MikeRobinson

You can usually find collaborators who will provide vocals (and everything else) for you. For instance, on macjams.com, many of the very best songs (and they are legion...) are the "collabs" of many talented individuals. "The Sisters," "Roxie," and many others there have amazing voices and are very willing to share. And this is simply one of the places where I "lurk," listening. The Internet (and, I am quite sure, this site) is full of people who can help you with your song, and the sum is much greater than its parts. There isn't any question that the whole thing began with "the songwriter." But someone else might have done the arranging, or offered a killer solo track, or done the mix. A few very talented folks are aces at the arcane art of mastering. So, "who wrote it?" Perhaps one soul. But, "who made it?" Many. Write your song. Take it as far as you can. Make it inviting. Then, invite others into your world.

Alas... " ... the girls just turn a - way To another guitar picker In another late night place ..." -- Alabama But every song that any "Guitar Hero" ever fantasized of playing "expertly," somebody else did play "expertly." And, another person (or group of people) wrote it. Visual artists sweated hours away on displays that the erstwhile "hero" will barely notice. Programmers ran yet another regression-test on mountains of source code. Someone did the mixing and the mastering. All unseen. No one on this planet has ever been transported ... not "Over the Rainbow" or "Up, Up And Away" ... without a song taking them there. There are many other places to go, and songs that will take them there. Those songs are just waiting to be written. Maybe, though, things like Guitar Hero aren't too much different from what I remember doing as a child with my ... umm ... transistor radio. "Air guitar." Maybe now, as the computer does what a computer inevitably does, it will expose more people to music and even allow them to progress beyond their own piano-lessons. I know that this has happened to me. Recently. Yesterday. This might make utterly no sense to anyone (except the sort of folks who hang out here), but here I was, writing the start of a little tune ... oboe, harp, and still-imagined strings. No one really there but me and the computer, a couple of hours in, and... suddenly it took that magic little turn and it was something that I had never heard before. I swear it was an accident. But... my own music... my own... sent me ... somewhere. It was like it wasn't quite "my music" anymore. (Yeah, you know. I know.) I mashed the backup button. Twice. Copied to the spare hard drive. Printed it. Stared. And the computer did make it possible. Maybe it was that very nice oboe patch, that auto-dynamics, the magic that comes from tweaking MIDI pressure and velocity settings on a modern patch. But, another song is coming to life and perhaps someday you shall hear it. My organ-lessons could not have done that on their own. They took me far, but a computer can go farther. The song could not have been realized and be coming out of my speakers without that technology. Or, it can just be high-tech air guitar (and another novel new market for songwriters). There will always be late-night places. There will always be crowds in the back, and magicians in the front.

A lyric does not have to strictly be locked to its music, nor to (especially, "obviously contrived") rhymes, but it will always be revealed to the listener one word at a time. And from these words, especially the first ones, the listener will begin to form a mental image. And that mental image, coming as it does from the listener's own experience of whatever you are singing about, has to be engaging. Although you, the lyricist, are writing words, the listener probably will never read the words you write.

