Songreceiving

Subject: Songreceiving
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 26 May 05 - 07:53 AM

Over the years, I've lead or participated in endless Songwriters workshops. Some have been better than others, but they've all been limited in their approach to song "writing." As I've lead most of the ones I've participated in, I have no one to blame but myself. Part of the problem is logistical because of the limitation of time. But, the bigger problem is that it is so difficult to talk about the process in a way that might help someone who has a desire to write songs.

To me, there are three aspects to song"writing." The one that is covered almost to the exclusion of everything else is the words. That's the "writing" part of songwriting. Rarely does anyone ever talk about the melody and rhythm, probably because that seems much more intuitive for most songwriters. The third aspect of songwriting that is talked about even less than melody and rhythm is "receiving" the song. And yet, every song that is written is a mixture of those three elements.

In conversation with other songwriters, I've been struck by the humility of some of the finest I know. I believe that's because they realize that songs are received as much as written. And that they often are a gift. Our language even reflects that. While there is a basic musical vocabulary that everyone needs in order to create a song, we rarely would say, "He's really an excellent technician." Technique is a tool, not the creative force. We're more likely to say that someone is "gifted." To me, that's a straightforward recognition that whether the art form is songwriting, painting, printmaking or literature, great art is a gift.

Everyone can think of an example of a musician who is technically proficient, an artist who has complete control of their medium, or a writer who has an extensive vocabulary and knowledge of grammar and construction, who doesn't seem to have anything to say. I think of an impressive folk and blues guitarist I've heard many times who can play enormously complex arrangements of songs, without ever seeming to "get" the song. That might just be me, but there is much more to creation than technique and proficiency.

There are many gifted musicians on Mudcat... not just songwriters, but instrumentalists. Some are gifted craftsmen like Bill D and Guy Wolfe (and certainly others whose work I am not aware of.) While it's difficult to verbalize the "receiving" aspect of creativity, I'd appreciate any attempts that anyone is willing to make.

What if I offered a Songreceiving workshop at a folk festival? Worse yet, what if someone came?

Any thoughts?

Jerry

Subject: RE: Songreceiving
From: Vixen
Date: 26 May 05 - 08:22 AM

Dear Jerry--

Another great thread topic! (Do you "receive" them? Where do you get your ideas from!?)

Actually, as I've said in other threads, most the songs, poems, and fiction, (as well as the occasional piece of academic prose) I've written have come to me in dreams/visions/flashes of insight/wonder-what-would-happen-if-I-tried-?-moments. I have been to a couple of songwriting workshops, and I have found them useful when I have a phrase that won't work or other "technical" question, but they don't particularly inspire me. There is a songwriting book that I found provocative that is just a list of things--e.g. "write a song using a number"--it doesn't say much if anything about writing, just lists things to make you think.

A workshop on how to be a songreceiver? I dunno--I have no idea about how I would teach someone to have dreams/visions/flashes of insight/wonder-what-would-happen-if-I-tried-?-moments, if they'd never had one before. Worse, I have no idea how I could learn such a skill if I didn't already have it. Someone might try all the suggestions in the "care and feeding of muses" thread, and never receive a single thing from a muse.

I wonder what others will have to say...

V

Subject: RE: Songreceiving
From: GUEST,MMario
Date: 26 May 05 - 08:28 AM

jerry - I don't understand what you mean by "receiving". I understand that there is the crafting of lyric, melody, rhythm and harmonies; and all the varying levels of skill that can be brought to that.

then there is the performance; and again, all the different levels of skill.

Receiving?

Subject: RE: Songreceiving
From: George Papavgeris
Date: 26 May 05 - 08:29 AM

Not sure if I get what you mean by the "receiving" element, Jerry - are you referring to the composer as the receiver, i.e. as in "receiving the tune as a gift"?

I certainly agree with you about the predominance of emphasis on lyrics in songwriting workshops, and the much too thin material available for the music composing element. In a recent update of my songwriting workshop notes I have tried to strengthen that element with a few hints, by it remains something that is largely hit-and-miss.

Certainly, a song-receiving workshop would be very good.

Subject: RE: Songreceiving
From: Polly Squeezebox
Date: 26 May 05 - 08:45 AM

See link for a really surprising incidence I had of psychometry:

Subject: RE: Songreceiving
From: Polly Squeezebox
Date: 26 May 05 - 08:48 AM

Sorry I'll try again for a 'Blue Clicky' (if not here's the address):

http://www.britishdowsers.org/EEG_site/archive/articles/auc2001_issue22/Song_of_the_Stone_M.htm

The Song from the Stone

Subject: RE: Songreceiving
From: alanabit
Date: 26 May 05 - 08:58 AM

I understand exactly what you mean by "receiving" Jerry. It is something which I have quite failed to put into words for many years. When a new song comes, the first thing I do is to listen for a snatch of melody, rhythm or line of lyrics which has some resonance. There is no actual skill to finding a song. You can't help hearing it if bits of it are already playing in your head. If you are lucky one comes and if you are unlucky, it doesn't. I then keep listening until the rest comes. Technique is the craft of shaving off the excess. I always think the songs are already there.

