Has The Focus Of This Thread Shifted? Bloody Hell Yes!! Totally Pirates!!!

Feel free to get outside the box here.
tombo1230
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Wed Jun 04, 2014 7:24 pm

michelew wrote:
Sandy,

No disrespect to Tom, but I'd suggest letting the lyrics develop by themselves. You've already got a great sketch for the story. Let Tom's ideas mesh into your song subconsciously if they are going to. Don't force it.

I'd suggest trying to find the progression and the mood of the song now. That will help you refine the words and story to complement wherever you land with the music.

I recently read a great book by Shawn Colvin - Diamond in the Rough, which Ness recommended to me. I think you'd enjoy it actually. Anyway in it she describes her song writing process. The lyrics for Sunny Came Home started out about a packet of cigarettes believe it or not.

Similarly I remember Neil telling a story about how Yesterday by the Beatles started out with scrambled eggs in it and other non-sense stuff.

Find the music and the words will continue to come to you just as they are now.

Have fun.

Shel
Hi Michelle,
the basic structure is a skelleton. What I am suggesting is ways to add clothes to the body of it. If your song lacks story and information
then it won't go anywhere and will be boring. You will lose the audience. What I have written is not intended to be the song, just ways of doing things to tell the story. If you don't do that you can end up with a rambling pop song that we hear a lot of on the radio today.

The song should develop from Sandy because we don't want her to be pulled this way and that. I've been through this process with Daryl and the song was completely of his own making in the end. :) The best songs are writen from personal experience and from within.

Tom.


michelew
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Wed Jun 04, 2014 7:26 pm

Sandy,

I'm not much more experienced than you are in the song writing department. I've just started to give it a go myself. I'm learning by doing just like you are.

Trust your own creative processes. I think you've made a fantastic start and I'm sure it will continue to develop into something fab if you just trust you're own ability to work it out as you go along (with a few suggestions along the way).

Jason Mraz reckons you've got to write 100 songs to get a few good ones. So don't feel like this needs to be a masterpiece, just have fun with the process. You're writing a song, what could be cooler than that?!!!?

Shel


michelew
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Wed Jun 04, 2014 7:35 pm

tombo1230 wrote:
michelew wrote:
Sandy,

No disrespect to Tom, but I'd suggest letting the lyrics develop by themselves. You've already got a great sketch for the story. Let Tom's ideas mesh into your song subconsciously if they are going to. Don't force it.

I'd suggest trying to find the progression and the mood of the song now. That will help you refine the words and story to complement wherever you land with the music.

I recently read a great book by Shawn Colvin - Diamond in the Rough, which Ness recommended to me. I think you'd enjoy it actually. Anyway in it she describes her song writing process. The lyrics for Sunny Came Home started out about a packet of cigarettes believe it or not.

Similarly I remember Neil telling a story about how Yesterday by the Beatles started out with scrambled eggs in it and other non-sense stuff.

Find the music and the words will continue to come to you just as they are now.

Have fun.

Shel
Hi Michelle,
the basic structure is a skelleton. What I am suggesting is ways to add clothes to the body of it. If your song lacks story and information
then it won't go anywhere and will be boring. You will lose the audience. What I have written is not intended to be the song, just ways of doing things to tell the story. If you don't do that you can end up with a rambling pop song that we hear a lot of on the radio today.

The song should develop from Sandy because we don't want her to be pulled this way and that. I've been through this process with Daryl and the song was completely of his own making in the end. :) The best songs are writen from experience and from within.

Tom.
I hear you Tom. I don't disagree with you per se. I trust that Sandy has it within her to find the right clothes for her song.

My point really is that her lyrics are likely to be changing (as she said) and anything we offer her from here might well be superseded by where her own creative mind is taking her. The mood of the music she chooses will have a significant influence on the lyrics.

Sorry Tom I didn't mean to criticize any lyric idea specifically at all. It's all food for thought.

M


sandysue
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Wed Jun 04, 2014 7:50 pm

Hi Tom.

You are totally right. There needs to be a way to preface the story a little better in the first verse. But, would a specific name and place take away from some of the elusiveness of the story line. After all it is a bit of a secret she holds in her own heart. It's kind of a mystery. Even he doesn't know. How do we enlighten the listeners, while continuing to maintaining the mystery surrounding her secret? How would we say it? I think her relationship is ongoing. Not past tense. What do you think.

