Continuing our series of tips for writing quickly.
Nothing spurs your creativity like having a buddy or group of friends to share your works-in-progress with. Whether you meet every week, or check in on Facebook every day, you'll be highly motivated to have something new to show your friends each time. Sometimes that extra motivation is all you need to get over your temporary hurdles and get your song done.
One of the great things about the setup of the FAWM challenge is how easily you can share your songs online as soon as you get them done. Even the possibility of an audience — someone might come along and listen to your song online — provides an extra motivation to get something done.
Showing posts with label friends. Show all posts
Showing posts with label friends. Show all posts
Sunday, February 12, 2012
Monday, August 23, 2010
Inspiration is a personal thing
When you are inspired by an exciting new idea, don't be surprised if other people don't get it. You might explain your new idea in detail to your family and friends, and feel puzzled and disappointed that they don't share your enthusiasm. At best, they might humor you or offer a general expression of support.
The fact is, they don't see what you see. Inspiration is a vision of a possibility, and it's rare when you can explain the possibility to others and get them to share your excitement.
Artists are generally advised to keep the details of their exciting inspirations private, at least during the early stages of a project. It's discouraging enough that people won't understand what you find so exciting about an idea. But there are some people who will actively try to undermine your self-confidence and convince you to give up on your idea and abandon your project. These might be people who resent the amount of time that you devote to your creative life, or people who envy the level of vitality and enthusiasm that your artistic pursuits bring you.
In particular, people who once were artists themselves, and who had their personal dreams crushed, will feel an urge to crush your enthusiasms in turn.
Don't give them the chance to pour cold water on your ideas. Keep your inspirations private, or share them only with people that you know you can trust.
When your idea is fully formed, then you can go ahead and show it to other people to get their reaction. Then, people will have a chance to see what you saw — because you can actually show it to them. They still could love it or hate it, but at least they'll be reacting to your creation, not reacting to their preconceptions of you as an artist.
The fact is, they don't see what you see. Inspiration is a vision of a possibility, and it's rare when you can explain the possibility to others and get them to share your excitement.
Artists are generally advised to keep the details of their exciting inspirations private, at least during the early stages of a project. It's discouraging enough that people won't understand what you find so exciting about an idea. But there are some people who will actively try to undermine your self-confidence and convince you to give up on your idea and abandon your project. These might be people who resent the amount of time that you devote to your creative life, or people who envy the level of vitality and enthusiasm that your artistic pursuits bring you.
In particular, people who once were artists themselves, and who had their personal dreams crushed, will feel an urge to crush your enthusiasms in turn.
Don't give them the chance to pour cold water on your ideas. Keep your inspirations private, or share them only with people that you know you can trust.
When your idea is fully formed, then you can go ahead and show it to other people to get their reaction. Then, people will have a chance to see what you saw — because you can actually show it to them. They still could love it or hate it, but at least they'll be reacting to your creation, not reacting to their preconceptions of you as an artist.
Sunday, August 1, 2010
This is the August of Inspiration
Yes, August is the Month of Inspiration here at Unruly Beast! The whole month will be devoted to poking around at this mysterious subject.
Inspiration is a critical part of life for many creative artists, but it's not an easy subject to talk about. We can catalog all the chords you'll ever use in rocks songs, and define the chords' functions and relationships — but when it comes to inspiration, there are no diagrams, no tables, no clear-cut answers. Inspiration is one of those big, fuzzy subjects, like God and Love and the Meaning of Life.
What is inspiration, exactly? It's not even easy to define. Sometimes inspiration takes the form of an idea. It pops into your head, it leaps off the paper while you're writing, or it jumps up and down in front of your face as a sudden answer to a question that you might or might not have been asking.
In whatever way it makes its appearance, inspiration is more than just an idea. It's possible to fill pages with new ideas and not come across any inspiration. If inspiration is an idea, it's an idea that comes attached to a payload. This is an idea that enters with force and momentum and certainty. It imposes itself and demands to be expressed.
