached by the KACL Community Arts Hub to hold a songwriting workshop and concert.
Here’s my notes from week one…
This week, I want to talk a little bit conceptually about songwriting.
Next week… I will get more into the mechanics of the process. So, this week, talk on some of the esoteric aspects of this… and next week the “teric”? aspects.
Where did all this begin?
I have always been a big reader. I was an early reader and always loved reading books. In school, I distinctly remember poetry having a lasting effect on me… poems like “The Highwayman”, and the rhythmic interplay of the lines. “The Cremation of Sam McGee” how that opening verse just rolls. Later on, Edgar Allan Poe was another favourite. Eventually TS Eliot came across my eyes in junior high school… “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufock” with it’s wild imagery… ‘like a patient etherized on a table…’ So, I had an inherent predisposition to words.
I was around 12 years old, and I decided to pick up guitar. Songwriting didn’t really emerge until a few years later for me… and I remember the moment where I made the choice to more seriously pursue it vividly.
It was over a lunch break in the high school cafeteria… Joel was the resident guitar hero of the school. He had long hair, a fender amp wrapped in faux snakeskin, a pack of Player’s Light in his front pocket, and played a left handed Stratocaster in his band “Lois Lane’s Death Machine”. Way cooler than I could imagine. We were at a small table, and I was desperately running scales… building speed when Joel mused out loud in a dejected manner… “You know, it doesn’t matter how good either of us are… no matter how fast we get, there’s gonna be some kid from Red Lake or somewhere that shows up and blows us out of the water…” For Joel, it seemed an admission of defeat.
I walked away from the table, and left with an epiphany…
I agreed with Joel. Speed is a quantifiable thing. But… songs aren’t.
I decided to shift from worrying about scales and speed, and put more efforts into writing songs, because that was something that no one could ever take from me.
Prior to that, I had flirted with songwriting… from that point, it was probably two years and my band was in a small Winnipeg studio recording an album of songs I had written.
My one song I vividly recall prior to that, is perhaps a microcosm of everything that followed… there was a blonde haired German exchange student, a beautiful cheerleader who was clearly out of my league. I wrote a love song professing my feelings, and found the courage to phone her and sing it. In my mind, I was Ritchie Valens in the phone booth, singing “Oh, Donna” in the rain… tears running down Donna’s face. Surely, surely, Nina would be reacting in this exact fashion…
In reality, she put the phone down as soon as I started singing…
now, had it worked, I might never had needed to write another song, however, I suppose that might be why I like to deal in sad songs.
I think it’s helpful if I share what I believe a song even is…
as with anything I say over the course of these workshops, take what works, leave what doesn’t.
Conceptually;
I tend to view songwriting as an incredibly short form of storytelling… however, a song does not even need to be a story. It can be an idea, a scene, or a musing. I firmly believe when compared to other forms of storytelling, it is the most flexible in form. Sometimes, it’s a fragmented storytelling… like someone flipping thru channels on a television set.
If, we were discussing writing a novel, we would be diving deep into the hero’s journey, and discussing the importance of three act storytelling. A song doesn’t have to follow this. We aren’t bound to have a beginning, middle and an end.
Poetry, the rhyme scheme and meters are strict, there is no vocalization in the delivery of the lines to cheat the meter. Sonnet rhyme structure, written in pristine iambic pentameter is not forgiving. In song, I can stretch one syllable to as many as I need. Rhyme, is a suggestion. (On that, I will never lose a word that carries meaning for sake of a rhyme… )
Film making, I might discuss the merits of a character moving from right to left, and the implications of a dutch angle. I would express the need to establish a setting with a master exterior shot. In song, I can sing about the lighting in a scene… or not acknowledge or not.
I can steal from any of these places. Films, tv shows, books… any of these can help spark ideas.
I feel that in song, language is at it’s most malleable.
I can ask esoteric questions of the universe, convey an unrequited tale or go the other route to full blown historical events and “Wreck of the Edmond Fitzgerald” is on the menu. We are often writing the songs that we want to hear. Sharing details that we find interesting. Telling the stories we want to share, or hear ourselves.
Overall. The only steadfast rule…
If you want to write songs, you have to commit to doing it. Write it down. Record it. Remember it. Spend time working on it. Adding to it.
Ideas without actions, are shower thoughts. A chuckle as we knock over the shampoo bottle.
We have to open our eyes and ears, we have to turn on our antennas and be willing to receive what is available… not only that, but we have to be willing to do something with that idea. That is an important facet of all of this. You have to look for ideas. Sometimes, they will fall in your lap, more often you have to do the work.
When we find that thing that sparks an idea, hold it close… and try to capture as much as you can. Getting back to that idea later is harder than it seems.
If we want words to come out of our mouths, we need to put words into our heads. Read. Even if it is Stephen King novels, we are processing words through our heads. It is establishing a connection between words and visualization.
This is where details are important. And, as we read… we pause on passages that give us distinct visuals. Look at the language and try to understand why it is working. Learn from it.
