The Songwriter Forum - songwriting reviews, tips and chat
Songwriter Forum => The Bar => Topic started by: delb0y on October 23, 2016, 10:31:52 PM
-
I think it's a golfing quote that gets attributed to Gary Player or Arnold Palmer, but the message is clear. What's equally clear is whoever said it they were one of the best in the world.
Sometimes it seems to me that we believe some people are born able to hit a golf ball just so, or play a guitar just so, or sing just so... but the more I read the more I realise that the few who achieve the heights of being able to do this stuff just so, seemingly naturally, are the ones that, behind the scenes are putting in more work than anyone else.
One of my favourite fingerpickers - Pete Huttlinger - said, that like any guitar player who's any good, he spent several years practicing six to eight hours a day. Charlie Parker did the same on the sax. A couple of years of nine hours a day. We've all seen the movie. John Coltrane, Stan Getz, they did it, too. I remember reading that Michael Schumacher used to practice at the Ferrari test track with the sprinklers on, hundreds of laps after hundreds of laps, way more than anyone else, just so he was the best in the wet. David Beckham, in his youth was always the last kid to leave the park, practicing free kicks on his own even after dark.
This evening I watched an interview with Linda Ronstadt, one of my favourites, and she says the same thing about singing - you have to put in six to eight hours a day to learn how to sing. Like any musician, she says. Like a great cello player. Even after she made it, she says (sorry about all these "she says", I'm trying to save on speech marks), it took her ten years to be able to do with her voice what she wanted to do.
I've had way too many 10 000 hour arguments with folks over the years who insist that you've either got it or you haven't, and I have no desire to go there again. So far every "genius" I've ever read up on turns out to have done all this hard yardage. Sure, there may be some folks that are born with it. But it seems to me that time and time and time again I discover my own heroes and heroines weren't born with it but had to work eight nine, ten hours a day, every day, for years.
I do suspect that there is an element of having a bit of luck, or being in the position to have those eight hours available to you - I recall reading an interview with Courtney Pine in which he said he signed on just so he had all day every day to practice. I'm not sure who housed him, or who paid for Charlie Parker or John Coltrane's room and board, but I guess if you're that dedicated you'd find a way. Sweet talk a member of the opposite sex or plead with your parents or rob a bank...
In the modern era I think often it's parents that drive a child from a very young age to attend all the singing lessons and dance classes and photo-shoots and auditions from about three years of age that eventually sees them making it, seemingly overnight with all those skills appearing naturally just so.
But anyway, I can't help but wonder how much better I'd be at the guitar if I practiced eight hours a day. If I practiced singing ten hours a day maybe I could hit and hold some of those notes. If that's what it took for Linda Ronstadt then clearly my ten minutes a week isn't really going to cut it.
It's interesting to ponder on how dedicated we really are, isn't it? Do we really want this (whatever your personal "this" is)? Do we really want to put in those hours?
I can't help but think that it's that dedication rather than any natural taent that's the differentiator.
Just me musing over a bottle of red again...
-
Hear, hear! I do think some people are naturally better at things than other people, but I firmly believe the ones who get really good are the ones who put in the hours! Writing is the same. Music or whatever. you need to spend the time.
-
I'm glad you agree, CaliaM. Way too many people seem (to me) to use the idea of natural ability as an excuse not to put in the hours. I mean, I don't put in those hours. I wish I had the will-power and dedication, but I don't. I'd rather go fishing.
Writing, too. Yes, I agree totally. Are you a writer? I do more writing (not song-writing, but prose) than I do music. It would be great to discover another writer here.
-
I am an amateur writer; I've been writing stories and poetry since I learned to write. I used to tell stories on the school bus. Even the bus driver listened.
I even did NaNoWriMo one year. But just the once. November is deer hunting season here and it really is not okay for anything to compete with that! Anyway, I got over 30,000 words that one time--not quite enough to "win". I had only found out about it, so I didn't have time to prepare; it was like the next day, or maybe week, after I discovered it.
I'm a member of Scribophile, kind of a forum for writers that specifically set up so the members "crit" each other's work and get "karma points", which you need to "pay" for posting your own work. They have a premium version of membership and a free version. I haven't posted--or critted--anything for quite awhile. The songwriting is taking up what free time I have at the moment. I think Scribophile is based in the UK, also.
So I'm the reverse--I do more songwriting than prose these days.
Is any of your work posted publicly?
-
Poor deers! I'd like to shoot them - but only with a camera. I'm not sure that I could kill any animal (but I'll eat them nonetheless...).
