Song Breakthroughs – How Do They Happen?

© I.Woloshen

Have you ever had a song breakthrough? Do you know what I mean by that? I’m talking about a song that somehow stands apart from your usual fare…something that doesn’t seem at all your “normal” style of writing. How does it happen, and when it does, do you fight it or do you welcome it?

First of all, the “rut” we all get ourselves into once in awhile often creates a kind of frustration that is actually very useful. I relate it to what happens to children when they are small…just before they have a growth spurt, they go through a small period of restlessness and discomfort. As a parent, you KNOW that when they start getting restless, it’s because a change is coming! If, as a songwriter, you try to view your ruts as the frustration before the breakthrough, this might help you to get through them.

So what do you do to get to the “breakthrough” part? This should be treated exactly the same as when you are simply low on inspiration, which is pretty much the same thing. Many songwriters discuss the idea of listening to other music, something completely out of your normal realm, as being helpful in this cause. Trying other instruments can also bring about a musical epiphany. If you’re stuck on ideas for song topics, read a book that you would not have chosen before, go to a place you haven’t been before and people watch, or read some lyrics from your favourite lyricists.

I’ll tell you something that recently worked for me. I sat down with my guitar and started to pretend I was a completely different singer…I was basically “acting”. And for some reason, this brought out a very unusual (for me) chord progression, melody, and a kind of phrasing I hadn’t tried before. What is “phrasing”? In musical terms, it’s a grouping of words and melody. For instance:

Mary had a little lamb
Little lamb, little lamb

The first line has one phrase, the second has two. I’ve separated the phrases with commas. Do you write in long phrasings, or do you create a series of short ones in, for instance, a verse?

But I digress :) The point is that pretending I was someone else just put me in a completely different head space, and out came something quite new for me. This is what I would consider a “breakthrough”. I could have just laughed at it and moved on, but instead I allowed myself to explore it a little. Don’t throw anything away too quickly! If you’re not sure about it, record it on your trusty little digital recorder and then listen to it later with fresh ears. Then again, you might be extremely excited at what is coming out and have the drive to finish it right then and there. The opposite could also be true…you could finish it and then when you’re listening to it later, it could sound like complete garbage. Oh, well :)

In the beginning, as you’re honing your songwriting craft, you might have quite a few breakthroughs. A learning environment almost always inspires. As time goes by, you’ll likely find that you fall into more predictable patterns with your writing as well. This is not necessarily a bad thing…hey, maybe it’s just your style! But if you feel stagnant, then it’s time to do something really different in your life that will change your perspective and help you to find a fresh path. Changing your songwriting environment may also help. Have you ever tried to write something in the great outdoors? On a beach or under the stars?

Another point: don’t be afraid to explore this breakthrough with several songs. Sometimes painters will draw a number of sketches of the same subject before they focus on one perspective and paint that. If you’ve come up with something really different for you, let it develop a little by writing a couple of songs in the same style. Breakthroughs don’t come along very often…so make the most of it!

IJ 

Songwriting Topics Poll

© I.Woloshen

I did a little survey on the BMI website (of which I am a member), just to see how many people used certain words in their titles. The fact is that you can’t copyright a title, so if you wanted to write a song called (gag) “I Love You”, you could certainly do that, provided you don’t plagiarize someone else’s song. Now don’t get mad at me if you’ve actually written a song called “I Love You” :)

Do you want to guess how many songs are listed in the BMI catalog with just that title? 2,304. I’m asking myself, do people think that this is an original title?!?! There are probably many others in the ASCAP catalog, even more in other countries, and probably ten times that many that have never even been registered! I picked two other titles I thought were obvious…well, these weren’t quite as common. The title “I’m Alright” had 70 entries, but “You’re The One” had 619!

Next, I decided just to use single words…I picked some random ones, and here’s what I came up with:

You (or) I – so many titles I had a runtime error!
Love – 31,404
Me – 25,014
Don’t – 23,943
When – 19,176
Why – 7,291
Life – 5835
Time – 7778

And then I picked some odd words…even they had entries!

Dog – 1302
Spoon – 101

There are 101 registered titles with “spoon” in them???? :)

Try it yourself…go to the BMI website (link above) and type in a few of your most recent titles :) Think they were pretty original? Ha! I found one of mine that was all by its lonesome…”Fusion and Fire”. I thought that was pretty unique and I was right, at least in BMI’s database.