Subject: RE: Songreceiving
From: DebC
Date: 26 May 05 - 09:09 AM

Hooray for Jerry!

Thanks for this. As a non-writer, but a singer of songs, I too understand the concept of song receiving.

Finding good songs and good melodies is always something I am on the lookout for. Many times I'll hear a song and think "I might want to sing that". If the song is recorded, I will listen to the recording many times and try to find the lyrics somewhere. The Web (and the DT) has been a beautiful find for me. Lyrics that were once nowhere to be found are readily available.

Once I learn the song, I "try it on" to see if it fits. Soemtimes it doesn't and I might have to change it in some way (slow it down, change the chord structure, etc)

Song receiving? I love it!

Deb Cowan

Subject: RE: Songreceiving
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 26 May 05 - 09:12 AM

Let me give a couple of examples of "receiving."

One day, many years ago as I was driving home, I just started singing (something that I often do.) I sing whatever comes out. Almost without hesitation I sang:

   Late last night when Uncle Willie came home
   He made a rattle at the door like the shaking of bones
   She jumped to the window and she peeked out the blind
   Uncle Willie's in the sheets again

And almost immediately, a chorus came:

   Uncle Willie's in the sheets and I don't mean bed
   With his eyes all glazed and a bump on his head
   Says he's been working but no matter what he says
   Uncle Willie's in the sheets again

I could show you where I was on the exit ramp coming down off the Merrit Parkway, approaching a traffic light. It is 8/10ths of a mile from the traffic light to where I was living at that time and by the time I pulled into the driveway I had another verse and the framework for the third.

Did I "write" this song? I had no idea that it was coming, and while I did tinker with it (the craft part) after I got home and changed a word here and there, the song "came" to me pretty much in one piece.
The only way that I can describe the song is that I "received" it. Or, I could say that it just "came" to me.

Another example is of a line that came to me out of the clear blue:

"And somewhere inside her there's still that young girl
With a tortoise-shell comb in her hair."

A whole song grew out of that line. After the fact I can explain that I had visited a nursing home the previous day and was deeply moved by a woman who was paralyzed and strapped into a wheel chair. She was completely expressionless and could only move one finger. But, she tapped her finger in rhythm to the songs. And with no intention of "writing" a song, the line quoted above came to me.

I've talked to many songwriters who have had major portions of songs come to them in dreams. They certainly "received" them more than "wrote" them. I believe it is the same for instrumental lines. I think of the piano accompaniment that John Lennon plays to Imagine, which is so much at the heart of the song. Was that a matter of superior technique? How did he come up with that accompaniment? I'll never know, but there are so many instances of music that sound
inspired. All those words are commonplace in trying to explain creativity... "gifted," "inspired," "It just came to me.." Those are just different ways of trying to express the mystery of creating something out of whole cloth.

I believe that there is an element of "receiving" in singing and playing traditional music, too. That's why an old song can suddenly sound so fresh and new. I don't think it's all book-learnin', no matter how valuable book learnin' is.

Jerry

Subject: RE: Songreceiving
From: GUEST,jeffp
Date: 26 May 05 - 09:27 AM

I understand what you mean, Jerry. Bits and snatches of melody or lyrics often come to me when I'm doing something that allows a part of my mind to go wandering around, picking up pretty bits that it sees, sort of like picking up and examining shells as you walk along the beach. Sometimes you find one that really catches your eye and you put it in your pocket to take home. Sometimes one that seemed pretty at first turns out to be not so interesting on closer examination.

I started a couple of songs a few years ago while I was taking a cigarette break at work. When I quit smoking I worried that the Muse wouldn't be able to find me any more. Now she catches me in the shower (how embarrassing) or when I'm walking up to the store.

The trick is to be receptive to your Muse or she'll quit coming to you.

Hope some of this makes sense.

jeffp

Subject: RE: Songreceiving
From: GUEST,MMario
Date: 26 May 05 - 09:31 AM

okay - now I get the concept - more of what we were considering last fall on the "care and feeding of muses".

BTW - jerry - did the Uncle Willie song ever come together into a whole?   Sounds interesting.

Subject: RE: Songreceiving
From: Vixen
Date: 26 May 05 - 09:40 AM

A recent example of "receiving" vs "performing" a tune...

