how can i top THAT?

Posted: Mon Jul 09, 2007 2:33 am

dcj wrote:

Remember, a shity recording of a great song is still far better than a great recording of a shity song.

That's absolutely THE truth.

And its also good and appropriate advice to keep working on the music, and not the gear.

The gear (for a singer/songwriter) provides tools to write, rather than the songs being excuses to record! Exclamation

As a writer, you should concentrate on opening the door to your muse by whatever means you need to do to FEED THE MUSE with new information that fires you up. Whatever gets your motor running, that should be your next move. Don't worry about topping yourself, or someone else. Just keep writing... Let it out... Grease the apparatus that produces for the muse so you're prepared for the magic when it happens. Worry about subject matter then presentation from a writers point of view. Then re-read the dcj quote...

There's no right answer to your huge question (as previously said), there's no wrong way to write a song, there's no wrong way to paint a picture. It's because we are all different that we can all write songs. It's not really a contest. It's passion, it's art - YOUR art, that matters. At least that's what keeps me going.

Be happy you are productive at all, and keep excerising your methods, and you'll get a new gem in due time.

Posted: Fri Jul 13, 2007 1:23 am

Trying to top yourself constantly is really one of the worst things you can do if you wish to be able to keep writing good music. Rather than let emotions flow from your inspirations, you begin to look at everything you write as "is this really better?" and over-critique it. Some of the best songs ever written are simple songs that didn't have much effort really put into them.

I'm not saying that you should not try to continue to improve your writing, rather I am saying that you should approach your writing not to just make something better but let your inspirations and emotions flow. The two fundamental building blocks of music are inspiration and emotion. If you don't have the inspiration, you can't let the emotion make the music. If you don't have the emotion, then you have nothing to feed the inspiration.

Your music will constantly be evolving. I played for a few years in a local Christian band and wrote the music for the lyrics. My method was to just sit down with our vocalist (who wrote all the lyrics) and just play as he established the song. I could see his inspiration, and while his emotion had created the lyrics, I used mine to add the music. We mostly played music somewhere between Creed and "Black album" Metallica.

Now, I find myself writing music with no lyrics. I've never been good with lyrics, but I generally get my point across with just my guitar. In the last couple of years, I've gone from my primary guitar for writing being a 7-string Strat plugged into a stack to my steel-string acoustic guitar and now my nylon-string guitar. I've also done a little bit on piano, both original and arrangements to some songs written by my cousin. The interesting part about the piano arrangements is they've come about through me playing with him as a lead guitar every now and then when he performs with a band we throw together. Some of his songs just enter my head with a piano playing rather than the guitars. I usually just do an arrangement, send it to him, and sometimes that's what it takes.

My point about the transition I've made with instruments is that sometimes you will change not only your style of music, but also your primary instrument. The key is to just feed the inspirations to your emotions and let the music flow. If you hear something different in your head than your primary instrument, use what you hear. You may want to write the basic progression on your primary instrument, then arrange it on another - that's how I do piano stuff.

If you open yourself to change, then all will be fine. Bands that lock in to a specific style will often lose much of their quality because they (or a lot of times the label) didn't let their style change to reflect where they are at in their lives.

Posted: Thu Dec 13, 2007 9:37 am

song4gabriel wrote:

there have been many times in my life where i have thought to myself "that is the best song i've ever written." thats why i write music. so that i can hopefully say it again. and again.

That's as beautiful as it is true.

Taking a break usually helps. Also, try not comparing what you write to past efforts. Start with a clean state of mind and remind yourself that you've had this attitude before (unless you've only been writing for a few months) and that things do improve and you do end up writing a new chunk of songs that you love more than anything because you stuck it out!

Posted: Sat Dec 15, 2007 6:44 am

Don't even have that state of mind. As long as you're persistent and dedicated you will keep getting better and better. REMEMBER though, that it will never be a straight line to the top, its more of like a saw tooth, which goes up and down and up and down (maybe down down down...), but in the long run reaches the top (take it this way, write a couple more songs, finish them no matter what, and you'll be bound to have something exciting in there!). You will always get better as long as you don't give up and you keep going. That's life, its the same for everything! Music can get extremely frustrating, and sometimes you can't help but to wonder if you've really got what it takes. You gotta give it everything you've got and never give up, no matter how bad you're feeling. Don't ever let negative thoughts get in your head, they only bring you down and constrict any real inspiration you have. Train yourself to be more positive, and always remember that as long as you don't give up you will keep getting better.

It seems like you haven't written many songs though. A more experienced songwriter wouldn't want to write the same songs over again. That's the truth, you should always try to keep things fresh and new. Keep evolving, that's not a bad thing. Get away from that same thought process you had when you were writing your previous stuff. Stop thinking that same way and new inspiration will come. Try messing around with some new sounds maybe that will get the juices flowing. Don't just listen to music, but study it. Pay attention to every instrument in the song, what it does and how it affects it.

Also, the moment you think you've learned it all is the moment you will stop improving. You can never know enough and you should always try and keep an open mind about everything and absorb in all the information you can. This is the real reason why bands that seemed to be so good never topped off a couple hits they previously had. They stopped learning, therefore they stopped evolving. Keep all this in mind and I am promising you will come a long way.

PS: There's no such thing as selling out!!!. Metallica's drummer Lars Ulrich once said something along the lines of "yeah we sell out, we sell out STADIUMS!!" Exclamation

BrianAltenhofel had a great post also. Make sure you read that!

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