Do you write songs...

Subject: Do you write songs...
From: Froodo
Date: 23 Feb 01 - 01:25 PM

Just wondering how many out there write and perform your own material? Or do you only perform trad. folk tunes? What about recording experience? If you are only recording trad. songs, is there a market for it...outside of the mudcat?

Froodo, green folk singer

Subject: RE: BS: Do you write songs...
From: Amos
Date: 23 Feb 01 - 01:27 PM

Frodo:

Peruse the Mudcat Songbook for a partial answer.

Use the Links button at the top of the page.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Do you write songs...
From: Bert
Date: 23 Feb 01 - 01:28 PM

Of course! I just SAY I'm a folksinger to get an excuse to sing my own songs.

Subject: RE: BS: Do you write songs...
From: Froodo
Date: 23 Feb 01 - 01:57 PM

thanks Amos...I wasn't aware of those links...very cool!

Subject: RE: BS: Do you write songs...
From: Kim C
Date: 23 Feb 01 - 02:08 PM

Well, Mister and I are reenactors who play period music, so you could say that's really a niche market! But I also write songs that sound old about period subjects, if that makes sense. At a lot of stuff we do, we can get away with playing them, like banquets, etc., where we don't have to adhere to strict period guidelines. There is always a market for good music, although sometimes you may have to search for it.

I also write some pop-type songs but some of them are so personal I don't play them for anyone. :)

Subject: RE: BS: Do you write songs...
From: nutty
Date: 23 Feb 01 - 02:15 PM

I always say that I don't write songs - they appear.

I never know what the inspiration was but a song often comes into my head almost complete with words and tunes.

The same thing happens when I am reading poetry and suddenly discover that, instead of a poem, I now have a song as a tune has attached itself to the words

Because I am not writing specifically for myself I often find it difficult to sing my own material
It doesn't make learning the words easier either

Subject: RE: BS: Do you write songs...
From: Hawker
Date: 23 Feb 01 - 05:23 PM

Yes I do, not hundreds, but on occasion when the mood takes me.

I am not worried about singing them along with hundred year old folk songs at a gig, after all every folk song was written at some time, the test is whether they get absorbed into the tradition......

Then you know you've REALLY written a song!

Happy writing, Lucy

Subject: RE: BS: Do you write songs...
From: bluebird
Date: 23 Feb 01 - 06:35 PM

If you write songs put the songs on here I would like to read them isn't that what folk songs are songs from folks.

Subject: RE: BS: Do you write songs...
From: Amergin
Date: 23 Feb 01 - 06:36 PM

Submit them to Aine...

Subject: RE: BS: Do you write songs...
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 23 Feb 01 - 06:47 PM

Mudcat Songbook

All home-grown Catnip.

Subject: RE: BS: Do you write songs...
From: Matt_R
Date: 23 Feb 01 - 06:49 PM

Yes, but not in a long time. Inspiration has left me. I spend more time discovering music than writing my own.

Subject: RE: BS: Do you write songs...
From: Mark Cohen
Date: 23 Feb 01 - 09:22 PM

Matt, it's been over ten years since I've written a song, but I feel them just beginning to bubble up again. Be patient and keep your eyes and ears and heart open, and the music will come back. Meanwhile keep playing.

Aloha,
Mark

Subject: RE: BS: Do you write songs...
From: hesperis
Date: 24 Feb 01 - 12:15 AM

Yep, and I'm finally recording them too! (Some of them...)

Subject: RE: BS: Do you write songs...
From: Paul Mitchell
Date: 24 Feb 01 - 03:22 AM

I guess, kind of like Nutty, I don't write songs, they sort of gradually appear (on the whole). I perform my stuff to a part of the pagan community here in England, so it's quite a specialist market. I call it folk music because that's the style of music in which my heart lies, and because I hope my stuff makes observations about things and records a little subjective history (a role I believe folk music plays).

THere is a market for folk music outside the Mudcat. There are lots of markets. It's just most of them won't make you rich. But I guess that keeps the music coming from the heart of musicians, rather than the bank accounts of P.R. men.