Well, since it is written by a professor of music (and since I am, at heart, a computer-science geek ) I do intend to have a look-see at what it might have to offer. I don't perceive that the real thrust of this software is to be "Band-in-a-Box." Maybe, such a tool is meant partly to study what can be done algorithmically. It's like the people who work with chess-playing software in order to study how humans play chess. (One of the grand-masters of chess is working with IBM on that.) I find that interesting, although I myself do not play chess. In a sense, the computer is made to produce a mirror against which we find our own selves reflected. When we construct such a thing, we notice what is missing or different. Our brains are especially good at spotting differences (any one of which could be a tiger in the grass, that's ready to eat you). The folks who seriously expect "a band in a box," or that they can buy musical genius from Microsoft, probably also think that a hayseed farm-boy can impress an Italian supermodel just by buying a piece of software that calls itself Rosetta Stone. But then again, there's not much to be said or done about attitudes like that... except, of course, to sell them something. I don't think that this is what these folks had in mind. (And BTW, I also don't mean to sell-short a commercial tool that I know many people find to be useful.) It also seems to me that they chose well, and deliberately, when they selected jazz improvisation as their field of study. This is extemporaneous composing, never the same thing twice and intended so to be. A computer would have a much better chance of doing that because it would largely consist of stringing-together riffs. So, they seem to be confining their "scope of work" carefully. As I listen to their sample song (which, admittedly, has four or more alternate endings back-to-back), the repetition shows. The notes change (although in limited ways); the rhythm and pacing doesn't. And so on. But, could a songwriter profitably learn from that anyway? Would it bust people out of writer's block? Would it introduce new ideas (taken from a library of riffs such as these programs have)? Indeed, might it do so in a different way precisely because of what the digital computer can uniquely bring to the tale? The user can instantly both hear and see (simultaneously and in real-time) something that is, literally, "altogether new and unexpected." I'm quite intrigued to think what the actual impact of such an experience might be, say upon a serious music student or a young child (who is also serious about music). Would it in any way substitute for the very valid things that you say? I think, absolutely not. Nevertheless, here is something that a very readily available piece of digital hardware can do, which, one might well argue, nothing else can do. How could such a tool, with such novel properties, be used in the context of music (self-?) education? I personally would love to find something that a computer can do for young people besides spoon-feed them expensive musical fantasies . . . (Pshaw! How can you call yourself a "Guitar Hero" when you can't even play the damm thing?)

I have been pleased with MuseScore (http://www.musescore.org) which is a very full-featured open source, free, music notation program that runs on everything. It is very solid, very complete, and (as you will see from the website) very well documented. The entire manual is on that site, and it speaks (well) for itself. (AnneC, you're not the only "odd duck" around here.)

Looks quite interesting and useful . . . what do you think? http://www.cs.hmc.edu/~keller/jazz/improvisor/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impro-Visor

To me, there are two distinct parts to the process: (1) capturing a musical idea, and (2) developing it into a song. I don't know if it's really possible to do both of these things at the same time. So, "when the ideas are flowing," just capture them any way you can. A tape recorder (or, these days, your phone...), a hasty scribble if you know how to write music. Literally, whatever works. Eventually, this improvisational process will wind down. You'll have a lot of "stuff." Some of it will sound very repetitive. Some of what's on the tape is nothing more than "dah de-dum de-dah," with not so much as the faintest suggestion of the complete symphony orchestra or the killer hard-rock band that you heard in your mind's ear. C'est la guerre... But if you take the time to capture it all, carefully and completely, it can never "get away." (You can add that killer guitar riff later ... you can write the part.) Treat everything that you write with respect. In other words, "keep it all." Instead of writing a big red "X" through it and ripping it in half, write a neat, small "X" in the margin (along with today's date) and shove it into a nearby banker's box. (Take the time also to put a title or project-name on the scrap as well.) Or, put the electronic file into a folder named "Trash Can" that nonetheless isn't the "real" trashcan. Let the backup system run once-an-hour like it always should. Disk space is cheap; so is paper; so are banker's boxes. You wrote it... you put time and human effort into it... and, who knows, you might be going back through your "boneyard" someday and find the perfect riff, or the (re-)inspiration for one. (Great thing to do as a warm-up.) Keep a diary or journal: thoughts are fleeting. And of course, that notepad by the bed, along with a "iddy biddy book light" to avoid waking up the spouse (or the cat, who will wake up anyway and insist on a midnight snack). Those pieces that you at first impulse would have "ripped up and thrown away" might well prove to fit into the overall puzzle somewhere: you just couldn't see how they could fit at the time. Plus, there is a lot of choice involved, and it always helps to have plenty of things to choose from. "Developing a song" from all those ideas is a much more deliberate exercise, literally picking-and-choosing in order to assemble these disconnected musical thoughts into musical sentences and paragraphs. At this point you're not so much "looking for new material" as trying to choose what to do with what you have. This is where you'd love to be able to "surprise" your ear with something that's a bit unexpected, thus putting your ear into the place of being "a member of the audience" rather than always "the conductor." You might think that it's all just absolute junk ... going nowhere at all ... and then... The geode falls open and there are diamond-like crystals inside. The work paid off. (And to think, just a little time before, it looked like nothing more than an ugly rock.)

