'I hate writing. I love having written.' - Dorothy Parker
I look back on my earliest attempts to write music with a mixture of embarrassment and amusement. Definitely not pride, except in the tenacity department. I remember my eleven-year-old self strumming my great new musical creation over the phone to my buddy...and his uncharacteristically hesitant and non-committal response. About a year later, another friend of mine coaxed me to read him some lyrics I had written. He literally spent the next hour laughing. I remember feeling that if only I had a couple of completed tunes under my belt, I could then proceed with confidence and get some real fun out of writing. I'd at least KNOW that I knew how it's done!
As you'd probably guess, a lot of artists have similar experiences with their first attempts. Most songwriters are embarrassed by their first songs, which is perhaps for the better anyway (room for improvement can be a strong motivator, after all). I'd guess that most who continue eventually come up with tunes they can be proud of. The temptation at that point is to try to formulate songwriting: i.e.: 'if I recreate the conditions and employ the same techniques that I used in that previous successful tune of mine, I'll have yet another successful tune in my repertoire!'
Some songwriters (I just deleted the word 'artists', I should point out) actually use this technique, and a few even achieve some commercial success with it...but mighty few songwriters that I listen to. Most of my favourite artists tend to re-invent themselves frequently. Joni Mitchell once said that if you repeat yourself, you'll be crucified...and if you do something new and different, you'll be crucified...so why not go ahead with the new and different route anyway? At least it's the less boring route, even if your fate is the same. Although I rarely listen to Led Zep these days because I played the grooves out of those records when I was a teenager, I still hugely appreciate a few simple facts about that band: 1) guitarist Jimmy Page produced every album 2) each of their 10 albums was hugely different from the others, and 3) every song was different - there was obviously no formula used. Even the live versions of tunes differed drastically from their studio prototypes, for better or worse. That's what I call a legacy.
Still, as I sit at some public bench with my little notepad and pen, scribbling fragments of a possible new tune, I do sometimes catch myself looking back over my shoulder at some of my previous works - but I would hope, in a constructive way. When I've come up with ideas I like enough to keep, I'm usually in a non-judgemental frame of mind; in fact, rather reckless and audacious; and sometimes it feels less like I'm generating ideas than that I'm getting out of the way for the ideas to land in my lap...but getting out of the way is an anti-discipline - we're conditioned from an early age to correct ourselves early in the thought-development stage, and songwriting often involves NOT correcting those raw ideas. Still - I've occasionally 'sweated' a tune into existence, which suggests that the only constant in songwriting is that there should be no other constants. Like people, every creation is different. If you can't embrace it, at least get used to it...unless you subscribe to the Angus Young school of Songwriting:
Angus: "AC/DC has been accused of recording eleven albums that were exactly the same. That's a damned lie! We've recorded TWELVE albums that are exactly the same!"
And I gotta admit - I love Powerage and Highway to Hell. As I said - the only rule is that there are no other rules. ;)
I look back on my earliest attempts to write music with a mixture of embarrassment and amusement. Definitely not pride, except in the tenacity department. I remember my eleven-year-old self strumming my great new musical creation over the phone to my buddy...and his uncharacteristically hesitant and non-committal response. About a year later, another friend of mine coaxed me to read him some lyrics I had written. He literally spent the next hour laughing. I remember feeling that if only I had a couple of completed tunes under my belt, I could then proceed with confidence and get some real fun out of writing. I'd at least KNOW that I knew how it's done!
As you'd probably guess, a lot of artists have similar experiences with their first attempts. Most songwriters are embarrassed by their first songs, which is perhaps for the better anyway (room for improvement can be a strong motivator, after all). I'd guess that most who continue eventually come up with tunes they can be proud of. The temptation at that point is to try to formulate songwriting: i.e.: 'if I recreate the conditions and employ the same techniques that I used in that previous successful tune of mine, I'll have yet another successful tune in my repertoire!'
Some songwriters (I just deleted the word 'artists', I should point out) actually use this technique, and a few even achieve some commercial success with it...but mighty few songwriters that I listen to. Most of my favourite artists tend to re-invent themselves frequently. Joni Mitchell once said that if you repeat yourself, you'll be crucified...and if you do something new and different, you'll be crucified...so why not go ahead with the new and different route anyway? At least it's the less boring route, even if your fate is the same. Although I rarely listen to Led Zep these days because I played the grooves out of those records when I was a teenager, I still hugely appreciate a few simple facts about that band: 1) guitarist Jimmy Page produced every album 2) each of their 10 albums was hugely different from the others, and 3) every song was different - there was obviously no formula used. Even the live versions of tunes differed drastically from their studio prototypes, for better or worse. That's what I call a legacy.
Still, as I sit at some public bench with my little notepad and pen, scribbling fragments of a possible new tune, I do sometimes catch myself looking back over my shoulder at some of my previous works - but I would hope, in a constructive way. When I've come up with ideas I like enough to keep, I'm usually in a non-judgemental frame of mind; in fact, rather reckless and audacious; and sometimes it feels less like I'm generating ideas than that I'm getting out of the way for the ideas to land in my lap...but getting out of the way is an anti-discipline - we're conditioned from an early age to correct ourselves early in the thought-development stage, and songwriting often involves NOT correcting those raw ideas. Still - I've occasionally 'sweated' a tune into existence, which suggests that the only constant in songwriting is that there should be no other constants. Like people, every creation is different. If you can't embrace it, at least get used to it...unless you subscribe to the Angus Young school of Songwriting:
Angus: "AC/DC has been accused of recording eleven albums that were exactly the same. That's a damned lie! We've recorded TWELVE albums that are exactly the same!"
And I gotta admit - I love Powerage and Highway to Hell. As I said - the only rule is that there are no other rules. ;)