Songwriting/Lyric Challenge (Only Yesterday)

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daryl
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Fri Mar 07, 2014 7:58 pm

For all those creative wordsmiths out there (Michele, Tom, Chris, Buddy, Bart, et.al.) I have a challenge for you and EVERYONE else at TG. What do you say we start a lyric writing challenge thread? Someone throws out either a title they’ve thought of or a song idea. The reset of those who want to play, will come up with the lyrics for the title or the song idea. And to make it a little simpler, and less challenging, let’s limit the lyrics to the AABA form (ie. verse1, verse2, bridge, verse3) with 4 lines per verse. Just coming up with the lyrics will be sufficient, but if someone wants to also write their own music too, that would be great!

If you think it’s a reasonable idea, we could limit each title/idea to one a month. After the month is up, we can start a new title/idea. And there are no limits to the number of songs you can write and/or upload per title/idea.

I’ll throw out the first song title: “Only Yesterday”.


michelew
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Fri Mar 07, 2014 10:36 pm

Hey Daryl,

You tempter you! :) You know I can't resist a challenge.

This in a really cool idea for a continuing series of challenges. It's a great excuse to get a little creative.

I love this specific idea. Since reading it, Johnny Cash has taken up residence in my head.

I love your thinking. :)

I'll be back. :) and I may even have more than words for you if I can reproduce what I'm hearing in my head.

Shel


cosmicmechanic
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Sat Mar 08, 2014 1:00 am

Daryl, this could be a real hoot. :)
I'm not sure how you mean it ... should the suggestions be strung together in the order they arrive ?

There must be a way to follow through on your idea in a "hive" approach ... I don't quite see the workings of it right now.

I do want to just suggest the following phrase: "It's everything and it's nothing at all".

But I do wonder what it means if you play it backwards ... hopefully nobody will try.

and a one, and a two ... all together now !

Pierre


michelew
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Sat Mar 08, 2014 2:19 am

Cool! Another crazy songster. :)

The way I'm interpreting Daryl's challenge(s) is someone simply suggests something as the basis for a song. It could be a song title, a phrase that should be included in a song or just an idea for the song's meaning like "broken heart; a classic motivation. Then it's up to anyone who wants to participate to see how it inspires them and to run with it. I like your suggestion of "It's everything and it's nothing at all", it's cool.

So write some lyrics, melodies, a progression... Less, more, whatever you like. In fact if someone posts a bunch of lyrics alone, well that might inspire another to develop some accompanying music. Who knows. It's all good.

Of course, you could always just develop one verse of a song or as much as you like and post that. It might inspire someone to add to it.

That's how I'm interpreting it. Daryl may want to clarify what he had on mind.

Shel


tombo1230
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Sat Mar 08, 2014 3:58 am

Why not call it songwriting instead of lyric writing? and as you say Daryl, if someone comes up with words and wants to collaborate
with someone who has a musical idea but has no lyrics then the two could meet in collaboration. If you have words and music
yourself then that is also good. I also like the idea of throwing out an idea to spark the creativity within everyone.

Writing lyrics imho should be written against music, both go hand in glove with each other, a good example of this is (Elton John and Bernie Taupen). So I think you should either write both together, or music first, then add words. That's just my personal opinion based on what works best for me, but I'm not saying it can't be done writing lyrics first, It's just not an intuative way for me to do it. From experience, lyrics need to embrace the melody and the melody comes out of the chords you use. One approach is to set out music using a set template as you mentioned verse, verse, etc, etc and then write lyrics to go with the music. The drawback to this is you are locked into a chord progression that may not change where you would like it to, that's why I prefer to do both together, changing the mood where neccessary, but there are lots of different approaches to song writing and it's a personal thing how you go about it.

That's just my two cents worth folks. :)


Tom N.


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daryl
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Sat Mar 08, 2014 6:13 am

michelew wrote:
Cool! Another crazy songster. :)

The way I'm interpreting Daryl's challenge(s) is someone simply suggests something as the basis for a song. It could be a song title, a phrase that should be included in a song or just an idea for the song's meaning like "broken heart; a classic motivation. Then it's up to anyone who wants to participate to see how it inspires them and to run with it. I like your suggestion of "It's everything and it's nothing at all", it's cool.

So write some lyrics, melodies, a progression... Less, more, whatever you like. In fact if someone posts a bunch of lyrics alone, well that might inspire another to develop some accompanying music. Who knows. It's all good.