Paul

Subject: RE: BS: Do you write songs...
From: mkebenn
Date: 24 Feb 01 - 06:58 AM

I'm in the boat with Matt and Mark, nothing new for ten years or so, but then I wasn't playing much during that time. But the Martin is talking again, and there are 30yrs of songs that I have in my head, and bubblin' they are. I've found the 'cat helps the perculation more than any one thing I can remember, 'cept that Scorpio witch in Fla 20yrs ago LOL. Mike

Subject: RE: BS: Do you write songs...
From: Mrs.Duck
Date: 24 Feb 01 - 11:40 AM

I've only ever written one song and haven't recorded anything but who knows maybe one day!

Subject: RE: BS: Do you write songs...
From: cowboypoet
Date: 24 Feb 01 - 01:53 PM

For myself, I agree with Cosy Sheridan who once said "Song writing is too important to be left to amateurs."

Subject: RE: BS: Do you write songs...
From: nutty
Date: 24 Feb 01 - 03:18 PM

That last statement equates very well with the arguement that Rudyard Kipling was not a POET....... he was a "WRITER OF VERSE"

God preserve us from the "PROFESSIONAL" songwriter

Subject: RE: BS: Do you write songs...
From: Amos
Date: 25 Feb 01 - 02:30 AM

Nutty: What, you don't dig "Swanee River", "Old Black Joe", "Bird in a Gilded Cage", "Sidewalks of New York" -- 'samadda you? Don't like their sense o' rivvim? :>)

A

Subject: RE: BS: Do you write songs...
From: Mark Cohen
Date: 25 Feb 01 - 03:17 AM

cowboy, would you happen to know if Cosy's song "Still Life" is about the Still Life in Fremont (in Seattle?) I have a hard time getting all the words when I listen to it. And wouldn't that make more sense if it said "professionals"? Or am I missing something?

Aloha,
Mark

Subject: RE: BS: Do you write songs...
From: tiggerdooley
Date: 25 Feb 01 - 08:52 AM

I get reallllly stressed and ratty when there'e a song bubbling up. Sometimes it can take weeks (and it has been known to take months). I begin to put it down to hormones or something like that, but then all of a sudden, a song emerges, and I love it and I want to share it 'cos I'm not embarrassed like I am with some of my songs. Then my bad mood goes away.

Subject: RE: BS: Do you write songs...
From: Bluesman and kde
Date: 25 Feb 01 - 09:13 AM

I tend to write all my songs while riding down the highway in my van. (A little weed goes a long way when doing this!!! LOL) I've been a musician for over 40 years and my songwriting comes and goes. Recently, after meeting my new lady, I've been so inspired to write because she stands behind my music more than anyone else ever has. Makes one wonder how it might have been had I not been married to 3 different women who didn't inspire me at all!!!!!............Jim

Subject: RE: BS: Do you write songs...
From: Dunc
Date: 25 Feb 01 - 11:45 AM

I don't have the best voice in the world - but I got by singing traditional unaccompanied Scottish / English / Irish songs. I found that funny songs that got the audience laughing covered up the creaks in my voice.

So I started to write my own funny songs set to traditional tunes.

It works for me and I find that, as an unaccompanied singer, I can hold the attention of an audience for a much longer period with my own brand of humour and singing, than by sticking to the traditional material.

Subject: RE: BS: Do you write songs...
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 25 Feb 01 - 12:00 PM

Over the last 50 years--is that really possible?--I've written quite a number of songs and some few instrumental pieces. Out of all that production, I think there are four songs, three banjo pieces, and one guitar piece that I am fairly proud of and would include in a performance. The rest were mostly so-so, and a few downright awful. And one song that I thought was first-rate, but I can't perform it in public. Why? It was written for magicians (I used to be one) and contains in-group information that not only would be meaniningless to outsiders but some of which would let "laymen" know that certain things are possible which we don't like anybody to know CAN be done, never mind how.

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: BS: Do you write songs...
From: wysiwyg
Date: 26 Feb 01 - 10:40 AM

Well, Dave, that only means you have a possible new career traveling to magicians' conventions and doing the song for them!

Alternatively, do it in public now, just translate it into some obscure language!

Songs come for me so many different ways... two this week I had no idea were coming, and they sound like theatrical musical material, so whassup with THAT???