Inspiration sometimes appears as a vision. You suddenly see a complete and detailed mental picture of something. It's something that doesn't yet exist, but the vision somehow compels you to bring it into existence.
Following through on an inspiration can be exhilarating. Artists often describe these moments as the most profound and meaningful experiences in their lives. But inspiration can just as easily lead to frustration, heartbreak, and despair. If you catch a vision of a great possibility, but don't have the right skills and techniques to bring it to reality, the failure hurts. Failed artists are suicide risks in just the same way as scorned lovers. This is powerful stuff. If it were a product, the FDA would have to consider pulling it off the market.
Love makes fools of us all, it is said. Falling in love is almost a universal experience, and its foolish results decorate our literature, movies, and newspapers. Inspiration makes fools of just some of us, while most others seem to be immune to its particular indignity. Because it's a less-common experience, an artist grappling with inspiration's irrational nature can sometimes feel very alone. This is why it's good for artist to be in touch with other artists, to have a support network of others who understand the emotions and challenges that come with creative work.
Of course, inspiration comes in many sizes, shapes, and flavors, and it's not always an epic life-shaking experience. You can learn to cultivate inspiration, to make it a bigger presence in your life and your work, and to handle it successfully without getting burned. That's the subject of August of Inspiration here at Unruly Beast.
Inspiration is a critical part of life for many creative artists, but it's not an easy subject to talk about. We can catalog all the chords you'll ever use in rocks songs, and define the chords' functions and relationships — but when it comes to inspiration, there are no diagrams, no tables, no clear-cut answers. Inspiration is one of those big, fuzzy subjects, like God and Love and the Meaning of Life.
What is inspiration, exactly? It's not even easy to define. Sometimes inspiration takes the form of an idea. It pops into your head, it leaps off the paper while you're writing, or it jumps up and down in front of your face as a sudden answer to a question that you might or might not have been asking.
In whatever way it makes its appearance, inspiration is more than just an idea. It's possible to fill pages with new ideas and not come across any inspiration. If inspiration is an idea, it's an idea that comes attached to a payload. This is an idea that enters with force and momentum and certainty. It imposes itself and demands to be expressed.
Inspiration sometimes appears as a vision. You suddenly see a complete and detailed mental picture of something. It's something that doesn't yet exist, but the vision somehow compels you to bring it into existence.
Following through on an inspiration can be exhilarating. Artists often describe these moments as the most profound and meaningful experiences in their lives. But inspiration can just as easily lead to frustration, heartbreak, and despair. If you catch a vision of a great possibility, but don't have the right skills and techniques to bring it to reality, the failure hurts. Failed artists are suicide risks in just the same way as scorned lovers. This is powerful stuff. If it were a product, the FDA would have to consider pulling it off the market.
Love makes fools of us all, it is said. Falling in love is almost a universal experience, and its foolish results decorate our literature, movies, and newspapers. Inspiration makes fools of just some of us, while most others seem to be immune to its particular indignity. Because it's a less-common experience, an artist grappling with inspiration's irrational nature can sometimes feel very alone. This is why it's good for artist to be in touch with other artists, to have a support network of others who understand the emotions and challenges that come with creative work.
Of course, inspiration comes in many sizes, shapes, and flavors, and it's not always an epic life-shaking experience. You can learn to cultivate inspiration, to make it a bigger presence in your life and your work, and to handle it successfully without getting burned. That's the subject of August of Inspiration here at Unruly Beast.
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
10♥ The songwriting game
10♥ Ten of Hearts in The Rock Songwriter’s Deck: 52 Ways to Write a Song
The Ten of Hearts tells us that songwriting doesn't have to be a lonely sport. You can make a friendly competition of it.
Get together with two or more songwriting friends, and agree on a set of criteria for writing a song. Maybe someone will suggest a title, for example. Once you agree on the rules of your game, each one of you goes off and writes a song, and you get back together a week or two later and compare your results. Which song is best? What different approaches did you take? It's always interesting and illuminating to see how other songwriters took the same songwriting challenge as you and came up with something different.