I'll have to check out Scribophile. I've been looking for a decent critique group for a while now. I was part of a really good one a few years back. In a way it was a bit like this place - just the right size, just the right volume of posts, although the critiques tended to be a lot more in depth, and it led to a few short-story sales and some good contacts, but as with all these things it ran its course, and though it's still there it's no longer the thriving community it once was.
I've never tried NaNoWriMo - I've normally got a novel on the go anyway.
I have had a few pieces out there on the interweb. I must admit I've lost track of most of them. Been in a few magazine and anthologies, too. Due to my oft-mentioned work-busyness at the moment I've been writing library westerns for the last few years. These tend to be very short novels (about 40 - 45k words) and somehow I've found a publisher that likes what I do - so I'm up to five published so far. If you were in the UK you could find these books at a library near you :-) Once I retire, whenever that turns out to be I shall hopefully get back to writing full length novels again.
Derek
-
Poor deers! I'd like to shoot them - but only with a camera. I'm not sure that I could kill any animal (but I'll eat them nonetheless...).
Me too. I supposed to shoot my own, but it never happens. I get involved in the processing, though. Freezing, canning....
I'll have to check out Scribophile. I've been looking for a decent critique group for a while now. I was part of a really good one a few years back. In a way it was a bit like this place - just the right size, just the right volume of posts, although the critiques tended to be a lot more in depth, and it led to a few short-story sales and some good contacts, but as with all these things it ran its course, and though it's still there it's no longer the thriving community it once was.
Start with a couple short pieces. Books are posted by the chapter. It's easier to get crits if you stay down around 2000 words per post, although sometimes people will double that. Once you decide you want to try it for a novel (it is very helpful!) you'll want a premium membership so you can keep posting chapters without having to take any down. That way, when someone discovers your work when you're 20,000 words into it, they can start from the beginning and get caught up.
I have had a few pieces out there on the interweb. I must admit I've lost track of most of them. Been in a few magazine and anthologies, too. Due to my oft-mentioned work-busyness at the moment I've been writing library westerns for the last few years. These tend to be very short novels (about 40 - 45k words) and somehow I've found a publisher that likes what I do - so I'm up to five published so far. If you were in the UK you could find these books at a library near you :-) Once I retire, whenever that turns out to be I shall hopefully get back to writing full length novels again.
Awesome! My dad loves westerns. I'm not a big fan, but sometimes a well-written one, especially if it's a little different than the usual, can be good. So Amazon doesn't carry them? If you ever track something down where I can find it, I'd love to take a look!
-
Yep, they're on Amazon, but they're expensive for what they are. The latest one is available on Kindle though:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Dead-Mans-Black-Horse-Western-ebook/dp/B01I3I426I/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1477347535&sr=8-1&keywords=derek+rutherford (https://www.amazon.co.uk/Dead-Mans-Black-Horse-Western-ebook/dp/B01I3I426I/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1477347535&sr=8-1&keywords=derek+rutherford)
-
One of my favourite fingerpickers - Pete Huttlinger - said, that like any guitar player who's any good, he spent several years practicing six to eight hours a day. Charlie Parker did the same on the sax. A couple of years of nine hours a day.
thats funny bcos I was advised to get a book called Bounce by matthew syed for my son as hes a talented sportsman...of course he didnt read it.. I did! :)...& it seems to be the current thinking that success is all down to hard work...i dont know tho...
who could practice 8 hours a day & not get so sick of it they would never touch a guitar again ever...which means they mustve had some obsessively unhealthy drive to be the best at whatever cost or they started with such amazing talent which made all the practice realy easy?
anyway derek im impressed you are a author aswell as being a musician
trust you to write cowboy stories! I bet your heroes all play a mean delta blues on the old banjo in the saloon ;D
now I have written a book I got a few copies printed privately some years ago ...so how do you get it on amazon? its not a cowboy book ;D
-
I think you can self-publish on Amazon and they take a %
Go for it!
-
Yeah, you just have to be careful. I know someone who published something on Amazon and apparently his agreement allowed Amazon to discount the price if they chose. They discounted it below his cost, so he actually had to pay when someone bought after that. I think you just need to pay attention to what you're doing. I haven't tried it myself. So far.
-
thanks i will look into it then
the only thing is i am not at all self conscious when i post a song but im frightened of people rubbishing a book... i have to weigh up what i would gain against what i would suffer if it got rubbished
-
"Amateurs Practice Until They Get It Right; Professionals Practice Until They Can’t Get It Wrong."-Anonymus
I wholeheartedly believe you HAVE to put in the hours and I am certain that most people we've heard of have done just that. Often to an extent we might not even grasp.