It would be fun to keep this going . . . I actually "write a song" with music paper. Well, these days with an open-source scoring program (that is quite good and runs on everything). I start with a key and noodle around with intervals. Look for an arrangement of four or five notes that seems to be going somewhere. Look for various possible arrangements of those notes. Sketch a bunch of those out, with several measures of rest between them. One or two of them usually hop out. I work with those. Various things you can try... copy and paste, shift 'em up and/or down, flip 'em end-for-end or upside down. Change the length of notes. Insert some rests. I usually work in silence, strange as that may seem. Humming to myself. Occasionally turning the sound on to listen to a phrase. Eventually, what comes out of all this a lead-sheet. It's just a single line of melody. I block-in the very basic (I, IV, V) chord structure just to give a sense of what it might sound like in some sort of a setting. It's not intended to last; just to make it sound a bit more encouraging than just a single line of notes. Usually, by this time, something definite has begun to take hold. So, taking the idea phrase-by-phrase I start writing out (on the computer) more detailed ideas of different possible versions of the various possible lines. I do not know which one(s) I am going to use yet, and I am very meticulous to keep them all. There is, in a folder, every file I ever did of every song (there aren't many yet) that I ever write, or tried to write. One folder (containing subfolders) is called TrashCan, and yet it is not the Trash Can. Time Machine is always running once-an-hour (or sooner) on my Mac, and nothing goes into the trash, no matter how snarly. Nothing. Strangly, there aren't any lyrics yet. Quite a bit of my stuff does not have lyrics at all. Yet. And I've also got ideas for lyrics, poems and such, that do not have songs to go with them. Yet. Ditto the idea of keeping every version, every scrap of everything. I really wrestle with it, I'm afraid. Copy and paste phrases from one page into another trying to stitch them together into a cohesive piece that makes sense. Usually don't get it right. File-away the abortive attempt (don't delete it!) or "Save As," and keep going. Days go by that way. But, poco a poco, it actually works for me. When a song finally gets as good as a lead sheet can make it, it's time to try to arrange and orchestrate the piece into something that can be played. Usually by someone with much better technical skills on the keyboard than I actually possess. Or, by the computer, which plays better than I could ever dream to. "Orchestration and arranging" is what I'm really trying to self-study and master right now. Anyone else out there?

I'd say that Guitar Hero is the best thing that ever happened to real musicianship. And this program is therefore the best thing that ever happened to songwriting. In both cases, the best way to demonstrate how difficult the real stuff is, is to positively fill every available inch of sound-space with mediocrity. You'll have "that warm, fuzzy feeling" long enough to buy the product, but it won't be too long before your fake-guitar is hanging up at a used book store, looking pretty cheap and stupid for $20. ("On Sale Today!") Maybe their aspirations will have been spent, and they'll have moved on to something truly wonderful ... like hip-hop ... or maybe they'll become truly interested in learning how the real world works. Hey ... we know it ... we're in the minority. We bust our for what we love to do. And we know, when we come up with something, it's real. Those who seek, as we do, will find. Perhaps a program like this will show them, as nothing else could, that the real thing is "worth seeking."

Johann Sebastian Bach. No, I'm not kidding. He was a great keyboard writer. The classics are chock-full of phrases and ideas and the old ones are all public-domain now. They get cabbaged all the time. A "good melody" isn't just a melody, though. It's an arrangement. Rare is the melody (Bach's dum-de-dum-dum de-dum-dum de-dum-dum de-DUM-dum-dum dum-dum-dum-dum ... yeah, you know the one; of course you do. Or, Pachebel's Canon...) that it alone is an unmistakable motive in just a single line of notes.