I had a dream in which Reynaud, a friend of ours, and I were playing a tune. Reynaud was on fiddle, the friend was on a bodhran, and I was on pennywhistle (high d). I really liked the tune, so when I woke I up I tried to hum it for Reynaud, to see if he knew it. It didn't sound familiar to him so, I tried to play it on the whistle. I couldn't play it because I couldn't find the notes. (never mind that in the dream I was playing like a virtuoso...that's another cool thing about my music dreams--I have far more musical expertise in the land of Nod than I'll ever hope to have in real life!) So I got out my guitar (it has *lots* more notes than the whistle) and rather haltingly, tempo geriatico (aka andante in a walker), played the tune into a tape recorder and left Reynaud a note that I'd managed to sort of record it. By the time I got home from work, he'd figured out how to play it on guitar, concertina, and banjo as well as fiddle, and said it didn't sound at all familiar to him. And it turns out that we like it best on either banjo or concertina accompanied by guitar, and I can't play it on the whistle at all because I can either get all the high notes or the low notes, but not both.

So much for the song "as received" and "as performed".

I agree with DebC about "trying on a song". Some fit like old comfortable clothes--the phrasing, the range, the sense of the song, all seem to come intuitively. Others need several alterations before I can perform them. That's a kind of "songreceiving" I hadn't considered before.

V

Subject: RE: Songreceiving
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 26 May 05 - 09:48 AM

You got it, jeff: If you want to receive, you have to be in a receptive frame of mind. I don't think there is any way to "teach" that.

It reminds me of the years when I taught nature and geology to kids. They'd come to the Museum where I worked, and I'd have them for 45 minutes. If it was a class on rocks and minerals, I'd preface my talk by saying "When you leave here today, I don't care if you've learned the name of a single rock or mineral." (I'm not sure the teachers appreciated that.) I would say, "What I want you to learn today is how to look." I'd hold up a rock and ask somebody to describe it. That would start a long, healthy interchange with a lot of laughs, as the kids tried to really "see" the rock. As the interchange would go along, I'd pass it around the class, so they could feel it, heft it, and try scratching it on a scratch plate to see if it made a color. By the time I held up the second rock or mineral and asked them what was different about it, they had a way to "look" at it so that they could describe it more accurately.

I'd do the same teaching about birds, asking the kids to try to figure out why birds wings, beaks and feet were shaped the way they were.

I don't know how I could translate that into "receiving" songs. I suppose that I'd encourage people to learn how to listen, just as I encouraged the kids how to look. So much of what we create is a transfiguration of what we have already heard, or seen. For songwriters, listening to conversations and the way people talk, really trying to understand them would be something important to encourage. I tell people that there are lines to songs around them, every day. They are in overheard conversations on the subway or waiting in line at a checkout counter. Contrary to the approach that confessional songwriters take, I believe that the best way to hear and see is to set yourself aside and try to empathize with other people.

I heard a very powerful sermon a couple of weeks ago, that has moved me to "write" a song about Peter. The minister talked about Peter and John out fishing on the sea of Gallilee after Christ's crucificion
when Christ appreared to them on the shore. He didn't open the bible. He just tried to tell the story in the person of Peter, conveying his confusion and anxiety about being confronted (0r worse yet, rejected) by Christ for having denied him three times. If you can set aside for a moment any anger toward organized religion, and put yourself in Peter's place, if the story is true, then you can step completely outside of yourself and into someone else, as the minister did.

After the sermon, a first verse "came" to me..

It was early in the morning, we'd fished all through the night
With empty nets and aching backs, when John first saw the light
There was someone standing on the shore, he was calling out to me
He said drop your nets, one more time, so we cast them in the sea

I try to feel the dampness in the dawning of the day, the weariness in my bones, the depression in my heart and the confusion, wondering who the figure was on the shore. And then try to state it straightforwardly, as Peter might have.

Part of receiving, I think, is being able to get outside your own skin, with all our prejudices and limitations, and try to see through the eyes of someone else. Steve Earle is a master at that. So is Bruce Springsteen and certainly, so was Bob Dylan.

Jerry

Subject: RE: Songreceiving
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 26 May 05 - 09:57 AM

very good.....you want to hear the rest of the story - well I do!

Subject: RE: Songreceiving
From: Vixen
Date: 26 May 05 - 10:02 AM

Neat example, Jerry.

Something just occurred to me reading your story about teaching the kids to "see"...

To be a "receiver" is one thing, but to be able to communicate what one has received, one needs to be well prepared to "receive". Sort of like a garden, to use another biblical analogy--some seed is scattered on the stony ground, where it may or may not germinate and thrive; some seed is scattered on fertile soil, where its odds of germination and sufficient thriftiness are dramatically greater.