You also need input to keep things flowing. Want to write more music? Listen to more music.
Music that might inspire you to greatness… perhaps even bad music… music that makes you declare with a great authority… “even I could do better than that!”
Practice lines. You can throw them away immediately. Look around a room for a detail. A start of a song. Try one in your head. If you like it, try to maybe say another line to follow it. Pull out your phone and start notating the lines. See how many you can get. Don’t get too precious if you are getting somewhere. It is easy to derail an idea and lose the details if you are burning out on a rhyme. Set the rhyme aside or on fire. Don’t lose meaning for rhyme.
If It doesn’t go anywhere, put it aside. Come back to it later and see if you can clean it up. Can you add to it? Did you leave enough to get back to the idea? If all you got was a verse, I am often apt to just double space and keep adding into the same note… it’s easier to review all of the fits and starts on one page, than to jump from page to page.
This is an active participant activity. Our hope in turning lines around our head is we find a spark, that idea that makes our inspiration wake up off the couch. We flip the script on our muse, and get them to work. So, even in this room… “Industrial ceilings make me uneasy”. Look out the window… there’s the Century Cinema marquee, an artifact that has remained rather unchanged in many years. What does it invoke?
Where do songs come from?
Well. They are everywhere. Other songs, films, books, our lives, our friends lives… the way your cat lays in the sun. Like particles that exist in all states until the point of observance… anything can be an idea for a song. Anything can provide that spark. (That ain’t my cat… that’s a song).
But… how? What to write about?
What interests you. What catches your ears, or eyes.
What sets songs apart from each other is the distinct voice of the writer… the unique perspectives and details that make the songs feel real. All of us can enter a room, and everyone of us will pick up a different detail…
Picture a table. Four legs and a top. Everyone of us will see a different table. Mine is probably a mess of piles, an empty water cup, coffee stains and my missing guitar tuner.
The craft of songwriting, is often developing our voice. Folding our own perspectives into song. Details are what define us. Describe your table.
Even if we use the idea of a character or a story as a vehicle to tell a story, there is still room for the personal touches… I’ve never been in a boxing match… but I have lost. We can utilize a character, an unreliable narrator to tell a story. The common adage is to write what you know… but, maybe we could express a sense of loss better from perspective of a boxer?
We can use the cover of plausible deniability in a song… the shelter of storytelling. We can say truths too hard to bear coming from us… but, perhaps via a character in a song, a once removed effigy we can speak without fear of reprisal. Inversely, writing from the perspective of a flawed character, an unreliable narrator is a wonderful perspective to write from…
A well crafted song draws us in, and evokes images, or feelings.
When we start writing. We are often crafting pale imitations or perhaps even outright plagarative acts against our favourite songs. This is going to happen. We are going to imitate. We try on suits that are perhaps a little too big, just to see how they feel. We might put on our father’s workboots, knowing we wont fill them, rather to see what it’s like to walk around in them. Eventually, when we have tried on enough, those influences become inspirations that informed our voice. The Bowie blends with the George Jones and we are left with our own sounds.
Deconstruct our favourite songs… what draws us to these particular songs?
Are they witty tales of unrequited love, perhaps like Loudon Wainwright? Are they stream of consciousness Dylan rambles? Are they the anxiety ridden dreams of the future like Leonard Cohen shared? Maybe all of the above?
We will imitate, until we emulate… when we absorb these influences, they become part of the fabric of our coats. At first they will be the pins in the sleeve, awaiting the thread to secure them.
If you regard every song as a success, anything that occurs after that is a gift… it is a bonus. Is it nice to have people react to something you’ve written…? Yes. It’s wonderful for our egos.
I want to write songs, I enjoy it. For me, the goal is to write better than I have before. In some way, shape or form I want to improve. I may be inspired by others at times, but they are not competition. They may give me a mark to aim higher at… but, at the end of the day, I want to write better. That is where the satisfaction is derived. That is the goal.
Not every song is going to hit that mark. Most songs, I will take to a rough demo form. Drums, keys, bass, vocals… harmonies. As, I enjoy the production side of things… however, if I decide that it isn’t quite up to par, I will follow it through to demo, and just put on the shelf. Any song written, is exercising that skill… so, if that song itself wasn’t a step forward for me, the act of writing that song is working towards that step forward.
Homework:
So, we have come this far… and you’re thinking “I am no closer to a song…”.
OK. Let’s get you there.
As mentioned, themes can often influence the song elements… so, if you are so inclined. The weather is getting colder. The days are shorter. Snow is falling, and we have to shovel it… your theme to play with is a Christmas song.
Again, a song is a moveable art form. Like a golf ball in our pocket.
So, when you step outside into the wind, or the snow, take off your boot and step into a patch of water on the floor… gather. Observe. Take notes. Christmas songs can be happy or sad, they can be nostalgic, they can be observances of peace on earth… or perhaps how sick you are of family… No rules.
Again. Any room you go into. There’s ideas there. Someone might say something that sparks it. But, you have to be willing to observe, and you have to be willing to act.