That gory vs vivid imagination thing you mentioned might just be a case of semantics you know. I think gory is a Halloween and perhaps a pirate term, in which case it is totally acceptable. You just have to be in the right genre. For example, in surgery we never see blood and guts. :)


sandysue
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Wed Jun 04, 2014 8:18 pm

Tom and Michelle. And everyone else

Please keep the ideas flowing. Some will stick and others will fall away. It's a great collaboration. We don't need it to be perfect. Maybe ideas just keep flowing until at some point the song kind of writes itself. As long as we have a good eraser we're golden.

Remember, red sky's in the morning sailors take warning, red sky's at night, a sailors delight. Ahhh, oh sorry, I think that's kind of a pirate thing to say. Ahoy mates.


tombo1230
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Wed Jun 04, 2014 8:19 pm

sandysue wrote:
Hi Tom.

You are totally right. There needs to be a way to preface the story a little better in the first verse. But, would a specific name and place take away from some of the elusiveness of the story line. After all it is a bit of a secret she holds in her own heart. It's kind of a mystery. Even he doesn't know. How do we enlighten the listeners, while continuing to maintaining the mystery surrounding her secret? How would we say it? I think her relationship is ongoing. Not past tense. What do you think.

That gory vs vivid imagination thing you mentioned might just be a case of semantics you know. I think gory is a Halloween and perhaps a pirate term, in which case it is totally acceptable. You just have to be in the right genre. For example, in surgery we never see blood and guts. :)
That's great Sandy, I wanted you to start asking questions to yourself about the story, you are doing this. It will lay in your subconscience for a while and come out as story and song. A specific name may be completely wrong in the way you want to tell the story, only you alone will know. Now you are thinking about how you want to tell the story and where it is going. Mystery is good, you have to keep people interested and certainly not give everything away, or again you will lose your audience. Keep going and make your own decisions as you go. I find writing the story by myself works best.

You ask 'How do we enlighten the audience while continuing to maintain the mystery surrounding her secret?

I would say you suggest things by your choice of words. Eventually you will give it away on purpose, maybe /probably near or at the end.
I would suggest that the words you have written earlier become clear after everything is revealed. Again it doesn't have to be this way, this is just one way you can do it. I find the music and rhythm find the melody all by themselves and this kinda drives everything.

Keep going!!

Tom.


tombo1230
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Wed Jun 04, 2014 8:33 pm

michelew wrote:


I hear you Tom. I don't disagree with you per se. I trust that Sandy has it within her to find the right clothes for her song.

My point really is that her lyrics are likely to be changing (as she said) and anything we offer her from here might well be superseded by where her own creative mind is taking her. The mood of the music she chooses will have a significant influence on the lyrics.

Sorry Tom I didn't mean to criticize any lyric idea specifically at all. It's all food for thought.

M
I hope everything we offer Sandy is shaped by her, like a guitar lick you see someone performing. You learn it, then change it and make it your own.

I agree with all you have said above. I find the music feel and groove, for me anyway, drives the melody and in turn the lyrics.

I love collaborating on songs, but it happens so much quicker when you are sitting side by side with your collaborator. I collaborated at the IGC on a song with Corrine while I was waiting to do my open mic turn. She showed me a poem she had written and I put some chords to it and sang it, there and then off the top of my head. It just happened instantly and we both enjoyed it. Adrenalin may have helped. :)

Tom N.


michelew
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Wed Jun 04, 2014 8:38 pm

I couldn't agree with you more. Collaborating is great fun.

I need to focus on boring work stuff. But I look forward to seeing and hearing where you've gotten to when I get back. Have some fun for me.

Ahhhhrrrrrrrr!


tombo1230
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Wed Jun 04, 2014 8:41 pm

sandysue wrote:
Tom and Michelle. And everyone else

Please keep the ideas flowing. Some will stick and others will fall away. It's a great collaboration. We don't need it to be perfect. Maybe ideas just keep flowing until at some point the song kind of writes itself. As long as we have a good eraser we're golden.

Remember, red sky's in the morning sailors take warning, red sky's at night, a sailors delight. Ahhh, oh sorry, I think that's kind of a pirate thing to say. Ahoy mates.
If you haven't done it already, I think you should break out the guitar and find your groove and let the song reveal itself. :)


Tom N.


sandysue
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Wed Jun 04, 2014 11:51 pm

Hi Tom and Michelle

Wow, editing that song was harder than I thought it would be. I ended up writing another song. I don't know, maybe I might like this new song. I'll post the lyrics.

Tom. I did get out my guitar and play like you suggested. It did help. I just need to keep working on it. I'm new at all of this so it will probably take me some time to get squared away. Neil's video comes out tomorrow. See what you think.

Let me know if the new song is ok. It's not complete. Ok. Talk soon


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