So let’s talk about titles for a moment. What’s so important about a title? Well, I guess in some ways that’s up to you. Sometimes you write lyrics where the title jumps out and you and seems pretty obvious. A lot of people use the “hook” line as a title. Sometimes, there is no obvious title…recently someone asked a question on my forum about the importance of titles in instrumental songs. What do you think? I occasionally use less obvious words or phrases for my titles because I like the sound of them…I will never use something that isn’t actually in the song somewhere. As far as I’m concerned, I want people to remember the names of the songs I play. You improve your chances of that when the title is actually in the song!

But this article is meant to be about topics. I would venture to guess that the most common topic is love, or some aspect of it. Most of the songs I review tend to involve this topic. So if you don’t want to be like everyone else, what else can you write about?

I was watching a series on Mark Twain the other night, and one thing that was mentioned was that he was most successful when he drew from his childhood experiences to come up with some of his stories. Do your songs have to be about you? Of course not. When we’re first starting out, the majority of us tend to write about ourselves…songwriting CAN be a rather self-indulgent form of expression. But you can use your past experiences, which are “truths”, to embellish your lyrics in a more universal way. Remember, “truths” in songwriting are very powerful. When you express something that is a common truth, people pick up on that. I once wrote a song called “One More”, which was really about a personal experience I had with the death of a friend. I get a lot of response from that song when I perform it, or when people hear it on my CD. I must have found a few universal truths when I was writing it that people can relate to.

Where can you find new and interesting topics? Well, if your past or your own experiences are not full of potential songs, what about the people around you? Their experiences may also be a source of ideas for you. Just make sure you discuss it with them, or at least make it anonymous enough so they don’t know it’s about them!! Beyond that, there are stories in newspapers, books and magazines. I wrote a song based on a true story that was on a television magazine-type of show…I didn’t write it immediately after, the but the story moved me so much that it stuck with me.

From the sounds of it, I’m trying to encourage you to write “story” songs. You can use the emotional impact of a story, or isolate small parts of it and only write about that. I have explained this in other articles, but the best songs require a beginning, a middle and an end. Sometimes people think I mean they have to be stories, but that’s not what I mean! I mean that the song has to feel like it makes sense, that it has a beginning, and one verse (one thought) leads to another and then it resolves itself, even if just to say nothing is ever going to be resolved. Does this make sense? In many song lyrics I read, the verses could be all swapped around and it wouldn’t make any difference to the song…whereas a song lyric that is well-written has every verse exactly where it makes sense, and would be ruined if any of them were changed around. THAT’S what I mean. Recently, a fellow who’s song I actually PRAISED for having a beginning, middle and end, told me to read it again! He didn’t get what I meant, and I probably didn’t explain myself well enough :)

Beyond this, you can write about places, spiritual things, or how much your job is a pain in the ass…hell, you could write a song about dancing! Of course it’s been done before…they ALL have, but not with your voice. The fact is that song topics are everywhere around you, and only you can express them in a certain way. And that is the most important point. If we sat down and listened to every single one of those 2,304 songs called “I Love You”…I wonder how many of them would use exactly the same phrases?? So even if you choose to write a love song, remember to write it with your unique songwriting “voice” and stay away from those old, worn out lines and expressions that we’ve all heard a thousand times before.

IJ 

A Web Presence – Do You Need It?

© I.Woloshen

As a songwriter, there are certainly advantages to having your songs, or at the very least yourSELF exposed to the masses. The “millions” that internet companies tell us we’ll be exposed to, however, isn’t necessarily true. Why? Because there are millions of other websites out there, and an infinite number of surfing possibilities! So why bother? Well, here are a few of my thoughts.

I’ve had my webpage online for about 6 years now…that’s pretty much since the beginning of the internet when we were all just learning about it. Of course, many things have changed in those six years…websites can be a lot more interesting to look at and hang out in now, many of us have faster connections, and we’ve all become more web-savvy both in our surfing and in our creation of them. The downside, of course, was that too many people jumped on the bandwagon, starting internet companies and a boom in the stock market, only to fall flat when many of them proved to have no substance. That’s my first rule of thumb: substance.

Maintaining a webpage of any sort is a big job. Actually, you have to think of it as an “ongoing” job. Just putting your picture and a couple of audio files online is not going to do much for you, unless you’re already famous :) If you don’t want it to be a lot of work, my first suggestion is to use a websites like Soundclick, where you don’t have to do AS MUCH to keep it going. You still need to advertise it and keep it fresh in order to keep them coming back, but it’s not as much work as maintaining your own website. SO, if you’re not ready to commit to the time it takes with your own website, these others are a good starting place.

