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Hi, and welcome to my second Open Tunings article. This month I decided to start things off with songwriting. I feel that I've been in a great age of songwriting, with solo acts like Sarah Mclachlin and Sheryl Crow, and groups like Counting Crows and Matchbox 20, the ART in songwriting has returned. I never really came about songwriting until about 4 years ago, after joining a great band called Midnight Sun. The lead guitar player, Ryan Sno-Wood, was this funny little man who found the most interesting songs within the most unobvious places. We spent infuriating hour after infuriating hour toiling and troubling over syllables and rhymes, but looking back on it I realize that those are the songs I love the most. The ones that fought their way out, not the ones that go plop in your lap; and don't get me wrong, sometimes getting those songs can help you through some really difficult dry spells. Now here I am, braving the songwriting world almost on my own, and I'm very comfortable. My lyrics are more cryptive and interesting, and I like to listen AND play the music that I'm writing. I hope that eventually it all snowballs into something else, but for now I am happy. That there I think is one of the biggest things you need to take into account when songwriting: how do you feel? What I mean is, if you don't appreciate who you are and how you feel, laying yourself out on the table to be judged (as that is what songwriting really is) is not gonna be something you will really want to do. Honesty is also a big factor as well. You are always going to be unhappy with whatever it is that you are playing and writing, because there's always gonna be that one thing you can't quite play, or that one word you can't quite remember, but, you have to get over that sometimes. Realize what is good, and still know that just because you think what you wrote/played is inflating your ego, it's not. Also, being honest about the emotion in the song. If your writing a love song, it usually helps to actually be in love, or if it's about living on the street, to actually live on the street, etc. Don't fake it. To sound really California surfer/stoner, Keep it real, man. Be the song. The songs that I sing the best are the ones that I can relate to on a personal level, I get into them like they were my own song. The same should apply when writing, because one day, someone will hear it and say, "Yeah man, yeah, I can really dig that groove man. I know exactly what you mean!" because the emotion that you presented in the song was genuine. As far as writing lyrics go, two things help me find my finished products: recording and rewriting. You need to listen to the lyrics as songs, with whatever melody line it is that you have for that particular lyric. Record it however you can, and hear it. That way, you are an audience, rather than a preformer. And walk away from that recorded lyric for a few days, and then relisten to it, see if you still like it, but at the risk of sounding redundant, be honest with yourself. Just because the idea is no longer new doesn't mean that it's no good. Madonna took a song that was written in the 70's and made a hit out of it in the 90's (Ray of Light). Secondly, take the sheet that you've written the lyrics out on, and take a brand new peice of paper, and copy them out again, and again, and again, and I bet you that somewhere along the line you'll make some change hear, rearrange words there and presto, fixed up and ready for singing. You should always have a confidant as well, someone that you can go to with new ideas and have them critique it. Make sure that they are smarter than you, honest, and constructive critics. They will help you get over those hurdles in the song that just never stop coming. It helps if they are a musician as well. Get them to play the song back to you, either following it the same way that you did it or have them interpret it differently. You may end up cowriting a great song. Remember, it's not important who get's top billing on the front of the theatre, it how good the movie inside is. Songs come to you in the most mysterious ways, (She moves in mysterious ways, hehe) so keep your head up. Look at the world in a different way. Hand upside down from a tree and write a song about how you see things. Be strange, be original, and be yourself. And play for people. Some of the best life experiences are the the things your do with others, and life experience is where you'll get ideas for more great songs to play for people. Take care everyone, and you'll hear from me very soon.
"Pro virile parte", Geoff gkennedy@accesscable.net
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