Writing good stuff can take a long time, because so much of writing is re-writing. (In all disciplines.) "Sing me your mantra, I’ll tell you my favourite joke I smell your perfume, you breathe my cigarette smoke Love’s a misunderstanding, between two simple fools This is strong. It shows the differences between the two people using purely sensory terms. The first two lines are absolutely wonderful. Plus, the third line also shows they're still in it together. This is about the relationship, and about relationships, not a stormy ending. Good. I'll bet that line #3 can be tightened yet; a word-swap or maybe two. Maybe not: there's a time to call it "done," and maybe this verse is there. You’re oil on canvas, shadows and light You’re oil on canvas, shadows and light Thinking about a painting as "shadows and light" is also strong. I wonder if the second line could be replaced with another simile, without becoming trite. I'm not sure. I'm not sure at all. A million times I’ve looked looked into those eyes, Too many times I’ve tried catching the secret behind, whatever’s inside Your Mona Lisa eyes "Mona Lisa eyes" is a good simile, yet coming here for the first time it is unanticipated. Could it be faintly suggested at, in an earlier line? Maybe, maybe not. You smile poiltely yet I sense a distance between us I kiss you lightly, it dies on your lips with sigh…. We’re static and drifting, both together alone Another good scene, yet I sense it could be made stronger. "Both together alone" is an interesting mental image; the four words before it are weaker. Too many times I’ve looked looked into those eyes, A million times I’ve tried catching the secret behind, whatever’s inside, Your Mona Lisa eyes" "Too many times" okay, but rhyme with something other than "a million times." And I wonder if instead of these the "painting" metaphor could be brought up again. I'm not sure. If this is "what took you so long," fine! It's a strong lyric. I've been known to tackle a piece of writing with a yellow and an orange highlighter: yellow for stronger, orange for something I wish I could find some stronger way to say (or that I ponder if is carrying its weight as-writ). And I stare for some time at it, but thinking about it every day somehow so that my "other mind" knows I'm waiting impatiently. What kind of music do you envision your lyric being set to? Or have you done that already?

I personally think that any creative endeavor fundamentally demands discipline ... whether you're writing music, words, or even computer software. You have to keep at whatever it is that you're doing, or ... you won't. And even though you might seek solace in claiming that "the Muse was not with you," I daresay that the truth is that "you just quit, and that's why your hands are empty." The work, in every case, is a great deal more difficult ... and, frankly, boring ... than it looks. Plus, none of the process is visible in the finished work. You tend that what you are looking at is the final work-product. Charles Schulz (Peanuts) repeatedly stressed that he did what he did every day, even when the ideas didn't come. If he was staring out the window, he was doing it at his drawing board, with a notepad and a pencil at the ready, at the (self-)appointed time. As for "publishers?" John, I submit that they want what every businessperson wants: product. Something that they can sell; something that they can generate strong demand for. They just want to generate copies and collect dollars. They want the inherent business risk associated with doing that to be as low as possible. Nothing wrong with that. If you ever listened to Barbara Streisand's Broadway Album (#1), one of her most delightful songs was a re-interpretation of "(The Art Of Making Art Is) Putting It Together." The engineers and execs who were working with her on the album provided some great voice-over lines. One of the most telling of these is: "We need something we can push." Something that'll make it jump out of the "shopping cart" and into the "paid for."

Good! I'd definitely like to put this software through its paces (on my Mac), after I've had a chance to watch the various demos. I definitely like the notion of a "song frame," if they have managed to put together a well-rounded treatment of that concept. Briefly looking at their user manual (and understanding it, as I do, "as a computer programmer"), I am intrigued by what they seem to be trying to do and by how they seem to be trying to do it. "Yes, technically speaking, it is clear that they know what they are about. They are not tyros." But I would want to kick the tires thoroughly with such a tool. "It's ambitious. Is it solid?" Is it genuinely useful, "to the serious amateur or better?" They make various references to "a large open database of song-fragments." Also to linking to (online?) rhyming dictionary resources. And chord progressions. Okay, all of these are indeed ways that "a song writer might choose to approach a song," and if the computer can actually do the leg-work (which is sometimes laborious), they might well be onto something good. Dunno: I have never feared that a digital computer will ever replace me. (Since I make my living by bossing them around all day, I know better.) But when a task can be reduced to well-defined components, yes, the computer can be very helpful. "The perfect digital assistant," if you will. This is probably the kind of tool that, "the better at this you are, the better it will help you." We shall see . . . we shall see . . .

