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Songwriting: Master Study

This is the fifth in a series on songwriting. The first is about finishing songs, the second has to do with making bad art until we can make better, the third was about  focusing on a specific image and the fourth was a short, anecdotal story.

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It’s a safe bet that Tom Petty is a better songwriter than you are.  It would be great if you could sit down with him and work on your material; have him coach and critique you. But that’s not going to happen.  So, I suggest the next best thing: rip him off and write a Tom Petty song of your own. Inspiration is wonderful but we too often move from being inspired by someone to innovation; making our own work with (hopefully) our own, unique signature. I suggest that imitation is a missing link in songwriting development.

My wife studied studio art in college and spent a good chunk of time not just looking at but re-painging or re-sculping pieces by great artists. By re-painting Wayne Thiebaud pieces, she learned how Thiebaud accomplishes the richness and depth of his work.  I believe that such knowledge is gained only by practice and that being both informed and formed by the techniques, practices and general way of superior artists is a key to real artistic growth.

So, pick a Tom Petty song (or a song by someone you’re inspired by as a writer) and first learn it as is; Tempo, Chords, Melody, Lyrics, Lyric Placement etc.. And then write something just like it. Here are some keys to the Master Study practice:

1. Writing it at the same tempo: Likely, you have a tempo you more naturally gravitate towards. The only way to break free of that is to practice songs in other tempos or even other time signatures.  Because time and tempo are almost entirely about muscle-memory, you’ll always feel awkward and unnatural at a given tempo until you’ve played it repeatedly… just like throwing a ball or learning to play a chord. So practice by “studying” a song that has clicked with a lot of people; a song that you know “works.”

2. Using the same chord structures:  Does he play that “G” chord barred or open? Is there a brief sustain? Do it exactly that way, or as exactly as you can.  Again, you likely have a certain set of chords and chord structures you like. As your ear attunes itself to other (and hopefully) better sounds, you’ll want to have a broader spectrum of chords and structures to choose from.

3. Paying attention to lyric placement: Aside from the long discipline of becoming a lyricist, learning where to actually place words or “fit them into” a song is vital. You’ve likely felt either that long, awkward space between phrases and felt like something ought to be there.. OR more likely, you’ve felt the even more awkward squeeze of having far too many words for the space your song provides.  So, how long are his phrases? How does the lyrical rhythm work with the rest of the arrangement? Do his lyrics land on upbeats?.. Does it work with the rhythm of the main instrument or against it? Is the song structured around the lyric?

In the practice of art, there are very few formulas.  A Master study, imitating the way of superior artists, is one of the only pure and consistent methods for growth.

16 hours ago /  Tagged: , , , , 0
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Songwriting: Measure Your Best Against Your Best

A friend of mine manages one of my favorite bands.  This is a story he tells about the writing and recording of that band’s most recent full-length album; a collection of songs I consider to be clearly their best work.

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The band had worked for about a year on twelve songs they were planning on tracking for their next album.  They spent a few days in the studio putting together pretty slick-sounding preproduction tracks for their manager to give final approval.

That’s when this conversation (or some form of it) took place:

MANAGER: This is good work.
BAND: Thanks. We’re really happy with it.
MANAGER: I’m particularly pleased with these five songs. They’re clearly the better songs on the album. Wouldn’t you agree?
BAND: (looking at the list): Yeah, probably.
MANAGER: Alright, then. I’m pushing the recording back.
BAND: … Um.. Why?
MANAGER: Start writing again and see if you can write five songs at least as good as the better five of this batch. Then we’ll have a great record on our hands instead of half a good one. 

After hearing this story in 2007, I listened back to the songs I’d written for my next project… and started cutting.  I’d rough-tracked 16 songs and cut it down to 7 immediately, knowing that some songs were simply not as good. I realized I’d compromised on my own process and that’s dumb.  I pushed my own studio dates back another month and I got back to writing. Part of why I’m so fond of “Deconstruction” is that when I look down that track list, there isn’t a single song I wouldn’t choose to record again.