What you were doing, in my mind, was "amending the soil" in the garden of kids, so that they could support the seeds you were sowing.

A mind/soul needs to have the "vocabulary" (of language, of music) to germinate, grow and sustain what is "received"...

If *that* makes any sense at all...

V

Subject: RE: Songreceiving
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 26 May 05 - 10:03 AM

Uncle Willie's In The Sheets (continued)

Second verse:

   The dog was in the kitchen, he was sleeping on the floor
   And the cat got up and slowly started making for the door
   He'd seen this kind a thing about a hundred times or more
   Uncle Willie's in the sheets again

Uncle Willie's in the sheets and I don't know why
With a wife as sweet as apple pie
Got a silly grin and a twinkle in his eye
Uncle Willie's in the sheets again

   He'll wake up in the morning and be ornery as hell
   With his tongue like a clapper and his head like a bell
   But where he was tonight, you know he's never goin' to tell
   Uncle Willie's in the sheets again

When the piper plays then you gotta dance
Willie's just asking for one more chance
But you can tell in just one glance
Uncle Willie's in the sheets again

The two lines "He'll wake up in the morning... with his tongue like a bell" were lifted from another song I wrote many, many years ago and didn't end up liking. Other than than, though the song was almost esactly as typed here. I recorded this on my Handful Of Songs album, which I finally hope to put out on CD, as I have a remastered "Master" now.

Jerry

Subject: RE: Songreceiving
From: GUEST,MMario
Date: 26 May 05 - 10:15 AM

I think there are really two things working here - truly "received" songs - which "appear" in the conscious* mind full blown or nearly so ; and then what might APPEAR to be the miraculous progression of an external trigger into a song.** And the line between the two can be blurred.

I remember a show about "tales of the Viennese Woods' which step by step took you through one of the bits using the creak of the carriage springs, bird calls, the rumble of the wheels, etc - isolating each motif in the music and demonstrating the origins of each. Whether or not these were the actual triggers for the composition (suppossedly the composer himself claimed it occurred as dramatically re-created) I think it takes a certain inborn talent to be able to recognize and distinguish such triggers on any consistant basis.


People percieve things very differently - an example of which occurred during production of one of the Christmas carols I recorded last summer. there was a hum in the background of two of the three tracks - which was the motor of the refrigerator of the trailer used as a studio for those tracks. The sound engineeer did a rough mix - didn't bother to remove the hum -because at that stage we were looking for some other stuff - not a finished product. A few people listened to it and wondered where I had found someone to play organ for the number. I myself wondered what kind of wizardry the sound engineer had applied - since I KNEW there was no organ. A day or two later - having resolved the issue the rough cut was produced to solve - the engineer did a more polished mix, this time removing the hum of the refrigerator. On hearing it I promplty called him and askewd what had happened to the "organ effect" he had applied to the rough cut.   So he redid it (again) with the hum - because most people hear the refrigerator as "organ". My sound engineer doesn't, nor do a few other people who have heard it - they hear "noise".

I think that for some people the oppisete is true - where the "normal" person hears noise, or doesn't even notice a sound - the creative hear a musical motif or a rythmn, or a snatch of a melody.



*I specify conscious mind as I acknowledge that the unconscious and subconscious mind is a truly wonderful thing that can produce awesome results

**though it might involve long and hard work on the part of the composer/author; some of whom are so talented that they make it LOOK easy.

Subject: RE: Songreceiving
From: JulieF
Date: 26 May 05 - 10:30 AM

The only two songs I have written have definitely been received rather than worked over and crafted.   They came because of events in my life and the only tune I wrote happened so quickly that I had to get our technicians to set up a pc mic set up so I didn't forget it when I started work after lunch.    It was rather a shock that it happened like that but I'm not sure if I will ever write any more like that. Perhaps as I become more experienced as a singer I will find that I write songs that are more considered or perhaps I will always need some big emotion to push things. ( Makes it sound that my stuff is a bit self indulgent which it really is and I supose there is a limit to how much you can indulge yourself and still write stuff that others can relate to.)

Perhaps it also relates to other parts of how you handle life.   I consider things for ages but it usually it is one event which makes me set the wheels in motion.

Drifted off message there - Indulgent again.

J

Subject: RE: Songreceiving
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 26 May 05 - 10:40 AM

I'd be interested in hearing more about how people "Create" a new arrangement to a traditional song, or instrumental accompaniment. There is definitely more than "technique" involved.

