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Topic: Help With My Major Songwriting Disability

I touched on this within some other posts but I wonder if anyone has experienced the same or can offer advice on how to overcome this.

Basically, I would love to write music. I have the technical ability, I have the recoding software and hardware. However I do not seem to have the ability to write music.

Over the years, I have identified where this problem comes about. It is my inability to be able to like or enjoy music until it has grown on me, or until it becomes familiar.

Pretty much every song I know, or even have come to love I did not enjoy the first time I heard it and dismissed it as rubbish or just didn't like it at all.

Usually the way that I find I like a song is where it happens to come next on an album or I am doing something that prevents me skipping the track. Slowly the song becomes familiar and I start to enjoy it and can make a real decision on whether it is good, rubbish, I like it, I don't like it etc.

I noticed this was the case some years ago and now, if I think I might like a band, I almost force myself to listen to the album and yes, it does seem like a chore. I will constantly be tempted to switch it off and listen to something I like. However I persevere and after a few listens, sure enough, I find songs I like. Often I eventually like the whole album. Some songs go on to be my all time favourites.

This problem that I have causes a huge stumbling block when it comes to composing my own music. If I cannot even identify some of my all time best songs from the first or second listen, how can I possibly tell if what I am composing is any good?

Each time I get something that might be a great starting block it gets dismissed.

Previous advice I have received is that you should just write and eventually you will write something good in amongst a lot that might not be so good. However I would like to at least feel it is worth writing at the time and then dismiss it later if it was not so good - after I had a chance to really find out whether I liked it.

Recently I have been attempting to overcome this by listening to new music that I have never heard before and trying to identify songs that I like or that I realise that I could come to like from the first listen however I feel like I am failing at this.

Here is the most recent examples.

New album by Slash

1st & 2nd listen - didn't enjoy any tracks at all. Guitar work sounded like it had been chucked together. Very uninspiring.

3rd to 4th listen - still nothing. Forcing myself to listen to this now.

5th listen - started to find the intro to "promise" quite interesting. Played this song a few times.

6th + Listen - "Promise" is now very familiar as listened to a lot. Where I have been busy doing other things the next tracks have been left to play so starting to become more familiar and so I am enjoying them more.

I am currently at the stage where I am familiar with the whole album. There is two tracks I do not like. The rest I don't mind. I enjoy a lot of the guitar work and respect some of the compositions.


New Ozzy Album

1st & 2nd Listen - Overall too heavy, uninspiring same old same old. Nothing that jumps out that I like.

3rd listen I start to get more into track one. This is where it sometimes comes on when I am busy, before I change the album!

I am currently on about the 4th or 5th overall listen. The first few tracks are starting to grow on me. I am now not so keen to turn it off straight away.

Could some of these songs turn out to be good after all? I think I might find one or two in here now that I do really like. I could never have forseen this from the first listen. I might even go on to really enjoying the whole album.


In conclusion - I know that I need to somehow train myself to have an open mind when first listening to music. As I am so aware of this issue I really do make every effort. Perhaps if I cannot train myself to like something on the first few listens then perhaps I need to to try and identify music that I think i will like down the line.

It all makes composing music almost impossible at the moment.

Has anyone else experienced anything like this or am I just completely mental??!!

Re: Help With My Major Songwriting Disability

One factor worth consideration is that as you age your music tastes change- for example, where once a progression of non-syncopted, basic beat patterns and powerchords appealed, it now sounds bland and predictable.
As you say, exposure to more music can be the key, but more styles of music, not more of the same techniques.

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Re: Help With My Major Songwriting Disability

Good tips there - thanks

Re: Help With My Major Songwriting Disability

That's an excellent point aussie. I suppose music that's in the charts affects our tastes too.

I can't really comment Ozzy, I seem to have lost my knack for songwriting years ago so I totally understand where you're coming from. I wrote loads of stuff as a teenager, some of which I still think is quite good, but I don't think I've actually written anything worthwhile in over ten years!

So, what's the solution lads?