I can look back on albums from 1999-2009 and tell you exactly which songs are the better songs on each album and which songs I could live without. Back then, it was common that half an album (or less) was clearly superior and had clearly been more attended to.  Times have changed.  Today, if I’m going to release an entire collection, I’ve got to be certain that it’s worth the time, effort and money to track all of it.

9 days ago /  Tagged: , , 3
SongwritingImage

Songwriting: Pick An Image And Stick With It… A Practice

This is the third in a series on songwriting. The first is about finishing songs and the second has to do with making bad art until we can make better. With this third, I’m looking at a specific practice in lyric-making; focus on a specific image.

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She’s a waterfall
She’s a sunset
She’s the moon

Well, she’s probably not… and even if she was, I’d suggest you pick one comparison and dig in to that one. She’ll appreciate it more and so will your listeners.

I believe that what gives a lyric power is its depth. Lyrically traipsing the globe in search for images with which to compare your love does not generally deepen a listener’s affection or appreciation; It confuses and flattens your subject. At some point, the list of similes and metaphors ceases to describe a subject and starts to muddy it instead… Meaning and clarity get lost in the noise of competing images.

Think of it like a character in a book: he’s a jerk. Then you learn that he’s a jerk because he lost his wife to his best friend and that his father had lost his wife (the character’s mother) the same way. Now the character’s behavior is interesting. It has depth.

Consider this excellent verse from “Train Wreck” by Glen Phillips:

She looked just like a train wreck
That could have been avoided
In a third-world country
By a long stretch of farmland
Where the water had run high
And run the topsoil down the river
So that next year there would be no crops.

That’s one image, given context and history. It takes up an entire verse and it has drawn me in to a deeper connection with the subject of the song.

I had the Glen Phillips song in my mind as I wrote a lot of the songs that make up Deconstruction. The song “Driving By The Accident” is a good example of my attempt to emulate Glen* by hanging out around one image:

Just what is it in a man
That can’t drive by the accident?
He cranes his neck to turn his head
And slows down.
Does he feel the need to see
That blood’s as red as on TV
And as thick?

Or is there something in our hearts?
Something more than curious
Calling us to play our parts a healers?

I went to the moment someone is driving past some horrific accident on the freeway and hit “pause.” What’s happening in that moment? Why does he slow down? In my mind, the driver never passes by the accident.. he is driving by it throughout the course of the whole song and I’m taking a longer look at that single moment.

Again, this isn’t a universal rule and there are times when a sweeping look at something is interesting and enjoyable (though, in my opinion, it is almost always far less so than focusing on one image.) But I’d suggest making a discipline of the the long, concentrated examination of a subject; like a meditation. You have less than four minutes; try spending as much of it as possible in the same place.

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*Emulating great writers is another blog.
**If there is an element of songwriting you’d like to read some reflection on, leave a comment or let me know at Twitter or Facebook.

10 days ago /  Tagged: , , , , 2

May 6th, 2012

I am a father with no father.. but I will not let my grandson down.

11 days ago /  Tagged: 0
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Songwriting: Make Bad Art

This is the second in a series of posts related to the topic of song-writing. The first is about finishing songs and is very closely related to this one. You might have passed it on your way here.

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If you’re early on in the artistic process, you’re probably making bad art. Keep making it.

In high-school, I remember seeing a play by a local playwright which he’d written about… writing a play. (Interestingly, the thing writers often write about when suffering from writers block is either writing or writers block.)

The scene that stuck with me from that play was a conversation between the playwright and another, older playwright.

Young Playwright (YP): “I just feel like everything I write is crap.”
Old Playwright (OP): “It probably is. You’re still too young to write great dialogue.”
YP: “So, what am I supposed to do?”
OP: “Keep writing.”
YP: “Wait.. you just agreed that it’s probably crap.”
OP: “Yes, but it’s out of the manure that the flowers grow.”