What's that? You say you don't have songwriting friends? Well, it's never too late to make friends! And what could be more natural than finding friends who share your keen interest in rock songwriting? There are songwriters everywhere, and if you ask around you're sure to find a few.
The Ten of Hearts tells us that songwriting doesn't have to be a lonely sport. You can make a friendly competition of it.
Get together with two or more songwriting friends, and agree on a set of criteria for writing a song. Maybe someone will suggest a title, for example. Once you agree on the rules of your game, each one of you goes off and writes a song, and you get back together a week or two later and compare your results. Which song is best? What different approaches did you take? It's always interesting and illuminating to see how other songwriters took the same songwriting challenge as you and came up with something different.
What's that? You say you don't have songwriting friends? Well, it's never too late to make friends! And what could be more natural than finding friends who share your keen interest in rock songwriting? There are songwriters everywhere, and if you ask around you're sure to find a few.
Thursday, October 1, 2009
Two comfortable chords
If the [one] chord and [five] chord are rivals, as I posited last week, the [one] and [four] chords are best friends. They enjoy their time together, and they don't mind taking their shoes off or eating from the same plate if that's what the occasion calls for. These two chords are very easy and comfortable together.
Try this as an experiment: write a melody with a major pentatonic scale, and write a chord line to go with it, using only the [one] and [four] chords.
(In the key of C, the pentatonic scale includes the notes C, D, E, G, and A, and your [one] and [four] chords are C and F.)
Okay so far? You've got your melody with its pleasant two-chord accompaniment. Now, switch the chords! Wherever you wrote a [one] chord, play [four] instead, and wherever you had a [four] chord, switch it to [one]. You will probably find that the melody works just as well with the chords reversed. As a rule of thumb, you can't go wrong accompanying a pentatonic melody with these two chords.
[one] - [four] - [one] - [four] - might be the single most popular chord progression for starting out the verse in a rock song. Why is it used so often? Well, typically a rock verse starts out not trying to go anywhere musically. The music wants to sit in one spot for a bit before it starts to go adventuring.
As I mentioned last week, you can achieve this affect by just staying with the [one] chord for the first few phrases. But sometimes it's just too boring to stay with a single chord. In that case, moving over to [four] is the next most comfortable thing. Switching from [one] to [four] gives the ear a little bit of movement, but it won't rock the boat or make anyone uneasy. Because with [four], you know it's not really going anywhere. It's not like going into town and getting into who knows what kind of trouble. It's like right next door where you can keep an eye on it.
If you want to tone down the sense of movement even more, you can keep the base on the tonic note. In the key of C, play
And for the absolute slightest sense of movement, play
Try this as an experiment: write a melody with a major pentatonic scale, and write a chord line to go with it, using only the [one] and [four] chords.
(In the key of C, the pentatonic scale includes the notes C, D, E, G, and A, and your [one] and [four] chords are C and F.)
Okay so far? You've got your melody with its pleasant two-chord accompaniment. Now, switch the chords! Wherever you wrote a [one] chord, play [four] instead, and wherever you had a [four] chord, switch it to [one]. You will probably find that the melody works just as well with the chords reversed. As a rule of thumb, you can't go wrong accompanying a pentatonic melody with these two chords.
[one] - [four] - [one] - [four] - might be the single most popular chord progression for starting out the verse in a rock song. Why is it used so often? Well, typically a rock verse starts out not trying to go anywhere musically. The music wants to sit in one spot for a bit before it starts to go adventuring.
As I mentioned last week, you can achieve this affect by just staying with the [one] chord for the first few phrases. But sometimes it's just too boring to stay with a single chord. In that case, moving over to [four] is the next most comfortable thing. Switching from [one] to [four] gives the ear a little bit of movement, but it won't rock the boat or make anyone uneasy. Because with [four], you know it's not really going anywhere. It's not like going into town and getting into who knows what kind of trouble. It's like right next door where you can keep an eye on it.
If you want to tone down the sense of movement even more, you can keep the base on the tonic note. In the key of C, play
C - F/C - C - F/C -
And for the absolute slightest sense of movement, play
C - Csus4 - C - Csus4 -
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