Of course, you could always just develop one verse of a song or as much as you like and post that. It might inspire someone to add to it.

That's how I'm interpreting it. Daryl may want to clarify what he had on mind.

Shel
Exactly. But Pierre's idea of collaborating within a verse works too. Basically, my idea is simply to write some lyrics....somehow....in a specific form AABA. But if someone is creative enough to write something like Bob Dylan's "My Back Pages" that would be cool too!


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daryl
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Sat Mar 08, 2014 6:21 am

tombo1230 wrote:
Why not call it songwriting instead of lyric writing? and as you say Daryl, if someone comes up with words and wants to collaborate
with someone who has a musical idea but has no lyrics then the two could meet in collaboration. If you have words and music
yourself then that is also good. I also like the idea of throwing out an idea to spark the creativity within everyone.

Writing lyrics imho should be written against music, both go hand in glove with each other, a good example of this is (Elton John and Bernie Taupen). So I think you should either write both together, or music first, then add words. That's just my personal opinion based on what works best for me, but I'm not saying it can't be done writing lyrics first, It's just not an intuative way for me to do it. From experience, lyrics need to embrace the melody and the melody comes out of the chords you use. One approach is to set out music using a set template as you mentioned verse, verse, etc, etc and then write lyrics to go with the music. The drawback to this is you are locked into a chord progression that may not change where you would like it to, that's why I prefer to do both together, changing the mood where neccessary, but there are lots of different approaches to song writing and it's a personal thing how you go about it.

That's just my two cents worth folks. :)


Tom N.
Hi Tom, I called it "lyric writing" to emphasize the wordsmith part of the whole thing. But if one creates like you do, songwriting is for you! I know (from experience) that staring at a blank piece of paper is daunting especially if one has to fill it with words AND music. So, I thought, perhaps just focusing on the words might be more doable for some. I totally get your approach. I only wish I had your abilities. So, like I said, the challenge is "open"....write a partial verse, write AABA lyrics, write until you can't write anymore, and/or create the whole song (words and music).


willem
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Sat Mar 08, 2014 7:02 am

tombo1230 wrote:
Why not call it songwriting instead of lyric writing? and as you say Daryl, if someone comes up with words and wants to collaborate
with someone who has a musical idea but has no lyrics then the two could meet in collaboration. If you have words and music
yourself then that is also good. I also like the idea of throwing out an idea to spark the creativity within everyone.

Writing lyrics imho should be written against music, both go hand in glove with each other, a good example of this is (Elton John and Bernie Taupen). So I think you should either write both together, or music first, then add words. That's just my personal opinion based on what works best for me, but I'm not saying it can't be done writing lyrics first, It's just not an intuative way for me to do it. From experience, lyrics need to embrace the melody and the melody comes out of the chords you use. One approach is to set out music using a set template as you mentioned verse, verse, etc, etc and then write lyrics to go with the music. The drawback to this is you are locked into a chord progression that may not change where you would like it to, that's why I prefer to do both together, changing the mood where neccessary, but there are lots of different approaches to song writing and it's a personal thing how you go about it.

That's just my two cents worth folks. :)


Tom N.
I agree all of it with you,,that starts me thinkin which key to use,,many times I thought start in C and then maybe looking further which key would work better for the song.

Willem


michelew
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Sat Mar 08, 2014 7:16 am

Go Willem

I'm far from an expert. I'm basically trying to learn by doing, but trial and error essentially.

What's happening for me is that "only yesterday" has sparked lyrics in my head and a main melody. Actually I was driving somewhere today and a bunch of possibilities came to mind. I wasn't able to write them down. Most of them are gone, but the main feel and some phrases remain.

I'm probably doing it completely arse about, so to speak, but I'm now trying to find the progression I've been hearing. As I said it's probably up side down, but well see what comes.

Who cares right? It's all about having fun and hopefully making some music.

Make up some lyrics, play then guitar, sing. All good fun.
.

Shel


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daryl
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Sat Mar 08, 2014 7:53 am

OK. Here's my first attempt at "Only Yesterday". Thoughts? Suggestions?

Sparkling blue eyes when you smiled
Playing our Happy Day game
Saving Mario from the wild
It all seems like only yesterday

Friday night sleep overs
Week-end Dim Sum buffets
Our Sunday open-house tours
Still seems like only yesterday

Time has a way of slipping away
In the blink of an eye there goes another day

Now you’re grown and on your own
You’ll visit soon or so you say
Thinking sadly now if I had known
Oh how I wish it were only yesterday


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