Reminds me of a great story from many years ago, out in Pittsburgh. My friend Howard Glasser was running an Eisteddfofd there and some young kid got up and did the song with the line about cracking the whip and drawing blood on oxen.. timmarideo? Never learned the song, and it's long enough ago that I can't recall it. I'd always heard it sung lustily, with arms akimbo, but this kid sang it real slow and plodding. Irritated the Hell out of everyone, and someone asked him why he did it so slowly. He was a farm kid and his answer made all the sense in the world. Oxen move real slow.

Where do "new" melodies come from? How much is technique and aforethought, and how much is inspiration?

Jerry

Subject: RE: Songreceiving
From: wysiwyg
Date: 26 May 05 - 10:40 AM

I receive tunes when I'm riding in the car with my mind fairly loose and relaxed. Whether they come from within me or outside of me I can't know for sure, but the process is that a line of melody will come to me and, if I don't strangle it to death with my own ideas, it will develop into a full tune. Often there will be an A part and a B part, and they will further develop harmonies, subrhythms, etc. Usually I'll be whistling them as they come, listening/feeling for each phrase as it comes and repeating the phrases to lock them into memory. I lose a lot of both A and B in the beginning, but a more solidly-recalled A & B usually evolve.

I say "receive" because if I let it come without purposely guiding it myself, it often goes in a different direction melodically than what my ear expects it to be. There is a feeling of admiring surprise at how unusual the tune is, as each phrase comes.

It's a bit like the kind of prayer that the Holy Spirit gives, where you know that you need to pray but you are not sure what, so you start with a word and let each word/phrase come from that point as words and thoughts are Provided.... a bit like someone were teaching you a poem line by line, and each line is a surprise yet fits into the growing whole. A sense of discovering.

Then there's lyric receiving-- I'll be working on a song I have heard that I want our band to do for church and there will be places in the text that need shaping or a complete re-write... I'll sit somewhat bemused and look at the computer screen while hearing the tune in my head, and the words I need will just come along eventually if I don't push it or try to craft it. Single lines, half-verses, whatever-- I just write them down as long as they're coming, sometimes a word here and there that might become a verse.... once it seems to stop coming, I'll start playing with combining lines and tinkering them into verses, as a copy-editor turned cook might take loose ingredients from the pantry and see what can be made.

None of this happens in the critical-thinking part of my head, much more the mystical part-- absorbed in it like a child molding clay with no particular aim. Suddenly there's a shape that inspires further shaping-- it's an interplay between purpose and purposelessness.

The critical thinking comes in later when I see what is actually a singable combination of consonants and vowels, revisit the theology, trim out excess parts, and all the technical things we usually discuss as "songwriting."

My first thought when I saw this thread was, Here we go again-- here's Jerry's flair for the merely obvious-- we all do this, who needs to talk about it or be taught about it. Then I realized, oh! maybe everyone does NOT already do it-- I'm often wrong about that when it comes to music, and I've come to see I have a different process from many others.

It's a blessing and a curse to write this way-- when it's not flowing, it's really not flowing, and I've come to realize lately that if I am spending a lot of my mental life on certain other interests, the music stuff is going to be on the back burner. It felt arid at first-- blocked. Then I learned to see that when it's dry-time musically, some other blessing is usually running full force. Now I just enjoy it when it IS flowing, and I'm trying to learn to balance the different gifts and creativities I have, and learning to make room for them all.

It turns out exercise helps all of it, as do fresh air and sunshine, eating well, and good sleep. And time-- lots of time and fewer demands on it.

Being willing to live with a sometimes-tricky brain chemistry doesn't hurt either. :~) Nowadays people try to MANAGE minds like mine-- no thank you! I've almost learned to use it, so I don't want to adjust it, now! It would be like adding to a short leg surgically, to make the legs match-- after finally learning to walk.

~Susan

Subject: RE: Songreceiving
From: Vixen
Date: 26 May 05 - 11:12 AM

"it's an interplay between purpose and purposelessness."

Indeed...so very true.

V

Subject: RE: Songreceiving
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 26 May 05 - 08:07 PM

JulieF:

I think you'll find that as you write more songs, each one will come to you differently. Some, you'll set out with the intention to write, and some will present themselves to you, at least in part. If you write songs with feeling, it's not surprising that intense feelings often can trigger a song. A great night with friends can often lead to a song appearing in your head the next day..

Jerry

Subject: RE: Songreceiving
From: GUEST,Azizi
Date: 26 May 05 - 08:56 PM

Jerry,

I love your "Uncle Willie's In the Sheets Again" poem/song.

****

I understand what you mean about being in a receptive frame of mind so that you can receive songs or other thoughts from inside [or outside] of one self.

Another way that I've read about this is being in a state of 'expectant readiness'. I sometimes think of expectant readiness as 'gettin ready for the function at the junction'.

That means working and studying while we are alert to the Muse that will visit-often when we least expect it.

