What Makes A Good Songwriter?

[john]

good points all.

What does discipline mean to you in this regard? writing regularly? writing with purpose?

What additional advice would you recommend regarding the view record companies and publishers have of Songwriters? Im sure they would like us to embody almost all that is written before in this topic, however they have quit different goals in many ways.

[MikeRobinson]

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."

Edited February 11, 2010 by MikeRobinson

[imahollywoodstar]

a good songwriter

does it for the joy

answers inner urges

understands the craft

dreams of a better life

hopes he can inspire

thinks he has a chance

to know his work is worthy

of smiles and tears and pensive moods

from those who hear his song

Keep writing,

Don

yeah... i agree TaoMannaDon !!!!!

[Hyardacil]

What makes a good songwriter? Autism?

No... but I'm serious - the songwriter can be ANYTHING - he can have very conflicting personality traits and still write good songs. Everybody rolls differently. I can remember some great songwriters who have no discipline. I can probably think of some who are not idealistic at all - perhaps quite horrible and pretentious and rude people. Drug-addicts, seducers etc etc. So what? The songs is all I care about.

[MikeRobinson]

The "popular image" is probably done that way because the reality of being creative is very boring. You schlep away at something for hours each day, for days on end, and that will never "make good copy," as any journalist or P. R. man would very quickly tell you. The mental image of Venus just popping up out of that clamshell (and oh by the way, she's starkers...) is much more agreeable.

And how did those "famous" people "that are household words" do it? By writing That One Hit Song, of course. Not by writing something to accompany that commercial you just heard, or by writing that "dum de dum dahhh, dum de dum daah" bumpers for NPR. Nope, "first she ate a lot of bis - cuits / then she smoked a lit - tle dope / and she wrote a one - hit - won - der / and that was All She Wrote."

(Heh. Not bad. "I'm a poet and I know it. Make a rhyme every time.")

Edited February 25, 2010 by MikeRobinson

[Lazz]

I can remember some great songwriters who have no discipline.

Names ?

I can't think of a single one.

[McnaughtonPark]

I can't think of a single one.

I have to agree.

[TaoMannaDon]

Names ?

I can't think of a single one.

I have to agree.

It is probably more accurate to say there have been some writers in successful bands who appeared to be undisciplined. Unless we were there at the time we don't know what their writing process looked like, which might have been different from their public image. Using the word "great" to describe some writers of pop hits is quite a stretch. In my youth, Neil Diamond was one of my favorite songwriters; but, in retrospect, I'm not sure I'd call him a "great" writer. Considering the number of hits he churned out, I expect he was quite disciplined in his writing.

Keep writing,

Don

[TaoMannaDon]

The "popular image" is probably done that way because the reality of being creative is very boring. You schlep away at something for hours each day, for days on end, and that will never "make good copy," as any journalist or P. R. man would very quickly tell you.

The "reality of being creative" may appear boring to an onlooker. It may feel boring to a poser. But with other creative people or in the quietest solitude there is plentiful joy in the creative process. The reason I don't perform (setting aside my absolute lack of performing talent) is, for me, the boring part begins when the creative part ends.

Keep writing,

Don

[MikeRobinson]

The "reality of being creative" may appear boring to an onlooker. It may feel boring to a poser. But with other creative people or in the quietest solitude there is plentiful joy in the creative process. The reason I don't perform (setting aside my absolute lack of performing talent) is, for me, the boring part begins when the creative part ends.

What I meant by that was simply that after that magical bolt of creativity hits you with the initial idea for the song, then the craft-work begins. The magical outline of an elephant has appeared on that great big block of marble, and a hammer and a chisel has appeared in your hand. Get to work.

And we can be honest here: after you have run-through a song for the eleventy-umpteenth time, trying to push it just a little more ... yeah, that can start to get boring. Starts to feel a bit like a "the J-word," you know. But that's also just another aspect of "being creative." You want to snap your fingers and all of the notes just rearrange themselves perfectly, but instead you have to dig for it. You are working as an arranger. And that's just a different "creativity."

I started to quip, "Where's Harry Potter when you need him?" But J. K. Rowling would have a very different answer for that, than the rest of us.

Edited February 26, 2010 by MikeRobinson

[Hyardacil]

Names ?

I can't think of a single one.

Meh, discipline was probably a bad choice in words. Sure you need musical knowledge and you need to actually get the thing physically down and all that takes work that you probably cannot do without something that you'd call "discipline". The point I was trying to make was that they don't necessarily have the process of work we would expect or even the personality that the songs suggest they have. I'm sure there are very cynical characters who have written brilliant sentimental love songs. The work and the author are not identical.