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Re: Help With My Major Songwriting Disability

Well, if you fit the usual student profile for this form of blockage you are early 30's to mid 40's and have ( no offense ) developed a musical tunnel vision, locked in around mid-90's in a Nirvana/Metalica/GNR/Blink182/Oasis mindset- in other words, the diminishment or elimination of improvisation and the advent of powerchords, mostly majors and simple beat patterns. If you can't improvise you are driving on four flat tyres when it comes to vocal or instrumental composition- because improvisation is really composition on the run.
The solution I find works best in most cases is a complete lateral shift in style- the open tunings I have mentioned elsewhere, or in normal tuning working up something as basic as a 12 bar but playing in a minor key..Am Dm and E7, for example. There are many ways to do this, but the important point is a shift in technique and a widening of musical vision and approach to playing.

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Re: Help With My Major Songwriting Disability

That is an excellent point aussie, I never looked at it that way. It's almost as if an inability to accept that the world of music around us has changed to the point where our own songwriting is "old" and that is why we get fed up with it.

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Re: Help With My Major Songwriting Disability

As Olly said above ""Recently I have been attempting to overcome this by listening to new music that I have never heard before .."" I'm not tagging anyone here in particular, but the age group I have mentioned and those bands are the most common group saying they have a creation block.
Of course, if you are a Country and Western fan, these problems don't arise- you just write the same songs using the same three chords over and over- and as long as the dog dies, you lose your money in a poker game and your wife leaves you it works fine.

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Re: Help With My Major Songwriting Disability

aussieteacherPMMD wrote:

but the age group I have mentioned and those bands are the most common group saying they have a creation block

I think you are definitely correct here.  Though I have really wanted to create my own music since really practicing hard at guitar at around the age of 18 - 11 years ago. And my block has always been present. It is not as though I used to be able to write but now I can't - i literally have never been able to do it despite really wanting to!

I have given myself a real break away from the guitar due to other commitments and I am really looking forward to getting back into it with a fresh approach to trying to compose. Hopefully I can get over this block and write some of my own songs!

Re: Help With My Major Songwriting Disability

Well, that brings me back to the improvising, Olly- some folk I teach, no matter how talented and motivated just can't let a direct connection happen between their brain and their fingers and think outside the square to the extent that they can improvise and as a direct result compose, and the fact is that improvisation in the music styles and era I mention is, saddly, very much the exception, not the rule.

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Re: Help With My Major Songwriting Disability

So I guess the key really is to listen to a large variety of different styles of music and try and apply this to my playing?

Re: Help With My Major Songwriting Disability

Yes indeed- get back to the roots with John Lee Hooker, BB King, Muddy Waters...track down some Django Reinhart and Stephan Grapelli, sample a little Clapton from his Unplugged album. Not a piercing or tattoo or power chord in sight, plenty of minor keys....
As someone old enough to be your grandfather- but nowhere enough of a positive role-model to be- it's not surprising that I don't get excited by the same music, but an endless diet of three-note chords, no minors or anything else, basic and predictable beat patterns and trite dreary pap as lyrics has to be rather ( yawn..) coma-inducing  default/smile
I except Greenday's 21 Guns from the above though, one of my favourites of theirs.

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Re: Help With My Major Songwriting Disability

for starters i dont think not being able to write songs is a disability ..being able to write ( good ) songs is a talent
and unfortunately most guitarists ( musicians ) dont have this talent.Nearly all musicians learn their instruments because they
want to be a musician ..not a songwriter
so i would say to anyone that wants to get creative is co-write with a songwriter that isnt particularly a good musician
this way you can contribute buy introducing good chord progressions, riffs, arrangements and melody adjustments etc..but
most of all you've got someone to bounce ideas off and get feedback.I bet loads of brilliant songs have been discarded
becuase the lone writer just cant make up his mind and thinks f*** it
I know this works because i have been doing it for the last 25 years ( i am a frustrated song writer in 'lone mode ')

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Re: Help With My Major Songwriting Disability

polyal wrote:

i would say to anyone that wants to get creative is co-write with a songwriter

Good advice - I have always fancied doing this but never have had the oppertunity! I think this could really be a good way forward to not discard teh potential good stuff!

aussieteacherPMMD wrote:

I except Greenday's 21 Guns from the above though, one of my favourites of theirs.

