Prolific songwriters

[jchitty]

Quote:Quote:...if you have one great song ("great" being backed by pro-feedback), you should be pitching the hell out of it!..."great song ("great" being backed by pro-feedback)"Casey you're no longer the Rodney Dangerfield of the board! No seriously, this is the best definition of "great" I've ever heard!I put this as my new favorite definition on top of my "Education about business (Industry Info)" folder! Well, Gunter, I don't guess Casey sees himself as others see him....I've always seen him as very helpful and encouraging to people. He tries to help them out because he wants to return what he's been given. Casey, as far as you not being prolific, I've heard your music (when I had my hubby's laptop that day with GOOD speakers), and I think you write quality stuff, so it's okay if don't write a lot of songs. I agree with you about pitching 'your best song'......sometimes pitching one great song can get your foot in the door, and it will open up opportunities to get your other songs heard.Yes, Hummingbird gives great information in her posts. She and Matt gave me some very good info yesterday about Jason Blume and TAXI custom critiques. Hummingbird, I agree about 'exercising that muscle.' I haven't written as many songs as you. I just started writing WHOLE songs around January of 2006, and I've written over 70 now. I'd always written snippets of stuff, but I never completed anything until about a year and a half ago. Like you, I have some more songs in the works. If I don't 'use that muscle', songwriting can turn to flab. I try to write a little each day.Horace, yeah, Rodney Crowell is one of the best. About a couple of months back, CMT aired a little mini-concert of Rosanne Cash and Steve Earle playing together. It was great. Now if someone has to write 600 to 1000 songs to score a hit, I am doomed.

[prez]

For me, having ideas to write songs is never a problem. Ever. Finishing a song can be a problem only because of my schedule and my 9 to 5 (which I'm looking forward to changing since my production company officially launches next month. Can you say long nights?).Other than that, it's very easy for me to come up with a song. If I hear a certain sound, that can spark an idea. I've gotten ideas from water dripping and the cadence of the water inspired the music for a sound. A story will inspire me. A phrase, a picture...lot of things inspire me to write. I have, I would say, about 50 songs. And that's doing it sparingly.Set a goal. Say you'll write one song a week. Even having a day job, that's feasible. That's 52 songs by year's end. More than likely, you can do more than that. But hey...over 50 songs is a couple albums worth. Not bad I would say.Just like they say in the print publishing business, writers write. In the same token, songwriters write songs. Whether it's the hit you want it to be shouldn't make all that much of a difference. You may write because you want to or you may write because you like to. But I believe the prolific songwriter writes because they HAVE to. They're are compelled by the gift and the constant ideas God gives them. It's like breathing. You just HAVE to do it.My 2 3/4 cents.

[jchitty]

Quote:For me, having ideas to write songs is never a problem. Ever. Finishing a song can be a problem only because of my schedule and my 9 to 5 (which I'm looking forward to changing since my production company officially launches next month. Can you say long nights?).Other than that, it's very easy for me to come up with a song. If I hear a certain sound, that can spark an idea. I've gotten ideas from water dripping and the cadence of the water inspired the music for a sound. A story will inspire me. A phrase, a picture...lot of things inspire me to write. I have, I would say, about 50 songs. And that's doing it sparingly.Set a goal. Say you'll write one song a week. Even having a day job, that's feasible. That's 52 songs by year's end. More than likely, you can do more than that. But hey...over 50 songs is a couple albums worth. Not bad I would say.Just like they say in the print publishing business, writers write. In the same token, songwriters write songs. Whether it's the hit you want it to be shouldn't make all that much of a difference. You may write because you want to or you may write because you like to. But I believe the prolific songwriter writes because they HAVE to. They're are compelled by the gift and the constant ideas God gives them. It's like breathing. You just HAVE to do it.My 2 3/4 cents. Good points, Prez. I do try to set goals. I don't know if I'd qualify as a prolific songwriter, but I have achieved that goal of writing 56 songs last year, and I've written another 19 this year, and I have bits and pieces of new ones that I'm working on......so far, that's a total of 75 completed songs. I'm very new to this all....I only started writing in January of 2006. I'd always written little snippets of songs through the years, but I never could complete them. Then last January, I completed a full song. It was like a floodgate had opened for me. It gave me confidence to finish other songs, and then I started writing all the time. Now, it drives me kind of bananas when I can't write, so yeah, I think songwriters do have to write. I don't know if songwriting is a curse or a blessing. I have this weird method for writing. I've written what I would consider 'good songs' and they took several weeks to re-write and to become better songs. The other way I write is to just go ahead and write my 'bad songs' even if I don't like them. I complete them anyway. I find that I'll go back to my bad songs several months later, and all of a sudden, I've got an idea for making them better. I can focus better on the lyrics that I didn't like and correct them.....this method has produced some good songs for me as well. Like most songwriters, I save every single melody (on a tape recorder) that comes into my head whether I'm ready to put words to it or not. I also write down every lyric.....I have a notebook full of snippets like these. I believe in the 'slow cooker' method....sometimes, you'll put a song on the back burner and let it simmer for a while......some fairly decent songs have emerged after a long period of time, maybe even three months. And it's wild where the subconcious or creative process will take you....I've set out to write a song on a certain theme, and then the whole theme changes, but it becomes a better song.