****

In the late 1960s, I was a member of an African cultural group that was headed by Amiri Baraka {LeRoi Jones}. Given Amiri Baraka's noted artistic accomplishments, it is not surprising that members of that group were encouraged to write & recite poetry.

Prior to recitation for the group or for the general public, it was the standard custom for us to say "All praises be to God and all the mistakes are mine."

I still say this.


Azizi

Subject: RE: Songreceiving
From: Peace
Date: 26 May 05 - 09:01 PM

I would attend a workshop like that, Jerry. I have heard many of your compositions/tunes/songs. I love 'em because you have managed to reach that 'place' that songwriters do their writing from. Fellow I heard many years back--after I complimented one of his songs (actually, raved about it because it was great) said to me: "There are workaday songs and there are magic songs. That is one of my magic songs."

BM

Subject: RE: Songreceiving
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 26 May 05 - 09:07 PM

No, brucie: We'd do the workshop together. Maybe with Allanabit and jeffP...

Jerry

Subject: RE: Songreceiving
From: Amos
Date: 26 May 05 - 10:07 PM

Wal I sure know what you mean, Jerry -- all it takes is one good Song Challenge from the much-missed Gaelic Goddess and my antennae go straight up!!

Seriously though, I "sense" this phenomenon as a spiritual wave of creative power, but rather than receiving, I think of it is as something I do in my highest and best state, what the athletes call "being in the zone" when they create their moves on the instant.

I don't think there's much difference between the two versions of the phenomenon -- I think (to use a cliched expression) you are injecting creative expression from your higher scope into your normal cognitive framework.

Anyway, I think these are same event described in two different vocabularies, and I agree this is how the best songs are born. It is certainly how the small clutch of songs I have written have come about.

A

Subject: RE: Songreceiving
From: Peace
Date: 26 May 05 - 10:39 PM

I have often wondered what triggers 'magic' songs. We've all written some of them. Songs that work because they have that 'something' about them that appeals.

I know too that we have all written some stuff that is just 'stuff'. The words work but the melody . . . . or the tune works but the words . . . , etc. I know early in a song if it has that something. For that kind of song I have stayed awake for three days getting it jus' the way I 'hear' it, and getting it to have that marriage of music, words and cohesion.

The workaday stuff that we all do is much like having an itch that needs scratching. Ya just do it, but you know it isn't a work of art in your own estimation.

I wrote one when I was being paid as a songwriter. I owed that song to my publisher. I found out when I dropped in to see them. They said it was due by the end of the day. They gave me a room, and starting at about 2:00 in the afternoon I worked solid until 4:00. Called the song "Inside Two Hours". But, it was a workaday song, and despite having a good melody and OK words, it ain't what I'd call art.

I find often that if I have some 'art' screamin' to get out, I have to sit and diddle with the guitar or keyboard. As I work on the melody words form and I jot them down. I just finished one that I think is art. Whether or not I think so in a few months is another thing. But, it's good. I think it has some of the better writing I've ever done and it marries well to the melody and music. When I can get a song like that it makes me a very happy camper. Truthfully, I don't really concern myself with what other people think of the song--and I don't mean to sound offensive with that remark.

I like 'inspired' writing, but that means different things to different folks I guess.

Subject: RE: Songreceiving
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 27 May 05 - 07:08 AM

Wonderful post, brucie:

Yes, there are songs that we write because an idea occurs to us, and it's kinda fun to do it. But, underlying the search for good lines, there is a realization that the song is more of an excercise... not unlike a video game, I guess. I think those songs serve a good purpose in that they keep the "craft" side of song writing active. Sometimes to your surprise you find out that a song that was more of an excercise to you and didn't say a whole lot to you, touches a chord with someone else.

Back in the 60's when I was a sensitive guy, I wrote a song called Words Of A Bum. Man, was I sensitive in those days! The only good thing (in my mind) was a single line... "The difference between a bum and a good man is like the line on the beach between water and sand."
Mostly, the song was more of an embarassment to me than anything. But, I made the mistake of singing it a couple of times before I deep sixed it. (I don't even know the words any more, except for that one line.) Many years later, when I'd forgotten all about the song, I met someone who was excited to meet me because he'd learned the song, thought it was great and was still singing it. I tried to buy him off, to quit singing it, but it meant something to him, even though it seemed extremely trite and self-conscious to me. Nobody gave me that song, I tell ya... I take full responsibility for it.

Usually though, a songwriter knows immediately when one of those "magic" songs are coming. Sometimes, they come in a rush, and sometimes they take their time. If you try to rush them just to get them finished, you'll usually mess them up completely. I've got two songs coming right now, and I don't know where they're going. That's alright. The world is not breathlessly awaiting my next song. Like you, brucie, I write because I write. It's what I do. If a song comes to me occasionally that brings pleasure and encouragement to someone else, that's beautiful. But not necessary. Whatever gifts each of us is given, we are to use them as best we can.

