Songwriting Week 4

hy hello my little turtles,
Thank you for reading... :-)

Week 4 has passed with a blink of the eye as they say.. (they do you know!) and again my knowledge and understanding of songwriting/music within an industrial context and also technically is growing - although my god, there is so much more I need to know. Monday saw a 3 hour seminar, listening to and discussing songwriting within a historical context - this week mostly looking at Lennon/McCartney songs (ace!) and I'm starting to develop skills so I can begin to analyse things like structure slightly more than before. I found a lot of the songs we listened to had such varying concepts and surprising elements. For example in 'Can't buy me love' and 'She loves you' there's this idea of a double chorus which for me brings a new layer to the song's and keeps the momentum going - both such great song's for me where all sections (verse, chorus, another chorus etc) are so fantastic - you don't believe that they can keep adding these emotive, catchy melodies!
It was such a great session - especially being more familiar with these songs and finding more resonances between ideas, sections, concepts of other songs and mine.

Tuesday saw 2 guest speakers join 2 of our already knowledgeable lecturers which altogether was a fantastic range and depth of experience - answering all the questions we could ever want to ask.
Will Hicks and Jez Ashurst were guest speaking and discussions regarding writing for radio took place - and top tips for doing so! Being able to ask Will (whom not only did this same course last year and now whom works within production and also from an A&R perspective) what kind of direction he see's the popular music industry heading was so interesting, we got to hear about the kind of artists his company is working with at the mo. It appears that there has been such a great influx of edgy, ballsy female artists (Think Florence and the Machines, La Roux, Little Boots, Lady Gaga etc to name a few) in recent times, that this now seems to be creating space and demand for male artists/bands - although this inevitably will perhaps swing in another new direction at any given time. We discussed so many topics - the difference's between the British music industry and say the American, Japanese and European markets - and the whole session was so important for us because this is learning the industry firsthand - invaluable!

Tuesday also saw the solo songwriting module continue - Jez joined us in this module this week and I performed my new song for him and the group. My god it was nerve wracking. The night before, I was still working out the melody and what bits i wanted where... it was about 2 in the morning, still not close to being happy with it and i was like... RIGHT I GIVE UP!! - I'm just going to play an old song I've written previously! Because you kinda want to make a good impression on these people right??! Not turn up tired, nervous and garbling strange sounds. But if there's 1 big improvement I know I need to make, its extending my catalogue of songs - and by keeping up this momentum of writing new songs, it can't be anything but goodfor my progress really. So I stuck with the new one. I performed my song 'Only you' (well, just about!) and got some really good feedback and really useful thoughts on how I can improve it.

I think the more you begin to critique other's work and listen to what people say about yours, it really starts to make some sense in discovering your strengths and weaknesses - it feels ilke it opens you up to be able to start looking within, and work out what it is you really want - what part of you it is that wants to express itself. And I think the strengths we learn about ourselves give us reason to keep going!! For me - I love melody. When I listen to music I hear the overall concept of the song - and the melody for me tell's the story - creates and brings emotions to the surface. Whereas although I have always loved writing lyrics - on a first time listen of a song they take the back seat a little. I feel its so important for me to recognise these things about my writing - and I'm looking forward to many more observations to come as I keep exploring styles/genres/structures and writing methodologies.

Well, I'm sure I have kept you long enough. So again - ta for reading and come back to me next week??

Farewell
from the dissolving, dusky, directionless, drafty, dramatic duck
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