In the next few posts I am going to dissect a few of the latest songs I have written and explain about the people I wrote them with and how we arrived at what we did. You see, I am very big on trying to avoid the same old same old, cliched' tired worn out subject matter people seem to write all the time. The "Trucks, out on the farm, redneck, depressing, you name it, that just gets recycled over and over and it gets very tiring to listen to much less write.
There is a lot of subject matter out there. Life is everywhere. Reality is everywhere. We just have to find it and try to find a way to make it interesting, fresh, with a different twist or turn. Most hit songs do this. Find a way not to tell us something we don't know, but show us something we DO know, in a way we didn't see it before.
Sometimes it is musically, rhytmically. Sometimes it is lyrically. But there are reasons that hit songs and hit and established writers that write things that stand so far above other things. And yes, there are things that are nothing special out there. But you can't only try to be "as good as that crap on the radio." You have to shoot higher. That takes more effort.
MY WRITING
I do most of my writing in TEACHING LESSONS with a PRACTICAL APPLICATION EFFECT. I do my "write ups" songwriting lessons or in conjunction with my "Songwriter tours" of Nashville. I sit with people and analyze their existing material. Find out who they are, what they are passionate about. What is going on in their lives. Nine times out of ten, that is where songs come from. Some times they have their own ideas they HAVE to write. I might not be able to talk them out of it even though I might have heard it a million times or possibly already written it myself. My job is to help them find ways to say what they want to say in ways they didn't know how to say it.
I believe these techniques, most of which I have learned from writing with amazing hit and legendary writers, can be taught and passed on. Much is finding the "DUH!" which is something right in front of us that we simply didn't see. Finding the "BEACH" moment, where you see something literally right in front of someone but they didn't see it because they were too close to it or looking to hard or, in most cases, overthinking it.
That will be what these next subsequent posts will be about. I recently had nine people doing various tours in groups, individuals, duos, trios, over the past 7 working days of last week (Oct. 15, 2012,) up until Oct. 23rd, 2012. I will describe a bit about the other people, the reason they come to me, and talk about the songs we wrote and the process I use to get there.
I hope you will find it somewhat interesting. Let me know if you have questions or comments.
MAB