Songrut Songwriting

If they are already famous than that's a big help and you'll need less imagination for the next part.

Several times a day, one of the radio stations I listen to do a band promotion slot, one of those crazy mixed up pieces of edited 'best bits' of a bands songs, usually accompanied by a deep voiced presenter screaming words like 'Live' and 'In the studio' and 'Only on Songrut Radio' throughout.

Basically, 3 seconds from each of the bands most popular hits, stuck together, with sound fx thrown in and a lunatic who sounds like a bad monster from Star Trek shouting about how good they are. I think these band-promotion-commercials exist on probably every radio station known to man. And woman.

Anyway

AS I was sitting staring into space the other day (which I'm very good at) I imagined the act I was about to start writing for (who currently has NO songs and is unknown) being in one of those commercials.

Something like:

Presenter: 'And in the studio this week...'

Sound effect: Peeeeooowwwww...kabboooom

Presenter: 'Songrut And The Songwriters LIVE....'

>>insert 3 seconds of the best bit of an uptempo hit song here

Presenter: '...featuring their greatest hits....'

Sound effect: Peeeeoowwwwww...kabooom

>>insert 3 seconds of the best bit of a slow but quite big ballad here

Presenter: '...and unheard material...'

>>insert 3 seconds of a beautiful acoustic number here

Presenter: '...only on...'

Sound effect: KerSPLASH

Presenter: '...Made Up The Spot Radio'

SOund effect : ShoooOOM

Now, you may think I'm completely mad. But I did this and let my mind fill in the gaps of the songs. It's surprising what bits of 3 seconds of your imagined greatest hits sound like.

I think this is probably the quickest way of coming up with hooks I have ever stumbled upon. Because your mind is only trying to fill in the catchiest most memorable things you've ever heard, you can ONLY come up with hooks. There's just no time.

I got two song ideas out of using this technique, much to my surprise. I think I'm going to do it a bit more often.

Try it! Let me know if it worked for you!

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It's important that you chose a film that you know well and care about.

You could write the intro song - something quite striking to set up the film.
Your song could be something that comes at a pivotal moment in the film.
Your song could be on the end credits, a 'summing up' of the film for instance.

This 'theme song' could be a general 'vibe' about the film.

However, it could also be the theme song to one of the main characters. This is interesting because it could show another side to the character that we may not immediately know. (A tough guy having a romantic theme for instance) Also, when you start writing about fictionalized characters they slowly draw parallels with your own experience as you write.

James Bond's theme tune shows many elements of his character. It's exciting, romantic, suave and cool in varying degrees at different parts of the theme. However, concentrate on just one side of the character if you're going to write a song like this, throw 'new light' on just one side of his personality.

Recently I wrote the imaginary theme tune to a film that didn't exist. I came out with very broad melodies that I may not have written had I sat down to write a 'song'. Once I started putting words to the tune of course it all changed, but it was a good starting point.

I wonder what Travis Bickle's theme song would be? I wonder what the theme song would be for American Beauty or Lost In Translation? Who knows, but you have to admit, it gets your creative juices flowing.

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Then I went into other bits which seemed to have something like words, or bits
of words. I kept going and didn't stop, even if I was really unsure about the
song or where it went next.

As soon as my brain took over and stopped my auto-pilot, the song became useless and formulaic.

So I went back and tried to remember the good bits.

I have used this kind of 'surprise yourself' technique with great success. I almost have to catch myself 'off guard' to do it, and I need to have had a few hours break from songwriting that day for it to work, or I fall back into what I was working on previously.

Like I said, as soon as you start thinking - it's all over. However, the more you practice this, the better you get at it. It becomes about sounds and shapes instead of words, and the panic of trying to keep going and do the next bit even though it doesn't exist can stop you thinking too much about it. As soon as you think to much you'll probably fall into an old chord sequence or sing an old melody.

Every now and then, just pick up an instrument and see if a song is there. Sometimes it is.

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For some reason you may like the word 'Essential'. You've written it somewhere
and looked at it. It's a nice word, it's nice to SAY and to SING, you haven't
really heard it used in any song that you know of before. It could be the start
of something.

This is a good time to type the word 'Essential' into Rhymezone which I have bookmarked on the left. Ryhmezone comes up with a few rhymes for 'Essential' but the one that seems to work for me alongside 'Essential' is 'Exponential'. So I write 'Exponential' down.

Then you could go to the OneLook Reverse Dictionary, which is a place where you can type in a concept and it will try and give you words based on that concept. This is good because it's not so literal as a normal dictionary. Amongst other words that caught my eye were "Neccessity', 'Essence', 'Fundamental' and 'Lifeblood'. I liked 'Lifeblood' because it's a visual word.

So then you keep on going, pushing these ideas around the page, connecting other words to them, wondering if they're going to turn into anything. More often than not, they don't. But when they have accumulated to half a dozen words and perhaps phrases you can ask yourself, what's this about? What's 'Essential'? Is it somebody you love or know, is it knowing that there's a God (or isn't one), is being miserable 'Essential'? What's it all about, this 'Essential-ness'? As you start trying to figure out what this is, writing these new ideas escalates the amount of words on the page until you have a sprawl of claptrap.

And then, from nowhere, you write down an altogether unrelated idea for a song which is much better than anything you've previously written and is nothing to do with the word 'Essential', and this new idea is so strong that you forget all about 'Essential-ness' and quite quickly finish this new song idea.

Sometimes if you want to dance with inspiration, you have to court her first.

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Make up a rhythmic hook with gaps, stops and starts. Sing in the gaps.

Record just a rhythm into your sequencer on any old sound with one finger. Loop it. Sing over it.

Make another one and put it after the first one. Loop them both. Sing over that, see what comes.

Try putting these different rhthms alongside each other, you may hear something in their new clashing rhthms which is almost the beginnings of a tune.

Loops - get some insane and not so insane drum loops and put them together without getting into the technicalities of what is going on, only as an aid to inspire melody and songwriting, not just creating more loops. Listen to the way the loops interact, sometimes badly, DON'T tidy them up and start programming...listen carefully to the way the loops interact, and more often than not there will be a random melody playing as the different loops interact. Perhaps this little melody will inspire you...who knows..

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To still make use of this time, I got myself into the habit of sitting down and
trying to come up with as many bits of music as possible within a given time.

I boot up my sequencer or grab my guitar and tape machine and throw down as many little ideas as possible without being too picky about what comes up. More often than not, either drab, silly or downright weird things come out, but I record the whole lot regardless of their musical merit. As soon as I get bored with one I start another. One may come from a drum loop which I played a terrible hammond part over, one may be a bass line I threw into a sequencer and then riffed over on the guitar - I think the key word here is FREEDOM. No thinking involved, no style, just anything goes stream of consciousness kind of stuff. Positively NO 'this isn't good enough' thinking allowed whatsoever, and I also don't allow myself to think I've suddenly become a wordsmith again - no matter what lyrical ideas I come up with I keep hammering away at writing these silly little bits of music (of course, writing down the odd lyric on occasion should they come!)

By the end of throwing down about a half dozen ideas, one of them will most definitely be your favorite. Instead of wasting your time looking into space waiting for lyrical inspiration to strike, you may have come up with the germ of a new song, which in turn may well get the lyrics flowing.

On the whole, I find that 'getting stuck' means your brain has closed ranks and become unable to look further than the end of your last sentence - having a mindless 'jam' with yourself without boundaries can bring the fresh air back in and let you see all the other places your song may go.

Of course, if you're a lyricist but not a musician this may prove a little tricky.

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