undersnow

Good point about the love songs, I suppose I just hate the kind of love songs where the lyrics are very blatant, and theres absolutely no ambiguity. You know what I mean, I shouldn't have insinuated that I hate all love songs, just the kind where it's obvious that it is a love song. I rarely step outside my own personal experience when writing, but I really wish I could more often because I stay very content with my lyrics when I write songs that way!

Those are some really awesome ideas! Thanks so much!

Thanks for the insight it's always nice to see how other people handle these things!

I would say that the thing that helped me improve my lyrics is reading. Read poetry, and if you aren't big on just reading poetry there are so many poetic novels that use amazing literary devices, I would recommend The God of Small Things or any novel by Margaret Atwood. You can also try to observe things more closely than normal, listen to the lyrics in your favourite songs and try and figure out exactly why you love those phrases. Hope that helped!

Yeah, my song subjects tend to be varied with out me having to worry about it, however every once in a while I try to challenge myself to write about something out of my norm. Although, I also hate love songs because of how over done they are so I try to avoid writing them. Also I find that a lot of times just one song can be about a lot of things, not in a disorganized way, it all sounds as if its about the same thing, no one would know if I told them. Like if I'm writing about for instance a fear of change, but on that day I also happen to be mad at someone, I'll just slip in a line or two that are about my feelings towards that person. Haha, sorry for the rambling, don't know if that quite made sense.

That sounds really rough! It must have been awkward with so few people there. Feedback is the absolute worst, I hate it, and I always seem to get it when I have a really smug sound man.

Just wondering, who here has had writers block and how have you gotten over it in the past? Thankfully I'm not experiencing it right now, but I have in the past and it would be nice to know how other people get past it!

Hey thought this might be an interesting exercise: 1. Do you sing, play an instrument or instruments? What instruments? I sing and play acoustic guitar mainly, I also play a little piano and mandolin. When did you start playing? I've been taking voice lessons for 7 years now, I've sung in choirs for 4 years and I've played guitar 6 years Did you teach yourself? I'm mostly self taught, I've had a few lessons here and there to get some technique 2. Are you in a band or bands? Yes I'm in one band What is the name of the band? I'm not here to promote it, it doesn't make sense for me because I'm not touring at the moment. What do you play? I sing and play guitar What other instruments are in the band? Its a three piece band, acoustic guitar, classical guitar piano and three voices. Do you have a band website? 3. Do you write songs? yes Do you write lyrics, music or both? both Do you have a writing partner? I write with my bandmates on rare occasion 4. Do you record your music? We have an EP and we're working to get grants for an album Do you use a home studio? If so what gear do you use? At home I sometimes use my mac, but thats just for fun Do you use a recording studio? Yes, my band uses a recording studio we are quite find of. Do you have music available on the web? if so where? yes, won't say. 5. What other roles do you perform in the music business? I do a little managing and promoting but really not much Management? Label owner? Publishing? Promotion? Other? 6. Are you a tech head? not at all 7. What country do you live in? Canada 8. What are your ambitions? I want to make a living with my band 9. Do you draw/paint/write stories/computer art/dance or other creative pursuit? What are your pastimes? Music? haha. I love going to local shows, skiing and I'm a big animal person. 10. What would you like to get out of Songstuff? I'd like to learn about other people's songwriting methods!

I've had a couple horrible set ups. One time I played a gig at an outdoor festival, our pianists keyboard plug went missing and with only three instruments that was pretty devastating, plus it was very cold. We still played fine, but it was just quite difficult with cold fingers, basically no one was there because it started raining and we had to cut the set short because we couldn't do some songs without a piano. It was a disaster! thats funny about the gay night club btw!