Naked Songwriting - Listen to the proces

Subject: Naked Songwriting - Listen to the proces
From: GUEST,songscribbler
Date: 23 Jan 04 - 08:17 AM

Songworks 'Naked Songwriting' - A radio show for songwriters

From the 19th of January, a radio programme will be available at www.songscribbler.com that follows four musicians as they compose a song. From nothing but a musical style and a quick brief, the musicians then have three hours to write a song together. They are all working, gigging musicians with a lot of talent and they were recorded continuously as they went about creating the tune. Follow their progress from the numerous false starts and tangents through to the final, roughed-out version of the song and listen to all the debates and ideas as they move towards completion.

This is a must for any songwriter or anyone interested in songwriting because, for the first time, there is something that gives the public a sneak peek into all the inner workings of the songwriting process.

Head over to www.songscribbler.com to listen to the show and find more details on how it worked. In the bottom left corner of the home page is a link that will let you listen to the full show. Check it out and hear the final song, 'No Way to Lose'. There are also mp3's and music downloads available.

If you, or anyone you know, is interested in songwriting then this is too good to miss.

Any questions, queries, input... email me, i'll be happy to talk to anyone about the process of songwriting, the radio show and how we recorded it, the song and how it was written, or the nature of www.songscribbler.com. Hell, i'll talk about anything music related. I'm a gigging, sweating musician, guitarist, singer, songwriter and i've been involved in many aspects of this crazy business... i'll be glad to help if i can.

Meanwhile, get over to the site and listen to the show.

See ya,

Jaymz

www.songscribbler.com - for original, unpublished music by the best songwriters

Subject: RE: Naked Songwriting - Listen to the proces
From: Amos
Date: 23 Jan 04 - 08:25 AM

The serve was right on the baseline -- a close call...

A

Subject: RE: Naked Songwriting - Listen to the proces
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 23 Jan 04 - 01:27 PM

Four people making a song together? A bit like four people collaborating in peeling an apple... Some things aren't naturally collective.

Subject: RE: Naked Songwriting - Listen to the proces
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 24 Jan 04 - 01:10 AM

What the temperature in Brisbane at 34 Deg Cel now, that sounds a cool way to write a song...

Subject: RE: Naked Songwriting - Listen to the proces
From: Matt_R
Date: 24 Jan 04 - 09:04 AM

"Four people making a song together?"

Yes, that's how most 4-piece bands work.

Subject: RE: Naked Songwriting - Listen to the proces
From: GUEST,Ed
Date: 24 Jan 04 - 09:30 AM

Four people making a song together? A bit like four people collaborating in peeling an apple

Hardly...

A most curious comment.

Subject: RE: Naked Songwriting - Listen to the proces
From: breezy
Date: 24 Jan 04 - 09:48 AM

If you cant write then find someone to write with so as to compenstae for your lack of talent, or maybe dont write.
Good writers can produce on their own or with each other.
I do not wrie because I can find quality songs written by others I dont have to make up my own.
Apart from that I cannot write to the standard I want.
Do you not think that too many people write songs when they are clearly incapable of doing so.
The question is do any singers of repute incorporate your songs into their repertoires.
George Papavgeris has his songs performed by Andy Irvine, Roy Bailey, Vin Garbutt and Johnny Collins.
Looks like he's got what it takes.
They are more 'folk' than the last 2 songs to be nominated for BBC new song of the year.
I feel a thread coming on.

Subject: RE: Naked Songwriting - Listen to the proces
From: Ebbie
Date: 24 Jan 04 - 04:15 PM

My favorite way to create a song is not by committee, but to write a singable draft and then run it by a single collaborator. Often another verse or a slight shift in tune or time or a segue into another theme direction will result. It's much easier to judge the quality of a song when there's another pair of ears and eyes. Since my brother died several years ago I havn't had a collaborator, and I miss it.

In workshops I've been in, when they tell you to withdraw with several other people and come back in 30 minutes with a song- well, to me it's boring, unsatisfying, flippant... I don't like it, and it's not the way I operate.

Subject: RE: Naked Songwriting - Listen to the proces
From: George Papavgeris
Date: 24 Jan 04 - 07:00 PM

Thanks Breezy for the plug...whether one can write a song by committee or not depends I think on the genre and type of song. Pop music, or songs meant to be performed by bands, lend themselves to the committee style of songwriting. While a lot of the mainstream folk (trad and contemp alike) tend to be easier for a single singwriter.

Of course, one can pick up a song and change it later, The folk process works along those lines, and as a rule improves the songs in doing so.

Perhaps the key is in the type of song. Pop/rock puts a lot of emphasis on clever rhyme, what I would call the "outer dressing" of a song. Folk has a lot of "story telling" songs, like ballads. And let's face it - a story is best told by a single person; though someone who hears it may alter it in the telling later.

