Creative Processes
Music for me is finnicky. On one hand, I adore the study of it and wiritng out and theorising about chords, progressions, relations to melody lines, the lot! Doing it all within the, for lack of a better word, confines of the theory i have a grasp of at the point of writing is something which i thoroughly enjoy as a challenge. On the other hand, however, i equally enjoy the freedom of improv and simply picking up an instrument, hammering out melodies and chords until it feels right. It was important for me to recgonise that both of these are innefficient in their own ways; relying on my limited knowledge of theory results in a very long and drawn out process to form a song and using improv means I fall into rhythms and melodic phrases that I've used previously, resulting in very samey sounding songs.
Existing Processes
Many of the processes that I used before the songwriting class were born out of convenience and ease. for instance, the most common environment in which i would write would be a messy cramped bedroom with a guitar that was tuned a couple days ago. Along with this, when trying to craft melody lines I'll usually just throw on a favourite song or album and spend the runtime noodling along and accompanying it until I find something that I like and can use in my own music. However, These aren't the only methodologies of my writing; Being someone who has never learned many songs by other artists and instead has been composing original pieces since the moment I picked up the guitar, a lot of my processes revolve around non-musical ideas. One of my primary ways of crafting melody lines has always been taking moments from novels or films and attempting to adapt the emotions I get out of them into a melody or chord progression-This has also impacted my lyrical style as I've ended up adopting a spoken word style of writing. On the topic of lyrics, I've always written them separately from the "music", often coming up with words in sparks of inspiration on walks in the forest and quickly jotting them down, not thinking about how the syllables fit into any given song I'm working on and worrying about that later. I've also always recorded guitar parts as soon as I've finished writing them so as to not forget them, having roughly 300 voice notes of guitar parts from over the years that I might've never used, but have the ability to go back and relearn them if I find the premise of an old progression or riff interesting.
New Processes
Writing to a Metronome
As someone who has always had a tendency to write in awkward time signatures, I couldn't tell you how many times I've accidentally incorporated something such as metric modulation and this isn't intended as a brag! It makes teaching others parts of songs incredibly difficult as its simply in my nature to change time signatures and rhythms, not to mention composing for accompanying instruments and being unable to work out why something sounds off just for it to end up being because a guitar part happens to change from 4/4 to 6/8 without intention (this was an issue that cropped up in Wilt, a song by my old band Fat Raccoon). Practicing and writing to a metronome has helped massively to staying in one time signature when I need to be and has resulted in interesting riffs that i wouldn't have been able to come up with had I not been forcing myself to stay in 4/4, 5/4 or 6/4.
(Lemaire, A., 2023, Available at: https://andylemaire.com/why-you-should-practice-with-metronome/)
Pairing Lyrics and Instrumentals
My process (or lack thereof) for piecing together a full song complete with melody, harmony and lyrics has always been messy, long-winded and frustrating. Being unable to think of words to match a rhythm or vice versa is a very common issue for me; after listening to Rivers Cuomo's Song Exploder episode, for this project I decided that I would sparingly write completely new lyrics and instead write the chord progression and guitar hook before digging through my archives of unused lyrics to find one that loosely works and tinker with the syllable counts, the exact wording essentially treating the words as if they carry major or minor notes separate from the melody and thus form tension or release with the chords through that metaphorical melody, making sure the chorus is perfect as that's the most important part of a conventional song and most importantly just making sure it fits! Sad words for a sad song and vice versa.
(Cuomo, R., 2016, Available at: https://songexploder.net/weezer)
Exploring Dynamics
For this project, I felt that I needed to properly look into the usage of effective dynamics. In my acoustic playing especially, I have always played consistently softly and somewhat, admittedly, idly in accordance with my exisitng process of simply playing in my bedroom without any proper setup. Using dissonance and alternating quantities of volume and general busyness in the song "Three Steel Roses" to keep the song interesting and catch the listener's ear without the use of accompanying instruments.
(Publisher, 2013, Available at: https://www.songwritingmagazine.co.uk/tips-techniques/making-better-use-of-dynamics)
Learning Other Artists Music
Previously I had always just come up with my own music as some form of stubborn indignance that doing so would give me more “artistic integrity and a unique sound” but all it really did was shoehorn me; having learned songs such as Nick Drake's Things Behind The Sun (an artist who is a huge inspiration to me, both overall and for this project) and applying what occurs there in my own compositions, I have found immense inspiration and have been able to craft melodies and progressions i never would've thought of previously, for instance in Things Behind The Sun is contextualised chromaticism as opposed to just simple descending lines which is a technique that I use in the chorus of "Three Steel Roses".
Scheduled Playing and Writing
My overall writing process has always lacked a form of discipline. I simply write when the inspiration strikes or when i feel comfortable to write and that's it. For this project, I felt the need to change that aspect of my routine as a songwriter, instead adopting a schedule of playing in the evenings at around 8pm every night for an hour. Enforcing this helped my writing even when it felt like it wasn't, as it was bringing to my attention habits that I had fallen into with my guitar playing (For a specific example, I didn't realise prior that I would always end up in the key of E minor or A minor when I had written previously).
(Wayman, T., 2016, Available at: https://www.songwritersonprocess.com/blog/2016/11/28/theresa-wayman-warpaint)
Stripping Back
Despite often writing as a solo artist, I've always overencumbered myself with ideas of harmonisations and accompaniments that always end up spanning too far in my imagination and the end result is becoming frustrated that I can't achieve my grandiose ideas and I simply give up the song and move on. Looking into the sombre and solemn production of Pink Moon by Nick Drake, I've come to realise that I just had to follow through an initial idea until the end without overcomplicating things; Me, my guitar and nothing else. Sure, the songs might've sounded better with layers of string harmonies or textural elements! But for me, as an artist, as a person, it was important to just have something that I could earnestly and honestly call complete. Instead of viewing things as pieces of music designed to impress or form something that would be hailed as ahead of it's time and a forgotten masterpiece and whatever else one could hyperbolise the songs with, I focused on funneling myself into the music and let that be all.
(Lister, K., 2022, Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/music/2022/jul/05/nick-drake-pink-moon-50-years-producer-misunderstood-classic-john-wood)
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