Receiving Input?

[wilmot]

Here's a topic - How good are you at taking advice about and receiving input on your songwriting, if you're honest?

 

I'm asking because up until I joined this site (which was very recently, I might add), I was quite convinced that this was a discipline that I absolutely aced - Turns out that this was something of a delusion.

 

With music, I'm fairly good at it and have been challenging myself at it, on SoundCloud and elsewhere. Usually, I've been able to make changes that collaborators have suggested, or incorporate stuff they've done - Even if it has turned my original idea completely upside down. (Within reason, of course!) More often than not, this has turned out well - Precisely because the end result was unexpected!

 

However, when it comes to lyrics…

 

I've posted a couple of lyrics for critique here and have received some decidedly sage advice. But when I try to process this advice and rewrite, I run into trouble. It's not that I find the suggested corrections or additions wanting in any way, it's just that it's not my text - Not my thoughts or feelings. To a surprising extent, this bothers me and seems somehow dishonest.

 

Is there anyone else out there that suffers from this rather absurd malady?

[john]

Hey

Let me take a different tack...

Maybe it is HOW you are incorporating their advice and or suggestions? For example, if I post my lyrics and someone comes back with a suggestion for a perceived issue, if I incorporate their suggestion more or less as is! I guess I would feel as you do.

if however I look at the problem they found, so I learn to recognise similar before posting next time, I have learnt. If I look at the mechanism they used to solve it I have learnt... If not I talk to them to get to the gist of why what they suggested would work? lastly, I try applying that mechanism or similar to the current problem and write my own words. that way the song is still true to me.

Only occasionally have I found that the contributed lines were so good that my lives are just crap by comparison and nothing will do but those lines. It then comes to a 3 way choice: use their lines, use my not quite so good lines or keep the imperfect original.

You can head that situation off in some way by limiting the help you get by stating what help you do not want in your original post. That has consequences in that you will maybe get less feedback, some people will tell you what they want anyway, while on a positive side the help you get tends to be more focused.

I get you don't want to be spoon fed. Great, me too. But you can still pretty well get the help and sleep peacefully at night.

Cheers

john

[wilmot]

Some really good answers on this - Thanks!

 

The answers also had a lot of wisdom to absorb and tips to think about, which is great stuff.

 

For my own part, I still find the lyrics input thing problematic. It's a very emotional thing - The whole driving force for my writing lyrics at all is to somehow express myself. It's therefore pointless if my text is not honest and true (not factually but emotionally). That it's someone else's words can trip me up because of this. Strangely enough, I have no problems at all with quotes - On the contrary, I really like to use them because I find that they're such a great tool for expanding bringing a completely different context into my text through the reference.

 

Fortunately, the replies I've had to my couple of lyrics posts on songstuff have not only been good, but those of have replied have been really generous about explaining their reasoning. Hopefully, this means that I can absorb their views/input into my lyrics but with my own words. Of course, that means rethinking the lyric, but I should be willing to do that - Otherwise there was no real point to the exercise. 

 

/Niclas

[MikeRobinson]

I like to think of it this way ... to a certain extent, any song is "a work of fiction."  It's a poem, accompanied by music.  Its intention (maybe!!) is to evoke a feeling and/or to convey a message to (the heart of) a listener whom you will never meet.  And, throughout it all, to "sound (and indeed, be) 'real.'"

 

And this reminds me of the old story of the "bottle of EverSoMuchMoreSoâ„¢."  In the story, the glass bottle was perfectly empty, of course, yet the people were persuaded that it contained a magical, invisible stuff that made whatever-it-was ... well ..."  And I think that it's usually a good thing to try to put some of that magical stuff onto your own lyric and song writing.

[midnighthowler]

I think perhaps it might be a good thing for anyone that wants to post a lyric anywhere , or play a song, to look inside themselves as to WHY they are asking for a critique or playing that song ..and find out if its really a critique they are asking for .... it seems many times at songwriter and music gatherings and i expect song critique sessions too .....that many people there can't wait to show off their masterpieces and get approval and glorification ..... and if , and as soon as , that does not happen their ears turn off to anything said from that point on .... guess its just human nature ...but personally I can usually see some degree of validity in a critique .... even if the person is not a songwriter .....they may just say I dont like this part,or word .,or line and not know why ....... once a couple people mention anything about that section ..to ME there's something wrong and I need to address it ...anyways just another thought

[MikeRobinson]

Yeah, and put on a little bit of skin-thickening ointment whenever you do this sort of thing, so that you can keep a clear distinction that they're not criticizing you, nor your innermost laid-bare thoughts.  If you plan to get your stuff out into the public's ear, well, they're going to react to it anyway.  And if you want to control what that reaction will be, want to accent it and to direct it, then that's where you also have to put on your "I am a writer of fiction" suit.  Because that is what you now are.

 

Maybe it started as your innermost thoughts – that's entirely between you and you – but if your goal is to make that message resonate with someone else, especially if you hope that they will be so moved that they part with a little bit of their cash and send it your way, then:  you are now a fiction-writer.  You're gonna have to do editing, and drafts, and rewrites, and to solicit feedback from others.  Do everything that fiction-writers do.  What started out as a piece of your innermost self ... or wherever it did "come from" ... must now become a thing – a story that you are now telling – and you need to think of it in that way.

Edited February 11, 2014 by MikeRobinson

[john]

Mike, did you see I sent you a PM a week or so ago?

[MikeRobinson]

Yes just now. Replied.