Yes I do not mind this song myself but there are some other songs by them that I like. despite being a 3 chord band I like the unique sound of the singer and the drumming is fantastic at times!

My taste in music doesn't go back as far as the recommendations you have made though I do like the unplugged version of Layla!

For compositions I really admire Queen. Their music rarely stays around one key. I love the use of borrowed chords, secondary dominants etc, as I think this is what makes music pleasing to my ear and doesn't become boring. I haven't worked out how to use this with my own composing though.

Re: Help With My Major Songwriting Disability

If songwriting comes easy for you, then you can probably say you have talent.
When starting to write a song, we look for imagination and in most cases a touch of feelings.  Always try to finish a new song that you are working before going to another. Makes sense, but from what I  read very few songwriters really can  do it.

my lyrics, my guitar and my imagination

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Re: Help With My Major Songwriting Disability

Watermelon John - Do you write your own music?

Re: Help With My Major Songwriting Disability

Olly wrote:

Watermelon John - Do you write your own music?



Hi Olly

I write my own songs. I started writing because I wanted to do something. I had this Fender sitting in my closet for over 7 years, so I said to myself, why don't you write songs. You did like to write lyrics when you were 12.  Well, I started with one song and finished it. And it came easy. Although recently I haven't wrote a song, I am now rewriting my stuff and well, lets see if my childhood dream comes true for me.

my lyrics, my guitar and my imagination

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Re: Help With My Major Songwriting Disability

Well I sure hope they do - what kind of styles are you into? Do you have any recordings of your music uploaded?

If so, be sure to post them as I would love to give it a listen. Soundclick is one of many places that you can upload your music for free!

Re: Help With My Major Songwriting Disability

As a singer songwriter, I am very aware that I lack the ability to be objective with my music.  Since I write for others to hear, it's only from their feedback that I know what works or is "good" to them, and many times it doesn't match what I thought.  I find though, that I try to write from a sincere point for a reason, and when I connect with that, while I may like it, it may speak more to me than anyone else.

The important thing is to write and dont evaluate it except from a point of "does it speak to me", and if it doesn't or I just get stuck, then I walk away and come back later listening with "new" ears.

Instructor

http://rnbacademy.com

Online Guitar Academy

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Re: Help With My Major Songwriting Disability

I know what i means to be uninspired and think that you have no talent to right quality songs (at least that was what i was thinking default/smile).

First of all think of song writing as a process, as a skill you have to practice in order to be good at it. It is like riding a bicycle: you fall a few times until you can ride it effortlessly.

Another important factor in my opinion is Ear training. I played metal for most of my guitar career and i came to the conclusion that it helped me technically very much, but i neglected my Ear training and the song writing phrasing frustrations started kicking in on my so i decided to start practicing it. After only 2 or 3 weeks i remember that my phrasing and ability to solo over backing tracks improved very much.

How much do you work on your ear training ?

www.guitarlearningtips.org - my website


The Guitar Blueprint to Success - my free 57 pages and 6 chapter Ebook

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Re: Help With My Major Songwriting Disability

NicolaePaul wrote:

How much do you work on your ear training ?

I have started working on it a whole lot more, more recently.

I think it is something that I previously hadn't focused on as much as I should have done.

Re: Help With My Major Songwriting Disability

Olly wrote:

Well I sure hope they do - what kind of styles are you into? Do you have any recordings of your music uploaded?

If so, be sure to post them as I would love to give it a listen. Soundclick is one of many places that you can upload your music for free!


Hi Olly

I've posted a few of my music clips, but here is a song I wrote and had a musician take over/ did the music and singing.  Of course I do the music to all my songs but I just let my friend do his own feelings that he connected with the lyrics and here is the result. Listen to the lyrics and it gives you an idea of my songwriting skills


[mp3]/uploads/4e67618b0de6ea5d43e62116b46aad59.mp3[/mp3]

my lyrics, my guitar and my imagination

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Re: Help With My Major Songwriting Disability

It's great John - I love the guitar solo in it as well!

23 (edited by Instructor 16-12-10 18:16:29)

Re: Help With My Major Songwriting Disability

Keep up the writing John, thats the way we learn and improve!

Best,

Instructor

http://rnbacademy.com

Online Guitar Academy

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