The rest is gravy.

Jerry

Subject: RE: Songreceiving
From: alanabit
Date: 27 May 05 - 10:55 AM

The songs I like best for longest are those which will not leave me alone. They stick obsitnately in my head until I pick up a pen and get them down. One which I had, about a guy who wants to murder his parrot (nice theme eh?) made me giggle so much at night that I could not sleep. It seems to amuse some other folks too and I am still performing it fifteen years later. It took about fifteen minutes to write down and my contribition was absolutely nil. It was already playing in my head and I only wrote thing down so I could get to sleep!

Subject: RE: Songreceiving
From: jeffp
Date: 27 May 05 - 11:15 AM

I'd be honored to discuss songwriting or anything else with you, Jerry. Remember that gospel song I sent you a while ago? I wrote it while I was running copies of a large document in the Xerox room on a big old clunky copier. I kind of miss that thing. It was loud enough to shut out outside noise and create a rhythmic space that was conducive to music. Sometimes I would just sing my heart out while copying documents. The copiers we have now are much quieter and not so much fun.

Jeff

Subject: RE: Songreceiving
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 27 May 05 - 11:39 AM

You never know when you're going to get lines of a new song. It isn't when you're even thinking about music. I was in a checkout counter many years ago, and suddenly sang (in my mind):

   I drive an old Pinto gone long in the tooth
   Known by every mechanic from here to Duluth

It's strange the way inspiration just suddenly comes to you. Somewhere in the musty corners of my mind is "I ride an old paint, I lead an old Dan, I'm going to Montanna to throw the hoolihan." That somehow morphed into my old blue Pinto wagon.

Not all inspiration is profound..

And I KNOW I wasn't in "my zone." :-)

Jerry

Subject: RE: Songreceiving
From: GUEST
Date: 27 May 05 - 12:00 PM

Jeffp said inspiration struck when he was in the shower. I consistently get my best concepts and ideas and tune hooks late in a tub bath. I think Balzac or Baudelaire or somebody also did their best work in the tub.

I think the key is to use the left brain to form a simple goal like "gee I'd like to write a song for Chloe(or about whatever)" and then, either immediately or maybe many hours or days later, be in a bath or whatever mode where your left brain turns off and lets your creative right brain take over. If you use the delayed process, it may be the subconscious works on it first (maybe while you sleep) and then the right brain lets it out of the closet. Later you get the left brain involved to clean up your rhymes.

Subject: RE: Songreceiving
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 27 May 05 - 12:33 PM

Given a set of words without music, I'll often sort of chant the words, to get a feel for the stresses, the "tune" of how the lines want to go, and how just reading the lines meaningfully raises or emphasizes this word or phrase and throws that one away. I get a feel for the pace or maybe you'd say tempo that feels right.

Having done this, it's amazing how easily the actual notes come to me thereafter. The musical rise or fall should never, to my mind, fight the way the line wants to go if spoken.

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: Songreceiving
From: Peace
Date: 27 May 05 - 01:04 PM

"The musical rise or fall should never, to my mind, fight the way the line wants to go if spoken."

I think ya got somethin' there, Uncle DaveO. Woulda taken me ten paragraphs to say that--and not say it as well.

Subject: RE: Songreceiving
From: jeffp
Date: 27 May 05 - 08:26 PM

I've felt that if you allow it to, the song will tell you where and how it wants to go. That may sound a bit mystical and weird, but it seems to work for me.

Jeff

Subject: RE: Songreceiving
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 27 May 05 - 09:02 PM

That's often the case, jeff. I was thinking about your copying machine mileu for song writing. I wrote several songs while doing the laundry. One started out..

"It was a nice night, at least I thought it was nice
It was the right time, at least I thought it was right"

And that was all I had. Obviously, something had gone seriously wrong, but I didn't have a clue what it was. So, I just kept stumbling ahead a couple of lines at a time. Between the wash and the rinse cycle.

"All I wanted was a taste of sin
But when I started, the roof caved in
If they only had told me, if I only had knowed
I would have changed my whole way of thinking a long time ago"

It wasn't until a couple of days later that I discovered that a poodle was the cause of all the trouble.

Sometimes, it's great fun to let a song lead you. You never know where it will lead you..