I for one, am not one of those natural talented peepz that just grab any instrument and play it flawlessly. I have many very annoying friends that are like that but not me, I'm not gifted like that. What I did get though was this passion for music combined with a fair amount of stubbornness, so almost everyday, when time admits it, behind closed doors I just keep practicing whatever instrument I'm into for the moment, and slowly over the years I've at least gotten good enough to fool a few people into believing I can play and sing. After all, as home studio musicians, we only need to sound good for a few bars at a time!!! :D :D
But I do practice regularly and if I get bored I just switch instrument, or work on my lyric writing, music theory or whatever music related I can think of. I'm a total nutcase I know but I kind of like it that way. Therapeutic in a way.
/S
-
That's brilliant Tinam. We seem to have a secret sub-culture of writers here, which is wonderful!
As regards Amazon, mine are all published by a publisher who does that so I've never had to look into it - but I believe it's reasonably straight forward these days. Just have a look at the author pages:
https://kdp.amazon.com/help?topicId=A32I2OF1510VZV (https://kdp.amazon.com/help?topicId=A32I2OF1510VZV)
The answer(s) are no doubt all in there somewhere. I have a couple of longish short stories that I've never been able to place and I've been thinking of dabbling with self-publishing, maybe putting a book of shorts out on Kindle, but it comes back to that same thing - time.
As regards cowboy books... it's a long story (unlike the books themselves). I grew up reading them but all my early writing (up until my 40s) was horror and crime and thrillers. I have several full length crime/thriller novels in my bottom drawer that I finished. One of which I subbed out to a few publishers. Alas, despite some reasonable comments I got no bites. Then I stumbled across the western publisher and discovered their books only had to be 40k words long. I thought I'd give it a go. And lo and behold they've accepted all of my books so far. So I'm a western writer for the time being. My last one, Dead Man's Eyes, was the first in a trilogy, so I need to write at least two more (half way through the first of those two) which may well take me through to retirement when I can try something a little more ambitious with all the spare time on my hands.
I bet your heroes all play a mean delta blues on the old banjo in the saloon ;D
I do use more musical references than most western writers - I enjoy looking up the old songs to see what was popular back in the period. In one story I did name all the characters after sixties soul singers. In another I had fun seeing how many album title I could slip into the text...
thats funny bcos I was advised to get a book called Bounce by matthew syed for my son as hes a talented sportsman...of course he didnt read it.. I did! :)...& it seems to be the current thinking that success is all down to hard work...i dont know tho...
who could practice 8 hours a day & not get so sick of it they would never touch a guitar again ever...which means they mustve had some obsessively unhealthy drive to be the best at whatever cost or they started with such amazing talent which made all the practice realy easy?
You're right. I know I couldn't do it. But some folks do and it seems more and more to me it's those folks that are making it. Perhaps they are all crazy...
-
What I did get though was this passion for music combined with a fair amount of stubbornness, so almost everyday, when time admits it, behind closed doors I just keep practicing whatever instrument I'm into for the moment, and slowly over the years I've at least gotten good enough to fool a few people into believing I can play and sing.
It definitely worked, S :)
I used to play - and practice - in so many different styles. I took jazz lessons, I studied swing, I studied flat-picking bluegrass with Bryan Sutton, I used to work hard at rockabilly, country, rock'n'roll, gypsy jazz, blues, rock, fingerpicking, everything. But about three years ago I realised I was pretty average at all of them and wasn't making much progress so I decided that I would focus my practice time almost exclusively on fingerpicking an acoustic. And that's why almost all you get here from me is solo acoustic. It's worked - I can go out and gig and feel pretty comfortable at what I do now. I still play in bands and still have to pick some electric country and rock'n'roll on the electric quite often, but I'm happy with what I already know and can do in those styles. All the acoustic work keeps my fingers in reasonably good shape for the electric - although I've lost a lot of single string speed in the last few years.
-
Just my personal opinion...I've never been impressed by technical brilliance...I never practice anything, really...if I can't pick the gist of something up within three or four attempts...I just leave it alone.
I admire the odd great player, Chet Atkins for one...but it mostly does nowt for me.
Then again...I always feel like a bit of a chancer...and can't take myself seriously as a musician or a songwriter...or anything else for that matter :)
-
no wonder youre good derek all the lessons & practice youve put in & can gig easily
i am like paul here i am not at all impressed by the technically brilliant players i find them quite boring
im more impressed by the ones who sound like they make it up as they go
i have never had a lesson or been aware of practicing & im ashamed to admit i know hardly any theory & have never realy learnt scales ...i rely on my imagination & i definitely have some connection with my guitars when i pick them up... i suppose i have been playing a long time & i have listened to a lot of music... & maybe that is my guitar lessons
i have never taken myself serious as a musician either bcos i dont realy know where it all comes from
-
I must confess I am impressed by brilliance in any area of life. I admire people who have mastered difficult things, be it a musical instrument, writing a book, riding a MotoGP bike, acting, singing, splitting the atom, programming a DAW, producing an album, flying a fighter jet... I love brilliance, and am glad people strive for it. It's what moves the world forward.
