Songwriting and Me

So, I'm sort of wading my way through songwriting and a wealth of information on the web, but today, in writing an article about New Students at Berklee for TownMe, I stumbled across some new song writing information, and I'm trying think out loud a little here as well as iron out a process.

Interestingly, this isn't so far off from what I was talking about yesterday with my thesis work; to write that, I had to adapt the art of the short story to my style, something I was wholly unfamiliar with.  I researched, I mimicked, and though I ultimately decided it didn't have my heart, I enjoyed it very much.  So here we go again with songwriting.  Writers will always be called upon to expand their craft; it can be the most exciting and compelling time in your development. So here's me, thrilled and delighted to learn.

My mental process so far:

Poetry = Lyrics

Lyrics + Melody = Songs

Songs =  What I Need.

The difficulty is, of course, that I'm no good at poetry.  But I won't let that stop me.

What I know about poetry:

• Exceptionally image heavy


• Each word should be super important; there's no such thing as a red herring in poetry


• You can tell a really powerful story in a short format


• A novel looks like a long, horizontal line (-----------); it covers a length of time covering at least several moments in time, strung together like a necklace.  A poem, however, and it would seem that most good songs, are vertical ( | ).  They take one moment and blow it up until it's expanded into a billion luminescent fractures.


• However, a collection of poetry (or an album of songs) can be like a story arc, like a novel, like a whole constellation of moments

The blog above recommends keeping something like an image journal, which I found to be a really cool idea and will probably be employing it on the way down to Philadelphia to drop the LB at school.   She also wrote this really good post about chorus writing that addresses the need for it to be a "big idea" that ties the whole thing together.  I'm on the road today, so hopefully I'll be trying all this out!