I like the idea of using computer software as a tool for composition, and I do so. As such, yes, I am interested in a tool that might be "more aware of the over-arching structure of" a song ... and that might therefore usefully assist me at that level. If we simply look at "a song score," well, we know that the song is composed of phrases and sections and so-on, but a computer program that is perfectly good at scoring (or what have you) might well benefit from having some representation of the "higher" song structure. Sort of like the "outline" feature of, say, Microsoft Word, that can help reorganize a piece of text-writing "structurally." I don't ask the computer to write for me, but I do like to have a willing galley-slave to clean up the kitchen and to do other rote tasks. Computers are real good for that. Thanks for the heads-up.

There's no "magic formula." Those "10 second riffs" are exactly what you start with. You write them down. You capture them. Then, look for ways to start stringing them together. (It may sound trite, but as they say, that's what jazz musicians are doing all the time.) If you put six of those ten-second riffs of yours together, in any order that sounds halfway decent, you've got yourself a one-minute song. (If they don't sound halfway decent, then you still have a one-minute song ... it just needs more improvement.) And so it will happen that, as you play those six riffs together, you might shuffle them around and discover that one arrangement sounds distinctly better. Or you might find yourself dreaming up something that "fills-in a little gap" between two of the riffs you've already got. Or you might just remove one of the riffs altogether. Presto. Now, you're composing. Even though you may have imagined each one of those riffs as the part of "some greater whole that you just can't manage to complete," maybe those seemingly haphazard riffs are actually (or can be made to become) part of something different. I sometimes think that the subconscious has great fun at the expense of the conscious, by doling out different pieces at different times and speculating whether the conscious will ever stumble upon how they all fit together. If the song reaches the point where you really feel comfortable saying that it's become "A Real Boy," then sure, you can now get more rigorous, developing and refining and polishing the thing. But if you've got "riffs" now, then that (IMHO) is your source-material.

? ! How could any "negative impression" of what you said possibly be taken? No "thin skins" here! Oh, heck ... it's all relative. Songs are good. Music is good. I just love to listen to original music. Sometimes the music "sends" me, and sometimes it is an absolute turkey (which is just to say, it doesn't "send" me). But I admire and respect craftsmanship, regardless. And, when a song or an arrangement does transport me into the stratosphere, it is my nature to want to know why and how. It actually thrills me to discover something about the way a thing was made. Like you, I take pleasure in the act of trying to "go and do likewise" even if by my own judgment I haven't succeeded ... yet. Song writing helps you to be, perhaps in just a tiny way, a participant in the art-form that you enjoy so much. And as for the process, well, "that is why God Himself invented headphones!" All of the art forms have a "surface layer" and a separate "layer in depth" that is not always obvious. You aren't supposed to have to "understand" the whys and wherefores of the underlying craft in order to encounter the art form ... nor, strictly speaking, must you possess it in order to execute a good piece of work. But it certainly helps. You can definitely recognize the work of a person who is seriously invested in his or her work, regardless of the craft. You can just ... tell.

Yeah, the website is http://www.musescore.org. I think it speaks (very well) for itself. It isn't Sibelius, nor is it Finale, but perhaps you have no need for the particular things that those programs do. To its credit, "it is what it is." And, it's solid. (MuseScore was apparently split-off from a "formerly all-in-one" (Linux only) tool called simply, "Muse." Fortunately, this scoring component runs on Linux, Windows and Mac.) Score-wise, it is quite full-featured. Yes, it has the ability to do sounds. It allows you to select a SoundFont file (only one per-program, not per-score) and to associate the voices in that (e.g. General MIDI) file with each of the instruments in your score. It also knows about performance features like "pizzicato strings" and dynamics, and when you call for these things, the result is quite believable. The result is a very satisfactory rendition of what the song will sound like when performed. It's got a rudimentary mixer so you can put the Violin-1's to the left and the Cellos to the right, and so on, add a little reverb and so on. Which is what you need for this. For the purposes of scoring, it is a thorough and well thought out tool. And yet, this is strictly and unabashedly a scoring-oriented tool: it doesn't try to be anything else. You might be preparing something for a symphony or a marching band. Or, you might be preparing an XML file to be exported to some other program. Maybe you're doing a file that's going to go into Lilypond to become a thing of printed beauty. If your objective is "a finished, computer-generated performance," then this is not a complete tool for your purposes. You'd take it as far as you want in this program, then export it out in some format, and pick it up from there. (Or, perhaps more likely, you might buy one of the "soup to nuts" programs like Logic Pro, or of course Sibelius and/or Finale. Whatever works best for your workflow.) But it does what I want it to do, and I don't at all feel like I'm playing with "some cheap toy." Getting it for "zero dollars" is, well, a nice bonus. But I would have paid for it.