What Is Required Of You – Essentially, think of these sites as online press kits. On most sites you will need photos, audio files, a bio and if possible, some press quotes. I’ve seen people use fancy generic photos instead of pictures of themselves…I’ve even seen a few people use their pets  :) I have to say though, that if you’re a performing songwriter, the pic should be of you. Make it a good one, a close-up if possible.

Audio files are normally mp3 files these days, although some sites convert into Real Audio files as well. If you don’t know how to make an mp3 file, then learn how! Or at the very least, get your audio gearhead friends to do it for you. By doing a search on your favourite search engine for “how to make mp3 files”, you’ll get a lot of websites to peruse. My set up is this: I stick my CD in my computer’s CD/DVD player…from a CD, I rip the .wav files into Windows Media. Then I convert them to mp3 files using Adobe Audition , but there are plenty of free audio converters out there, just do a Google search for audio converters. When you upload an mp3 file to a website like Soundclick, lo-fi and hi-fi versions of the files will automatically be created, so all you upload are mp3 files. Confused yet? Don’t worry, it’ll get easier  :)

Your bio should be short, concise, and only include the highlights. Favourite colours and other hobbies might be cute, but they are not important facts  :) I’ve seen very clever bios that don’t say ANYTHING relevant…maybe that’ll attract a few jokers. A sense of humour isn’t a bad thing, just make sure you include a little beef with your burger. If you’ve had any press at all, throw in a couple of good quotes. This makes you appear more “legitimate”, even if it was your uncles’ newspaper in a small town of 250 people where the quote appeared.

Beyond this, as I said before, keep it fresh. If you get new pictures, upload them, new songs, same thing. You don’t have to upload ALL of your songs, but rotate them once in awhile. If you have any news, upcoming performances, awards…let your listeners know.

These are the basic elements you’ll need for other music websites. But what about creating your own website…is it worth the trouble? I’m certainly not going to try to teach you how to build a website, I’m much better at teaching guitar  :) But strictly from the point of view of a songwriter or performing songwriter, there are several things to consider. When I first created my website, the smartest thing I read about building one was that it had to have something on it that would keep people coming back. That’s when I had the idea to create a songwriting tips section that I started writing articles for. There are a number of big websites now that cover all aspects of songwriting that are far better than mine, but on almost every one of them, there’s a link to mine! This has built up slowly, over the years. Most of the traffic to my website used to be from links that other songwriters had up on their web pages. The majority of traffic I get now is simply from search engine inquiries with the keywords “songwriting tips”!

You are likely not going to want to write your own songwriting tips (although I encourage you to if you can!), but you have to create your webpage with the same thought…”how can I make sure people will come back for more?” This is not an easy task. Content is everything. You could build a site around another hobby or interest…you’re a creative person, just let your imagination go! Here’s another list of do’s and don’t’s in terms of creating a website:

1.Do check out the singer-songwriter directory and check out as many webpages as you can to see how others have done it.

2.Do remember the same rule you apply to your songwriting…K.I.S.S. Keep it simple stupid!

3.Do some research on HTML, the code that is used to create webpages. You can buy software to create your pages that doesn’t require any extensive knowledge, but it helps to know a little.

4.If you are colour-blind, do consider getting some colour scheme ideas from elsewhere…OH, how the eyes hurt when I see pink text on a blue background…arrgghh!!

5.Don’t have a bunch of goofy, distracting, time-consuming animations or java-scripts on your pages unless they apply directly to your content. People will leave your site really fast if it takes too long to download, or if it makes their computer crash!

You don’t have to pay for web space these days…do a search on any search engine for “free web space” and you’ll find all kinds of them.

Promotion Is Everything! If you already have a following in terms of performing…have your website URL on every piece of promotional material you put out there…posters, business cards, stickers, CD’s, everything. If you don’t have a following yet, you’re going to have to spend a lot of time promoting your website, mostly on the web. Make sure it is listed with all of the major search engines. If there are other music-related websites where you can post or promote your site, do so. Join songwriter forums (see my critique boards article for links), and chats so that you can not only meet other songwriters, but get some promotional ideas. The web is not a static place, it changes constantly, so be on the lookout for new places to promote yourself as much as you can.

I handle my own web pages, etc., but that does not make me an expert when it comes to web page development. So if you have any general questions about it, I’d be happy to help you. Otherwise, I’d refer you to any one of a number of websites that have much better and more specific information. That’s my disclaimer  :)

Ultimately, if you’re willing to put the work into it, having a web page has far more advantages than not. You’ll “meet” all kinds of people out there, find new songwriting collaborators, new fans and you’ll find yourself part of a wonderful community. Good Luck!

IJ