~S~

Subject: RE: BS: Do you write songs...
From: Amos
Date: 26 Feb 01 - 09:56 PM

Souz:

De Shaaadow Knoooows!!!! 8>)))

Love

A

Subject: RE: BS: Do you write songs...
From: Benjamin
Date: 26 Feb 01 - 10:40 PM

I've tried my hand at a few songs. I've talked with audio enginering (I spelled that word wrong, sorry) about recording, so maybe it will happen sooner rather than later. We'll have to wait and see.

Nothing to recent though. Too much going on. Too little inspiration, or maybe too much. But I've got a few songs in the works. So we'll see what comes out of all this.

Subject: RE: BS: Do you write songs...
From: Benjamin
Date: 26 Feb 01 - 10:44 PM

Sorry, I didn't finish a sentence in my last post.

"I've been talking with a.e. students at my school about recording" is what I meant to say.

Subject: RE: BS: Do you write songs...
From: jcdevildog
Date: 26 Feb 01 - 11:28 PM

I've been writing songs for about 6 years--just started spontaneously one day, although I suspect events at the time had a lot to do with it. I'd recently lost my dad, who taught me most of my traditional repertoire; and I was severely pissed-off over the so-called "Republican Revolution" of 1994. I started writing parodies, and it kind of mushroomed from there: I write anywhere from 15-30 songs a year and think I've gotten pretty good, at least as a lyricist. I tend to use mostly "folk-type" melodies, but that may be because I don't know much theory and it's easier for me to "KISS" where melody's concerned. I did a tape about 2 years ago and am getting started on a CD.

My philosophy on writing is that the more you do, the easier it gets. To put it a bit more "art-fully", the more you pursue the muse, the more she responds. (This is how we know the muse is female: a male muse would flee when pursued, right?) I used to set up specific writing times if I'd gone two weeks without anything coming spontaneously; now I give myself more of a break (I'll never get through my back catalogue anyway) but try to take advantage of natural opportunities. I write down ideas when I don't have time to work on them right away; and where I used to do housework when I had insomnia, now I pull out my "idea" folder and work on a song--a new idea, an unfinished piece, or an old piece I think could be improved.

Subject: RE: BS: Do you write songs...
From: mousethief
Date: 26 Feb 01 - 11:43 PM

Yeah.

Subject: RE: BS: Do you write songs...
From: wysiwyg
Date: 27 Feb 01 - 02:08 AM

Amos,

You warm my soul

...with a slow-spreading, pleased grin

that drips through the cockles of my heart

(coldcockled?)

...all the way down to my stubby, cute little wiggly toes.

(Socks flying.)

Ah speck Shadow know dat, too.

~Susan

Subject: RE: BS: Do you write songs...
From: KingBrilliant
Date: 27 Feb 01 - 05:04 AM

I've written a few - but mostly they are not personal to me, more like stories. I've performed my own songs at an open-mic thing & they went across OK - but I wouldn't want to do exclusively my own stuff as its asking a lot of an audience to pay attention to something they've not heard before & which has no familiar bits to latch onto. I've only written two that were about how I feel. One was for Hammerite when she was about 3 years old, and its very gentle & sweet.
The other is very recent & was written as therapy to stop me getting really wound up about someone. There's a woman I know that really can't stand me and I've no idea why - I don't think I've ever done anything to upset her. Anyway, its got to the stage where she explicitly goes out of her way to ignore me, and I started not to find it so funny anymore. My dad told me to 'let it go' & so I wrote a song along those lines, and now I am totally cured!! She probably still hates me, but now I really don't mind.
I am totally amazed at the power of a song to support & reinforce a particular state of mind & I begin to see how songs can be such effective propaganda...
I probably shall sing it at a pub session soon (and most likely with her in the room - but not in a vindictive spirit - she won't know its about her).
Not sure what markets are where for what - but that's OK because I'm not selling anything.

Kris

Subject: RE: BS: Do you write songs...
From: Jim Krause
Date: 27 Feb 01 - 05:31 PM

Frodo, I do about half and half original and Trad. Is there a market for the Trad. stuff? Yeah, some; not as big as rap though.

