SONGWRITING

the art of songwriting

I read this book to give me more insight and inspiration as to how I could further extend and develop my songwriting. I wanted to create something that I had never created before, something which I wouldn’t think is possible for me to create. I wanted to push myself to use different chords and to extend the emotion within my songs to something which I had never expressed before. This was extremely challenging at times, as I find songwriting can be somewhat invasive into your life and sometimes you don’t want to share the deeper parts of life. However I thought that topics which are harder to write about, give the best emotion and response, as not many people talk about the deeper parts of life, yet everyone feels the deeper parts of life. Therefore I wanted to share experiences which would be somewhat relatable, yet also emotional and hard to share. Reading this book helped me to use the piano alongside the vocals in a way that I had never expressed before. One of my favourite quotes from the book was:

‘Inspiration is something that can rarely be forced or controlled. The best songs or ideas are often not the result of routine or structure but the happy coincidence of accidents.’

I believe that this is true when songwriting, most of the songs that I write aren’t structured, they aren’t meant to be the way they are when finished, it somewhat just happened from a flow of inspiration. This would affect my project if I was songwriting during the several weeks of the project as if I didn’t have the flow of inspiration then that would mean that I wouldn’t have the songs ready to even create an EP in the first place. Therefore this is why I used songs that I had written a couple of years ago, such as City of Street Lights. However I also used a song that I wrote 1 week prior to the project, idon’tseemtoloveyoursmileanymore.

my songwriting process

My songs are all written in different ways and I don’t have a specific process that I follow every time I write a song. Yet there are some steps that I follow in the process or repeat every time I write a song.

1st I get inspired

This is easier said than done, as you can’t force inspiration. But once in a while I may get a lyric idea and write it in my notes on my phone like these ones:

Or I may get a chord idea whilst I am playing the piano, and then memorise it or record it for later. So when I come back to it, or get another spark of inspiration I then add both the lyrics and chords together. Sometimes this could be a 20 minute process if I’m inspired, other times it could take a couple of weeks to perfect a song as many ideas may pop up to better suit the song.

2nd add lyrics and chords together

Once I have found the perfect lyrics to match some chords which I like, or have written some lyrics, then I play them together multiple times. If I like the sound of the piece, then I move onto the next step. If I don’t then I will either continue to try and write lyrics for the song, or change the chords. If that still doesn’t work out, then I either discontinue with writing that specific song or come back to it the next day with a fresh mind and try again, or even wait until I get inspired, which could simply happen anytime. My general time of inspiration is when I’m sitting on the bus and hearing people talking and looking out of the window at the view, or just sitting on my bed and looking outside my window.

3rd adapt and develop

This stage can take the longest, and can be the most unpredictable. This is due to, turning a song in which the lyrics just fit within the melody and over the chords into something real and inspiring. I could adapt a song 3/4 times and still not think that it’s finished. By adapt I mean either: changing sections of the song, making the song longer, taking out parts of a song, changing lyrics or changing the speed/dynamics. By develop I mean either: adding seventh’s to chords, making a chord a sus chord, changing the rhythm of the chords, changing the time signature, changing the melody of the lyrics, adding ad libs in the melody or adding small sections into the piece that give it more uniqueness.

This is a collection of videos that i have recorded through my process of songwriting:

|IDONTSEEMTOLOVEYOURSMILEANYMORE|

This is the song that I wrote just before starting the project. I decided to add it over the other songs and develop it further because I believe that it added a different side to the EP, as this is a piece that shows more emotion throughout the lyrics. I love the sound of the chords in this piece, especially when I recorded it acoustically as I believe that is the best version of it. The song sounds better when played acoustic because it gives every breath into the microphone emotion, it gives the song more character and energy and every time I play it acoustically, it’s always slightly different. I wanted to leave this song last in my set list because I knew that after playing all the other songs and becoming more and more confident on stage, that I would give this song everything that I had left when performing it.

|MEMORIES|

This is a snippet of my song City of Street Lights. At one point through songwriting, I was going to change the name to memories as I believe that the word ‘memories’ has more meaning to me than ‘City of Street Lights.’ However I changed it back because City of Street Lights was a much more unique name and I knew that other songs were called memories and I didn’t know of any songs called City of Street Lights.

|underwater|

This was a synth idea on logic that I had for underwater. I really liked the sound of this synth, so I recorded it. Overall when producing this song, I used this original synth sound for inspiration and it helped me to chose the instrumentation easier. However, this song took the longest to write as I kept changing the ideas and the piano solo part of Underwater was not even meant to originally be in the song, but another song that I was writing. Yet I tried adding it into Underwater and everything fell into place as soon as I added it.

other ideas

This first idea was the development of City of Street Lights. I was trying to work out if adding delicate details within the song would suit it, however in the end I chose not to include it.

Bright Blue Eyes is a song that I performed in one of my Performances a while ago within this year of college. I really liked the song and therefore I added it into my set list. The reason I didn't chose to include this song into my EP is due to writing idon'tseemtoloveyoursmileanymore. It was a hard decision to cut this song out from my EP, however I had to make hard decisions on what would fit perfectly on my EP.

Here I am playing City of Street Lights but changing and adapting it slightly, whilst also showing the original versions.