Subject: RE: Naked Songwriting - Listen to the process
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 24 Jan 04 - 07:59 PM

I suppose in a sense, anytime a songwriter modifies a song to take account of a suggestion by anyone else, or even the way listeners react to a song, that is a kind of collaboration, and good songs can get written joint by hundred of people, and more directly by a bunch of people who play together. But basically, I can't see how the core of a song can be produced by more than maybe two people.

Having a bunch of people trying to put a song together in public might be an interesting experiment, but it could hardly be "a sneak peek into all the inner workings of the songwriting process."

But maybe we're into semantics, and the idea is that arranging a song is a part of writing a song, and obviously more people can come into it when it comes to arranging a song. I'd say it's a separate process. That doesn't mean it's not important, but a song can exist in any number of arrangements, and it's still the same song.

Subject: RE: Naked Songwriting - Listen to the proces
From: reggie miles
Date: 25 Jan 04 - 11:19 AM

I just awoke from a dream where a piece of a song was emerging. It was playing or it seemed I could hear it in the background of my dream, but as soon as I took note of it, and it became the focus of my attention, I was awakened from my slumbers. I've never heard the song before, though it may already exist somewhere outside the vast cavity that lies between my ears. With the melody and a few of the lines still sleepily echoing in my mind, I cranked up the ol' keyboard and wrote down what I could remember of it. Using the part I could remember as a pattern, I decided it might be worthwhile to try to write some additional verses. It turned into a passable love song. I called it "Dream Come True".

Subject: RE: Naked Songwriting - Listen to the proces
From: George Papavgeris
Date: 26 Jan 04 - 04:54 AM

Sir Paul Mc C wrote "Yesterday" in a similar fashion, reggie - I wish you the same success with "Dream".
I am fascinated by the songwriting process, and I swear I know less about it than anyone else. Other songwriters agree with me - the songs just "happen", very often, and trying to make a conscious process of it just buggers things up for me.
That is why I am deeply in awe of those great songwriters of the 20th century (Bernstein, Berlin etc) who could give themselves the task of writing a particular song to fit certain circumstances (for example in a musical), and get up a few hours later having written a masterpiece. Now, such songwriters are truly professional. I just meddle.

Subject: RE: Naked Songwriting - Listen to the proces
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 26 Jan 04 - 12:21 PM

But it's the meddlers are the ones that come up with the great songs, I believe.

Subject: RE: Naked Songwriting - Listen to the proces
From: George Papavgeris
Date: 26 Jan 04 - 02:03 PM

The cheque's in the post, McGoH...

Subject: RE: Naked Songwriting - Listen to the proces
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 27 Jan 04 - 12:40 AM

Considering the amount of navel-gazing in so many of the new songs, I always assumed that nakedness was a more-or-less requirement.

Subject: RE: Naked Songwriting - Listen to the proces
From: GUEST,reggie miles
Date: 27 Jan 04 - 02:32 AM

Songwriting in the nude, that's exactly why I originally clicked on this thread. I'm only a fledgling at this songwriting stuff, and I thought that someone had come up with some kind of new and rather kinky twist to coming up with songs. As it turns out, the only twisted part was the name on the thread. What a let down. What a come on. I was lured and hooked like a stupid fish that skipped too many classes at school to know any better. That's false advertising if ever I've read it. Somebody had better start coughing up the truth about this naked songwriting stuff and quick. I'm startin' to feel kind o' funny here. Tell me yall didn't envision a description of something of a more adult nature when you visited this thread. Mmhmm

Subject: RE: Naked Songwriting - Listen to the proces
From: George Papavgeris
Date: 27 Jan 04 - 03:49 AM

Well, John Thompson of Cloudstreet claims he wrote "Violet Sarah" in the shower - does that count? He didn't say if he was HAVING a shower at the time though; could be that he just gets into the shower fully dressed to write songs!
Think I'll start a thread "Weird circumstances for writing songs"

Subject: RE: Naked Songwriting - Listen to the proces
From: Dave Bryant
Date: 27 Jan 04 - 07:31 AM

Now I could think of quite a few female folksong writers who I'd like to watch working in the nude . . . . .

Subject: RE: Naked Songwriting - Listen to the proces
From: GUEST,Minklet
Date: 27 Jan 04 - 07:46 AM

Most of my songs emerge when I'm doing something repetitive & rhythmic where I can just let my mind wander around & kick up odd phrases & stories. So a lot of songs gestate as I'm cycling to work, then I frantically type them up when I get there.

The other good time is when just playing randomly on guitar - sometimes the words just roll off the tongue.

So I'd definitely agree that they tend to "just happen".
I have tried following a set formal method, just as an exercise, and was amazed to find it worked fairly well - but being fundamentally lazy I prefer to lie in wait.

I have also tried collaborating with a friend - but it didn't suit. I was too diffident to make suggestions or constructively criticise - and such ideas that I did selfishly kept to myself. :)