As for recording experience, I love going into the recording studio. But when the costs come out of your own pocket, you don't get the pleasure very often. So, I don't know when the next CD is coming out. Good luck, and just do it for the joy and fun of it all.
Jim

Subject: RE: BS: Do you write songs...
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 27 Feb 01 - 09:31 PM

Is there a market for breathing?

Subject: RE: BS: Do you write songs...
From: reggie miles
Date: 28 Feb 01 - 09:30 AM

Just recently got the bug. I think coming here and doing so much reading and posting helped. So I pulled out some stuff I started a long time ago and tried to finish it. It sometimes takes getting shook up about something to get me to write about it. Having been a part of the whole WTO fiasco here in Seattle it wasn't difficult to write my first protest song.

Subject: RE: BS: Do you write songs...
From: Ebbie
Date: 28 Feb 01 - 09:26 PM

I love Bill Staines' line in River: I felt my own music within me rise like the wind in the Autumn trees.

Isn't that great!

Ebbie

Subject: RE: BS: Do you write songs...
From: Sarah2
Date: 28 Feb 01 - 09:39 PM

Like many above, I haven't written much lately, and a lot of the old stuff no longer seems to pertain, so I'm only performing one of two of them, now. It seems to be compulsive with me, something that I either have to do, now, or it just doesn't show up at all. Plenty of great songs out there, though -- a lot of them in the "damn, wish I'd written that" category. Enough to keep me busy learning them between compusions, anyway.

Sarah

Subject: RE: BS: Do you write songs...
From: reggie miles
Date: 28 Feb 01 - 09:59 PM

I do just about everything my friend Robert Oneman Johnson has written. He a great writer and deserves to be heard but spends much of his time out of the country. He's been nice enough to allow me to perform and record his material, something I'm only too happy to do. (:

Subject: RE: BS: Do you write songs...
From: wysiwyg
Date: 01 Mar 01 - 01:11 AM

McGrath.... lovely, lovely.

~S~

Subject: RE: BS: Do you write songs...
From: Jim Krause
Date: 01 Mar 01 - 05:35 PM

Ebbie
Everything Bill Staines writes is great. I wanna write songs like that when I grow up.
Jim

Subject: RE: BS: Do you write songs...
From: Mr Red
Date: 02 Mar 01 - 05:32 PM

I always wanted to sing one of my own songs at the Somers Traditional Folk Club that would have them fooled. (mumers of "not trad mutter mutter" were often heard after many songs)

Several songs later I fooled them all except a fellow poet. The irony is that years later we made a club tape of original song/music and I was on it several times.

Sometimes we need that little extra challenge to turn an also ran into a good bet.

The club doesn' buzz the same now and my songwriting need a different challenge. Suggestions welcome. I'm desperate!

Subject: RE: BS: Do you write songs...
From: Jim Krause
Date: 02 Mar 01 - 05:45 PM

Red, I guess I must be about the laziest songwriter on the planet. I have to have a song challenge in order to get me to write.

So, I'll issue a song challenge to you. Write a song that uses a book title, or is inspired by a book title.
Jim

Subject: RE: BS: Do you write songs...
From: black walnut
Date: 02 Mar 01 - 06:14 PM

I want to write songs like Bruce Cockburn some day. He really knows how to use a metaphor. I've heard that he can spend months working and reworking a lyric until he crafts it into something he's happy to sing. This gives me great hope.

Right now there is a lot of variation in the songs I write. I guess I'm still very much feeling my way. I'm drawing from a variety of sources. Sometimes it's easier than others to find my own voice.

Plans are in the works to get a couple of them on disc...it's just a matter of time.

~b.w.

Subject: RE: BS: Do you write songs...
From: Amergin
Date: 02 Mar 01 - 06:49 PM

I would like to write songs like Nathan Tompkins someday.....oh I already do...

Subject: RE: BS: Do you write songs...
From: Bluebeard
Date: 02 Mar 01 - 09:56 PM

I love that feeling when an inkling of a tune, a riff or chorus comes into my head 'just like that.' It may be a day, weeks or months before I put the words and tune and arrangement together. As a re-enactor, these days I play in a period band and have managed to include original songs with songs that were written in the 19th century. On CD's and in performance, they blend in well. Write what you feel in the genre you play and be thankful for the gift.