Under so much stress writing...

  • 4 Replies
  • 2873 Views

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

IrishGuy

  • *
  • Busker
  • *
  • Posts: 18
« on: October 03, 2015, 03:39:30 PM »
I'm in a music college and each week one student has to play one of their own songs for the class on an acoustic guitar or piano and then the class analyses it and gives advice and then you are assigned a band and you perform your song in a band version the next week. Awesome stuff.

I have only written about 3 proper songs in my life and none of them would I be comfortable playing for the class as I wrote 2 of them 2 years ago and they are very beginner songs compared to what I've heard performed in the class so far.

The people in my class probably have written upwards of 20 songs and it freaks me out. I just never write and I'm in this course and it forces me to work on songwriting which is great. I'd try to songwrite anyway but it gives me a better push. Basically I was sitting in class as the next person was called and I was freaking out becuase I thought one of these days I'm going to be called and have to perform one of my songs.

I'm sitting here trying to write but I keep dismissing everything as not good enough for the class and it's really counter productive because I just want to have great songs under my belt and be able to pull them out like a weapon at will.

It doesn't help that the song has to be obviously a bit lyrical and done on acoustic when I've been listening to Foals and And So I Watch You From Afar and Adebisi Shank and Bombay Bicycle Club for the past 5 months. I've been writing big band ideas and instrumentals. I haven't sat down and tried to write lyrics for an acosutic song in ages. I've just been thinking of cool little band pauses and heavy ideas.

I'm kind of panicking because in the next 2 weeks it'll be my turn and I have no songs to pull out when I'm asked to.

One idea I had was start listening to Dylan and other singer songwriters but it might not be enough.

Wiring should be fun but I'm under pressure so it's hard

Any advice?? Apologies for the long post

PaulAds

  • *
  • Stadium Tour
  • *****
  • Posts: 3477
  • Haemorrhaging Enthusiasm
« Reply #1 on: October 03, 2015, 04:04:11 PM »
Why not write a song about how you're feeling about it :)
heart of stone, feet of clay, knob of butter

mihkay

  • *
  • Platinum Album
  • ****
  • Posts: 688
  • Tune first....Lyrics long, long way second.
    • Mihkay Demos
« Reply #2 on: October 03, 2015, 06:47:04 PM »
Try not to worry about technical stuff. Some of the greatest songs are only 3 chords. "Once in a lifetime" by Talking Heads has the same simple bass figure unchanged through the whole song.
Just put something together that you can play with confidence and with some emotion. Feel and confidence is much, much more important than technique.
So play something that you know well, even if it's an old song, and can put forward almost without thinking about it.
Pauses and cool time signature changes do not require anything but your feel for the song.

So my humble advice is.

1. Keep it to two or three chord you are confident you can hit every time.
2. Concentrate on the feel of the song and let your strumming / fingering fall into place by itself.
3. Be confident with the vocal line. Sing it like you mean it. Lyrics can be changed later melodies stand out.
4. Enjoy yourself. You're doing music for fun.
5. Don't be afraid to collaborate.

good luck dude.

Martin
I have no authority or standing here, only opinions. :-)

tone

  • *
  • Administrator
  • Stadium Tour
  • *****
  • Forum Former Führer
  • Posts: 3551
  • The People's Democratic Republic of Songwriting
    • Anthony Lane on soundcloud
« Reply #3 on: October 04, 2015, 12:47:55 PM »
A couple of things come to mind here. 99% of songwriting/ being a musician is self doubt (at least in my experience!). Ok, seriously, that's an overstatement, but I think it's true that the way you hear your own songs isn't the way others hear them.

First rule of doing anything. There will ALWAYS be someone better than you. If you let it stop you, you're doing it wrong. Because there will NEVER be anyone who does your thing the way you do it, and that has immense value.

If I were in your shoes, I'd choose what I think is the best of the songs you've written, make sure you can perform it well enough, and just have at it when it's your turn in class. While I understand it's really hard to perform when you think you're not up to standard, maybe having the feedback from your tutor and classmates will give you the boost you need to take your songwriting to the next level.

We all had to start somewhere. But sitting down trying to write to some perceived notion of what's acceptable in a classroom setting probably isn't helpful right now. If you're going to write a song, try and make the reasons for writing it be that you want to write it. Or that you have something to say, something to express, or whatever.

Finally, if the pressure of delivering music to order is making you unhappy, maybe you should consider the role music plays in your life. Music should be fun, and if it's not, maybe it's more suited as a hobby for you? That doesn't mean letting go of the ambition to play/ write to a professional standard, it just means taking the pressure off and doing it because you want to.

Anyway, I hope some of that helps. And good luck with your class performance; I bet it will be better received than you think. :)
New EP: Straitjacket - Listen here

1st track from my upcoming album -- Click to listen -- Thanks!

Please read the rules before posting in the feedback forums http://bit.l

Dan James

  • *
  • Busker
  • *
  • Posts: 38
« Reply #4 on: October 05, 2015, 07:38:15 PM »
Just remember that all those other people in the class, who may or may not have written 20-plus songs apiece, are, to a greater or lesser extent, going through exactly the same emotions and self-doubt when it's their turn to perform. Everyone's in the same boat.

As PaulAdds implied, anything can be a song. There's plenty of words, phrases, ideas and thoughts already written down in your post which would distill very nicely into a set of lyrics. Get a chord sequence going, maybe in a minor key, start doing a "la-la-la" melody over it, then start singing the words. Maybe get a title first, even if it's something like "New Song Blues". Keep a pen and plenty of blank paper handy, and preferably some kind of recording device. And off you go. And enjoy it. And half an hour/one hour/six hours later, there's the first draft of a new song in the world.

Another thing - lyrics are lyrics. There's no such thing as "acoustic guitar lyrics". I was the vocalist and lyricist with a rock band for a long time, and often had to put words to the riffs and ideas that the guitarists, bassist and drummer came up with. These were the kind of songs that would take the paint off the walls when we were on form. I now perform a lot of those songs solo, just me and an acoustic guitar. And they still work.