Just like learning anything else, your first few efforts or first season of effort is usually going to be rough. Muscles and muscle memory are yet to be developed. Be patient. Fall down. But keep at it.

Another way to think about it is like a cleansing; the same way you have to throw out the first batch of ice from the freezer’s ice-maker. Our creative “plumbing” likely has some blockage and rust and whatnot from years of non-use or mis-use. Sometimes it’s working out all the residue from bad art we’ve taken in.*

The other way to look at it is that, there are probably good ideas mixed up in the bad and that the only way to get them out is to get it all out. As I’ve written previously, we can only evaluate our work once we’ve got some distance from it.

(*listening to better music is another blog.)

14 days ago /  Tagged: , , , 4
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Songwriting: Finish

This is the first in a series of posts related to the topic of song-writing. I’ve done a fair share of it in my time as a songwriter and it’s high time I passed on a what bit of wisdom I’ve gathered in my process.

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Andre Agassi’s father told him to hit the ball as hard as he could and that someday it would land in-bounds. Eventually, it did. Often. Agassi became one of the greatest players in tennis history. You will, too if you buy my new instructional songwriting video series “Write It Like McRoberts.”

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In short, I  can be too careful to “get it right” and end up not getting anything done at all.

I’m not a perfectionist.  Yet, in my songwriting, I find something akin to perfectionism at work.  It’s a tendency I’ve worked hard to move away from because it kept me from working.  I’d stop in the process of writing when I wasn’t entirely happy with what I had in hand.  Songs would sit unfinished for months or years and at times, I’d hesitate to even approach songwriting, knowing that some half-finished work would be staring  me in the face like sad, hungry puppy I locked in my office.

I’ve learned that I have to finish. Even if it wasn’t going to turn out perfectly (and it often wouldn’t).  Only once I’d completed a song could I get enough altitude or distance from it to actually critique it.  As long as it was unfinished, it was still inside me in some way… far too close to critically evaluate it or change it.

So, it has meant putting some bad parts or melodies in place, knowing they aren’t so great, just so I could listen to a whole song.  Sometimes, I’d come back to that finished song and find that the part I’d thrown in just so I could finish wasn’t half bad (the squeeze of finishing yields some great results at times). More often, it wasn’t until I could hear the song in context that I knew what it still needed and what might work; again, it was about having some distance from it.

Most importantly, finishing when you don’t “feel ready” helps establish an actual process for the work of songwriting. If it’s just an emotional outpouring or exercise in self-expression, that’s fine. But great (or even good) songwriting takes discipline. Finishing is a good place to begin that discipline.

15 days ago /  Tagged: , , , , 3
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Power, Authority, Discipleship and Pants

As I understand it, power has to do with one’s ability and authority has to do with having permission to exercise that power. In other words, you might have knowledge, insight or wisdom to offer me that would I would benefit from but if I don’t heed your words, I have denied you the authority to exercise your power.

Andy Crouch’s presentation at the Q conference was born out of early efforts toward a book on the topic of Power and it landed squarely in an arena of thought I’m currently in myself: The exercise of authority involved in discipleship.

He suggested that there is a general reticence among Christians to assume or claim power; as if claiming power/influence is by nature arrogant and dangerous whereas the denial of power/influence is a sign of character. His suggestion called to mind the oft-quoted warning that “Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” -Lord Acton (real name)

Now, count me among those who have a backlog of negative power-abuse examples in my mind, particularly related to religious history… but if women and men of character automatically compromise that character by assuming positions of power, isn’t the void left to be filled by those who lack character?  That seams to be what many among us at least believe to be true about those in authority. In my experience, the very idea of authority is often met with red flags and suspicion.

