I’m curious to hear how other musicians write songs. Better yet, I’m curious to hear the details behind ANY artist’s creative processes. As a poet, do you find a cozy spot in the woods to sit down with your pen and paper to tell riddles of nature? Or do you come up with little puzzle pieces of ideas that you allow to free-float around in your brain until finally one word or thought ignites your neocortex and you’re able to tie it all together?
What about painters and sculptors? Do you park yourselves in front of paints, marble, and clay while saying, “what should I create today?”
I have a couple different approaches I take towards music, and although each has its pros and cons, I haven’t found one all encompassing process that I love.
1.) I’m going to write a song – This is my least effective process. This is when I sit down in front of my piano or guitar, harmonicas, pens and paper with the goal of creating a new song. It usually ends in one of two ways. A.) I’ll actually write a song that has already been written, either by myself or someone else. I won’t notice it until I get all excited it’s done. I’ll play it back to myself and say, “Wow, that sounds a lot like a Dave Matthews Song.” “Hmm, those are actually the same exact chords as Crash Into Me just played in a different order.” “Dang it, these are pretty much the same words. I just replaced adjectives.” Or, B.) I’ll get MAYBE one or two lines of okay material, get frustrated, then play all my old stuff for a couple of hours.
2.) Feeling Inspired – I’ll go through phases of extreme inspiration. This usually happens when I’m either going though some life changing experiences (heartaches, deaths, births, breakups, new relationships, etc) – or I’m getting out to a large number of music shows (local and national levels). Either way, I find a guitar sitting on my lap a lot more frequent around this time. I love it when I get in these moods, but the drawback is I can’t always control it.
3.) The Gift – This is the most effective process, and if I could bottle it up and tap into it whenever I wanted, I’d have a slew of successful songs released. The Gift is when there’s no indication or clues, but I just pick up the guitar and magic comes out. Words I’d never thought about stringing together find their way in line. When this happens, I notice it immediately and usually try to isolate myself somewhere with a pen and paper. When the moment passes, it’s hard to get it back. I have a song on my upcoming album called “Familiar Face,” that came to me like this. It took me about 5 minutes to write, but every word that came out felt important, perfect, and irreplaceable.
If you’re a creative person and are willing to share your processes, please feel free to reply to this post. If you would like it to stay a bit more private, you can send me a note via the Contact tab.
“There’s no such thing as original music anymore. Everyone is undoubtedly ripping someone else off.”
A musician friend of mine told me that a while back and it’s always stuck out in my mind. I’m not sure if I agree with it or not – I guess I see both sides. Oasis sounds like The Beatles, The Beatles were influenced by Elvis, Elivs was influenced by Hank Snow…and on and on.
I suppose it all depends on your interpretation of the word original. I’ve always thought that you can’t have an original unless there is a copy or another version. For example, KFC had to change the name to original chicken only after they created extra crispy. You don’t hear them saying original mashed potatoes because there’s only one…right?
If you support the same logic, then it suggests that original music is the first version of music that has been copied in some way. I had to re-read that sentence to myself a couple of times to fully understand it. And after I did, I can say I feel comfortable agreeing with it, but there’s definitely more to the story. How can one decipher what is the ‘first version’ of a song? If I write a song with a simple chord progression, am I copying whatever European musician created it back in 40 AD? If I use the lyric, “I love her,” is that being copied from artists like Whitney Houston, Frank Sinatra, Yoko Ono, and the Beatles who have all used those three words in succession?
Classical pianist, Chris O’Riley says, “The best musicians, period, are those that assimilate, refine, and regurgitate in a creative way everything they hear. So you have a musician, who is writing music that could not have been written at any other time in history and yet takes into account all that has come before it.”
Maybe I should look as original music as any work that is pieced together by an individual’s own inspirations, influences, emotions, and creativity. If that’s the case, then I absolutely disagree with the quote at the top of the page. I’ve always liked to think of the best musicians as song engineers. Those who have the ability to take different aspects of their life; love, heart ache, triumphs, and tragedies and mix those emotions with the musical influences that have moved them throughout their lives and design sometime new and fresh. Something original.
Woke up this morning looking forward to getting back into the studio. My last visit there wasn’t very productive. I shouldn’t say that, it was productive as I learned what I DIDN’T want to sound like. I spent four hours and a couple hundred bucks – only to get home, listen to the tracks and say, “I hate the way that sounds, I’m redoing it.” Over the past couple of years, I have discovered that I am similar to most musicians in the sense that we’re all perfectionists. I can always sing it or play it a little bit better. That’s why it’ so important to have someone in there telling you, “That was a great take, let’s keep that one.” 
The last visit was nobody’s fault but my own. I should have practiced my tunes more extensively before I went in. But I wasn’t going to let that be the case this time. I skipped my coed Volleyball game and my men’s league hockey game Thursday night to stay home and work on some of the tougher parts. And it paid off. Walking into the studio this evening, I had a calming sense of confidence. Tim and I work on three songs tonight: Kasey’s Song, Coming Home with Me, and Okay. I think they turned out great. I’m about half way done with the CD now. I’ve let a couple of close friends preview some of the tracks, and the feedback I’ve been receiving has been awesome. I really think this album is going to be great. Keep checking back for updates.
