Month: July 2017

Sometimes a song just won’t go away. It lurks there in my head for long spells of dormancy and may even fool me into thinking it is gone. Only to suddenly re-emerge unbidden and sometimes even unwelcome. And then to make matters worse, I may become infected with hearing sounds and notes in it that I’ve not truly understood completely yet. I can hear them but when I play it on the guitar or the piano and try to find them, there may be a disconnect still between what I know in my head and what I can find on the keys so far.

This chasm between what I hear in my head, and what I can communicate with another is almost laughable at times. For example, I might sit down and play the guitar and hum or sing a song to someone who hears only the 6 strings and my feeble voice, and they might be able to enjoy it to some modest degree. Yet as they look at the excitement on my face, as I hear the rest of the score in my head and try to describe what will happen with the song as it gets “the rest” of it added, there may be a polite smile (or not), but there is an understanding between us both that there is something missing here.

I feel that many times when a song recedes and is just an infection in my head that I don’t attempt to create or transmit, that it is actually a good thing. Somehow it wasn’t time for me to attempt it, or maybe it just wasn’t time for someone else to hear it yet.

I feel sure that writers, songwriters, poets, and composers must all share this feeling to some degree or other and with infinite variations. And surely the visual arts would have similar “visions” ahead of their time as well. It is one of those aspects of the frustration of a creative art that gets ahead either of the talent of the artist as he grows, or the notice of the audience as it may be unprepared in some way that prevents the successful transmission of the ideas.
Now what to do with this idea? Just keep it in mind when an artist says something like “I’ve had this idea for a LONG time and …” There is something important there. Perhaps you will get it, perhaps they succeeded in communicating it, but surely it is important for it waited so long and would not die.

I heard once at a sales seminar how “seven times repetition equals 33% retention”. I remember it A) because I pay attention the first time and listen when I am spending money to attend a seminar, and B) because the man said it seven times during his presentation with laughs all around as the repetition became funny rather than the insult it should be.

Now turn on most modern radio stations, especially country or pop, and voila you will hear repetition. It is not done artistically, nor for a particular effect, or affect. It is done because it has become the formula for “success”. Don’t you enjoy repetition? Don’t you enjoy repetition? Say it again, Don’t you enjoy repetition?

Now Blues may get a pass, I say blues may get a pass……… that’s right blues may get a pass, cause … BLUES ……. has got a pass —- Key Change on rare occasions, take it up one, and bring it… Blues may get a pass.

So how does this all matter in singer songwriting. For me, I challenge myself to let a lyric come to me based on the musical melody as if it sprang from my emotional center while listening to it in the shower… or humming the tune while enjoying a left rotation spin in my biplane. I try not to fall automatically into verse chorus, and/or repeated line chorus unless there is a damned good reason for it. Like good writing, and the editing thereof, less is more, and critically deciding which items needs to go for the less to end on the recipe for the best stew.

Thus end-eth the lesson.