"Sitting in the back seat with a day old bone
And a partly grown poodle, she couldn't leave at home"

Jerry

Subject: RE: Songreceiving
From: alanabit
Date: 28 May 05 - 05:59 AM

Martin Carthy tells the story of how his brother in law, Mike Waterson, was working as a plasterer. He would simply sing to himself as he worked, making the words up as he went along. He used to make up hundreds of songs, forgetting most of them at down tools time. Occasionally he would be able to recall one when he came home and write it down. Maybe the songs flowed naturally from the rhythm of his work. I can well imagine plastering as being a good job for a song receiver.

Subject: ADD: Toni with an I
From: George Papavgeris
Date: 28 May 05 - 06:25 AM

Most of the time I have "earworm" tunes that beg for a theme and frustrate the hell out of me. The strongest ones usually will find their theme (they often suggest it).

But the best songs I ever wrote started as short phrases: "It's the shame of coming back home empty-handed", "Sing to me Angelo", or "Where are the flowers that we put / into the muzzles of the guns". The phrases dictate the rhythm and time signature, and the accent dictates the tune - or leads me to it.

But the process is in fact different for each song. The simplest song I wrote was also the one that took me the longest (9 months). The tune - a little like a reflective hymn - came to me first, and immediately suggested the title ("The ending of the day"). At once I knew I wanted to write it as a combination prayer/love song, and I knew the structure of its three simple verses (what they would talk about). But I found it impossible to write the lyrics, though I tried many times. They were coming out too schmaltzy, too introverted or simply too "twee". Then one morning, I sat with my coffeee, lit up a cigar and I knew I was ready for it. It took me 15 minutes and it is one of my favourite songs to date.

I have started to get really frustrated with the "earworm" tunes recenlty; I have been allowing them to control what I write about. So, as of the last month or so, I am making a conscious effort to write starting with the subject and the lyrics. I am pleased with my first result - a song about the despair of transsexuals trying to lead a normal life in the midst of prejudice, and the enormous courage of those who embark on a full sex-change operation. I completed the lyrics before I allowed myself to think about the tune. When the tune came, at first it was too "soft" and melancholy; yet I wanted the song to be triumhant. I changed the time signature into a fast waltz backbeat, with the main tune riding across the top of it. It's ready now. It's called "Toni with an 'I'". And just for the hell of it, here are the lyrics:

Toni with an "I"
George Papavgeris, May 2005

1.You checked in just this morning
You're waiting in your room alone,
White gown with the ties on the back.
Not much there to distract you
There's nobody that you can phone
They'd only try to stop you
But it's too late – there is no turning back.

2.Remember the confusion
Just round the corner after school
When little Jenny kissed you on the lips.
You knew what was expected
But you just stood there like a fool
Unwilling bystander
An actor who was handed the wrong script

3.The taunts and name-calling
Were followed by the beatings soon.
You did your best to take them in your stride.
At home no one to help you,
You might as well be from the moon.
You closed the world around you
And silent you nursed your wounded pride.

4.Then came the recognition
Like bolt of lightning in the dark,
That you were never different – just you.
Inside your isolation
You fanned to flames the little spark
And planned your resurrection
To find the happiness that you were due.

5.The years of pain followed
As one by one the covers fell,
Yet memories cut deeper than the knife.
But now you had a purpose:
That one day nobody could tell
The lie you had been living
And earn the prize of ordinary life.

6.So here you are now waiting,
Your goal is almost within sight,
A butterfly shedding its cocoon.
You pass the time erasing
The "Y" that was never right,
And practicing your new name;
The one that you'll be known by very soon.

(chorus - sung after each couple of verses)
But now it's almost over
For after this you will not have to lie
Your dreams are coming true now
Tomorrow you'll be Toni with an "I"
(last line)
ALREADY you are Toni with an "I"

Subject: RE: Songreceiving
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 28 May 05 - 09:01 AM

Good reflection on the process and the mystery of songwriting/receiving. And, it is certainly true that each song comes somewhat differently, and each of us writes differently. People who work from tune to lyrics may be more likely to write/receive while playing an instrument. I get songs wholecloth, and I very, very rarely have a song come to me while playing an instrument... maybe two or three songs in my life.

As far as receiving is concerned, sometimes songs come in a way I would never intentionally write them. One gospel song came with the verses done slowly and sung acapella. The chorus is very upbeat and rhythmic. It drives people nuts who get into the rhythm of the chorus and start clapping along, only to find themselves out of rhythm when the next, slow verse comes. That's how the song came to me. Right now, I have a song coming in sections. The chorus came almost immediately as I was lying in bed, ready to go to sleep. The start of the first verse came this morning. It looks like the chorus will be in 3/4 time and the verses in 2/4 time. I've never had that happen before, and perhaps it will all even out as it comes. It certainly isn't any conscious decision on my part.

Maybe it's getting older, but I seem more content to let the songs "come." No hurry...

Jerry