John, I think that we should always seriously bear in mind the fact that a really good piece of work (in any discipline) rarely gives us any clues as to just how it was made. To be fair, the vast majority of a song's listening audience never gives the slightest amount of conscious thought as to just why they think that a particular song is "a great song." (That is, if they happen by chance to actually hear one.) If you're stuck in one of those wretched "music for your ..." workplaces, all you really want is a distraction. Lots of Music Row makes their living by selling them exactly that. (And that's valid, I suppose.) But to folks like us, we're students because we want to repeat that success. That may well be easier said than done. You can "look upon" a great song, but you're inevitably looking at au fait accompli. You're not looking at the process that led up to it. All of the rough spots have been removed. None of the essential decisions that led to "this particular collection of notes" being arranged in "this particular way" remain visible. (It's not that these things are "out of sight," but merely that they do not call attention to themselves.) So, if we merely look upon "the finished product," the how of it might well be ... and might well remain ... a complete mystery. But, yes, I think that we can "study it." I think that we can, indeed, prize out the secrets of any "great song." It may well not give us any meaningful clues about how the creative process for that particular song was carried out. Study can point out characteristics of the song that contribute to its success, even characteristics that would never be noticed unless looked-for. It will never tell us just how to repeat them, but maybe that's okay. Odds are, we'll come up with yet-another tune idea that is "good, but not great." And, maybe, while we're out there on the street corner waiting for The Magic Bus, we ought to consider that perhaps the fellow who wrote "That Amazing Song" started in the very same place. What this person knew how to do, though, was to take a "so-so" idea (they're a dime a dozen...) and consciously transform it into something truly memorable. We come to the same street-corner and, yep, there's still no street-sign there pointing the way. But we still might be able to find our way to "platform nine and three-quarters."

Good rule of thumb is to try to write a counter-melody to it. Made of single notes against a one-line melody. Ideally using a keyboard (attached to a computer so you can do the "musical word-processor thing"). Put down the basic riff as notes, try to put the chords out of your head and see what other single lines of notes played alongside of it sound good (or don't sound good...) to you. The lines of counter-melodies of course are also the basis of chords. The "trick" is that a chord is "a big thing that tends to go splat" anywhere it lands. It's so big and powerful that it pulls the next chord to it, more than the melody or the "riff" does. Pretty soon it's the thousand pound elephant throwing its weight around. But a single note doesn't do that nearly so much. It helps you feel the "tension and release" in your idea because it is so minimal. But pairs of notes are intervals, and intervals are the essence of a chord. A computer comes in handy here too because you can put the melody on one "track," a proposed counter on a second and another on a third track, and then you can use the mute buttons to listen to different combinations. (The bad ones just stay muted forever.) Listen to: melody, melody + #1, melody + #2, melody + #1 + #2. Maybe just #1 and #2 together. (Do they "clash?") You don't need to worry so much about the intervals that you know will be "inside" the chord, e.g. the fifth, because those are just meat and potatoes and you can just take those for granted; add 'em later just for the protein and starch. The spice comes from: (1) the "other" intervals, and (2) the interplay of timing between the various parts, as one seems to "anticipate" the other and so-on; and (3) rests... silence. Think: "would this look great on a lead sheet?" Sometimes what finally works feels like a surprise. (It also, unfortunately, feels obvious: "what took me so long?")