And yet I wore pants today, as I do so most days.. Of course, I didn’t internally decide that it was good to wear pants. I was told, over years of course, that I ought to and believed that to be true.  I find that to be the case in just about all my behavioral patterns: I do what I do because I’ve been taught that I ought to and believed that to be true. In other words, I’m submitted to some power or other. I’ve given authority to someone or something outside myself to determine at least part of how I live. Admittedly, this influence is often benign,.. but not always. The permissibility of slave-labor in order to ensure low prices for American consumers is also a product of the slow but pervasive influence of authoritative voices in the Marketplace.

The initial challenge of discipleship is entering the arena where power is already being wielded; where authority, leadership and life-shaping are already taking place… and risk association with a history of power-abuse. I don’t like the impact the Marketplace has had on people I love. I think I have a better idea of how to live and spend money. I don’t like the impact certain elements of the Political and Religious worlds have had on people I love. I think I have a better idea how to see and treat people.  So, will I risk the appearance of arrogance and control in order to “put my two cents in?” 

Or is the bigger risk to let whatever cultural forces are most powerful and pervasive do the instructing and shaping of those I love?

20 days ago /  Tagged: , , , , 2
Faithfulness always sets the stage for healing. And sometimes, faithfulness and consistency are what do the healing.

This is an excerpt from a longer sermon on the Book of Acts. 
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In the third chapter of Acts is a striking story about John and Peter healing a man who could not walk.  Or, at least that’s how I’ve generally read the story; that it’s one about Peter and John healing a man.  But I’m beginning to see that it’s also about something more subtle but equally powerful.  On their way to the synagogue, they come across this man, who was taken by friends or neighbors to sit and beg at one of the city gates.  When he asks Peter and John for alms, Peter famously replies “silver and gold I have not, but what I have I give to you” and then proceeds to lift the man up, saying “in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise and walk.”

For years I’ve read that story as bing about the “in-an-instant” healing. Only recently been struck by the other, pivotal part of this story. It’s in verse two. Five verses before the scene’s climax.

“People would lay him daily at the gate of the temple called the Beautiful Gate so that he could ask for alms from those entering the temple.”

Every day, friends or neighbors… someone would carry this man to the temple so that he could ask for help.

Every.
Day.

What happens if, on the day this striking and challenging story was to take place, those same folks had forgone their daily act of kindness and service?

You’re the teacher in whose classroom is that girl who is always on the edge of flunking out. Whose home-life is a mess and whose friends have already dropped out.

You’re the foster parent to a child who has been tossed around by his own family as well as the system.

You’re the friend to that fool who can’t stop shooting himself in the foot socially, financially and otherwise.

You’re the caseworker who has seen the same file dozens of times, over and over.

You’re the brother of a man whose addiction is devouring more and more of his life though he can’t see it or chooses not to.

Keep showing up. Keep teaching. Keep parenting. Keep caring. Keep working. Keep loving and telling the truth.  Because faithfulness always sets the stage for healing. And sometimes, faithfulness and consistency are what do the healing.

22 days ago /  Tagged: , , , 13
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Sunday Reflection: Words of Life

I had posted this same piece at Facebook a few weeks back when the blog was being revamped. Apologies if it’s a repeat for you. Regardless, I’ll be telling this story this morning at a church where I’ve been invited to teach. It’s an important story to me… one of many stories I will live with forever after visiting India with Compassion International. 

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Suzie was painting faces along with two others. Every one of the nearly 300 children who are cared for by the Compassion Church Partner in Cuttack would spend a solid minute face to face, only inches away from their American visitors.

One of the young girls requested that, rather than having whiskers and a pink nose painted on her face, she receive a heart painted on her wrist.  Suzie took the girls tiny arm in her hand and turned it over to reveal several scars on her forearm.  “I fell out of a tree,” she told the translator when asked about it.  But that wasn’t true.  She had been cutting herself, as had several of her friends.

Where does a child get such an idea?