[arkjack]

Don't sell the task of songwriting short.... there is a lot of stuff in a song thats got to be good enough worth pursuing the re-write on... subject... lyric..... melody lines.... rhythm,... harmonization.... prosody.... then you still have arrangement and production.... I'll say I write about 10 songs a day .... in my head.... sometimes on paper.... and its only a once in a while that I come up with something that says" hold everything.... write it all .... now!"... my 30 year catalog is probably near a thousand.... and 950 of them are nowhere near in shape to pursue... and probably a little over 150 are copyrighted..... but certainly a great base of "ideas".... melody, harmonizations.... lyric subject... payoff lines.... might as well keep writing till you're dead.... then its safe to say after that you can't really write a good song anymore.....ArkJack

[jeffe]

I think it's safe to say there are two lines of songwriting.Writing what you want.Writing what others want.The latter obviously being more difficult. Oh if we could only read minds.

[jchitty]

Quote:Don't sell the task of songwriting short.... there is a lot of stuff in a song thats got to be good enough worth pursuing the re-write on... subject... lyric..... melody lines.... rhythm,... harmonization.... prosody.... then you still have arrangement and production.... I'll say I write about 10 songs a day .... in my head.... sometimes on paper.... and its only a once in a while that I come up with something that says" hold everything.... write it all .... now!"... my 30 year catalog is probably near a thousand.... and 950 of them are nowhere near in shape to pursue... and probably a little over 150 are copyrighted..... but certainly a great base of "ideas".... melody, harmonizations.... lyric subject... payoff lines.... might as well keep writing till you're dead.... then its safe to say after that you can't really write a good song anymore.....ArkJackHey, AJ, I guess everyone has a different method for writing songs...I know that I've rescued some really bad ones and made them good ones by just 'sitting on them for a while".....sounds like I'm hatching them, doesn't it? Who knows, maybe they're turkeys. I would agree that after a while, you should just abandon something if it's just not doable, I do have a few of those type songs. I do a lot of rewrites and tweaking.....sometimes, I just can't focus on what I'm writing at the time, and I find that if I come back to it a few months later, my mind is fresh and the song can be salvaged.

[jchitty]

Quote:I think it's safe to say there are two lines of songwriting.Writing what you want.Writing what others want.The latter obviously being more difficult. Oh if we could only read minds.Now that is a good point., "writing what others want' is much more difficult. It's an old cliche, but I really do have to be inspired to write. For instance, some of my friends, knowing that I write songs, will say, "oh, can you write me a song about such and such a topic?" Some have gotten offended and challenged my songwriting abilities when I say, "well, no, maybe in the future, but I'm just not inspired to write about your topic now." Of course, if I ever landed a songwriting deal (probably get struck by lightning first, hehe), I'm sure I'd have to change my errant ways.

[edteja]

Quote:I think it's safe to say there are two lines of songwriting.Writing what you want.Writing what others want.The latter obviously being more difficult. Oh if we could only read minds.I don't necessarily agree with that. Pleasing myself is nearly impossible. Unless you mean the undisciplines sort of "writing what you want," in the sense that whatever you write is okay. But so far, out of a large number of songs, there are few that would qualify for "what I want" and a fair number that have pleased other people.

[jeffe]

Quote:Quote:I think it's safe to say there are two lines of songwriting.Writing what you want.Writing what others want.The latter obviously being more difficult. Oh if we could only read minds.I don't necessarily agree with that. Pleasing myself is nearly impossible. Unless you mean the undisciplines sort of "writing what you want," in the sense that whatever you write is okay. But so far, out of a large number of songs, there are few that would qualify for "what I want" and a fair number that have pleased other people.Well I suppose what I mean is writing for artistic purposes and writing for commercial purposes.