I'm hardly an authority on doing this, but the way that I do it is with musical scores. (I use MuseScore, which is an open-source scoring package that is very good and that runs on everything.) I work-up the song one motive at a time; one phrase. There might not be a lyric at all. I often write in silence. When you start listening to things, the ear tends to take-over for the eye. But not when you're hand-clapping "da dum de dah di-di dum." A wrong note you can fix it later; you'll hear it soon enough. Being, for a very long time, a computer programmer by trade and training (no formal music degree... yet), it is a very deliberative process. (But the music isn't. I'm no Philip Glass, nor do I wish to be.) (I live in Music City, after all, which BTW is not "just country." Of course I am hoping that someday composing and arranging will segue to become "my trade...") The process starts, literally, with looking for intervals ... things that might take a couple of measures or three ... that feel like they might go somewhere. And I write them down (on the computer), add a few blank measures and then a line-break. Then, next idea. If nothing's coming (yet), I try inverting a phrase, running it end-for-end, or both. (Result = 3 or 4 versions, all kept.) You wind up with several pages of stuff, tagged with comments like "Yuck!" or "This has possibilities." Then you print all those pages, sit back with a highlighter pen, hit Play and just listen to everything straight through. The blank measures give you several seconds of silence in-between. And you X-out all the typos that you hear, check-mark what sounds good, indicate what doesn't. Keep it all. Don't touch that keyboard. I don't "delete" things. Not in the (draft) score pages, and not the files themselves. The "Delete" button is verboten; the trash-can welded shut. I figure that if I spent time doing it once, I don't want to throw away my own effort. And who knows, sometimes that phrase later turns out to be "the cat's meow" ... it just came too soon. Or maybe it can still be worked-in somehow. (I do use the Mac OS/X "label" feature to help sort the dregs, and shove the trash into folders.) I get something down, hitting Save often, then mash the (Mac OS/X) Time Machine "backup now" button. A song builds up by sort-of stringing those building blocks together. Or at least, the bare beginnings of a song, enough to actually be "stumbling around on its own feet." It, too, has numerous drafts. (All kept.) Some of the drafts have more than one copy of a particular phrase. Alternates. There are blank measures in there, not only for expansion but also to separate each phrase from the next. To "clear your ears." The blanks will be taken out. When you put those "blanks" in, it helps you to hear each phrase as a separate thing. This one sounds good ... that one sucks ... and the question is, "why, and what to do about it?" (Yeah, I said I was a computer programmer... I guess that I try to debug songs. ) And you get to: "I think I've got it!" But you don't really know if you've "got it" until tomorrow. You've got to clear your ears, so to speak, so that you are listening to it fresh. Quite often you wonder what all the fuss was about just a few hours before. It always involves a "run-through" of yesterday's file, good or bad: "listening to the 'dailies.'" (Sometimes, when your ears are clean again, something that sounded bad or just indifferent sounds better.) Depending on whether I "slept in," the run-through might be all I have time for in the morning. But some part of you mulls it over all day. And then, with today's next-draft-copy file, I always try to do something. Maybe the stars will fall from the sky; maybe not. But I do remember that "Sparky" Schulz (Peanuts) stressed that he always spent time doodling on a note-pad, probably just the same notepad and just the same pencil, every day. And the "Tin Pan Alley" people... they did it for a living, too. My goodness, what a ramble . . .

Agree. A really good piece of music (and they are few...) requires no lyrics at all. If it is "musically outstanding" ... well-composed, well-arranged, well-performed and well-mixed ... they could be reading the dictionary and it would still be a good song. Or, you can have a stellar musical performer who is so good at his or her craft that you simply want to sit back and listen to them singing whatever they might be singing. These, too, are few. The times when the two come together I could count on one hand. (No, I won't list them.) "When you hear it, you will Know."

To my way of thinking, Lazz hit it square on the head. "A good song," to me, is a thing that is deliberately constructed. You can always listen to the thing and tap your toes to it and be entertained. But then (if you are so inclined...) you listen to it more closely and maybe with a better sense of "what to listen for." You start to notice qualities of the music, and of the production, that of course were sitting there all the time but not drawing attention to themselves. (They are, in other words, "that good.") The song didn't ask you to notice it; didn't explain why you did so. It doesn't reveal how it was made, nor how many torn-up sheets of staff-paper are in the composer's trash bin.