In terms of music, there are countless players who leave me cold - and, I agree, this can sometimes because they have developed technique to such a level that the technique becomes everything (although, to be fair, sometimes it's the opposite). Are such players common? I'm not sure. There was definitely a period of time in the 90's and 00's when a generation of shredders took electric rock guitar to new limits and yet it seemed like every time they released a new album they'd say something like "This time I'm going back to the music. I'm concentrating on melody and songs rather than technique." And every time I fell for those lines and bought the album I'd find they were still concentrating on technique. All those albums got eBayed pretty quickly and what those guys are doing these days I have no idea.
But there are other players who have mastered their instruments and who do understand how to use that technique in support of great songs. These are the players I tend to go for. Sometimes they are electric guitarists, sometimes acoustic, sometime rhythm, sometimes lead. Sometimes they are trumpet players or sax players or piano players. One of them is a banjo player! One of my favourite musicians, Jerry Douglas, is a dobro player - a masterful player who is always perfectly supportive of the song. Sometimes these folks are ear players, sometimes readers. Some know theory, some don't - Django, one of my favourites supposedly never knew what chord or note he was playing - but he's as brilliant as they come, both musically and technically.
Looking back over the favourite guitarist thread and we all chose pickers at the top of their individual technical game!
-
I used to be in a band with a guy called Trev "Don't touch my guitar" O. With regards to learning a lead riff or a chord sequence, once it was in his head after it had been written down for him, he could knock it out a thousand times faultlessly and it would sound "Exactly" the same. However, when it came to ideas or we wanted to go into a jam he did not have a Scooby Do. So, although I can admire technique, I think feel is a far more important thing as is not taking yourself too seriously :)
-
Just for the record so there's no confusion, I don't believe practicing has anything to do with being technically brilliant. Personally, I do not care for the technically brilliant players or singers. But I do enjoy Robert Johnson.!?! Guess he's sort of technically brilliant though. But as you guys say tinam and paul, I too, like when it sound like musicians are making stuff up on the fly. As Van Morrison said about his own style, - People think it's easy, but it's taken years of practice to make it sound natural.
Just saying.
/S :D
-
It sounds like I'm in the minority :)
But as I mentioned above, albums that are pure technique tend to get moved on very quickly by me. To me a good technique is just one of several pillars on which the people I tend to like have built their style. In addition to that technique, there's feel, melodic invention, creativity, improvisational ability, a way with words, and so on. I certainly wouldn't put technique above any of these things (or vice versa). But I won't deny that I enjoy listening to a Hendrix or a Django or an Oscar Peterson or an Ella Fitzgerald, and yes, Robert Johnson - all of whom are very technical brilliant in their own ways.
-
Or maybe some of those who agree with you
It sounds like I'm in the minority
just haven't said anything yet.
I am very much impressed by technical brilliance (or TB), and I agree it needs to be accompanied by the other "pillars" mentioned by delb0y. TB by itself would be cold and sterile, not very attractive, but that doesn't make TB itself undesirable as a component of a brilliant performance.
-
I just love flawed characters and performances...it's the human element that I admire the most.
-
Now that you mention it, PaulAds, I know what you mean. I recall being at a piano concert once and the pianist flubbing a spot. He said, "Hm", and kept on going. He didn't do what you're "supposed" to do--pretend it didn't happen.
It really made the event memorable. I doubt I would even remember I went to that particular concert if not for the flub. While human and capable of flaws, he was still technically brilliant and I know he practiced hours. So I think there's room for both the technical brilliance and the charm of a flaw in the performing.
-
I guess that's what I'm trying to convey, you can be TB and you can be TB, there's a difference. :D When I instantly think of TB, I picture a musician with no emotion playing extremely difficult stuff in a flawless way. That part of TB is not my cup of tea.
My kind of TB is the guitar playing of Robert Johnson, the fingerpicking of Doc Watson or the simplicity of the late BB King. The lyrical genius of Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen and Van the man. The song crafting of Cat Stevens, Dylan, Cohen, Paul Simon and many more. What I'm trying to say is, the TB that I admire, because I do, may not immediately strike you as TB at first glance, but I believe it is. And to make my final point, I believe none of the above would've become who they are without an insane amount of practice. Be it instrumental, lyrical, theoretical or just song crafting practice. None!
The TB that I love, can not exist without the flawed characters and performances, just adding that. #PaulAds
Not sure I made any sense but fingers crossed.
S