Workshop Notes

Subject: Workshop Notes
From: John Hardly
Date: 28 Mar 07 - 07:25 PM

I had the good fortune of attending a very informative songwriting workshop with one of my favorite writers -- Pierce Pettis. I thought that since I had the notes written down, I'd share them here.

The workshop was interesting – probably too long, too much for one day – but interesting. He made lots of suggestions that I've heard before:



Keep a notepad with you at all times



Try re-writing an existing popular song (either write a new melody for an old lyric, or new lyrics for an old song). It's good practice to understand the structure of well written songs, and you might just come up with some really good songs. If not re-writing songs, at least (he suggests) make yourself sit down with some (existing songs of others, pop or whatever) songs you like and physically, on paper, chart their syllable structure so you learn how to tighten up the rhythm structure of your own songs.



Stop thinking of your songs as static. That is, learn that they can be re-written over and over and over and that no one single version has to be THE version of the song. (he said that many Nashville songwriters will take the same song and present it with new melodies – several versions of the same song). He also says that he keeps a file on each song – including all the re-writes – because he may decide to either go back to an earlier edition, or even go off on another tangent with a different version.



Every song should have a hook. He allowed as how this has seemingly taken on a negative (marketing) connotation, but it needn't. It's just a most memorable line from a song that makes people remember the song.



He talked about rhyme schemes – how good, hard rhymes (bat, cat, hat) should be the first choice if possible, but don't dismiss "softer" rhymes (bat, cab, tad) if necessary – in fact, a soft rhyme trumps awkward syntax any day (one can soften pronunciation, but they can't un-sing a strange, or reversed order to a sentence that is clearly in that weird order JUST to make a line come out in a good hard rhyme).



He recommended trying to NOT write ballads. He even suggested seeing if some of what you've written as a ballad might not be stronger with more tempo or varied rhythm (especially changing a plodding 4/4 time to a more uptempo 2/4 time – he told of telling a woman he knows to try this, and the end result won a very big songwriting contest). In this regard, he recommended a drum machine as a terrific writing tool -- just turn it on and write to a chosen rhythm (a technique, by the way, that I first heard about from Paul Simon).



At the end of the workshop a few brave souls played some of their stuff and Pettis offered suggestions. That was fairly useful in a practical sense. It was funny, though. MOST of the players, rather than assimilate the suggestions, chose instead to defend why they wrote it the way they did. Human nature I suppose. I'm sure they felt pretty vulnerable.

I should have mentioned that he was coming at the whole workshop from the "Nashville Songwriter Association" point of view – how to write successfully marketable songs. His perspective was of that of a guy who's had a publishing contract with the biggest firm in Nashville (apparently right now he doesn't have a contract – I know he moved out of Nashville a few years back). He doesn't like much of what's being produced out of Nashville for the country scene, but he was clearly saying that much of what will make a pop song popular will make a song good. Does that make sense?



Another thing he mentioned about songs – he's big into contrast. Leveling verses building to more climactic choruses, or bigger intervals in the melody, or more daring use of rhythm – basically making a song's statement more effective by use of contrasts. I think he was trying to gently tell the writers present that too many people were writing too many boring songs and needed to shake them up a bit. And often it is contrast that shakes a song up – makes it more interesting.



He had a couple of handouts that are produced by the Nashville Songwriters Association – one of them a "quiz" – basically a checklist of questions to ask about a song once you think you are "finished" with it – sort of a set of questions you might expect if you were to try to market your songs in Nashville. They are just brutally frank questions about structure and following the rules of "good songwriting" with purposeful disregard for how one MIGHT successfully break those rules. Pettis was trying to get the idea across to some of the writers there that, sure, you can point out exceptions to every rule – but that those exceptions don't negate the value of those rules, and that's why the types of questions asked in the quiz can be so valuable.

Subject: RE: Workshop Notes
From: Vixen
Date: 29 Mar 07 - 09:16 AM

Wow! Sounds like a really interesting workshop...I'm going to try the "drum machine" strategy. And I agree about contrast being necessary and effective, though sometimes it's difficult to "get out of the rut" (either rhythmic or melodic) to come up with contrast. I find that hurdle easiest to overcome when I mash together two songs (sometimes written years apart) that deal with the same idea in two different ways. Usually, one verse of one of the songs can be made into a "hookish" chorus and the other song provides the verses. Sometimes I'm able to cull a "bridge" or "middle 8" from one or the other, or even a third. I find I have certain themes I return to again and again and again and...ad nauseam, though I never seem to get sick of them. I must have a dozen "rain songs"; likewise "highway songs". I also keep a file folder for every song, and one file folder for "scraps in process". Here's hoping I get to attend a Pierce Pettis workshop someday!

Where was the workshop held?

V

Subject: RE: Workshop Notes
From: GUEST,Tom Bliss
Date: 29 Mar 07 - 09:50 AM

more in a similar vein HERE if you're interested

Subject: RE: Workshop Notes
From: John Hardly
Date: 29 Mar 07 - 09:56 AM

V,

The workshop was in the suburban Chicago area.

I like your idea about adding songs together. It makes a certain amount of sense in that it will probably naturally create a more faceted whole -- a song that approaches a theme from more angles. Good idea.

Subject: RE: Workshop Notes
From: Vixen
Date: 29 Mar 07 - 10:27 AM

Wow again!

I just printed out Guest, Tom's "background reading"...it's a terrific distillation of process and chock-a-block full of useful ideas!

I tend to create batches of songs out of "inspiration," and when the "inspiration" runs dry, I create with "perspiration"--craft, process, and labor. This morning, I was driving to work contemplating the musical element of my current batch in process, and, lo and behold, I find Mudcatters who have anticipated my need, and addressed it! Amazing.

Mudcats ARE the best--

Thanks to both of you!

V

Subject: RE: Workshop Notes
From: GUEST,Marion
Date: 29 Mar 07 - 04:31 PM

Thanks for passing this on, John.

In the context of "try not to write a ballad"... what's a ballad? I usually think of a ballad as a song with narrative lyrics, and a highly valued form in the folkie world. But this paragraph makes it sound like a musical structure. Can you explain? I know that certain pop/rock songs, usually love songs, are also called ballads, but I don't know what the defining characteristic is in pop/rock.

Marion

Subject: RE: Workshop Notes
From: John Hardly
Date: 29 Mar 07 - 09:23 PM

I've kinda wondered the same thing, Marion. I mean, I kinda knew what was meant by a pop "ballad", but couldn't really give a definition. Wikipedia says kinda what I thought though...

"In the 20th Century, "ballad" took on the meaning of a popular song "especially of a romantic or sentimental nature" (American Heritage Dictionary). {...} often divide songs into two categories: "ballads" (slower or sentimental songs) and "up" tunes (faster or happier songs)."

Subject: RE: Workshop Notes
From: Vixen
Date: 30 Mar 07 - 08:10 AM

I don't have my prosodic handbook at the ready, but, to the best of my recollection, the "classic" ballad structure in English is a narrative without a refrain or chorus, *usually* in iambic tetra- or pentameter (4 or 5 duh-DUHs to a line) rhyming abab or abcb.

Contemporary pop music has sort of co-opted the prosodic terminology--ballads, as John Hardly cites, have become something less technical. The same goes for anthems, in my opinion. "We will, we will, Rock You" (Queen) is not, in my opinion, an anthem, but that's how the popular music world has classified it.

Just my $0.02, fwiw.

V