Please point this song in the right direction

[hummingbird]

Sept 25, 2008, 7:48am, wignelson wrote:I can write for a specific listing, but it seems more mechanical that way and kind of sucks out the inspirational electricity.But I guess those are the rules of the game. Okay, I'm gonna argue passionately against that point of view I look at one of the listings I'd highlighted for myself to think about writing for. It says "female singer-songwriter songs in the rage of Lily Allen, Kate Nash, Bird & the Bee, Gwen Stefani, The Pipettes, etc". How does that limit my inspiration or put bars around my creativity? To me it fires it up. I go listen to some Gwen, look at some of her lyrics, pay attention to the grooves... and get inspired to write. This is the major point I keep trying to make to people who think writing commercially viable music or writing for specific targets is 'selling out' and 'dumbing down' and 'not creative'. To me, this is the challenge to your creativity, to be inspired by the framework and step up to the plate and come up with something that works. Ain't easy, but it sure can be done - just go to the forward section and listen to the forwarded music, and tell me... does it sound any less creative or inspired than other music? I don't think so.you can do it - you just gotta keep an open mindbig hugs,Hummin'bird

[wignelson]

Sept 25, 2008, 8:19am, hummingbird wrote:Sept 25, 2008, 7:48am, wignelson wrote:I can write for a specific listing, but it seems more mechanical that way and kind of sucks out the inspirational electricity.But I guess those are the rules of the game. Okay, I'm gonna argue passionately against that point of view I look at one of the listings I'd highlighted for myself to think about writing for. It says "female singer-songwriter songs in the rage of Lily Allen, Kate Nash, Bird & the Bee, Gwen Stefani, The Pipettes, etc". How does that limit my inspiration or put bars around my creativity? To me it fires it up. I go listen to some Gwen, look at some of her lyrics, pay attention to the grooves... and get inspired to write. This is the major point I keep trying to make to people who think writing commercially viable music or writing for specific targets is 'selling out' and 'dumbing down' and 'not creative'. To me, this is the challenge to your creativity, to be inspired by the framework and step up to the plate and come up with something that works. Ain't easy, but it sure can be done - just go to the forward section and listen to the forwarded music, and tell me... does it sound any less creative or inspired than other music? I don't think so.you can do it - you just gotta keep an open mindbig hugs,Hummin'birdI see your point, Bird and I agree with you. It's just that for 30 years I have been composing and have been encouraged by statements that I have my own style in many different genres. That fired me up to continue to compose.Now when a listing asks me to "a la" somebody else, I am a bit saddened by the feeling, "Why can't I just sound like me?"Part of the problem is my ignorance of who the "a la's" are.When I hear that they're looking for "Death Cab for Cutie," I ask, "Death what, for who?" I suppose I have had my head in the sand, so to speak. When I should have been listening to my peers, I was content to isolate myself and just keep composing.It's a bit of a sticky hole to be stuck in, but not impossible to overcome.When someone recognizes a "signature sound" that can sell, it's easy to replicate that "a la" Jimmy Buffett and put out 9 more albums that sound very much the same.It's the old foot in the door that remains my nemesis.Oh, well, if it's supposed to happen, it will happen.Thanks, Bird, Wig

[zoom]

Sept 25, 2008, 8:56am, wignelson wrote:When I hear that they're looking for "Death Cab for Cutie," I ask, "Death what, for who?" Thanks to the interwebs, finding out who any of the "a la's" are shouldn't be a challenge at all! I know that when I'm looking up specific a la's I haven't heard, I just jump on to the iTunes store and poke around. Sure, they only play :30 clips, but that's better than nothing! And when that doesn't work, Google always seems to have my back.

[hummingbird]

Sept 25, 2008, 8:56am, wignelson wrote:I see your point, Bird and I agree with you. It's just that for 30 years I have been composing and have been encouraged by statements that I have my own style in many different genres. That fired me up to continue to compose.Now when a listing asks me to "a la" somebody else, I am a bit saddened by the feeling, "Why can't I just sound like me?"Good point above, there's lots of access to 'a la's" over the internet - iTunes, Amazon, Google, etc.But I'd like to go deeper. The statement has been made, "if I write "a la" someone, I don't sound like me. I lose my individuality."Right now, you are a mass of influences. Every song you've heard, listened to, played & sung yourself over your lifetime is part of who you are, and is unconsciously expressed in your music. No man is an island When a singer, is asked to interpret a song written by someone else - whether it's opera, Broadway, folk, electronica - the goal of any performer, is to bring themselves to the music, have a relationship to the text that makes it real & organic when they express the song. If you ask me to play a song a la Gordon Lightfoot on the guitar, I play it with my relationship to that song & my love of the music. If you ask me to play the same some on the piano, I express those same things on a different instrument. Why? Because I am the one playing it.Thus, if you ask me to write a song a la Gwen Stefani, or Sarah Brightman, or Celine Dion, then I consider that "a la" to be just another instrument for the expression of ME. "I" will not disappear, because every word I write & sing, and every note I play is influenced by my own life, my stories, my heart, my soul. It can't be otherwise.Therefore, the idea that one becomes less than oneself in striving to write to a certain target is, in my opinion, a limiting idea that negates the true creativity of the individual.A good example of this is a writing group I was once in. We were given a 5-minute write without stopping exercise. We were given a genre (western), a place (a bar), a character (Bart), and 5 elements to include in the 5 minute story. According to the premise that writing "a la" something is limiting one's individual expression, all those stories should pretty much sound the same, right? Absolutely wrong. 20 people, 20 remarkably different stories, each written from the that person's unique perspective, while still incorporating all the elements that had been assigned. That really opened my eyes. Before that, I'd been scared someone would "steal" my ideas. I realized, after that exercise, that no one could write like me, nor could I write like them. We used the same structures and forms, but I would always be unique.That is my thought for today. Or for this lunchtime ~Hummin'bird