A few hours later, I walked with a small team to a home less than a mile from the Church, where we stood beneath a roof made of bamboo, sticks and leaves. We spoke with the family there, whose children are sponsored.

“What are your struggles as a family?” We asked their father.
“We need a roof that does not leak when it rains.”

Looking up, I could see the yellow/white glow of Cattack’s sky.  Even a light rain would make its way through and make a mess of the dirt floor as well as soaking blankets and clothes.  Theirs was one of several roofs like it in the neighborhood. Others were rain-protected by way of asbestos sheets linked together over bamboo, leaves and sticks.  It costs roughly $200 to put an asbestos, rain-proof roof on one of these homes; a cost utterly beyond this family’s means.  Their father works intermittently as an electrician and it is enough of a battle to simply keep his family fed and housed.

We turned our questions to the kids, and asked the young girl “What do you want to be when you grow up?”
She didn’t pause or blink or hesitate before she said “I am going to be a banking manager.”

She doesn’t just want to work in a bank. She wants to run the place.

I was struck by the same question I had about the girl and her friends who are cutting themselves: Where does a child get such an idea?  She lives in destitute poverty as a member of a caste considered sub-human by many in her culture.  She’s growing up in a society which, in large part, considers her a second class citizen because she’s not a man…   and yet she speaks with complete confidence of her dream to manager a bank. How does that happen?

She got that idea from her sponsor; a 16 year old girl in Canada… whose mother manages a bank. She got that idea from the folks at the Church where she goes to school.  She got that idea from loving people who have consistently cared for her and spoken words of life to her; encouraging her to dream and embrace her dreams as gifts from God.

Throughout my lifeI have been shaped by the words of those around me, for better or for worse. I have never come to a conclusion about my identity, my abilities or my future simply because it was the natural conclusion. There is no ‘neutral’ setting in the human mind and “Nature” does not assure me of my worth.  Identity and confidence are principles of of faith. I may believe that I am trash or I may believe that my life is of eternal value but neither conclusion is arrived at by isolated observation of the simple facts.  I believe such things about myself and do so on the authority I grant the voices of influence in my life. 

Who is speaking into your heart? Who is telling you who you are and what you’re worth? Similarly, what kinds of words are you speaking into the hearts and minds of those you are granted access to?

25 days ago /  Tagged: , , , , 0
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Song-Leading and Treating Songs as Songs

Sandra McCracken led songs at the Q Gathering in DC. In doing so, she did something I wish more song-leaders did: she treated songs as songs.  She spent a few moments talking about each song’s history and writer; sometimes referencing a song’s historical changes in melody or lyric (as in the case of Amazing Grace). She led us in singing a song normally sung during the christmas season but explained that it had not been written as a such and went on to elaborate briefly on it’s original placement. She treated those songs as songs rather than as tools and that helped me feel far more free to sing.

Later that week, artist, theologian and curator Dan Siedell led several of us through the Phillips Collection, an excellent art gallery a few blocks from downtown DC. Pausing in front of one painting, he asked “What is this?” and some brave soul among our small group answered “It’s a nude woman.”

“No, it’s not.” Siedell answered, “It’s a painting.”

I my estimation, a song-leader’s job is much like Dan Siedell’s role in the gallery; to help facilitate an engagement with a work of art, leaving the emotional, philosophical and spiritual reverberations to the Spirit of God and the particular persons in the room.

The temptation among song-leaders in church settings is to create an “experience” of some kind (often emotional in nature).  A song in that setting becomes a tool of manipulation and its goodness is established only in the song’s usefulness in creating the desired effect.  I believe this dishonors the song itself as well as it’s writer… not to mention the damage such “song-leading” does over the long-term in a congregation (a topic on which I’ve written elsewhere).

I thank God for women like Sandra McCracken, whose respect and love for the art of song make her an excellent song-leader; whose song-leading creates space for engagement with art created in reverence for a Creator God.

 

27 days ago /  Tagged: , , 1
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